Thursday, November 13, 2008

Mikes Cover Hog

Newest in Sky Full of Bacon (and Reader)

Not satisfied with starting with a stagnant hog head, Mike Gebert teamed up with the Reader's Mike Sula to follow three mulefoot hogs from farm to table. Sula's been writing about this for a while and does an excellent summation in the latest issue of the Reader. Go here for various versions of Mike G's mulefoot video (part 1).

This is not just an adventure in local eating, nor a behind the scene look at some top chefs at work. Rather, it is crucial and critical viewing and reading to accept what one does in the cause of deliciousness let alone for basic consumption.

Today's Mado News

Antipasto Lunch at One of the Reader's Best New Restaurants

Mado announces their antipasto lunch:
from 11am until 2:30pm tuesday through friday, we will be offering an antipasti platter. It will feature our vegetable antipasti, seafood antipasti and charcuterie, and will come with house-made bread and grain mustard. the platter will be $29 and will generously feed two or more.


The Reader names Mado one of its best new restaurants for 2008. From Mike Sula's original review:
Mado By the time you’ll be reading about what I ate at Allison and Rob Levitt’s minimalist Wicker Park restaurant, you may have to wait until next year to try some of it. That’s because much of the menu at Mado, in the space formerly housing Barcello’s, reads like a shopping list for the week’s Green City Market. Preparations are simple, with all due reverence given to the superior quality of the ingredients, raised by an A-list of regional agrarian rock stars.


Next Mado news? The latest in farm dinners.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

November 16 2008 4:30 - 6 PM - Unity Temple, Oak Park

Eating local IS about getting the best food; not just the food that tastes best, but the food that best serves your greater community. That community includes our wide blue earth. Us locavores believe we aid the earth by keeping our diets mostly local. There are many other ways to eat that reduce your carbon footprint; hence having an impact on global warming. This Sunday, in Oak Park, Jill Ovnik will speak on ways to eat that help the environment.

Unity Temple is at 875 Lake Street, Oak Park. RSVP to mjharied@gsb.uchicago.edu. Additional Information can be found at The Power of 10 or the Low Carbon Diet.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

On the Local Beet

Why 18

Ever get a check from a Jewish friend for $54. You scratch your head. $54. But it's three times chai, that's why! See, all Hebrew letters also have numerical values. This means you can add up the letters in a word to get a number. A lucky word, chai (pronounced with a hard ch), adds up to 18--chai, by the way, means life. Since chai = 18; 18 = life. As the Torah states, choose life, etc., etc., Let's just say, we Jews have a thing for 18.

I had been asked to put together a tip sheet on local eating for a conference being put together by the Union of Reform Judaism on green issues. I made a top ten list of ways to eat local. Then, one of my daughters came up with the very bright idea of making it a list of chai, 18. With a bit of editing, it's now the latest feature on the Local Beet.

Although I am currently in Austin, Texas, I did just finish up a post I started the other day on the much fun myself and my two daughters had shopping the winter market and eating Top Notch Beefburgers. Lotsa other local family news in that post including brunch at Mado, forthcoming liquor license at Cassie's Green Grocer, and events this week and in a few weeks.

I'll try to check in again during the week. In fact, if I feel ambitious, I'll update the inventory after much shopping last week (i.e. this).