Chicago foodies of all shapes, sizes, shades of black clothing, and types of Jimmy Choo heels descended on the Field Museum last night for Gourmet Magazine’s Wine Cellar, a celebration of how great a restaurant town this city is, which benefited the American Institute of Wine and Food. Thanks to the generosity of Greg, the husband of my friend, the lovely Dulce, and who works for Gourmet in the West Coast, BFF Debra and I got to participate in what was clearly one of the highlights of the Chicago culinary calendar. Most of the city’s top restaurants and chefs were out in full force and it was a kick, for this inveterate food fan, to see a goggles-wearing Homaru Cantu blowtorching a Baked Alaska with strawberry puree and truffle oil (aptly called, well, Baked Alaska Inferno) at the Moto table; or a very unassuming, and thankfully healthy- and boyish-looking Grant Achatz, one of the greatest chefs in the world currently, hanging butterscotch-flavored, rehydrated bacon on a deconstructed chicken-wire type contraption at the Alinea table, or Christophe David shaving slices off a humungous piece of jamon Iberico at the NoMi stand. And since my life is always inadvertently eventful, I managed to shamelessly introduce myself and gush all over a very game Stephanie Izard, owner-chef of the deeply-mourned, dearly-departed restaurant Scylla, and currently one of the favorites to win Top Chef Chicago (yay!), as well as get filmed (yes, filmed!) by a Food Network crew doing a documentary on Achatz, while gobbling down the aforementioned Alinea bacon offering (since I never signed the release form..maybe they’ll blur my face? But will they leave in my stretched out belly? Could I be recognized from my stomach??? Yikes…and then *faint* with a thud!)
I get really frenzied for the week and a half prior to the Oscars trying to catch up on my nominated movie-watching; keeping abreast of all the online Oscar speculations, prognostications and gossip; and of course, writing my Oscar predictions note with Cindy Margolis’ new BFF, the divine Ms. Jennifer M, whose sizzle and spark at the barricades of the Independent Spirit Awards red carpet (see her Oscar recap below) should have made Rainn Wilson block and tackle her instead of Philip Seymour Hoffman (if you haven’t seen that video on YouTube yet, you should, it is quite ridiculous but also quite hilarious!). However, it hasn’t been quiet on the Chicago arts and culture front. Despite the Oscars and working on 5 client projects in my consulting job, I managed to catch a couple of plays and work it at a couple of arts benefit events during the past two weeks.
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