ORD->JFK->CDG

On Friday, I'm heading to the pastry motherland, with a quick 6 hour layover in Queens. I haven't been to Paris in 15 years, so I haven't spoken French in as long. The performance anxiety is setting in, the fear of being an ugly American is palpable, and I hope to God we can figure out the metro map. I have places to go and things to do and gateaux to see.

I love Paris in a fawning, slightly embarrassing kind of way. I love how Parisians, and French people as a whole, revere food, and I don't at all mind how arrogant they are about the fact that they revere it (and we don't). I love how important pastry is to them, and bread, and butter, and croissants. I love that there are no Dunkin Donuts in France. And I love that baguettes are regulated by the government. Take that, Tea Party Movement.

I have a list, but by no means an exhaustive one, of places to go, and by places, I mean restaurants, cafes, boulangeries, patisseries, and marches that house fromageries, charcuteries, and chocolatiers. On this trip, I'll have two kids with me, one of whom only eats five things. It's a good thing three of them - bread, chocolate and cake - can be found on every street corner. Is it possible to get juvenile diabetes in a week?

Someone told me there are a lot of museums in Paris. I guess we'll try to fit a few in, between the trips to Berthillon (the best ice cream in Paris) and L'As du Fallafel (the best falafel in Europe, and maybe the world, according to the New York Times) and E. Dehillerin, a venerable cookware store where the salesmen wear long aprons while they fetch your copper sauteuse. The euros are at the ready.

And then there's La Maison du Chocolat, a Willy Wonka-like wonderland where the carpeting, the walls, the perfectly wrapped boxes of cakes, candies, and those macarons - all of it is suave and chocolatey. It is literally breathtaking. Not to brag or anything, but I'll be there next week. I'll also try to stop into Poilane for some apple tarts and walnut bread. Perhaps a little carb heavy, but the two together make a fine lunch.

I will hopefully be posting from France, assuming the technology Gods don't pull a fast one. Of course, if they're French, they just might.

The case for lard

When I think of the word "lard," it's virtually impossible for me not to attach the word "ass" to the end. Nothing says sedentary housewife from Iowa like the word "lard-ass" and nothing contributes more to lard-assism than lard. At least that's what my inner judgmental self says.

According to the Urban Dictionary, a lard-ass is a person who is not only useless but who also weighs a ridiculous amount. So it's pretty clear how lard got its unflattering reputation. Lard is the evil fatty substance that gives women, especially those from the plains states, their big, jiggly butts.

Ironically, nothing makes a better pie crust, and I now know this from experience. Exhibit A: my first pie of the season, above. A beauty, with sour cherries from the sour cherry capital of the world, Michigan, and the best crust I have ever made. That's a pretty ambitious statement, considering how many crusts I've made in my life (I'm counting all the tart and puff pastry shells, too, because crust is crust). Hundreds? Maybe thousands. But never with lard. And I have to attribute that to a fear of lard, and the pronounced dimpled ass that goes along with it.

But the nutritional data doesn't support the fear. Butter has more saturated fat and cholesterol than lard, assuming the lard is not hydrogenated (more about that later). Lard, in case you don't know, is pig fat. It's rendered, or melted down, and then strained of the lingering bits. It is then refrigerated to solidify.

When lard is processed, however, evil corporate scientists hydrogenate it (a chemical process that improves shelf life), and this makes it an enemy of your arteries and ostensibly your hiney. But pure, high quality lard is available via mail order. It's generally called leaf lard. If you're at all squeamish, now's the time to skip to the next paragraph. Leaf lard is the fat that accumulates around the kidneys of the pig. Not very appetizing, but surprisingly healthier than its processed cousin. The fat is rendered, strained and then chilled or frozen.

My pie crust was dreamlike in its flakiness with nary a taste of the barn. It stayed flaky for a couple of days, even in the warmer weather. And it was easy to work with. When you have two children, the last thing you need is a pie crust with an attitude.

Lard is also said to reign supreme in the deep fryer, producing a virtually greaseless, crispy crust. I am completely unashamed to admit that I am now lard's number one fan and I will be aggressively pursuing perfect fried chicken in the days ahead, once my $18.00 leaf lard arrives. I'll keep you posted.

Once again, America saves the world

Gosh, I'm proud to be an American. It isn't just that we're clearly better than everyone else. It's the incredible number of useful contributions we've made to society in the past 234 years. Without our homespun American ingenuity, there would be no all-you-can-eat buffets. No loaded potato skins. No cheese that sprays out of an aluminum can, much like another iconic American invention, Silly String.

But in the past few years, there have been murmurs around the globe that maybe, just maybe, we are losing our competitive edge. Well, people of the doubting persuasion, I have two words for you:

Cheese tessallation.

In geometric parlance, tessellation is a collection of plane figures that fill a space so there are no gaps, much like the correct placement of jigsaw puzzle pieces. So when Subway announced this week it would start tessallating the cheese slices on its sandwiches, I was more than just excited. Now, rather than overlapping, the slices will be placed point up, point down, point up, point down (see photo above - an unfortunate example since there are big gaping holes between the slices. But you get the idea).

I am particularly proud of the R & D people who turned this pie-in-the-sky notion into something real we can all experience every time we order a $5 footlong (are they still $5?). I'm so glad we're using our best and brightest for life's important endeavors. I know there are other matters that need tending, but continuously perfecting the Subway sandwich will keep this country a step ahead of the India's and China's of the world who are noisily knocking on progress' door.

So for all of you doubters, we'd like you to meet the tessallated cheese sandwich. It's big, it's bad, it's red, white, and blue, and it's proof that we, the United States of America, aren't going anywhere.

M is for meh

Burger disappointment is hard to take. It's like having a bad cupcake or a bad ice cream cone. It just feels morally wrong, like the perpetrators should have to formally apologize and admit their wrongdoing publicly, in the town square, and perhaps in the most egregious cases, submit to a flogging.

That's how I feel about M Burger. It's a dark little crevice on Huron, just east of Michigan Avenue. There are no seats inside, which is a good thing since there's no ventilation in there, either. But you can sit on the benches on the sidewalk, where you'll likely share a table with a pregnant couple who just visited their OB at Northwestern Memorial. You can watch the woman eat a double with bacon and secret sauce and then finish all the fries and the chocolate shake and remember fondly back to those pregnant days, when you use to eat half a dozen Krispy Kremes at one sitting.

But the thing is, Krispy Kremes are good. The M Burger is not. There's nothing special about it, and once you've had a truly special burger (like at Edzo's), you immediately know after the first bite whether this thing you're eating is stuck in the bottom half of the burger bell curve, a step above a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and even that is debatable.

My issue is with the meat (some would argue the most important part of a hamburger). Normally, I like my burgers to taste like meat. But the M Burger really didn't taste like anything at all. If it had tasted like pistachios or creamed spinach or something else entirely, I might applaud the attempt at avant garde and maybe give a few points for creativity. But when the goal is a conventional fast food burger, it's all about the meat.

There are different versions of the M Burger. I had a single with everything, which includes lettuce, onion, pickles, ketchup, mayo and cheese. There may have been a tomato on it. If so, I couldn't taste it. A signature M Burger has bacon, cheese and secret sauce. All burgers are available single or double. They have fries and shakes, too, and something called the Nurse Betty, which, according to one Yelp reviewer, is a vegetarian burger sans a burger (a bun burger?). It's also a movie with Renee Zellweger, who is thoroughly annoying, too skinny and probably would prefer having a bun with condiments over one with meat. Both she and M Burger need to go away.

Spring cleaning

Today, I just might eat a dog biscuit. Frankly, I'm getting sort of tired of people food and I think it's because we as a family eat in a tiny, palate-deadening box. As a result, my taste buds are slowly being asphyxiated. The week's menu is always the same: pizza, flank steak, mac n cheese, occasionally sloppy joe's, and pizza. Sometimes, it's just pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, and pizza. I need to find my appetite for eating again.

I'm not 100% sure if eating dog biscuits will do it, but it's worth a try. I used to eat them when I was a kid, and I can't remember if it was a way to become one with my dog, or a response to an anemic after school snack pantry. I just remember opening the box of Milk-Bones and taking a big, crunchy bite. The crumbs would fall on the floor and the dog would vacuum them up. How's that for symbiotic?

The plain Milk-Bones were surprisingly wholesome, like something you might find in the famous and popular Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. In that multi-volume granola tome, everything is made with whole wheat, even the salads. The goal is to add as much fiber as is medically safe to every dish. Guacamole? Add eight cups of barley and flax. Tomato soup? Throw in a few handfuls of wheat berries and some lima beans. Is that hay in the fruit crumble topping? Well, it sure is.

Milk-Bones are deliciously bland and toothsome, and I'm hoping they'll not only cleanse my palate, but do a full sweep of my digestive tract as well. I had one of those weekends where everything I ate was either a hamburger or a hot dog, and it's taking its toll. So, bring on the melamine-laced biscuits and let's do some spring cleaning.

Doughy redemption

As much as I'm opposed to clever names - and rhyming - I don't really mind Wow Bao. Of course it's a Lettuce Entertain You venture and you know this because marketing-wise, it's tight as a Chinese war drum, with a clean, eye-catching logo and that name. It's just so confident. Not many things are Wow these days, and I don't know if Wow Bao really lives up to its name, but hey, LEYE executive types, props to you for trying.

A bao is a Chinese steamed bun with a filling. Pork is probably the most common, and makes the bao into a kind of Chinese slider. A slider is never a bad thing. The dough is like a fine, soft bread dough without the crust. Put peanut butter and jelly inside, and my daughter would eat these for life. The fillings range from thai curry chicken to spicy mongolian beef to whole wheat edamame. They're soft little savory Chinese treats, and with one of their Asian salads or soup, make a respectable lunch.

They also have dessert and breakfast bao, which I haven't tried but fear are a bad mating experiment between Dunkin' Donuts and Chinese takeout. You could put anything inside that dough, but that doesn't mean you should. With that said, I'll keep an open mind and next time, have a coconut custard bao. It sounds gross - all sweet, starchy mush - but I'm willing to take one for the blog.

Wow Bao also has homemade ginger ale, which shot to super stardom years ago at Big Bowl, another Lettuce concept. I've included a rough recipe at the bottom. Not to sound like a second grader but, it's so easy.

If there was a Wow Bao in Evanston, I would go once a week. I would get a Bao combo: two Bao ( I like the Thai curry chicken and spicy Mongolian beef) and a choice of their Asian salads, which are fresh and appropriately Asian-inspired. I would also get the ginger ale. It sort of completes the picture.

Homemade Ginger Ale

1 knob of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced (about the size of a small finger)

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups water

Seltzer water or Club Soda

First, blanch the ginger by placing it in boiling water for about a minute, then drain. This mellows out the burn of the ginger. Rinse the pot, then put the sugar and cup of water in it along with the drained ginger. Bring to a boil, and boil for a couple of minutes. You're doing this to dissolve the sugar, so only boil it long enough to achieve that. You have now made a ginger simple syrup. Let cool, and store overnight in your fridge, covered.

To make the ginger ale, just add some ginger simple syrup to some seltzer or club soda. Start by adding a Tbs and keep adding until it tastes right to you. Other things you can add to the simple syrup when you add the ginger: citrus zest (just the colored part) or a split vanilla bean. If you want more syrup to make a big batch, just multiply up. The ratio of sugar to water is always 1:1. Assuming your fridge's temp is constant, the syrup should keep for two weeks.

Life, death, and food courts

I had a weak moment the other day and went to a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant. I've always felt that Lettuce Entertain You has singlehandedly made Chicago a B+ restaurant town by marginalizing the dining experience with cutesy tongue-in-cheek themes and even cuter names (Lawrence of Oregano and Johnathan Livingston Seafood tie for Most Heinous).

Shouldn't the theme of a restaurant be good food? I know that sounds completely crazy, but why not? A small neighborhood restaurant where the chef reports to no one, least of all a board of directors, might actually do well. I know we'd be giving up waitresses disguised as wiseass bobby soxers and menus rife with clever lines from the clever in-house ad agency, but it just might work.

We ended up going to Foodlife which, at its inception a dozen or so years ago, was an interesting idea that took on traditional food courts. It offered a multitude of stations, each with a different type of food. Mexican, Italian, BBQ, two types of Asian.....it was pretty much all there, along with the requisite salad and dessert stations. Foodlife promised to be a United Nations kind of food experience, even if it was dumbed down by corporate culture.

In the beginning, the food was well-prepared. The vegetables were colorful, the meat was fresh, and sometimes, the choices were even a little inspired. But last week, sad, pathetic salmon filets sat in pools of cloudy oil and old pasta curled at the edges waiting to be sauced and plated. I was witnessing the slow death of Foodlife.

It's not as if I feel any outrage. I mean, when was the last time you ate at a Lettuce restaurant that wasn't completely rote? Caesar or bibb lettuce salad to start, plainly prepared meat and a small selection of predictable vegetables for the main, and Boston cream pie for dessert. It's like eating at an expensive nursing home for well-to-do Gold Coasters.

I must confess there was another reason I ate there: I found an eight year-old $100 Lettuce Entertain You gift card in a drawer and it was still valid. I now have $53 left on the card. That's enough for two lobster rolls and two diet cokes at Shaw's, the semi-precious jewel in the LEYE crown. It's no Pearl Oyster Bar, but it'll do.