In a food desert, cooking classes are welcome, if not crowded

By Janet Rausa Fuller
DNAinfo.com Chicago
February 11, 2015
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NORTH LAWNDALE — The waiting area of Sinai Community Institute was nearly empty on a recent midweek morning. Outside, 2-foot-high snowdrifts blanketed Ogden Avenue.

Mamie Thomas sat with her coat and hat on, staring at a TV blaring in one corner. Three other women did the same. They were here to pick up their batch of coupons allotted to them by the federal Women, Infants and Children food assistance program.

First, they had to sit through a mandatory nutrition session. Her voice drowned out by the TV, dietitian Helen Chukwu advised them on healthy snacks and exercise. Dancing with the kids does count, she said, smiling. She then led them past the office area and into a kitchen where a beefy man in chef whites waited, the toasty aroma of warm, fried wontons thick in the air.

“I will make this as short and painless as possible,” said the chef, Levatino Harris, rubbing his palms together like a magician. “We do a cooking class in this kitchen. Nowhere else will you find this program.”

The WIC Culinary Program at Sinai, now in its third year, is the first and only one of its kind in the nation. Other WIC sites offer occasional classes, but this is the only year-round cooking program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Harris’ job, aside from teaching the class, is to get women at the Sinai WIC to sign up. That’s half the battle. This half-hour with them, when he can demonstrate a quick recipe and ply them with samples, is his hard sell.

As he filled and folded wonton wrappers (with ground turkey, not pork), he told them the class is free and open to them, their significant others, even their friends. He also mentioned, more than once, that dessert is part of every class.

The half-hour passed quickly. They were free to leave, but not before Harris told them to help themselves to the wontons, which they did, shyly, and to sign up. Mamie Thomas did. One, Harris said, is better than none.

A grant to get going

A culinary program for WIC clients had been on Steve Foley’s wish list for years. Foley, Sinai Community Institute’s director of family services, is a registered dietitian and a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. He knows the good that hands-on, healthy cooking classes can do for a community with so many strikes against it, but he is cognizant of the challenges.

North Lawndale is a food desert with one of the highest rates of diabetes in Chicago. Forty-three percent of households fall below the poverty level, according to U.S. Census data. The 18 percent unemployment rate is triple the city average.

The pregnant women and new moms who come to the WIC center are poor by federal standards and mostly unemployed. Typically, they take a bus or two to get there, often with babies and unwieldy strollers in tow.

“You’re talking about 18- to-25-year-old African-American women who don’t know how to cook at all. Their main options are fast food,” said Foley.

There also are self-imposed hurdles, said Foley, who is black.

“Typically, with African-Americans, we’re stuck on staple foods. We’re not open to trying new things. Say you’re used to eating collard greens. You’re not about to try kale,” he said.

In 2011, Foley secured an $80,000 USDA grant to renovate and outfit the existing kitchen, half of which had been used for a breastfeeding class.

Foley needed someone with “a fun-loving personality, someone who really loved cooking” to run the program. He found it in Harris, 39, a fellow Le Cordon Bleu graduate.

Harris has worked at the Berghoff, in hospital food service and as a personal chef. He even left the kitchen briefly for a steady but ultimately unfulfilling job as a building engineer.

Growing up in Morgan Park, and as a teen, in the notorious K-Town section of North Lawndale, Harris said he can’t remember a time when his mom wasn’t on welfare.

“She did her best to make sure we ate every day,” Harris said. “We didn’t have a lot of fresh stuff. We even had powdered milk. To this day, I can’t believe we used to drink that stuff. But when you’re hungry, those things didn’t matter.”

Some days, it was rice and Spam for dinner, or mashed potatoes from a box, or canned pork and beans — the same foods Harris now steers his students away from.

“Nine times out of 10, they say, ‘I love green beans in a can.’ I say ‘Buy the frozen ones. They’re picked fresh, at the right moment,'” he said.

Hands-on learning

The culinary program got underway in the fall of 2012 at the Sinai Community Institute, 2653 W. Ogden Ave.

Classes run in four-week sessions, every Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. — on paper anyway. Late starts and no-shows are common.

The kitchen looks cook-off ready, with stainless steel work tables, hanging pot racks and eight shiny black GE stoves lining one wall. The stoves aren’t professional-grade; you’d find the same model in a home kitchen.

Same goes for the food. Harris buys ingredients for class at a Jewel in the South Loop. He uses only those foods on the WIC-authorized list.

He goes over food safety and sanitation basics during the first session.

“No nail polish. No hair hanging down. Hands clean. If you touch your pants because you feel your phone vibrating, go wash your hands,” he said.

After that, it’s a matter of showing, not telling. Harris uses recipes he finds online and tweaks to be healthier. He preps ingredients, shows the students each step along the way, and off they go. They leave with full bellies, containers of leftovers and recipes for dishes as varied as blueberry oatmeal, sauteed cod with spinach and chicken marsala.

In a really good week, there might be six students. On a Friday in late January, there was only Josette Hardy, 43, a mother of three and grandmother of three. Class is a way for her to “get out the house,” she said.

But Harris said she was downplaying her interest.

“I had a voicemail from her every day for two weeks leading up to the start,” he said.

Hardy said she cooks at home and uses healthy techniques such as baking, not frying, meat, because of her high blood pressure.

Stirring chopped basil and oregano into a sauce for chicken lasagna, that day’s entree, she acknowledged, “I don’t use [herbs]. I need to start.”

Fresh herbs or a squeeze of citrus instead of dried spice mixes, kosher salt instead of table salt — these are the little changes Harris urges his students to make, because then they lead to bigger ones.

He tells of one woman who kept coming to class, even after having her baby and moving out of the neighborhood, all the way to south suburban Matteson. And another, Tawanda Stange, who was pregnant when she started the class in 2013 and returned after giving birth.

“I love Chef,” said Stange, 40, a former elementary schoolteacher. “He knows how to let you fly. Once you know how to do things, he delegates and helps build you up.”

Stange stopped coming to class because in January, she starting working part-time as a breastfeeding peer counselor at Rush Hospital. She has a side gig, too: Ms. B’s Comfort Cuisine, her new catering business.

She will find out in March if she still qualifies for WIC benefits. She might not. Then again, she said, “At this point, I think I’ll be OK.”

Expanding the scope

The initial USDA grant covered the purchase of video equipment and software. The idea is to make and post videos of the classes online for other WIC sites to access, and ultimately, to replicate the program in other cities, Foley said.

He is considering opening the classes at Sinai to the general public. The kitchen can be and is rented by outside groups for classes and events.

There are untapped research opportunities that could also help expand the program — for example, tracking and evaluating the health outcomes of women who take the classes to see if they fare better than those who don’t, Foley said.

Harris plans to turn the recipes he’s collected into a cookbook and organize a “Taste of WIC” event in the fall that would feature local chefs. He’s aiming for big-name ones like Art Smith.

Harris doesn’t ask the women who express an interest in the class at each Wednesday preview for anything more than their name on a clipboard.

Even with their signatures, even after going down the list and calling each one before the first class to see if indeed they still want to come, he knows they might not actually show up.

Thomas, the woman who signed up at a recent demo, had heard about the class when she was pregnant with her now 2-year-old son. She has a 14-year-old as well.

Thomas, 32, lives a bus ride away, in Englewood. She said she needs the class. She doesn’t cook at all. Her kids eat junk food, she said.

“Me, too. It’s terrible. I guess it’s because of me,” she said.

Last Friday, the day of her first class, she didn’t show up. Harris still had to cook. He made egg fu yung, shrimp fried rice and almond cookies. Staff members down the hall, who have a habit of constantly peeking into the kitchen, ate well that day.

Harris took a break to call Thomas from the kitchen phone.

“Hey, I was looking for you today. You OK?” he said.

She told him the doctor had moved up an appointment for her son to that morning, and asked if she could still come the following week.

“Every Friday, like clockwork,” Harris said. “I’ll be looking for you.”

 

Bird, deconstructed

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

 Link to article

Scrap the fantastical scene running through your head of carving the giant turkey at the table.

For fall-off-the-bone dark meat, succulent white meat and unparalleled gravy, cook the turkey in parts this year.

You lose the carving photo opp, but “the payoff is tremendous,” says Allen Sternweiler, the chef and owner of the recently opened Butcher and the Burger, 1021 W. Armitage.

You think restaurants do the Normal Rockwell thing and roast their turkeys whole? Nope. In the kitchens of the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons Chicago, which combined will feed about 1,300 people on Thanksgiving, chefs break down the birds before cooking them, says spokeswoman Terri Hickey. It enables them to do all sorts of cheffy things, like debone the legs and thighs and turn them into a roulade.

The home cook need not get so fancy (and, in fact, could be spared from breaking down the turkey himself by buying turkey parts, or having the butcher break it down). The current issues of Cook’s Country and sister mag Cook’s Illustrated offer very manageable recipes, the former for turkey parts roasted a day in advance and reheated on Thanksgiving, the latter for braised turkey parts.

The logic of going piecemeal is simple: White meat cooks more quickly than dark meat on the whole bird, so when the breast is done, the legs aren’t quite. And when the legs are done, the breast is dry.

Even the Butterball sages, who year after year advocate a simple, open-pan, whole turkey roasting method but experiment with various techniques in the name of a better bird, are down with the cut-up-and-cook approach. This year, the assignment for Butterball test kitchen staffers was just that — to remove, stuff and roll the breast meat, and roast the rest of the parts separately.

“We’re also seeing that butterflied turkeys, turkeys cut in half — that’s an awesome way of cooking it,” says Mary Klingman, director of the Downers Grove-based Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.

One chef’s approach

Sternweiler has honed his method since 2002, the year he got married and the first time he ever cooked a turkey at home. It takes some effort. If the side dishes mean more to you than the starring protein, it may not be for you. Then again, it may just convert you.

You begin the day before the holiday. Home cooks with decent knife skills and a very sharp knife can start by cutting off the wings, legs and breast. Slather the legs, thighs and breast with salt, peppercorns, garlic, olive oil and herbs such as sage or thyme; let them sit in the refrigerator overnight. (Or, buy bone-in parts and, while you’re at it, ask the butcher for extra turkey bones or chicken bones.)

With the wings, neck, giblets, backbone and, if you’ve got them, extra bones, make stock. Put all the pieces in a pot with aromatics — celery, onion and carrot, but also whole heads of garlic, skins on and cut in half, mushroom stems, herb stems, bay leaves and peppercorns — and enough water to cover. Simmer away for 3 hours.

“You’re not going to extract any more out of those bones after 31/2 hours,” Sternweiler says. Strain, cool and refrigerate the stock.

On Thanksgiving morning, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Take the legs and breast out of the refrigerator and let them come to room temperature.

Brown the legs on the stovetop in a roasting pan with olive oil and butter. Remove them, then add a few handfuls of chopped carrots, celery and onion and a teaspoon of salt. After caramelizing for 15 minutes or so, deglaze with a bit of white wine.

Add the legs back in with the stock from the previous day. Bring to a simmer, cover and place in the oven to braise for, again, roughly 3 hours. (This is for a 16-pounder; figure a little less for a smaller bird, longer for a bigger bird, but really, there’s no need to worry about overcooking the leg meat.)

“Essentially, you’re making a double turkey stock,” Sternweiler says. And extremely tender leg meat.

Remove the legs and strain the stock, leaving a pile of mirepoix and just enough stock to slick the bottom of the pan. Turn the oven up to 350 degrees.

Lay the legs back down in the pan, skin side up, place the breast on top and roast for about 11/2 hours, or until the breast hits 155 degrees. It will reach 165 degrees, the target temperature, out of the oven, Sternweiler says.

Meanwhile, reduce the rest of the stock in a saucepan. Sternweiler likes to whisk in a few pats of butter and chopped parsley before serving. To go further, whisk some flour into buttermilk, then whisk that into the jus. Gravy, baby.

“Honestly, I don’t know how the hell you’re going to make a better gravy or au jus,” Sternweiler says.

Let the meat rest for 20 to 30 minutes before slicing, says Sternweiler. While you’re at it, add any accumulated juices from the resting turkey into the now-concentrated jus.

And if you still crave a camera-worthy moment? Carve the breast, now textbook-tender, at the table.

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ROASTING IT WHOLE

So you’d rather stick with roasting the whole turkey?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Butterball swear by the classic open-pan method — roasting the unstuffed bird in a shallow pan at 325 degrees, until the breast measures 165 degrees and the thigh measures 180 degrees. About two-thirds of the way through, Butterball suggests tenting the breast lightly with foil.

Chicago chef Allen Sternweiler, who prefers cookng a turkey in parts, isn’t opposed to roasting it whole, either (and stuffed, for that matter, though the USDA isn’t keen on that part).

Sternweiler’s way: Roast the stuffed bird breast side down at 300 degrees. In the last 15 minutes of cooking, crank the oven to 450 degrees, flip the turkey breast side up and finish cooking.

Many chefs, Sternweiler included, recommend pulling the bird out when the meat measures 155 degrees. As the turkey rests for a good 20 minutes out of the oven — an essential step — the internal temperature will rise to 165.

However you choose to roast, the key tool here is a meat thermometer.

50 juicy ways to eat tomatoes

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
August 19, 2009

 

There are a multitude of reasons to love August in Chicago. Let’s whittle it down to the two most obvious ones:

It’s not winter. And, tomatoes.

What is it about tomatoes that makes us gush as if recalling our first kiss?

What other vegetable — or fruit, technically — prompts even the most timid gardeners to get their hands dirty in their urban plots (or pots), and goads veteran green thumbs to one-up themselves with each season, filling their gardens with all sorts of gorgeous, misshapen heirloom varieties?

“More than any other vegetable, it’s immediately accessible,” says cookbook author Ronni Lundy, whose own affair with the tomato caused her to write a book on it, In Praise of Tomatoes (Chronicle Books, 2006). “You don’t have to do anything. You just have to let it ripen to the point that it’s ready to burst.

“Then you can take it off the vine and put it in your mouth and bite, and what you get is that essence of summer and growing. You taste the sun, you taste the earth. That sounds really fanciful, really poetical, but it’s literal. It is literally the truth.”

The other truth about tomatoes — and excuse us as we wipe the drool from our keyboard — is that now is the time to start tasting the best.

Get out of the supermarket produce section; if you can, head to a farmers market. Or make nice with that green-thumbed neighbor of yours. Tomatoes are summer, folks. Lap it up.

If you grow your own tomatoes, you soon will find yourself with more than enough. If you know someone who grows their own, you might find yourself the lucky recipient of some of that bumper crop (tomato people are usually generous that way).

Either way, here are 50 ideas for using up tomatoes and making the rest of your summer an especially fruitful one. No offense, zucchini.

1. Slice, sprinkle with salt and eat.

2. Slather a bagel with cream cheese and top with sliced tomatoes. On a related note, cookbook author Ronni Lundy recommends spreading butter on toasted bread, topping with sliced tomatoes and dusting with salt and pepper. “Incredible,” she says.

3. Snack as the Spaniards do on pan con tomate. Rub slices of grilled bread with a cut garlic clove, then a tomato half. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Top with cheese, ham or an anchovy if you like.

4. Freeze extras. You’ll thank yourself this winter. Wash tomatoes and remove stems and cores. The University of Illinois Extension suggests either leaving them whole or halving or quartering them before placing in freezer bags. Or, stew them first before packing in bags. Frozen tomatoes are best used in soups, stews and sauces.

5. Turn sliced tomatoes into a gratin, with a topping of bread crumbs and grated Parmesan and a finishing splash of heavy cream.

6. Toss warm pasta with cherry or grape tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, herbs and Parmesan or pecorino cheese.

7. Make a cold soup — gazpacho.

8. Make a warm soup — Mark Bittman’s Charred Tomato Bisque from his new book, Kitchen Express (Simon & Schuster, $26).

Broil thinly sliced tomatoes with a few smashed garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and pepper until tomatoes start to blacken; remove garlic when golden. Puree everything with cream and basil leaves. Warm and serve (though Bittman says this is great cold, too).

9. Build a BLT. Thick-cut bacon, bibb lettuce (or iceberg, or arugula, or whatever green you prefer) and mayo on toasted bread. Gild the lily with sliced avocado, as is done at Chicago’s Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread & Wine shops.

10. Make a quick salsa by mixing together chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, minced chile pepper, cilantro and lime juice.

11. Slow-roast gobs of plum tomatoes. Drizzle halves (you also can use grape, cherry or pear tomatoes) with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for a few hours on low heat (250 degrees or so) until soft and shriveled. Store in olive oil in the refrigerator. Use in pastas and salads, on sandwiches, with cheese and crackers.

12. Grill hefty slices of beefsteak tomatoes. Enjoy in a sandwich, on salads or on their own.

13. Make your favorite pasta sauce.

14. Dip cherry tomatoes in mayonnaise, then in sunflower seeds — a fun finger food idea from the inimitable Martha Stewart.

15. Make jam. Here’s a version from the playbook of canning fiend Paul Virant, chef and owner of Vie in Western Springs:

Blanch, peel, seed and dice 10 pounds of plum tomatoes (reserving the juice). Cook tomatoes in 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper until dry. Add 1/2 pound of sugar and cook until caramelized. Deglaze with reserved tomato juice and a bottle of white wine. Cook until thick. Cool and refrigerate.

16. Make carpaccio out of very thinly sliced tomatoes, sprinkled with salt, pepper and capers.

17. Toss with watermelon for an unusual, refreshing salad. At Province, 161 N. Jefferson, chef Randy Zweiban combines heirloom tomatoes, watermelon and avocado with an aged sherry vinaigrette.

18. Give Heinz a break — try your hand at homemade ketchup.

19. Cool down with tomato sorbet.

“Most people do not associate tomatoes as a dessert, but by definition, tomatoes are considered a fruit and have a blend of sweet and savory properties,” says Four Seasons Chicago pastry chef Scott Gerken. “When you bring those out, it makes for a ‘wowing’ dessert.”

Gerken serves an heirloom tomato sorbet with sweet corn creme brulee and caramel popcorn at the hotel, while chef Michael McDonald of one sixtyblue, 1400 W. Randolph, makes a yellow tomato sorbet to accompany a spicy Bloody Mary gazpacho.

20. Dip thick slices of firm, green tomatoes in milk, dredge in cornmeal and fry.

21. Stuff cherry tomatoes with herbed goat cheese.

22. Stuff large tomatoes with any number of salads — tuna, egg, chicken, rice.

23. Construct a Caprese salad — sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, torn basil leaves, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Make it portable by threading skewers with cherry tomatoes, basil leaves and mozzarella chunks marinated in olive oil and garlic.

24. Another salad combo to try — tomato, fennel, arugula, orange segments and shaved Manchego cheese. It’s a favorite of chef James Gottwald of Rockit, 22 W. Hubbard.

25. Combine tomatoes with other summer fruits — peaches or plums — for an out-of-the-ordinary crisp or crumble.

26. Make a consomme. Here’s Kendall College chef John Bubala’s favorite recipe:

Pass 18 plum tomatoes, diced, and 2 fennel bulbs, diced, through a juicer; you should have about 4 cups of liquid. Slowly bring liquid to a boil in a saucepan; it will separate. Skim foam off the top and strain the clear liquid through cheesecloth.

Season with up to 2 teaspoons sugar (depending on ripeness of tomatoes) and salt to taste. Serve hot or cold.

Or, Bubala jokes, “Add a shot of vodka and your mother-in-law will think you are drinking water instead of Bloody Marys.”

27. Combine chopped tomatoes with chunks of bread, cucumber, onion and a vinaigrette for panzanella, an Italian salute to day-old bread and, of course, tomatoes.

28. Clean a copper pot. Tomato juice works just as well as lemon because of its acidity, says Shelley Young, owner of the Chopping Block cooking school in Lincoln Square and the Merchandise Mart.

29. Shake up the Tomato Mojitonico, a signature of Nacional 27 mixologist Adam Seger. It’s a muddled concoction of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, a lime wedge, a handful of herbs, rum and tonic water.

30. Roll out a pizza Margherita with slices of ripe tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil leaves.

31. Simmer together tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, onions and bell peppers to make ratatouille, a Provencal stew.

32. Make subzi, a Middle Eastern version of ratatouille and one of author Lundy’s favorites. Saute chopped onions in olive oil until soft. Grind cumin seeds, coriander and cloves; add to onions along with sliced garlic. Add chopped summer squash, chopped tomatoes with their juice, a bit of turmeric and salt. Cook for 30 minutes. Serve over rice, couscous, even cornbread, Lundy says.

33. Enjoy a no-frills Filipino breakfast of sliced tomatoes, fried fish or longanisa (a sweet pork sausage), a hard-boiled egg and rice — all doused with fish sauce.

34. Layer sliced tomatoes over ricotta cheese or another soft cheese in a pastry crust for a savory tart. Dress up the cheese with herbs or roasted garlic, says chef Mark Mendez of Carnivale, 702 W. Fulton. If you parbake the crust first, it won’t get soggy, he says.

35. Use tomato juice or shredded tomatoes in chocolate cake or zucchini bread as a tenderizer. “If a recipe calls for milk, you can use the juice instead,” the Chopping Block’s Young says.

36. Make a savory play on cherry clafoutis, a French dessert kind of like a big baked pancake, by baking tomatoes in a bath of eggs, cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano, suggests French cooking authority Patricia Wells suggests.

37. Whip up a tomato vinaigrette. Here’s the preferred method of one of my best friends, who picked it up out of a magazine long ago: Simply rub tomato halves on the side of a box grater. Whisk in red wine vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, minced garlic and herbs, if you like, and salt and pepper.

38. Go Greek. Toss tomato wedges with feta, oregano cucumbers and red wine vinegar.

39. Have a low-maintenance fish dinner, courtesy of Diana Henry’s Pure Simple Cooking (Ten Speed Press, $21.95). Roast olive oil-slicked cherry tomatoes, potatoes and fennel, place fish fillets seasoned with salt and pepper on top of veggies and pop back in oven until fish is cooked through.

40. Dress tomato wedges with a perky mint vinaigrette — extra-virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, minced garlic and chopped mint.

41. Poach in olive oil. Carnivale’s Mendez throws tiny tomatoes, a few garlic heads and a handful of herbs in a pot and covers all with olive oil.

“We won’t even cook ’em,” Mendez says. “Just put them in a very warm place in the kitchen, like above the stove, and leave them there.” The tomatoes get super soft; when the skins start to slide off, they’re ready.

Serve poached tomatoes with grilled fish, or puree with a bit of the steeping oil and vinegar for a sauce or vinaigrette.

42. Mix chopped tomatoes with chopped olives, capers, onion, parsley (and any other herbs you like), olive oil and red wine vinegar. It’s a lovely relish for fish.

43. Gently cook down peeled, seeded tomatoes with olive oil. Stewed tomatoes can go far as a base for sauces, soups, vinaigrettes and more, says chef Chris Pandel of the Bristol, 2152 N. Damen.

44. Try with peach wedges for another summery combination.

45. Make a Romesco sauce. Spiaggia chef Tony Mantuano’s version in Wine Bar Food (Clarkson Potter, $27.50) is a puree of plum tomatoes, roasted peppers, bread, ancho chili, garlic, almonds, hazelnuts, parsley, sherry vinegar and olive oil. It’s the perfect vehicle for dipping grilled veggies.

46. Fold chopped tomatoes, onions and Cheddar into scrambled eggs.

47. Make fattoush, a lemony Lebanese salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, radishes, mint, parsley and toasted pita pieces.

48. Toast as Martha (Stewart, that is) does — pour a cocktail of chilled aquavit or vodka and fresh tomato juice, made by pureeing tomatoes in a food processor and straining the juice.

49. Make Tomatoes Provencal the Julia Child way, from Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom (Knopf, 2000). Fill halved, seeded and juiced tomatoes with a mixture of 1/2 cup fresh white bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons minced shallots or scallions, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil and bake in a 400-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned.

50. Top slices with blue cheese, drizzle with oil and broil until oozing.

 

Tailgating, Chicago-style: Weather never stops diehard fans of asphalt dining

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
September 13, 2000

Three hours and 45 minutes before the start of the Northwestern football season, and not a second too soon, Lake View resident Tom Cooney works the rub onto four perfect pork roasts and eases them into the smoker.

The meat, 12 pounds in all, won’t be ready until the fourth quarter rolls around, which one would assume makes it the main course.

Until you factor in the 16 pounds of skirt steak, 5 pounds of grilled shrimp, 10 pounds of Italian sausage and a whole mess of homegrown peppers and onions that will be eaten before the pork is even halfway to medium rare.

Welcome to the wonderful world of tailgating.

This, in particular, is the world of the Cooneys — brothers Tom, 48, and Gene, 39, and cousin Mike, 39 — and their extended family of friends, many of whom grew up together on the North Side.

In 1990, four of them bought Northwestern season tickets. It was the pre-Rose Bowl era. The team was awful. Someone forgot to bring utensils for the cookout.

The team isn’t so awful now, but this group of tailgaters — which fluctuates between 10 and 25 people, depending on the game — has never failed to gather before each game for food, drinks and laughs.

This game, the season opener against Northern Illinois, falls on a sunny, humid Thursday. There is hardly a breeze. Of course, as any tailgater will tell you, the weather is merely a small piece of the whole.

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. By 3:01, after the parking lot opens, the grills and coolers already are on the concrete. “To me, it’s not just a game, it’s an event,” said construction worker Tony Bullaro, sipping a beer in the shade of a white canopy.

Which brings us to Tailgating Truth No. 1: To weed out fair weather fans from a team’s true groupies, one need not look much farther than the parking lot.

Who else would get up at the crack of dawn on a weekend or skip out early from work during the week to brave subzero wind chills, sleeting rain and miserable heat for something grilled to eat and cold to drink?

“There’s probably a high correlation between diehard tailgaters and diehard fans,” said Luke Lincoln, co-founder of the American Tailgater Co., a Chicago-based catalog company. “It’s such an integral part of the game day experience now.”

Lincoln, 31, and his 41-year-old brother, Mike, both graduates of Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, dreamed up the idea for their company, which tests and sells tailgating products, while tailgating. They expanded onto the Internet (www.americantailgater.com) with a link to the Tailgater, a monthly Webzine featuring recipes and fan message boards, the editors of which met the Lincolns while tailgating.

Which brings us to Tailgating Truth No. 2: Tailgating fosters camaraderie and, in some cases, golden business ideas.

Indeed, the ritual for many fans is to gather both before and after the game. Regulars say it helps ease traffic flow. And who could argue with a few extra hours of hanging out with friends?

“There are so many prime returners, and they thrive on it,” said Marcia Buchs, marketing coordinator for the Chicago Bears, who is in charge of Bears-sponsored tailgate parties at Soldier Field. “I have people who beat me in line before I even get to the field, and I have to be there 3 1/2 hours early.

“I know probably the first 100 people who drive in by name. It’s Dale and Marie, then it’s Sue, then Joe. It’s kind of like the people you work with. Everyone arrives in the same format.”

Back at Ryan Field, Gene Cooney surveys the scene. “Tailgating is like going camping for a day,” said Cooney, a broker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. “It’s a living room, that piece of pavement. You set up chairs, make it as comfortable as possible. You’ve got to be as hospitable as possible.”

Cooney, his relatives, Tom and Mike, and his good friend, Tom Lauletta, are the main force behind each tailgate. Lauletta, 39, a big guy with a big laugh, is known as “The Sergeant” because he delegates who brings what.

Cooney always brings his “Merminated Skirt Steaks,” sliced thin and marinated overnight in a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, garlic, tequila and a few other ingredients. He got the recipe years ago from a friend who couldn’t pronounce the word “marinated.”

His cousin, Mike, brings the rest of the meat, including a long coil of hot Italian sausages. Michael Farella buys crusty hard rolls by the bagful.

John Gschwind brings his trademark “All Day Potatoes,” essentially potato gratin on steroids. Gschwind lines the bottom of a large foil roasting pan with strips of bacon, then layers on sliced potatoes, onions, smoked sausage, spices and pats of butter.

Which brings us to Tailgating Truth No. 3: A tailgate without good food, and lots of it, is pointless.

“Too much food is key,” says lawyer Julie Workman, 25, an avid Bears tailgater with husband, Jamie. “Running out is a big mistake. Sometimes what you’ll see happen is people trading food with the people next to them.”

A food shortage is highly unlikely with Cooney’s group. By 6 p.m., the grilled shrimp and “merminated” steak are gone. Next up are Italian sausages.

To pass time, some guys play cards. Others sit back and shoot the breeze. The sizzle of the grill works its magic, drawing a few stragglers like Doug Winter to the canopy.

“These guys have made tailgating an art form,” said Winter, whose family has had season tickets for 52 years. He isn’t part of the group, but he’s no stranger. He met them tailgating and looks for them now before games.

When the sausages are ready, Winter falls in line. Grab a roll, then a link. Top with peppers and onions. Like clockwork.

Later, the “All Day Potatoes” take their place on the grate. These will cook during the game. A few guys stay behind to watch the food and equipment.

The Wildcats win 35-17. Even later, the pork roast emerges from the smoker, dripping with juice, as expected. With the potatoes and whatever drinks are left in the coolers, dinner is served.

The season’s looking good already.