Late(ish) April Chicago trip

And other events.

In Chicago, I’m starting Earth Day off with a cup of coffee brewed in a hotel Keurig machine, a.k.a. probably the most polluting way to make coffee. We came down to see a Chicago symphony concert and have dinner with John & Megan, and I did just toss the paper symphony ticket into recycle, so I do have some environmental cred.

Although – I’m really not doing Earth Day very well. When we got on the train to go home, I realized my cute little blue travel mug was not in my pocket. I’ve been using it happily since I got it last winter sometime. I decided I wanted a 12-oz. cup so I could get a smaller drink. I think I left it either in the bathroom at the train station or on the steps at the river walk where we sat and finished our Dollop coffee and baked goods from Levain, a bakery we’d passed by before and decided to try. My estimation of it is that it’s tourist-grade artisan bakery. It’s a chain with two locations in Chicago, and lots more in NYC where it originated, as well as others in New York state and L.A. and Boston. I had a walnut raison whole wheat roll which used to be my favorite thing to get at Starbucks when they had them. Mark had an oat scone.

Anyways the cup loss is kind of a bummer. I didn’t see any likely replacements at REI, where I got it in the first place, and tried to order one from Target and ran into a whole set up your account nonsense. Of course this is all on the limited connectivity on the train, using my phone as a hot spot, so I’ll probably have better luck at home. Plus I have an REI gift certificate to use, so best if I can get the replacement from them. PS. Ended up ordering from Amazon.

Despite cup loss and Earth Day F’ups, it’s been a nice trip. We liked the Sunday afternoon symphony. The soloist was a woman pianist, Yulianna Avdeeva who specializes in playing Chopin, playing … wait for it … Chopin. Piano Concerto No. 1. At the train station earlier that day, we saw a woman wearing a suit that looked like it was made put shiny vinyl, composed of lots of tiny multicolored diamonds. Flashy, but it looked really uncomfortable to wear. Avdeeva wore a suit that was just as flashy, black with ots of glitter, but it looked like the fabric was at least softer.

John & Megan just got back from golfing in the Dominican Republic. They had a great time.

It was nice not having to worry about making the train after the symphony since we were staying over. We went back to the hotel and got our free drinks. Mark had a coffee and I had a quite decent Prosecco.

Then we met John & Megan for dinner at Lula Cafe, an easy ride on the blue line. We’d been wanting to go there and this seemed like a good chance. It has lots of vegetarian options. I didn’t take any pics but here are theirs. We had chick pea frites, the house salad, and the sweet sour onion focaccia. Followed by one pasta with meat and one without. And the oat risotto. And we sprung for the chocolate chestnut mousse for dessert.

Like I said Monday morning we got bakery and sat and ate on the Riverwalk. Across from the Britannica building. Again all very leisurely since the choices of trains back were either 7:35 or 10:35, so guess which one we opted for.

Before we went to Chicago, we had our porch open house on Friday evening. That was fun. I didn’t take any pictures of the food; the menu was:

• Pepperonata from the freezer heated with goat cheese – like Lea’s goat cheese appetizer.
  
• Sourdough baguettes – from this batch of sourdough that rose like crazy
  
• Wheat thins and Club crackers and GF crackers
• Tamari almonds
• Kimchi pimento cheese (an unexpected hit with the kids; making another batch!)
  
• Rhubarb strawberry slab pie (not my best, I rolled the crust w/o chilling and the filling was a little runny)
  
• Lime blondies
• Hummus
• Crostini with home made ricotta & leek confit
• Sourdough naan – also an unexpected hit with the kids!
  
• Salami & cheese on a stick, dill Havarti from the farmers market & Underground meats Genoa, which wasn’t my idea of Genoa – it had a pink baloney aspect about it. But tasted good.
  

Wednesday was a Jasper day. He is at the myself phase of toddler hood and that’s great but got a little difficult when we went to the closest playground in the afternoon. There were too many places on the play structures where he could fall off, so I went up with him, and we also had to come down the slide together. Next time I’m going to see if I can go with another grown up to catch him at the bottom of the slide.

And what else … well, April 13th was the 1st outdoor Farmers Market, and Al & Jasper & Emma went as did I, but we didn’t see each other.

Faith Ringgold died. Rest in Peace.

Things are getting bloomy even in big cities.

I actually think I took some pics of the same tulips on one of my New York trips, probably 2019, but sadly looks like all the pics are in the portfolio slideshow app that died, so you can’t see them now. I’ll have to go back and fix that.

In Chicago we took more photos of flowers and one of them’s my wallpaper now.

And I guess that’ll have to do for now, more soon.