We’ve all heard of K-Pop, even if we pay it no mind. Go to a Korean grocery store here in the northwest suburbs, and you’ll be aware of K-Food. Frozen K-Food, too.
Convenient and delicious for any occasion, it seems. I didn’t do a comprehensive look-see at the Frozen K-Food aisles, but did notice a few things. Such as a version of K-corn dogs: mozzarella and fish cake on a stick.
The marvels of globalization never cease. People worry that globalization = homogenization, but I don’t think so.
Korean breakfast links, or anytime sausage? The taste you always wanted? In any case, true to the tradition of cartoon mascots gleeful about the human consumption of their own kind.
This is diversity.
But maybe not quite as much as at first glance, since the maker of Red Baron, Schwan’s, was acquired by South Korean food conglomerate CJ CheilJedang a few years ago. So there you have it: a popular North American convenience food named for a German flying ace owned by a South Korean operation. All there in a frozen food bin.
Durians and jackfruit!
Once only available in Southeast Asia, now in your frozen food aisle. Must be popular in Korea these days, too. Why not? For me, jackfruit brings back fond memories of Thailand. As for durian, that is a fond memory from Malaysia.
Not long after I wandered away from the frozen food, I encountered fresh jackfruit.
A Hindenburg-class fruit, it is. More than 20 lbs. of jackfruit for less than $20. I’ll assume that’s a good deal.
When I took Ann back to Normal yesterday, I didn’t stop anywhere else in that town. But the last time I was there, we went to a grocery store just off I-55. And who should we meet in one of the aisles? I’d say it was strolling around, but I don’t think inventory robots stroll. Wheel along, maybe. It was puttering along.
That’s Tally, which isn’t precisely new tech, considering that you can easily find an article about the machine from 2016. Then again, maybe the one we saw is a more advanced version or, for all I know, it’s an older one still perfectly fine for its job. Never mind what the tech industry says, tech still has value as long as you find it useful.
“[Tally] can traverse a shop’s aisles for eight to 12 hours on a single charge, counting and checking up to 20,000 individual stock keeping units (SKUs) with greater than 96 percent accuracy,” the PC magazine article reported then.
A robot replacing a human. A human going up and down the aisles for hours holding a electronic wand of some kind. That sounds like the kind of really boring job that robots were going to take in the future, as it was once more optimistically imagined. Were supposed to take.
On the other hand, I asked the check-out clerk about the robot. How long had the store had the robot? She didn’t know, a while. We hate it anyway, she said, but didn’t elaborate.
Turns out it wasn’t Dry February after all. On Saturday night, I had a shot glass of Soon Hari brand flavored soju, which is the Korean equivalent of nihonshu (sake). Ann came up for the weekend, on the (near) occasion of her birthday. We went to the same Korean barbecue place we’ve taken her to twice before for her birthday dinner, only this time she ordered alcohol. Mostly this was a matter of form, since she had turned 21 a few days earlier.
The flavor was grape. It was sweet and 12% alcohol by volume, so it could sneak up on you. She had enough to make her pink in the face (“Asian glow,” she calls it) and a little tipsy.
Later we had birthday pie at home.
Twenty-one: obligatory note here about the wingéd passage of time.
Not only are we rid of January today, it was the most pleasant weather I can ever remember on a February 1 in northern Illinois: sun out sometimes, temps touching about 50 F.
YouTube algorithms are getting better at their game. Or so it seems. Today they suggested a Mexican ska band, Mexican Nutty Stompers, who have just released an album. The song, “Souvenir.” I was the 83rd listener.
Never mind the delight in finding Mexican ska when you didn’t such a thing existed, whoever the lead singer is, she’s got some voice. I might look into finding out her name, but for now the voice is more than enough.
A snippet from a press release that came a few weeks ago:
Embrace the spirit of Dry January with Hotel ZaZa Memorial City. Dine in at Hotel ZAZA’s Tipping Point Restaurant and Terrace and indulge in exclusive mocktail specials, crafted to make your taste buds dance without the spirits. Throughout the month of January, enjoy a selection of zero-proof concoctions, each priced at just $8.
Closer to my wheelhouse, but not quite in it. Still, I learned a couple of things from the release. One, Hotel ZaZa Memorial City is in Houston. Zaza is a collection of boutique hotels in Texas, in fact, with locations in Austin and Dallas too. I wasn’t familiar with the brand, but it looks posh all right. Also, this is the essence of the luxury hotel business: serving drinks at what would be a very reasonable price, if they contained any alcohol.
Dry January. I had to look around for more information on that, and it turned out to be a thing. Not sure if it’s just a thing of the chattering classes, or has stronger purchase on the steep slopes of American culture, but anyway you can find mainstream articles about it. Never heard of any of that. I’m late to the party, as usual. Or the non-party, considering no alcohol is served. As we all know, alcohol is essential to any fun party. That’s true in song and story.
The concept is simple enough to be a thing: Dry January just means not drinking alcohol during January, presumably timed to come after personal bacchanals in December. The hotel is using the concept to sell mocktails, but people do seem to use the idea to improve their lives. Good for them. I found it a little hard to imagine, though. Every January is Dry January for me.
I did order, and drink, an Old Fashioned at the bar of the Nashville Italian restaurant where we had dinner on the last full night with my friends in November. We were waiting for a table, so we all sat at the bar, enjoying some lively conversation with each other.
We also spent a few minutes watching the bartender, a nattily dressed slip of an African-American young man, maybe 30, who seemed to be everywhere behind the bar doing everything all the time, but mostly assembling the various liquors for his cocktail creations. With an economy and grace to his movements that spoke of years of practice. He was an artist.
So I wanted to order something from him. But what? As I later explained to my friends, a little part of every man wants to be Don Draper, so the drink in front of me was my homage to the character, and a vehicle to provide a nice tip for the bartender.
A little more than 12 years before ordering the Old Fashioned in Nashville, I ordered one in Appleton, Wisconsin on a press trip because I recently heard of the drink on Mad Men and was curious.
But mixed drinks haven’t been how I’ve usually spent my money over the years. All those years later in Nashville, I nursed my Old Fashioned a while – I’m not a hard-drinking TV character, after all – and concluded that I hadn’t had a bar cocktail between those two times, only occasional beer and wine, most of which wasn’t at bars anyway. What’s the term for that? Not teetotaler. Quasi-totaler?
For those who dreamed of a pink Christmas this year, there was this shop window in Bardstown, Kentucky.
Not only pink trees, but an entrance with a Fanny Brice sort of greeting.
For many years, the building on North Third Street housed Spalding & Sons, a dry goods store founded in the 1850s which later morphed into a small-town department store that finally closed for good only in 2013. A woman’s boutique, Peacock on Third, now occupies the space (the dark building on the right in the picture below).
These days a boutique of that kind fits right in on Third, which is Bardstown’s main street. Other nearby specialty shops include At Mary’s gift shop, the Tea Cozy, Shaq & Coco (furniture), Kaden Lake and Cactus Annie’s (both women’s clothes), and Pink Fine Consignments & Boutique and Gnarly Gnick Gnacks; eateries in the vicinity include Bardstown Burger, Cafe Primo, Pat’s Place and the Old Talbott Tavern.
We were out and about in Bardstown on December 29, the second day of our trip, an overcast and moderately chilly day, having driven the 30 miles or so from Louisville that morning. This part of Bardstown caters mostly to visitors, who were few that day, but the street wasn’t completely deserted.
The town has managed to preserve a nice collection of century-and-older buildings that are mostly still in use.
A few ghost signs.
A selection of pre-FDIC bank buildings.
The five-and-dime is also gone.
At the junction of Third and another major street, Stephen Foster Avenue – more about him later – is a roundabout, and in the roundabout is the imposing former courthouse, which these days houses the Bardstown Tourist & Convention Commission, the Nelson County Economic Development Agency and the Bardstown Nelson County C-of-C.
Another relic of the great age of courthouse building in the United States, designed by Mason Maury and completed in 1892. Most of Maury’s work was in Louisville, and in fact he designed Kentucky’s first skyscraper in that city, the Kenyon Building. Sadly, that structure didn’t survive the mid-century purge of old buildings.
At one corner Third and Stephen Foster is a building whose first floor is occupied by a drugstore: Hurst Discount Drugs.
We happened to be looking for lunch at that moment, and happened to notice that Hurst also includes a lunch counter. How many drugstores have lunch counters any more? How many did even 30 or 40 years ago? We instantly decided to eat there. I did, anyway, since I’m not sure Yuriko appreciated what a rara avis we’d found, but she was game.
We weren’t the only customers, though everyone else left before we did.
Speaking of rare birds: only one thing on the menu was more than $10, the double bacon cheese burger deluxe at $10.19. Order deluxe and you get mayo, ketchup, mustard, tomato, lettuce, pickle and grilled onions.
Besides burgers, other options included sandwiches and a few breakfast items. Even better, the flip side of the menu offered an array of ice cream products: scoops, shakes, malts, ice cream sodas, banana splits and sundaes, and floats — black cow (Coke), brown cow (root beer), and orange cow (orange sherbet and Sprite).
I had the more modest cheeseburger deluxe at $7.49, plus a chocolate shake for $6.29. Elevated compared to only a few years ago, certainly, but still reasonable, especially considering that the burger was good and the shake was really good.
Above freezing temps on Friday encouraged us to pay a visit to the Aurora Christkindlmaket, my second such market this year, which is vastly more than most years’ total of zero.
Lights. Artisans. Dark-wood booths evoking Germany. Walking around food. Hot drinks. High prices. Pretty much everything you’d see and experience at the market at Daley Plaza, except you’re in RiverEdge Park along the Fox River.
Adjacent to Hollywood Casino on the Fox is an enormous complex of parking lots, from which a pedestrian bridge crosses the river, opened only a little more than two years ago. A walk across takes you to RiverEdge.
Ornaments of the giants mark the way to the market.
Merchants.
Merchandise.
Swedish joy juice to help get through those near-Arctic Circle wintertime blues?
Called glögg, but the fine print says non-alcoholic, so I’m not sure that counts. The glögg I got at Ikea some years ago had some kick to it. I didn’t check these bottles too closely, so I’m not even sure it’s Swedish, though a Chicago-area company called Lars Own offers imported goods from Scandinavia – yet its web site is a little vague on its Grandpa Lundquist brand glögg.
Wasn’t Grandpa Lundquist a supporting character on Phyllis? The hard-of-hearing hoot-and-a-half curmudgeon played by a wizened character actor whose career was pretty much simultaneous with talkies? No, I made that up, AI-style.
I didn’t buy any 0.0 glögg anyway. I did buy some praline-filled Ritter Sport, a variety I hadn’t sampled before. It’s good. Of course it is. Yuriko acquired a few ornaments – a few per year, that’s how a mass of Christmas decorations grows. We ate pretzels from a Milwaukee-based bakery, and Ann got hot chocolate in a 0.2-liter mug with scenes of the downtown Christkindlmarket painted on it. Designed in Germany, Made in China, it says.
The similarities between the downtown and Aurora markets are no accident. It’s a seasonally oriented cottage industry.
“The Christkindlmarket Chicago was first conceptualized in 1995 when the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest Inc. (GACC Midwest) was seeking alternative ways to promote bilateral trade between the USA and Germany,” the event web site explains. “Companies from Germany and the Chicago area [participated] in the first Christkindlmarket Chicago in 1996. The market was an instant success and continues to flourish through the work of GACC Midwest’s subsidiary, German American Events LLC.”
Not everything – in fact not a lot of it – is German, or even European. You might call it an international market with North European holiday trappings. It works.
In summer, RiverEdge Park is the setting for concerts and plays. The John C. Dunham Pavilion was familiar, though the last time I was there, temps were high and the entertainment was free Shakespeare.
The stage control tower, decked out for this time of the year.
Heard as we were leaving, passing by two people entering:
“So that’s what it’s called? All this time I thought it was the Kris Kringle Market.” (laughs)
Today: tree decoration. I set up the tree (Friday), put on the lights (Saturday), and hung a few ornaments. Ann adjusted the lights and did most of the ornaments.
Out in the world there are plenty of images of Christmas ornaments as they hang on trees, but fewer pics of agglomerated ornaments, which is how they spend 11 months of the year in my household. Their boxes were opened for distribution to the branches of our Christmas trees on Sunday, one shortish natural tree and two stubby artificial trees, all green, none aluminum.
The decoration process also called for hot chocolate. Ann’s came in a Christmas-themed mug that had been in the house less than 48 hours and pretty much blended into its background tablecloth.
A trickle of cards arrived last week. On Friday I got Wendy and Ted’s annual holiday card, hand drawn on a plain white card, high in amusement value. Even better, idiosyncratic amusement value.
Somewhere in my poorly organized correspondence files, there are examples from earlier years. I ought to dig up a few.
Has it been two years now since the omicron variant reared its ugly – head’s not quite the word for viruses, but anyway made a splash? Seems so. I happened to be visiting New York City at that moment in Covid history. I got through it. Even had a good visit, spending a lot of time outdoors, a safe place to be, I suppose, as New Yorkers went about their business.
Among other things, I enjoyed a Uyghur meal for the first time – I really need to do that again – washed down with an apple-flavored drink I’d never had before either, Laziza, a non-alcoholic malt beverage made in Lebanon.
It is really? Not something I think of when I think of moving.
It might be beyond belief even now, but not in the way meant in 2021.
What does Manhattan need that it doesn’t have? A system of alleys, for garbage pick up and other uses. There are some epic piles of trash out on the sidewalks.
The Korean War memorial in Battery Park, honoring not just U.S. forces, but all who fought against the North Koreans and red Chinese. Note the flags; others are on the other sides, including the U.S., ROK, UK, France and more.
In the pavement around the memorial are the names of those nations and how many of their troops died and were wounded. Luxembourg suffered two killed and five wounded, for instance. (If I remember right, a wounded and missing Luxembourger soldier was a plot point in a M*A*S*H episode. Yes.)
I can’t say whether Billy Goat Tavern & Grill looks exactly the same as it did in the ’80s, but it sure felt the same on Monday night. The walls of photos, neon, beer taps, rows of bottles, knickknacks and basic restaurant tables and chairs, and plenty of worn red bar stools. The vibe is Chicago tavern clutter, comfortable as an old shirt.
Now that I think about it, I had the most Greek experience I’ve ever had at the Billy Goat, having never yet made it to Greece. Shortly before the 1988 presidential election, the Dukakis campaign staged a campaign parade on Michigan Avenue, and after work I went to watch, on a spontaneous quasi-date with a fetching Greek-American woman I knew. Was it a torchlight parade? In my memory, there were torches, but probably no: that seems like a 19th-century thing.
We were within feet of the candidate as he walked by, his expression a little stiff and discouraged. Later we repaired to the Billy Goat, which was wall-to-wall packed, including many Greek Americans – wearing the colors of the Greek flag, some of them — with everybody feasting on cheeseburgers and beer, the place alive with talk, and the clank of spatulas on the grill, and the hissing burgers and onion air, and the clouds of cigarette smoke still common in bars and restaurants.
I’m pretty sure the workers called out Cheezborger! Cheezborger! in those days, which might be an example of life imitating art, or more likely, life and art reinforcing either other.
Rumor was that Dukakis himself would make an appearance, and well he should have, but he never did. He should have shown up in his tank helmet, shaking hands and mugging for cameras. Rather than be embarrassed by it, he should have leaned into it, but no.
Back here in the 21st century, there are reminders of goats at Billy Goat. How could it be otherwise?
You can see a wall of bylines at Billy Goat. Once upon a time, both major Chicago newspaper buildings were within easy walking distance, even in winter, so newspapermen hung out there.
Best known was Royko, who worked the place into his column from time to time. From there, the place went on to wider notice, sort of.
I expect the number of journalists is fairly low these days, outnumbered by other kinds of downtown residents and workers, plus tourists. On Monday night at least, no one called out when you ordered your cheeseburgers; they just went to work at it.
Except for the vegan in our group – she was a good sport about it — we had cheeseburgers and chips and beer. What else? In theory, a few other things are on the menu, but we didn’t test it. No fries, either.
Around the corner from the entrance of the Billy Goat, directly facing Lower Michigan Ave. and just north of the Chicago River., is a mural and a tavern sign.
The mural is a work by Andy Bellomo, “a self-taught artist who began her creative interest as a young teen studying the color, light, shapes, and lines of traditional stained glass in churches,” according to the the Magnificent Mile Association, as part of a number of murals known as Undercurrent (at least to the Mag Mile Assn.).
It’s been there about a year, which would account for me never noticing it before. Haven’t been down to Lower Michigan Ave. in a some years, but I can assure the world that it’s still the hard urban space it’s always been.
There’s more of the Undercurrent mural on the other side of the tavern’s entrance, not captured in the below image.
But I did capture, without realizing it, part of a different mural, one that’s been there for decades, by an artist mostly lost to time in Chicago, even though his heyday was only about 50 years ago. It’s on the extreme right edge of the image: a rainbow goat.
“Many people ask about the rainbow goats painted on the walls outside of The Goat,” notes the tavern web site. “They were painted in 1970 by Sachio Yamashita, known as Sachi… Billy [Sianis, original owner of the tavern] made a deal with Sachi. Every day after Sachi and his helpers finish their work, beer and borgers are free! Unfortunately Billy Goat Sianis passed away on October 22, 1970 just days before the paintings were complete.”
I might have noticed the goats before, but didn’t give them much thought. I didn’t notice them this time, or I’d have taken a full image, since how many rainbow goats could there be in the world? On walls, that is.
Warmish by day, chilly at night, though not quite freezing most of the time. Today was clear and, since our deck has a southern exposure, it was warm enough out there to eat lunch in some comfort.
On Friday, which wasn’t quite as warm, I got started on building a back-yard fire a little later than planned, as the daylight ebbed away. At first it didn’t catch, but eventually it did. I’ve documented fires out back before, but not the charcoal chimney in use.
Doing my (very) little bit to release carbon into the atmosphere.
Eventually, all the charcoal caught fire.
A small inferno? Can infernos be small?
It was hot enough to cook brats, at least, once I tumped over the charcoal chimney (carefully) and put on the grill. The last outdoor cooking this year, and probably the last until April or May.
