Maxwell Street Updates

A shooting late last month left the Maxwell Street bluesman known for boogieing behind his keyboard unable to use his legs.

Now, friends and fellow musicians are planning a benefit concert for Piano C. Red, shot in an armed robbery March 22 at a South Holland gas station.

(Full story here.)

I will try to post more on the benefit when I find out.

If the music is not rocking as much, the eating remains sublime. My previous two visits had me worried. The market is facing street construction and construction of a new shopping center. In reaction, when I was there in the fall, a lot of food vendors occupied a patch of Taylor street kinda north and around the corner from the main market. Then, when I visited on January 1, there was like no food. I was glad that last week pretty much all of the food vendors were there, with only Lencho's grilled tacos in a different (read more nothernly) location.

It was good in that it was nearly all there: the steamed cow head tacos, the fresh made masa for huitlocoche and pork in moles red/green; birra in a few forms, pupusas, churros, rico huarches, elotes, etc. It was bad in that there was pretty much no new finds. About the only thing edible I had not seen before, the vendendores who sell corn and rice pudding empanadas, had a candied plum, like a crab apple, kinda thing.