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.

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.

Noodle recipe secured at last

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
February 3, 2010

Would someone share a recipe for an Asian dish called pancit?

— B.R., Chicago

Oh, B.R., if only it were that simple.

B.R.’s request ran in our Swap Shop column last week, and I immediately felt compelled to help.

Pancit is to the Philippines, my parents’ native country, what baguettes are to France. It’s what hot dogs are to Chicago.

Americans bring a bottle of wine or a clutch of flowers to a party; Filipinos bring pancit (and lumpia — but that’s another story.)

Pancit means “noodles,” but they’re not just noodles.

There are about a zillion variations, largely depending on the type of the noodle but also on all the colorful garnishes. The ones I’m familiar with include pancit canton (egg noodles), pancit bihon and palabok (rice stick noodles), pancit sotanghon (bean thread or cellophane noodles) and pancit luglug (thicker rice noodles).

Some versions mix two types of noodles. Chicago chef Jennifer Aranas’ book, The Filipino-American Kitchen, lists at least four renditions I’ve never heard of.

Also, no two Filipinos make pancit the same way, and all Filipinos, as a general rule, cook their native dishes from memory, not paper.

You see, B.R., how complicated this can get.

And here’s where I need to confess: I don’t really cook pancit. I mean, I have cooked it, and God knows how many times I’ve watched my mom make it (which is every time my parents are in town from Kansas).

But I’ve never written down the steps, never measured the ingredients. It’s just not part of my small but sturdy repertoire of Filipino dishes that are second nature to me.

So, naturally, I called my mom.

This, loosely, is how the first of our three pancit-related conversations began:

So if I asked you for your recipe for pancit, could you tell me?

Mom: Pause. “Well, I don’t measure anything.” Pause. “And it depends on which type you want to make.”

What about pancit bihon?

Mom: “OK. You start by soaking the noodles in warm water, just until they’re pliable. Then you slice your pork–”

What cut of pork?

Mom: “Whatever. I like the loin. But it depends on what you like. You can use pork chops if you have them. But then you should boil the bones to make stock and use that stock later to cook the noodles. But I use the loin.” (It is also safe to say that Mom likes to use whatever is on sale. I’m just saying.)

And on we went.

My mom threw me for a loop when she said she usually adds julienned snow peas for crunch. I always remembered carrots, celery, cabbage, dried mushrooms (wood ear, she tells me) and sometimes French-cut green beans — but never snow peas. She insisted. I insisted. My head started to hurt after a while, so I had to hang up.

No matter — the point of pancit is, it’s up to you. It’s what you like. My mom marinates her meat in a mixture of soy sauce, sherry and a bit of sugar before browning it; other cooks don’t.

Mom also usually fries up thin slices of lap cheong (Chinese sausage). Sometimes, she uses chicken instead of pork. Sometimes, she uses the fantastic four: chicken, pork, lap cheong and shrimp.

Marvin Gapultos, who writes the Burnt Lumpia blog (burntlumpia.typepad.com), knows where I’m coming from.

Like me, Gapultos was born in the States to Filipino parents. And like me, the 32-year-old had made pancit “once or twice” in his adult life before he figured it was time to pay attention.

“No one really ever measures,” says Gapultos, who lives in the Los Angeles area. “That’s a difficult thing with Filpinos and Filipino food. There’s that hurdle when you’re trying to learn.”

Gapultos has tackled pancit canton and his grandmother’s pancit sotanghon on his blog (after watching her make it and approximating the measurements). Now, like every Filipino worth his salt, Gapultos has come up with his own version of pancit canton.

He sautes thinly sliced pork belly, rendering the fat. To the pan, he adds chopped onion, garlic and head-on shrimp (“That’s where all the flavor comes from,” he says), and then a little water, soy sauce and patis (fish sauce) to deglaze the pan.

When the shrimp are just cooked, he removes them from the pan, then adds the vegetables — cabbage, carrots, green beans — and dried egg noodles. When the noodles are tender, the shrimp go back in. A good toss, and Gapultos’ pancit is ready to go.

I was ready to cook. One more call to my mom, a bit more discussion and note-taking and I had the “recipe” for the pancit bihon I’ve known all my life.

B.R., I can’t guarantee that you’ll like this, or that it’ll taste just like my mom’s. But you can always tweak it to make it your own — isn’t that the beauty of cooking?

Or you could call my mom.

PANCIT BIHON, RAUSA-STYLE

Makes 8 to 10 servings

The quality of bihon (rice stick) noodles varies from brand to brand, so experiment to find the one you like. My mom prefers the Excellent brand, made from a combination of rice and cornstarch. Bihon noodles and Chinese sausage (lap cheong) can be found at Asian markets.

• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sherry
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 11/2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 cups pork loin, sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 16 ounces bihon (rice stick) noodles
• 1/2 cup dried wood ear or shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Chinese sausage links, thinly sliced
• 11/2 cups julienned carrots
• 11/2 cups julienned celery
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 1 to 11/2 cups chicken stock or water

Mix together soy sauce, sherry, sugar, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Reserve 1/3 of the marinade. Add pork to remaining marinade and let sit while you prepare the other ingredients.

Rinse noodles several times in warm water to soften. Cover with warm water in a large bowl and let soak 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Rinse mushrooms well, cover in water and microwave for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In a large wok or saute pan, heat the oil on medium-high. Add onion and garlic and saute until fragrant. Add pork and saute until cooked, then add the Chinese sausage and saute until cooked. Add mushrooms and saute 1 minute. Add carrots, celery and cabbage in that order, stirring after each addition; cook until vegetables are crisp-tender.

Add noodles to the pan, tossing well. Mix broth or water with reserved marinade, then pour over noodles to moisten, tossing well. Check and adjust seasoning with soy sauce and black pepper. Serve with lime wedges.

Elisa Rausa

Moving on after loss of Gourmet

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
October 21, 2009

I’m still digesting the fact that Gourmet magazine is no more. So is Ruth Reichl.

“It feels like it’s been more than a week,” Reichl told me by phone last week. “But then it feels like I’ll wake up and go into the office and everybody will be there.”

Since Conde Nast announced it was pulling the plug on what was arguably the nation’s most revered food publication, Reichl, Gourmet’s editor-in-chief for the past 10 years, has been straddling a surreal line between what came before and what lies ahead.

She was in the middle of promoting the magazine’s newest cookbook, Gourmet Today. The day after cleaning out her office, she flew to Kansas City for an appearance.

“This restaurateur had bought all of these incredible local ingredients for this dinner,” she said wistfully.

While traveling, Reichl posted this on her Twitter feed: “At Newark airport. Stopped to buy sandwich (no time to eat today), and the woman behind the counter said, ‘I’m so sorry; this one’s on me.’ ”

The rest of the food world, meanwhile, has feasted on the how, what and whys of the closure.

Gourmet was a thing of beauty, sure, but no longer relevant, some argued.

It was a relic in a fast-moving, virtual world.

Its Web presence was too little, too late.

It was Conde Nast’s fault.

It was the consulting firm McKinsey’s fault.

On Forbes.com, Saveur publisher Merri Lee Kingsly unfurled a victory banner: “Without Gourmet, Saveur is the only real travel, culture and foodie magazine left. It was the two of us, now it’s only us.”

Ouch.

Reichl hasn’t bothered tracking all the outsider analysis — “I have thousands of e-mails that haven’t been opened yet” — but she’s familiar with the criticism.

“It’s sort of irritating to hear . . . that this was a magazine for older people,” she said. “In Kansas City, one woman came up to me and said, ‘I’m 33 and I’ve been subscribing to this magazine for 20 years. What am I gonna do now?’

“I think the facts about [Gourmet] were very clear,” Reichl said. “It was a magazine that depended on exactly the kind of advertising that went away during the recession. This was not an issue of circulation. Circulation was at its highest point ever.”

Still, the comparisons to Bon Appetit — Conde Nast’s other food magazine that was spared the ax — are inevitable. Bon Appetit has a higher circulation and, in many people’s view, is the more recipe-driven, user-friendly of the two, another point that seems to get under Reichl’s skin.

“I don’t know that much about Bon Appetit,” she said. “It’s not like I sat there and read it all the time. When I was a restaurant critic, I didn’t read other critics’ reviews. As a magazine editor, you don’t want to think about what other people are doing. You want to focus on what you’re doing.”

Recipes mattered in Reichl’s world at Gourmet, but they were not all that mattered.

“We had eight test kitchens. Our recipes were foolproof. They were guaranteed. We tested those recipes to literal absurdity. But I very much didn’t want to make this magazine just about recipes.

“It’s true I pulled back on the number of recipes that were printed, because there was so much I felt we needed to cover. It was a magazine that was very much about travel and very much about food as culture and food as politics.”

The magazine’s first article on sushi ran — “Can you guess when?” Reichl challenged me — in 1955.

– – –

I can’t stop thinking about how terrible — and terribly ironic — the timing of all this is.

Reichl was globetrotting for most of the summer, filming a new public television show, “Gourmet’s Adventures with Ruth,” in which she and actor friends, among them Frances McDormand and Lorraine Bracco, visit cooking schools in Laos, Morocco, Tennessee and beyond. The show premiered Saturday.

Gourmet Today was five years in the making; Reichl was in the midst of promoting the book this month.

The November issue of Gourmet — the final issue — has three different Thanksgiving spreads (vegetarian, Southern and Pennsylvania Dutch-inspired) and one on alternative Thanksgiving desserts. There is a story about chefs on a hunting trip in the Canadian wilderness and a travel piece on the Adirondacks.

It’s a festive, bittersweet issue. After all, we’re entering the holiday season.

– – –

Reichl’s decade at Gourmet “was the longest I’ve been anywhere.”

“I’m sort of amazed that I was there this long,” she chuckled.

She sees a full plate ahead. She hopes to continue with the TV show (though that’s up in the air) and see her 2006 book, Garlic and Sapphires, about her years as a dining critic, make it to the big screen (it’s in script revisions, she said.)

“I imagine I will get involved with some of the school food stuff, because I think it’s something we all have to pay attention to,” she said. “We have this serious obesity crisis in this country, and we won’t solve that until we teach children to eat better.”

Three stops on the Gourmet Today book tour have been re-scheduled for the next two weeks, a spokeswoman for publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said.

The cookbook is massive — 1,008 pages, 1,043 recipes. It is “the answer to anybody who says Gourmet was old-fashioned and only had difficult recipes,” Reichl said. “More than half of the recipes can be done in under half an hour.”

Her go-to recipe for evenings at home: Fried Rice with Eggs and Scallions.

“Oddly, that’s exactly what I made last night,” she said. “It’s very comforting to me.”

Paging through the book, I can only hope that cooks will treat it not as a souvenir for the shelf but rather, as Reichl says, a book you can and should cook from.

The magazine itself is another matter. I have the past few issues on my nightstand and already, they feel a bit like museum pieces.

And then I think of a recent chat I had with Chris Koetke, the dean of culinary arts at Kendall College.

“I think of my culinary students. In five years from now, none of them will know what Gourmet meant,” Koetke said. “It’s sort of like when a great chef retires. Time marches on.”

Frontier Tavern’s whole animal menu features alligators, pigs and more

By Janet Rausa Fuller
DNAinfo.com Chicago
July 22, 2013
Link to article

WEST TOWN — Diners at Frontier tend to go whole hog — or goat, or alligator — when ordering their meal.

The West Town tavern at 1072 N. Milwaukee Ave. has become known for its whole animal dinner service. Each week, it books 15 to 20 such dinners for intrepid customers with Andrew Zimmern-like appetites.

But pig and wild boar, the two most popular choices, apparently aren’t enough. Chef Brian Jupiter said he is looking to add whole llama to the menu in the next month.

“I’m always looking at being able to expand,” said Jupiter, a New Orleans native weaned on alligator and other exotic meat. “It’s just a matter of time before someone else does it.”

Restaurants from coast to coast have embraced the nose-to-tail philosophy, but Frontier appears to be that rare restaurant with a permanent whole animal menu.

“Everybody says they’re farm-to-table. I like to say we’re wild-to-table,” Jupiter said.

Frontier has been game meat-focused since opening in 2011. The space, with its exposed timber, has a lodge-like feel, which dictated the menu, Jupiter said.

“We had some game to be unique, and then customers wanted more. Now, purveyors will call me in the morning and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got iguana,’ ” he said.

There are six whole animals from which to choose: alligator, goat, lamb, pig, wild boar and suckling pig. Side dishes (mac ‘n’ cheese, Caesar salad, succotash, Johnny cakes) round out the meal.

The dinners, which cost between $550 and $600 and serve 12 to 15 people, must be booked at least five days in advance. The suckling pig serves six to eight and costs $300.

Patrons who book a whole animal dinner are overwhelmingly male. Alligator, which went on the menu about 10 months ago, is a bachelor party magnet.

“It’s fun and it’s educational,” Jupiter said. “People in American have been eating game meat for years and years. Talk about sustainable — these are wild animals.”

On Saturday, Jupiter had 10 animals in the smoker or ready to go — six pigs, two boars, a lamb and an alligator.

The alligator and one pig were for Frontier regular Stephen Lee, who was celebrating his 36th birthday that evening with 30 friends. He stopped by in the afternoon to watch Jupiter skin the gator.

“I wanted to do something exciting and crazy and fun and different, and only ‘Jup’ can do this,” Lee said, snapping photos on his iPhone. More than a few times, he touched the gator’s skin.

“It’s sick, man. So amazing,” Lee said as he watched Jupiter work his blade under the skin. “Is it fatty?”

“No,” Jupiter said. “Gator’s leaner than chicken.”

The gators come from Louisiana. After skinning, Jupiter rubs them with spices, stuffs them with chicken, roasts and smokes them.

In early July, Jupiter added a whole Skuna Bay salmon to the menu as a “lighter option,” with female customers in mind. He bakes the 12-pound fish under a thick blanket of salt and cracks it open tableside.

He is working with Bensenville-based distributor Fortune Fish and Gourmet to source baby llama, which he is confident his customers will appreciate. He’s done a few llama dishes here and there, to rave reviews.

“There’s some llama coming out of Wisconsin, and it’s something I feel would go over well,” Jupiter said. “We don’t have true red meat options, so I would like to have something there to satisfy meat eaters.”

Because llama is so lean, he figures he’ll wrap the whole animal in beef caul fat before smoking it.

And no, llama does not taste like chicken.

It’s more like antelope or deer but “a little less of a game flavor,” Jupiter said.

The Fish Guy knows his pizza

By Janet Rausa Fuller
DNAinfo.com Chicago
December 20, 2012
Link to article

MAYFAIR — Bill Dugan is not a pizza guy.

His Elston Avenue shop, now in its 17th year, is called the Fishguy Market, after all.

But the pizzas coming out of his little, blistering hot oven might be the best, least-hyped pizzas you’ve never had.

“They’re out of control,” said chef Homaro Cantu of moto and iNG restaurants, who was in for lunch Tuesday, his third time in less than a week.

Dugan has made his living supplying seafood to many of the city’s top chefs. A year ago, he turned part of his retail space into a 14-seat dining area called Wellfleet, a spinoff of his popular pop-up dinners by the same name.

The plan was to serve lunch and dinner. Dinner didn’t really take off, so Dugan axed it after six months. But lunch service has been steady, and the pizzas, which recall the New Haven-style ones of Dugan’s youth, have their devotees.

“Laura, Dennis … ,” said Wellfleet chef Janet Flores, ticking off the names of the regulars who come in at least twice a week for pizza.

Pizza isn’t the only item on the lunch menu (which Dugan has kept simple and, obviously, seafood-focused), but it has become something of an obsession.

Dugan said he spent more than two years developing the mother starter for the dough, “and we’re still working on it,” he said. The natural gas oven, custom-built by a friend, has a single, rotating stone that can fire up a crust at 800 degrees.

This being a seafood market, not a pizzeria, diners don’t have a laundry list of toppings from which to choose. It’s pretty much one pizza daily, chef’s whim.

Some weeks it’s white pizza with fresh clams, a nod to Dugan’s upbringing in Fairfield, Conn. When it’s lobster season, an entire lobster goes into a single pie. He’ll do a margherita for the kids. If he has mushrooms, he’ll use them. He’ll use fish cheeks, too. Lately, he has been featuring lox-style balik salmon, cured in-house.

You can order the pizzas to go, but why would you? They take all of two minutes to cook. Adds Dugan: “To-go pizza is horrible. I just don’t think it makes sense. I’m the first one to say, ‘Hey, why don’t you just sit down and eat?’ ”

He has toyed with the idea of offering a pizza-making class in the same vein as the sushi-making classes he did for years until his sushi chef left. But then, the fish guy doesn’t want to overextend himself.

“The whole idea was to complement the market,” he said. “My philosophy is, stick to what you know.”

At Edzo’s, a fair shake is what you get

By Janet Rausa Fuller
Chicago Sun-Times
September 8, 2010
Link to article

“Did you just order a five dollar shake? . . . That’s a shake. That’s milk and ice cream.”

“Last I heard.”

“That’s five dollars? You don’t put bourbon in it or nothin’?”

Vincent Vega, John Travolta’s character in “Pulp Fiction,” found the idea of a $5 milkshake hard to swallow.

This hasn’t been the case for customers at Edzo’s Burger Shop in Evanston, where the Five Dollar Shake on the menu costs four bucks. So far, no one has raised an eyebrow.

“I’m kind of surprised because it is kind of a lot for a milkshake,” says owner and chef Eddie Lakin.

And no, he didn’t name the shake as a nod to filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s cult hit, though he says somewhere in his subconscious, that scene from the movie must have been floating.

“We called it that because we were figuring out a way to charge for it,” Lakin says. “And the second day, somebody was like, ‘”Pulp Fiction,” right?’ I was like, ‘Ohhh, right.’ ”

Edzo’s, which opened last fall, got a recent boost from Bon Appetit. The magazine in its September issue pays homage to cheap eats in Chicago, calling out Edzo’s and its “ultra-creamy” shakes.

So what’s the secret? Super premium, hand-churned ice cream?

Not really, says Lakin. “We use a standard vanilla ice cream — Kemp’s.”

Organic, artisanal, farm-fresh mix-ins?

Kind of, but not really, he says. “We use coffee extract from the Spice House in our coffee shake, and real bananas in our banana shake. We don’t do a strawberry shake specifically because I don’t want to use a fake strawberry flavor, or rock-hard supermarket berries.”

The real secret, Lakin says, is the shop’s old-school Multimixer machine.

“It’s the main deal — the old spindle-type machine with metal cups. They whip at a lower speed,” Lakin says. “With a blender, more air gets whipped in. With the spindle, it stays very dense.”

The machine, a five-spindle eBay find, fits with the vintage vibe Lakin is going for. “It’s Art Deco-looking, but it also makes better shakes,” he says.

Also appealing to Lakin: The machine was made in Illinois by Sterling Multi Products.

In fact, the mixers are still being made just as they were when the company started in 1939, “with the same old dies and everything,” says Debbie Springman, whose father bought Sterling in the 1960s.

The company is in Prophetstown, about 130 miles west of Chicago. Sterling also makes equipment for John Deere and the heating and air conditioning industries, but the Multimixer has been a constant through the years.

This is the same mixer that a salesman named Ray Kroc sold to a California burger joint run by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. Kroc went on to start the McDonald’s chain.

At Edzo’s, there are nine flavors of the Five Dollar Shake. There is always a special shake du jour, too — it costs $5.