Lovely wife Mo and I actually went out on a date last weekend! We try to do this every weekend but because of limited energy and limited funds, we've been spending a lot of "date nights" on the couch with take out Thai food and Tivo. Things have been especially busy and stressful for both of us lately. Perhaps that explains my absence from blogging. But I digress...
There is a show on public TV here that we love called "Check Please!" It is a restaurant review show with an interesting twist. (Go here to learn more.) While watching the show, we learned about Parrot Cage. So, long story short, we made a reservation and went.
We had a wonderful dinner and a really wonderful date. We finished off the evening driving up Michigan Ave looking at tourists and Christmas lights. Every time we do something like this we remember how much we love this city and how happy we are we live here. (I also remember how proud I am of LWM and her work to make it such a great city!) But my pride in and love for my wife and our city is another digression.
Parrot Cage is the restaurant of the Washburn Culinary Institute cooking school which is part of the City Colleges of Chicago.
Now, Chicago is arguably one of the great culinary cities in the world. Some of the greatest chefs in the world have restaurants here. There is also a wide variety of cuisine here. I am confident that if you look hard enough, you can find cuisine from almost every part of the world here. The reason I start this paragraph this way is to explain the context of food in Chicago. We have one of the top 20 restaurants in the world here. I've not eaten at Trotter's but I've eaten at places of similar caliber: TRU.
In other words, world class restaurants are available in this city and these are what I consider to be A+. There are only a few other places that I've been to that are close. Parrot Cage is not one of them. But it was very good. It gets a good solid B- (To further explain my grading system Fireside gets a C+, Applebee's etc a D and any fast food place a D-. To get an F, I must walk out without eating and never go back. Fazoli's pizza comes to mind. but again, I digress.) I would really like to go back to Parrot cage and eat there again. Maybe then I'll give a complete review. What is more interesting to me is the setting. Parrot Cage is in the South Shore Cultural center. It is a fascinating place. Read more about it here, here and here.
Originally, it was a country club. As was true of way too many places, it was a members only club open only to white Christians. (Possibly only Protestants, but perhaps not, given the nature of Chicago.) What was really funny was that the country club closed and sold the buildings to the city in 1975. They could have kept it open but they would have had to allow blacks to join. They'd rather see the place fall apart instead. So it did. Now, over 30 years later, the place is coming alive again. It is showing its age, but it is still beautiful.
What was really funny? When we first arrived, Mary and I were the only white people there. The only reason we had an opportunity to see it? Kennedy-King College. That funny sound? some white guy rolling over in his grave...
Perhaps sometime I'll write about more about race, and my history with it. Perhaps I'll write about why it was strange that I was happy to be in a place where I was the minority for a change (or how that, despite the population of a given place, a white person being a minority is really never possible) But, this is a restaurant review.
It's 2 A.M. and I've been thinking...
Sounds like a Country & Western song right? Well. it was 13 years ago at about this time of the night when I heard the words, "You won't survive." Pretty dramatic. But made all the more so given the context. I was flat on my back, on a gurney, looking up at a gloved and masked surgeon. He had just told me how he was going to open my sternum and replace the part of my aorta that had just ruptured. Even now, reading these words on the screen as I type, it is a surreal concept to think that it happened. The concept of opening a human chest to replace part of a heart with some Gore-Tex and a hunk of plastic and carbon fiber... The thought that I survived this... I've pictured the anatomy. I've run through the process in my head. I know the biology of this event. But it still makes no sense. It shouldn't have happened this way. I really should not be alive...
As I take a sip of my tea (Yes Mom, It's Decaf.) and consider where this post is going next, i re-read the first paragraph and my internal editor says: "My. Aren't we being melodramatic and self indulgent tonight." Well, editor. Shut up. I've earned it.
Everyone always asks. "What are you doing for Halloween?" It's as reflexive as asking that about New Years Eve. My answer has always been "Hiding under my bed!" But not this year.
I put up a post a few days ago about getting a collar and finally committing to the ordination process. Well, today, on the anniversary of my death. (sorry editor, I know that comment is melodramatic and self indulgent but I'm a little too amused with myself for writing it to leave it out.) Anyway, on this day where I've always thought about the past, I took a giant step in a very strange and new direction. I wore a collar through the streets of the city that has become my adulthood home. I went to the church. I served the Eucharist. I prayed over people, laying my hands on them. Just two years ago I wasn't even going to church. Today I'm working toward becoming the church's ordained representative. I'm helping people, through prayer and a 2000 year old ritual to get closer to God and "the community of Saints" All of this, on the day of my death. All of this on All Hallows Eve, the night before the celebration and remembrance of the souls who have gone before us. All of this on Samhainn, the Celtic festival of the dead. All of these days celebrate transition. A transition between phases of life and changes of season. Today has always been a day of transition for me. Today I added another.
I guess I could rattle on here and make some profound theological comment about serving communion, the Eucharist, the ritual celebrating Jesus' ressurection as my first act as clergy, and doing it on the day that I 'cheated death" (How's THAT for a melodramatic flourish.). Prehaps if I really worked at it I could figure out someway to link Halloween/Samhain/All Saints Day , my first communion as clergy (Which, truth be told, was actually almost a month ago. Today was the second, although it was my first day in a collar.) and the anniversary of my surgery. I could link all these rhetorically, then point out that it is three elements. Three, a triangle, the architecturally perfect number, the number of the Trinity. I could point out how this coming together of elements in this number of strength mirrors how strongly I feel that this is the right path. I could do all of this, but, my tea is cold, my bed is warm with Lovely Wife Mo sleeping peacefully in it, and it is now 3:15 A.M and I've stopped thinking...
As I take a sip of my tea (Yes Mom, It's Decaf.) and consider where this post is going next, i re-read the first paragraph and my internal editor says: "My. Aren't we being melodramatic and self indulgent tonight." Well, editor. Shut up. I've earned it.
Everyone always asks. "What are you doing for Halloween?" It's as reflexive as asking that about New Years Eve. My answer has always been "Hiding under my bed!" But not this year.
I put up a post a few days ago about getting a collar and finally committing to the ordination process. Well, today, on the anniversary of my death. (sorry editor, I know that comment is melodramatic and self indulgent but I'm a little too amused with myself for writing it to leave it out.) Anyway, on this day where I've always thought about the past, I took a giant step in a very strange and new direction. I wore a collar through the streets of the city that has become my adulthood home. I went to the church. I served the Eucharist. I prayed over people, laying my hands on them. Just two years ago I wasn't even going to church. Today I'm working toward becoming the church's ordained representative. I'm helping people, through prayer and a 2000 year old ritual to get closer to God and "the community of Saints" All of this, on the day of my death. All of this on All Hallows Eve, the night before the celebration and remembrance of the souls who have gone before us. All of this on Samhainn, the Celtic festival of the dead. All of these days celebrate transition. A transition between phases of life and changes of season. Today has always been a day of transition for me. Today I added another.
I guess I could rattle on here and make some profound theological comment about serving communion, the Eucharist, the ritual celebrating Jesus' ressurection as my first act as clergy, and doing it on the day that I 'cheated death" (How's THAT for a melodramatic flourish.). Prehaps if I really worked at it I could figure out someway to link Halloween/Samhain/All Saints Day , my first communion as clergy (Which, truth be told, was actually almost a month ago. Today was the second, although it was my first day in a collar.) and the anniversary of my surgery. I could link all these rhetorically, then point out that it is three elements. Three, a triangle, the architecturally perfect number, the number of the Trinity. I could point out how this coming together of elements in this number of strength mirrors how strongly I feel that this is the right path. I could do all of this, but, my tea is cold, my bed is warm with Lovely Wife Mo sleeping peacefully in it, and it is now 3:15 A.M and I've stopped thinking...
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