Graham Elliot

This week exhausted both of us. We've gone to the shelf and pulled out the big platters and we still have too much on our plates. One night, while I was out at an obligatory but very much enjoyed dinner, P stayed in, grilled steak, steamed broccoli and camped out in front of the tube. He watched Top Chef Masters. One of the competing chefs was Chicago’s Graham Elliot Bowles. Before the episode was over, P had reservations for tonight’s dinner at Graham Elliot.

With Thriller and Purple Rain playing in the background, our server served us icy martinis (classics with Bombay Sapphire and stuffed olives, thank you, shaken, not stirred), and she slipped us a basket of popcorn, freshly popped and tossed with a grating of black truffles and parmesan. She handed us menus. The list was just as simple as could be … but so much more. We could only laugh.

There were four “colds,” four “hots,” four “seas,” and four “lands.” It was a nearly impossible decision. I wanted it all. He did too. In the end, he had a hot and a land: kung pao sweetbreads with peanut brittle, and pork loin stuffed with roasted pistachios and garlic, with Italian faro as a base, peach marmalade on top and thyme sauce. I countered with a cold and a sea--my cold: foie gras torchon with a crispy dice of pickled rhubarb, crushed Marcona almonds and buttermilk sorbet; my sea: seared halibut with smoked cous cous, eggplant puree and tomato marmalade.

It was one of those meals that you want to eat entirely in small tastes. Every bite was entertaining, comforting; every bite held sweet, sour, salty and spicy. A slightly larger forkful of it all together yielded crunchy, crisp, smooth and soft. (P NEVER shares … or wants tastes. He did both.)

As we settled in with Becky, our server, we moved from “what kind of water to do want?” to “have you been here before?” to “are you visiting or do you live here?” (You know how it goes…) We told her that we were new to the area, and what brought us here. Over the course of the meal, she brought us a list of her favorite off-the-beaten-path restaurants, and after our land and sea, she offered a “welcome to Chicago” gift from the Chef: foie gras lollipops. I usually indulge in foie gras every year or so, so two courses in one night was, well, maybe more than I had in mind, but I was smitten. Imagine foie gras mousse’s smooth butteriness with an edge of pop rocks delivered on a paper stick. Becky said the lollipops always make people laugh, and always for different reasons (some, I suppose, for the immediate thing in their mouth, others for the nod to Chicago's recent revocation of a city-wide foie gras ban). We like it, she said, when people laugh here.

If you’re in town, go. It's comfort food for both brain and belly. And good for a laugh, too. Here it is: http://www.grahamelliot.com/

About Texas

It's Saveur’s Texas Issue.

Have you seen it?

I’ve been resisting it. Intentionally. I love the Bay Area. And I’m growing to love Chicago, but deep in my heart, I miss Texas terribly. Saveur’s not helping. I succumbed.

I don’t know how or why, but Texas’s myths and realities are so comfy to me. I miss Texas’s dry sear. Mornings on those flat Plains, when the breeze is just right, the air can smell scorched, like an iron too long on “high.” I miss the storms and the way lightening fingers across the sky. I miss the Gulf coast’s wet air. I miss the food. And this issue is filled with it: Texas “caviar”; brisket; shrimp, oysters and crawdads; okra; Helen Corbitt and Monica Pope; CFS and chile pequins (page 102.)

When P and I married, we agreed that our "flowers" should be more than just color and texture. They should be "us": for him, food; for me, native plants. From the bouquet to the altar, our friend Kris arranged herbs--basil, sages, rosemary, mint, lavender and borage. Some were from friends’ gardens; some were varieties of Edwards Plateau natives picked early that August morning. We were in P's father's church in Comfort. Against the sounds of his mother's bell choir, the herbs filled the air. Fragrant and calming. We added chile pequins, tiny peppers, to it all--for color, of course, and cooking. (Well, maybe a little more, but this is not the place for that … )

Pequins are among the natives. They’re about the size of my little finger’s nail. And they are hot, 75,000 Scoville units of hot. (Jalapenos rate about 4,000.) My friend John, a native of northern Mexico, carries pequins around raw in his shirt pocket; spicy food is never quite spicy enough for him so he brings his own. I can handle just a slice of the beasts. They have a burn that settles around my lips and the back of my throat, they make me sweat right across the bridge of my nose. The remind me that ears, noses and throats are all connected. I love them. Euphoria. Clarity. Draining sinuses.

When we built our first house, we asked the contactors to protect the lot’s native plants. We had no idea what the land held. We moved in in October and the next spring, a small shrub along the back fence blossomed white, put on zillions of green berries, which turned toward purple and then burst into red. Thousands of chile pequins. The mockingbirds shared them with us. We wish now that we’d picked them all, and dried them and carried them with us. Just for days like this.

Last night we cursed Saveur for so stirring our hearts, and we dreamed aloud and together of Central and South Texas. Today P is cooking Texan. And I’m wondering if pequins will grow in Chicago. One of the farmers at the Green City Market sells them.

And now, Chicago ...

Oh, dear. It has been a long time, hasn't it? My world has changed. And how's yours?

Last time I wrote, we were ensconced in California, on Oakland’s Lake Merritt to be exact. A lovely place really, with a Saturday farmer’s market nearby, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s close, and friends—those I’ve known all my life and a remarkable group of new friends as well.

Now, five months later, we live in Chicago’s Logan Square. We’re on the boulevards … tree lined streets with wide grassy medians that are perfect for Frisbee playing and dog gatherings. In the Bay Area, I had friends; here I have neighbors. There’s a difference. You know?

Our new neighborhood is an historic district … on the National Register for both its vernacular architecture and its community development. High class and middle class mix here; across the street are big houses with big yards and carriage houses in the back. Our building has been an apartment since at least 1915. Homes just around the corner were built in the 1890s. (Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are both a fair distance away--as is really any other type of grocery store.)

The season's last snow fell, with flakes fat and wet, three days after the moving van left. A month later, the first farmer's market opened, the Green City Market in Lincoln Park. "Local Flavors" takes on a whole new meaning. With Houston at one extreme and Oakland at the other, I wasn't prepared for Chicago's variations at all. But now I understand … or I’m beginning to, at least.

In the East Bay, the seasons have such soft edges and everything grows so well for so long. The farmer’s markets run year-round. Here there was at least a five-month wait between markets. And at that first market, it was as if the farmers and eaters offered salutations to each other, as well as to the winter passed and the season's first yields. At that first market in early May, we found a whole community awakening from winter. People stood together laughing, chatting, with tousled hair, wrinkled jeans, and steaming coffee. They ooohed and ahhhed over the season’s first tender sprouts … most abundantly, asparagus and fiddlehead ferns. Dog tails wagged everywhere (dogs are prohibited in the markets in California). It was a deliciously different vibe.
That night, we ate sweet, hand-snapped asparagus and plum-sized red potatoes (P likes to roast them together); a salad of mixed greens, shaved raw rhubarb, and baby scallions; and local lamb. We were amazed.

Since that first Market visit, we've spent Saturday mornings there and Saturday evenings at home, dissecting both the market experience and the day’s meal, trying to define the nuances in it all. Today we went to the Logan Square Farmer’s Market. It was the first of the ’09 season. Farmers from Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Vegetables, breads, cheeses, home cured pork, farm eggs from down-state—the yolks are bright as tangerines, and hand spun wool, dyed with marigolds, onion skins, tea. P made a frittata for brunch—wild arugula, green garlic, cottage bacon, nettles, tomatoes and those damned bright eggs. So very full of flavor. Tomorrow, I’m planning a green garlic pudding soufflé with nettle soup.

Our neighbors say it only gets bigger and better from here on. And there was talk at the market of opening a neighborhood food coop. It’s such a fine beginning.