Shelf Life

Author: Jane Simon Ammeson

  • Chicago’s Fabulous Fountains by Greg Borzo with photos by Julia Thiel

    Hiding in plain sight, Chicago’s many fountains are gems of art, history, politics and culture, their stories often overlooked.

    Sure we all know Buckingham Fountain and the Crown Fountain in Millennial Park. But what about the Nelson Algren Fountain at Division Street and Ashland and Milwaukee avenues which was opposed by the Polish community and many residents near the Polonia Triangle because he wrote about life there with a brutal honesty? Or the Drexel Boulevard Fountain, originally named the Thomas Dorsey Fountain, after the South Side musician considered to be the father of gospel music which is bookend by the newly restored Drexel Fountain?

    I thought not. But then neither did I until I chatted with Greg Borzo about his newest book, Chicago’s Fabulous Fountains (Southern Illinois University Press 2017; $39.95) with photos by Julia Thiel.

    A news officer covering science at the University of Chicago, Borzo also volunteers to give tours of the “L” and often was asked about the fountains they passed on the route.

    “I realized that people knew about the Chicago Fire and World’s Columbian Exposition which was held in Chicago in 1893 but they didn’t know anything about Chicago’s fountains,” says Borzo.

    And so, because Borzo likes to chronicle the city’s intriguing icons and is the author of The Chicago “L,” and Chicago Cable Cars, he began extensively researching Chicago’s fountains, past and present. In the process he inspired his friends, who he dubbed “fountain finders,” to join in the search.

    “They got a fountain buzz going and they’d say there’s one at such and such” says Borzo. “As I found out about fountains, I began to realize it’s about the artists, the ethnic groups, the politics—it’s so much more than just a pretty fountain.”

    Immersed in fountain lore, Borzo connects the historic dots—or should we say splashes of water.

    “People are very interested in the 1893 Fair and what I found is there are four fountains directly related to the fair—which were built for the fair or part of the fair,” he says. “The Rosenberg Fountain on Michigan Avenue and 11th Street was built in time for the Fair but was built near the Illinois Central Station that used to stand at 11th and Roosevelt for people getting off the train could get a drink.”

    The fountain was a gift to the city by Joseph Rosenberg, a former paperboy who used to get thirsty while his rou

    te. To prevent that happening to others, the fountain had metal drinking cans attached by a chain–doesn’t sound very sanitary, does it?

    The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was also worried about thirsty people and wanted to provide water instead of stopping at a bar for a whiskey.

    “Fountain Girl was located at the fair and people could take one of the tin cups chained to the fountain to get a drink,” says Borzo. “After the Fair, they moved Fountain Girl to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union skyscraper in the downtown and when that got torn down the fountain was moved again to Lincoln Park. The city didn’t ban shared drinking cups until 1911. The Illinois Humane Society had about 60 fountains with shared cups, two still at Chicago and Michigan. Now they’re cute fountains but instead of the cups they have troughs for water for carriage horses.”

    Which brings up another point. While I always assumed that once it was built, a fountain stayed in one place. But that’s not necessarily so. According to Borzo, fountains were moved quite frequently.

     

    Researching the 125 existing outdoor fountains in the city wasn’t easy.

    “There’s no record of many of them,” he says, noting there are records of “lost” fountains that no longer exist. Others are slipping away.

    “Laredo Taft, great sculpture artist, made two of the greatest fountains—the Neo-classical bronze Fountain of the Great Lakes right next to the Art Institute which shows five maidens each holding a shell with the water pouring from one shell to the next—it’s elegant, beautiful and large,” says Borzo. “He had another one that was a failure called the Fountain of Time. It’s made out of

     

    Does he have a favorite fountain?

    thin concrete and is wearing away and there’s no way to prevent that.”

    “My favorite is the one I’m spending time with at the moment,” he says but then relents. “There are six fountains at the base at the AON Center. The nice thing is you don’t haveto pay admission and at night they’re lit. It’s fountain heaven.”

    Ifyougo

    What: Greg Borzo book signing

    When & Where: Wednesday, June 14 at 6pm; Harold Washington Library, 400 S. State Street, Chicago IL. 312-747-4300

  • Testimony by Scott Turow

    More than 30 years ago, Scott Turow released his first legal mystery, Presumed Innocent, a best seller that soon had any lawyer with a modicum of writing ability penning novels. Since then, Turow, a Chicago attorney, has continued to specialize in complex, multi-faceted books about the legal scene in scene in Kindle County—think Cook County. But in the just released Testimony (Grand Central 2017; $28) Turow moves beyond Kindle when his protagonist, United States attorney and criminal defender Bill ten Boom accepts a job working for the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. ten Boom is suffering mid-life crisis blues and prosecuting the genocide of 400 Roma men, women and children who were buried alive in a cave is just the uber change he needs as the typical solution of a red sports car just wasn’t going to do it for him.

    ten Boom has a witness, the lone survivor of the massacre which took place in Bosnia. It should be easy but there are layers upon layers of misperceptions, lies and half-truths as well as centuries of nationalistic pride and grievances, the prejudices against the Roma (or gypsies) and his own vulnerabilities for ten Boom to sort through. It doesn’t help when he finds himself engulfed in an affair with sexy Esma Czarni, a time-bomb of a woman with a law degree from Cambridge and a Roma background. Czarni, who gobbles up ten Boom like he’s so much candy, is, of course, not to be trusted.

    So how did Turow come up with all these thread to weave such a story?

    “In 2000, I was at a reception in The Hague and found myself in a circle of lawyers who said you have to write about this–it’s an amazing case,” he recalls. “Usually when people say they have an amazing case it’s about their divorce but this actually did sound fascinating.”

    His interest in the Roma culture goes much further back to some 40 years ago when he was visiting a sick relative at Rush Hospital.

    “The King of the Gypsies was ill and there were Roma camped all over the hospital, the staff had to lock patients’ doors because things were disappearing,” he recalls.

    When their king died, the Roma departed as well but not before removing all the large metal ash trays (smoking was permitted in hospitals back then) in the waiting rooms.

    “At the time I thought to myself I have to figure these people out—they’re clearly coming from a different place than me,” says Turow. “Why would they do this knowing it would make people hate them and less willing to deal with them in the future. What I later learned when researching for this book is that there’s no tense but the present in the Roma language and no written or oral tradition for passing down information. Their history goes only as far back as the oldest Roma alive.  So that’s a big cultural difference from us.”

    Scott Turow has three book events in the Chicago area.

    What: Scott Turow in-conversation with Dave Berner (journalist, NPR’s Weekend Edition contributor and associate professor at Columbia College Chicago).

    When: Wednesday, May 24 at 6:30pm

    Where: Hollywood Blvd. Cinema, Bar & Eatery, 1001 West 75th St., Woodridge, IL

    Cost: Advance tickets are required and may be purchased from Frugal Muse by calling (630) 427-1140 or stopping in the store.

    FYI: This will be a ticketed event, the discussion and audience Q&A will take place at the theater and then the book signing will be at the museum.

    What: Talk, Q&A and book signing with Scott Turow

    When: Thursday, May 25 at 7pm

    Where: Barnes & Noble Old Orchard, 55 Old Orchard Center, Skokie, IL

    FYI: 847-676-2230

    When: Saturday, June 10 at 11:00am- 11:45am

    Where: Harold Washington Library Center, Multipurpose Room, 400 S State St, Chicago, IL

    FYI: (312) 747-4300

  • Into the Water: A New Thriller by Paula Hawkins

    Paula Hawking, author of the international best-selling The Girl on the Train, which was translated into 40 languages and made into a movie, will be in Chicago next Friday, May 19 to talk about her newest book, Into the Water (Riverhead Books 2017; $A tense, psychological thriller told from the different viewpoints of all those involved in the life—and possibly the death-of Nel, an artist, who either fell, jumped or was pushed into what locals call “the drowning pool,” a placid body of water by an old mill with deadly undercurrents and weeds that easily ensnare. It was a place where in Medieval times, trials by water took place.

    “After being tied up, they’d toss you into the water and if you rose to the surface you were guilty and if you sank, you were innocent,” says Hawkins, who, born in Zimbabwe, now lives in London. A journalist for 15 years, she also wrote romantic comedies.

    “I found that even when I was writing romances, I kept adding darker undertones,” she says. So she gave into her urges for deeper and more mysterious stories starting with

    Into the Water revolves around the memories of the characters as they come to grip with the mysteries behind Nel’s death and also her life. The idea of how we all remember things differently and how our memories become our own reality intrigues her.

    “I thought about how we tell the stories of our lives and how you remember something that is absolutely fundamental to who you are, and what would happen if you had misremembered it or if you disagreed with someone who remembers it as completely different,” she says.

    Hawkins, who set her story in Beckford, a fictional English village dissected by a flowing river, chose water as her theme for this novel, because it fascinates so many of us. The river is a character with its own personality, one with a long evil history of luring women in particular to their deaths. She recalls thinking, when walking alongside a pretty stream, what a pretty place for a swim. But then she rounded a bend and discovered a dead animal along the shallows of the shore.

    In other words, says Hawkins, nothing is as it seems.

    Ifyougo:

    What: Paula Hawkins in conversation with Mary Kubica

    When: Friday, May 19, 7:00 PM

    Where: Community Christian Church, hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop, 1635 Emerson Lane

    Naperville, IL

    Cost: $39.29 for one copy of “Into the Water,” event admission and a service fee

    FYI: paulahawkinsandersons.brownpapertickets.com or (630) 355-2665

  • Fabio Viviani: Fabio’s 30-Minute Italian

    “Good cooking and a lot of flavor don’t have to take a lot of time,” says Fabio Viviani, chef, restauranteur and TV personality, explaining why he wrote Fabio’s 30-Minute Italian (St. Martin’s 2017; $27.99), his beautifully photographed cookbook filled with wonderfully accessible recipes. “The whole premise is easy.”

    Viviani, who grew up in Florence, Italy, started working in a bakery when he was 11 not so much from a love of food but because he needed to work to help out his family. But labor developed into a passion. Now 28 years later, he’s amassed a food empire with two California vineyards, several cookbooks, stints on several Top Chef show (he won Fan Favorite on Season Five), restaurants including two in Chicago—Siena Tavern and Prime & Provisions and his Mercado concept, described as a “rustic-yet refined eatery destination by celebrity chef Fabio Viviani” with locations that include Chicago, Tempe, Arizona and Benton Harbor, Michigan.

    He also currently has a weekly web series, “Fabio’s Kitchen” and is doing “Dinner is Served,” an online video series

    With such a busy schedule, I wonder if he ever gets tired of cooking.

    “I like it,” he says, “sometimes I don’t. It’s like a marriage, you yell at each other and then you go back to it.”

    Asked what recipes he might recommend for those who haven’t cooked Italian before, Viviani recommends the chapters on pasta and salads because they have, for the most part particularly if you don’t make your pasta from scratch, “have less ingredients and take less time.”

    Noting that his Italian heritage taught him less is more, Viviani says “you don’t have to overdo it to put really good food on the table.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Fabio will be doing a presentation, cooking demo, Q&A, & cookbook signing.

    When: Tuesday, May 16 at

    Where: Snaidero Showroom, 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza, Chicago, IL

  • King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World

    For her new book King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World (Alfred A. Knopf 2017; $35), Joan Nathan, the multiple James Beard award winner, followed in the footsteps of Jewish traders as they circumvented the globe centuries and even millenniums ago. As they traveled, they brought the food cultures from the lands they’d visited before and adapted new ones but keeping close to their dietary laws, traditions and homelands.

    Nathan, who has written almost a dozen cookbooks, recounts the culinary history and geography of these early travelers in her sumptuous new book featuring over 170 recipes.

    It begins at the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, Kerala where Nathan spies an inscription indicating Jewish traders might have crossed the Indian Ocean from Judea to India during the reign of King Solomon. Already a world traveler, Nathan next made her way to Chendamangalam, a hamlet 20 miles north of Kochi surrounded by a lush landscape of mango, coconut and cinnamon trees and pepper and cardamom vines.

    “As I walked toward the bank of the nearby Periyar River, which flows into the Arabian Sea, I imagined ancient Hebrew adventurers and traders arriving on the shores and marveling at the lushness of the terrain,” writes Nathan in the introduction of her book.

    And so we too are seduced by her journey into exotic lands, looking at how foods and ingredients have crisscrossed the globe originating far from where we first might have thought.

    We chat about Malai, a Romanian cornmeal ricotta breakfast pudding that she features in her book and I tell her how I learned to make a polenta-like dish from my Romanian grandmother.

    “Oh mamaliga,” she says, like everyone knows about mamaliga.  But then what would you expect from a woman whose book contains five recipes for haroset, a thick sauce or paste typically made of chopped fruits and nuts. It, like so many recipes, has morphed, bouncing back and forth between countries and continents, each time being tweaked just a little and Nathan includes a version from Brazil, Persia, Ferrara and, of all places, Maine.

    Asked what recipes she’d recommend for those just starting using her cookbook, Nathan suggests Yemenite Chicken Soup with Dill, Cilantro and Parsley (“a really old recipe,” she says noting that historic records dating back to 12th century the healing power of chicken broth). She also suggests Malai, the Romania dish and Roman Ricotta Cheese Crostata with Cherries or Chocolate, a cheesecake recipe dating back to Imperial Rome in the 1st century. She also included a recipe from her friend, her friend Injy Farat-Lew, an Egyptian-Jew who grew up in Cairo and Paris, for a flourless chocolate cake and one for hard boiled eggs traditionally served ruing Passover on the Seder plate but can be used as a side for any meal.

    “This recipe for long-cooked eggs with spinach came from the island of Corfu, Greece to Ancona, Italy, a seaport on the Adriatic coast,” writes Nathan, who first taste the dish in Rome, in the introduction to this recipe which also exemplifies the convoluted origins of food.

    As she traveled (Nathan says her quest took her to approximately 30 countries over a six-year time span), the scope of her book changed. But it was all part of her culinary journey and one she continues to take.

    Ifyougo:

    What: Joan Nathan has two book signings

    When & Where: Monday, May 1 at 6:00 pm, Bookends & Beginnings, 1712 Sherman Avenue, Alley #, Evanston, IL. 224-999-7722.

    Tuesday, May 2 at 11:30 am-2pm, Standard Club Chicago luncheon, 320 S. Plymouth Ct, Chicago IL.

    2:00pm.

     

  • Matt Moore’s Secrets to Good BBQ

    When it comes to barbecue, geography is everything.

    That according to Matt Moore, author of the recently released “The South’s Best Butts: Pitmaster Secrets for Southern Barbecue Perfection.” He explains how barbecue differs in the 12 southern states he calls the Barbecue Belt. And just to end the suspense, Indiana is definitely not one of them.

    “In Northern Alabama, they combine vinegar and mayonnaise along with other variations to make a chalky white-style sauce,” says Moore, whose idea of a great day is turning up the volume on his favorite Grateful Dead songs, icing a case of beer, firing up the grill, inviting a bunch of friends and making some really good barbecue. “In Tennessee and Kansas City barbecue sauces are tomato-based, sweetened with molasses, and in Northeastern Kentucky it’s very dark, almost black. The reason why there’s a mustard-based sauce in South Carolina is because of all the Germans who settled there.”

    Calling barbecue a second way of life down where he lives, Moore’s newest book takes us on a tour of some special pitmasters and their restaurants, sharing their stories and their recipes.

    “I was seeking out not only great barbecue but also the best people,” Moore says. “I wanted to showcase the diversity and the ethnicity of this culinary tradition, which started more than a hundred years ago.”

    Barbecue is complicated and beyond what to use to sauce the meat, there’s also the question of whether to go wet or dry. Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, is where dry rubs — a mixture of spices and seasonings without any liquid — became famous. But that’s not all.

    “Fuel is flavor,” says Moore, noting there are very involved discussions about what type of fuel is best to use.

    And, of course, there’s what Moore calls, “All the Trimmings” in his chapter on side dishes.

    Helen Turner, owner and pitmaster of Helen’s Barbeque in Brownsville, Tennessee, tops a lot of her sandwiches, including her smoked bologna and pulled pork with her special cole slaw.

    At Bogart’s Smokehouse in St. Louis, Missouri, located on the Mississippi River, intriguing sides include their Fire and Ice Pickles, Deviled Egg Potato Salad and BBQ Pork Skins.

    At Heirloom Market BBQ in Atlanta, Georgia, there are Kimchi Pickles and Candied Bacon at Burn Co Barbecue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. B.R Anderson, owner and pitmaster of B-Daddy’s BBQ, who says that barbecue saved his life, serves B-Daddy’s Jalapeno Creamed Corn at his Helotes, Texas, restaurant. For desserts there’s Caramel Apple Blondie Pie with Apple Cider Caramel Sauce, Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and Strawberry-Lemon Buttermilk Icebox Pie with Gingersnap Crust.

    “I wanted a cookbook that people can really cook out of,” Moore says. And indeed, this handsome book with lots of gorgeous-make-you-hungry photos has plenty of easy recipes as well as tips for making barbecue.

    If you go

    What: Matt Moore will be in Chicago for a talk and book-signing.

    When & Where:

    6:45-8:30 p.m. April 26 at Read It & Eat, 2142 N. Halsted St., Chicago

    (773) 661-6158

  • My Cubs: A Love Story by Scott Simon

    Change is an important part of life says Scott Simon, now a devoted husband and father who at one time was
     happy being single and childless.

    But for Simon, the award winning host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, there’s one change that’s just not going to happen. Enamored (or should we say obsessed) with the Chicago Cubs is a never ending constant.

    “I can’t imagine not being a Cubs fan,” says Simon who grew up in Chicago and attended games with his father.  “I’ll be a Cubs fan until the hereafter. I’m convinced the Almighty God would say to me in heaven, I gave you a big test–like the trials of Abraham and that was the Cubs.”

    After 108 years in the proverbial desert, Simon has written about this passion in his recently released (The Blue Rider Press, 2017; $23).

    It didn’t occur to me that I’d ever write this book,” says Simon who like many of us thought our Cubbies would always find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    But their enduring losses weren’t because of a goat says Simon.

    Sure, Cubs authorities kicked Billy Sianis and the baby goat he nursed back to health out of the box office seats that had cost him $7.20 during the 1945 World Series against Detroit. There was talk that the goat, named Murphy, smelled like a…well…goat. But the cops and the ushers had always accepted free drinks at the Sianis’s tavern which he’d renamed—in honor of his goat–the Billy Goat Tavern. Sianis was angry and for years told reporters he sent a telegram to Phil Wrigley reading “Who stinks now?” at the end of each season when the Cubs failed to make the Series.

    But the real reason they didn’t play in the World Series for another 71 years has to do with racism.

    “Historically, though it eventually got hung on the Sianis family but no one at the time thought that,” says Simon who when he was writing his book Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball learned that the Boston Red Sox had a chance to sign the Hall of Famer three months before the Brooklyn Dodgers added him to their roster in 1947. “Ernie Banks and Gene Baker didn’t come to the Cubs as their first black players until 1953. They could have signed some great players before that but they didn’t. So it wasn’t the Curse of the Billy Goat but the curse of not signing African Americans until later that made the Cubs lose.”

    Simon isn’t sure if the Cubs will repeat their victory.

    “I think the hardest thing to do is repeat a professional championship, everyone thinks they figured out how to beat you,” he says. “But the core of this team is signed and is very good. But, as anyone will tell you, only so much of what gets you to the World Series you realize there are so many unforeseen things that can happen like injuries is talent.”

    Even if they don’t win—ever again—Simon won’t waiver in his devotion to his team.
    “I would have continued to be a Cubs fan even if they never won,” he says. “And I will always be a Cubs fan not matter what.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Scott Simon has several book signings in the Chicago area.

    When & Where:

    April 11 at 6 p.m.

    The Seminary Co-op Bookstore

    5751 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL

    April 12 at 3:45 p.m.

    Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Conference Center

    130 East Randolph Street, First Floor,

    Chicago, IL

    April 12 at 7 p.m.

    Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville

    123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville, IL

    April 13 at 7 p.m.

    Barnes and Noble

    55 Old Orchard Center, Skokie, IL

  • Marisol Murano’s Valentina Goldman Books Now Available as Audiobooks

    When Marisol Murano’s first novel Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion hit the shelves five years ago, readers were delighted at her heroine’s brash and completely unique voice that shone through in every short and sweet chapter. Reading the book is a lot like gossiping with your best friend–if your best friend is a no-holds-barred Latina who has recently moved to the US expecting the American dream. Oh, and for Valentina, she’ really dealing with the American nightmare.

    As Goodreads describes it, “Since her arrival in the United States from Venezuela, Valentina Goldman isn’t exactly living the American Dream. She’s living the American Nightmare. Her late husband, Max, has left her a young widow, a step-daughter whom Valentina didn’t want, and a bi-polar ex-wife. And oh, having given up her dream job in New York, Valentina is also unemployed in Arizona. Part “Bridget Jones Diary,” part “Modern Family,” “Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion” is the story of a woman trying to get a handle on her whacky life in America. In breathless, blog-like snippets, Valentina compares her own story with that of her eccentric sister, Azucena, who has bizarre troubles of her own down in the tropics. “Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion” is a funny and moving story about what happens when a passionate South American woman moves to the USA and, like so many of us, ends up with a life she never imagined.”

    Last November, Hipso published Murano’s follow-up novel, Valentina Goldman Ships Out, to even greater success. The book exposed another side of the beloved Valentina, vulnerable after the unexpected death of her husband. Despite tragedy, though, hilarity still ensues, as is always the case when Valentina (and in this case, her mother) is involved. Indeed, Valentina’s mother arrives on her doorstep to whisk her away on a 12-day Mediterranean cruise full of unexpected detours. If you’ve always longed to go on a cruise, ship out with Valentina. And if you’ve never wanted to go on a cruise, go anyway. You’ll likely find yourself alternately delighted and surprised by her quirky encounters at sea and alluring ports of call. In tightly wound language shimmering with wit and longing, Valentina Goldman Ships Out is a moving portrait of a woman looking for answers and coping with loss, even when the waters are deep.

    Now both novels are newly released as audiobooks, narrated by the fantastic Ginger Roll. In audio form, these books are even more hilarious and more relatable. The short, narrative chapters lend themselves perfectly to audiobook form, making them the perfect listen for any busy reader.

    http://www.hipsomedia.com

    Home

     

  • Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo

    The spark for his second novel stems from what it means to be an adopted child from a land very far away says Boris Fishman, author of
    (Harper/HarperCollins 2016 $26.99) which was just named as one of the 100 best books of 2016 by the New York Times,

    Fishman, who was born in Minsk, Belarus and immigrated to the United States at age nine in 1988, knows the intense feelings of searching for where he belongs both emotionally and psychologically.  It’s the theme he explores in his humorous and touching story about Maya Shulman, a Ukrainian exchange student who marries Alex Rubin, a somewhat spoiled son of Russian immigrants.

    The two adopted Max whose biological mother’s parting words were the “Don’t let my baby do rodeo” and up until age eight, Max has not been a problem. But then suddenly his behaviors become somewhat bizarre and indecipherable to the couple. Max begins acting somewhat feral-like. He consumes grass, sits face down in the river and hangs around wild animals.

    Their own lives have also reached a point where they need to redefine things and in that very American way, Alex and Maya decide to take Max and hit the road to find his parents who live in Montana.

    It’s a physical and spiritual quest told from Maya’s point of view. But for Fishman it also represents what many immigrants go through, including his own family.

    The patriarchal roles for both men and women that many immigrants brought with them from their homeland change particularly for the next generation.

    “I’m of their blood but not of their psychology,” says Fishman who graduated with a degree in Russian literature from Princeton University and a MFA in fiction from New York University.

    Indeed, Fishman says that half way through writing his novel, he realized he was like Max.

    “I was really feeling it,” he says about the catharsis of writing about Max. “You basically realize that neither of the places—the U.S. or Russia are home. And so you have to find a third place”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Boris Fishman has several Chicago events.

    When & Where:

    7:30pm, Friday, March 24
    Women & Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL. (773) 769-9299.

    7pm, Saturday, March 25, KAM Isaiah Israel Synagogue, 1100 E Hyde Park Blvd.,
    Chicago, IL. (773) 924-1234.

    6pm, Sunday, March 26.
    Soho House, 113 N. Green St., Chicago, IL. (312) 521-8000.

     

  • Duck Season: Eating, Drinking, and Other Misadventures in Gascony, France’s Last Best Place

    When David McAninch first moved to Plaisance du Gers, a small village in Gascony, with his wife Michele and their young daughter, Charlotte, he was going full-force Francophile by indulging a dream he’d nourished for years—to become part of French village life, a move he chronicles in Duck Season: Eating, Drinking, and Other Misadventures in Gascony, France’s Last Best Place (Harper 2017; $28.99). McAninch had lived in Paris and the South of France at various times in his life, but Gascony with its traditions centered around what was grown on the land or made locally, was in some ways like place time had overlooked. The nearest McDonald’s was in Toulouse, a two-hour drive away, very little processed food was available and tourists seldom seemed to find their way to this part of Southwestern France.

    McAninch, an editor at Chicago magazine, had first discovered Gascony when researching a story on duck and was determined to return for a much longer stay. Getting an assignment, he started researching and was surprised to find how little was written about Gascony. Unlike other regions of France, there were few cookbooks and even fewer less restaurants focusing on Gascony cuisines. His bible became Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of Southwest France: Recipes from France’s Magnificent Rustic Cuisine.

     He became captivated with the old fashioned farmhouse practices of making the foods that define Gascony such as Armagnac (and please don’t call it Cognac in front of a Gascon)–a rich brandy made from a blend of white wine grapes. Among other regional specialties are Madiran, a blackish, tannic red wine and Pacherenc, the local white, dry cured ham and confit—where duck is first salted and then cooked in its own fat which then acts as a preservation method.

    Of course, when living in Gascony, it helps to love duck which is always on the menu. At first Michele McAninch isn’t sure about this 24/7 duck thing but her husband says within two months she was eating skewers of grilled duck hearts and he realized Gascony had won her heart—and her stomach as well. Obviously they know how to cook duck in Gascony.

    But then, when reading McAninch’s sweet and humorous memoir of the eight months the family spent there, it becomes apparent that the Gascons take their cooking very seriously indeed.

    “Every meal is special,” says McAninch. “The cuisine of this corner of Southwestern France is very focused on having three wonderful meals a day—usually with wine at lunch and dinner, but not too much so.”

    The family brought a little Gascony back with them as well.

    “On the weekends I make garbure, the classic peasant soup,” says McAninch. “It’s a beautifully simple dish and it really embodies the food of this region.”

    They also relish a small slice of quiet time each evening, where for just 15 minutes or so, David and Michele sip a glass of wine (though it’s hard to find Madiran says McAninch) and Charlotte enjoys her sparkling water in a fancy glass. For those moments it’s almost like being in Gers again.

    Ifyougo:

    What: David McAninch is doing several book events.

    Tuesday, March 14 at 6:30pm he’ll be at Froggy’s French Café, 306 Greenbay Road, Highwood, IL. Tickets are $45 for dinner. To register, call 847-234-4420.

    Thursday, March 16th at 7pm at the Book Cellar, 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave Chicago, IL. Free.

    (773) 293-2665.

    Tuesday, March 21 at 12:00pm, University Club of Chicago, 76 E. Monroe St., Chicago, IL. For reservations, call The Book Stall at 847-446-8880.