Dirty Betty's

I don't really understand the doughnut craze, but I have to say I'm very excited for a new popular baked good. (I'm definitely over cupcakes.) I read yesterday that a new gourmet doughnut shop is opening in my favorite cookie bakery, Cookie Bar.

Dirty Betty's (LOVE the name!) opens today as a pop-up doughnut shop within Cookie Bar. They'll sell doughnuts from 7:00 - 10:00 a.m. Monday through Friday and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. The current menu will include old fashioned cinnamon sugar, old fashioned powered sugar, banana with chocolate nutella glaze, pomegranate glazed, lemon blueberry, chocolate toffee, espresso glazed, ginger with key lime glaze and peanut butter cup. Vegan and gluten-free options coming soon.

AND since these doughnuts are baked instead of fried, grab two! (or three, or four...)

(Hopefully they won't make 5 doughnuts and let people wait in line for two hours while they sell out, claiming it's NOT a marketing strategy. All while tweeting about how awesome they are. I'm not bitter.)

And if you haven't been to Cookie Bar, I would definitely get over there. There's something about cookies where no matter how fancy the ingredients, it's still a comfort food. When I first went in there I thought for sure they'd close within the year - how many different cookies can you make? - but they're still going strong. And in addition to their regular day hours, Cookie Bar is open until 10:00 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, offering a build-your-own ice cream sandwich bar.

"Thanks for the Press, Mayor Rahm" or "Check out the Blue Line Lounge"

Happy Monday!

Not so happy for me because I had a super fun night last night at the Blue Line Lounge in Bucktown. The post-National Tap Day celebration with some of Chicago's best tap dancers left me a just hung over enough to where I need a couple Advil and a big glass of water. I was pleasantly surprised by the Blue Line Lounge. I've passed by there tons of times, but I assumed it would be a whatever place. But the menu and drink list were classier than I thought, and they have extremely comfortable seating. If it weren't for the Bulls game blaring on the the TVs it would have been perfect! (I'm such an old lady.)


Photos from Blue Line Lounge & Grill. If it wasn't FREEZING on Sunday night we could have sat outside!

 Meanwhile, I'm excited for Rahm Emanuel's innaugeration today! Are you watching it live at work? I wish I could go to the City Hall open house this afternoon.

I have to be honest and say that I'm most excited for the amount of press Chicago has been getting. (That's the PR person in me.) The world should know how awesome Chicago is!

It's a "Bake Sale and Boobs" Kind of Weekend

I know most of you will be spending the weekend with mama, but take a gander at some of these happenings.***

Great American Bake Sale @ The Butcher & the Larder - Saturday, May 7 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Who doesn't love an old fashioned bake sale? Especially when you can buy goodies from places like Hoosier Mama and Floriole. This cash only sale benefits Share Our Strength, a national non-profit aimed at ending childhood hunger in America. You can also bid on some fab online auctions items until the day of the event.

Free Museum Admission with Your Bank of America Card - First weekend of the month
I didn't know this, but apparently the first weekend of every month you can present your Bank of America credit or debit card to the Art Instistue, the Chicago History Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Shedd Aquarium for free general admission.

Ever since the drama of 10 Bells getting put down right on the track a few years ago, I'm not really into the Derby. (I may have been crying at my table at The Fifty/50. I really love animals.) But if you're looking for a party to don your fancy Derby hat, check out the round-up from CenterStage Chicago.

Did you ever want to be a burlesque dancer? Gorilla Tango Theater is hosting audtions for "Boobs and Goombas: A Super Mario Burlesque" and  "A Nude Hope: A Star Wars Burlesque."

This past Thursday I took a break from dive bars and quirky venues for a night on the town with some fabulous Chicago bloggers at Rockit on Hubbard. The inner class nerd in me always gets excited for super trendy places like this, and my inner fat kid was happy with the amazing truffle fries. Check out some photos of the event below, taken by the fab Danielle of Breakfast At Toast.

And while you're at your computer this weekend, visit their fantastic blogs:

Make Under My Life

Live Creating Yourself

Curly in the City

Breakfast at Toast

Chicago Cusines Critique

A Spot of Whimsy

Where the Sidewalk Begins

An Urban Cottage

Oliver's Inspired Mama

A Lovely Escape

Things That Sparkle

Ashley Nicole Catherine

Mo Pie Please

101 Things I Love

The Dailey Dish

***I will no longer make weather predictions in these weekend guides. I'm worse than the Weatherman.

The Taste of Chicago Just Kicked It Up a Notch

I'm all about the Tast of Chicago, but it's usually the same vendor every year. Not that I don't love O'Brien's or Lou Malnati's, but how many times can you pay for a 'taste portion' of deep dish with $5 worth of tickets?

The Chicago Park District - the new Taste owners - put out their list of vendors for this year's event, and I'm both impressed and excited! In addition to the old favs, you'll see Alhambra Palace, Banana Leaf Restaurant, Beggars Pizza, Chicago Sweet Connection Bakery, The Fudge Pot, Lao Sze Chuan, Loving Hut, Parrot Cage Restaurant, Ryba’s Fudge Shops, Smoke Daddy, Starfruit Café and Texas de Brazil. And if you want to start "Tasting" early, you can visit the participating restaurants from May 28 - 30 and get special discounts at each location.

Via About.com Taste of Chicaog photo gallery

It seems that the Chicago Park District has the right idea with their Taste improvements. Check out a few of the highlights:

 - Each vendor will now offer two "Taste Of" portions for $2 or less. (For non-Taste goers, a taste portion is a smaller and cheaper portion of food the restaurant offers.)

 - If you're trying to eat healty at the Taste (which is the dumbest idea I've ever heard) keep an eye out for the Humana Healthier Choices green apple icon on the vendors' menus. It indicates healtheir food choices.

 - Instead of waiting in the loooonnnnngggg line to get your food tickets, you can buy them in advanced at Dominick's when you show your Frest Values Card. Tickets will be sold in strips of 12 for $8, but if you buy them at Dominick's from June 16 - 23 they're $6 per strip.

 - There will be more Taste parking lots available at a discounted rate, and you can take the free trolley from the lots to the event. Although if you can use public transporation, I definitely would.

Are you going to the Taste of Chicago this year? Have you gone before? What's your favorite vendor?

Photo from Wee Windy City

Dining Out for Life

I love going out on Thursday night; I can pretend it's Friday which instantly perks me up. If you're hitting the town this evening, consider going to one of these venues. Tonight is the 18th annual Dining Out for Life, and each of these restaurants are donating a portion of tonight's sales to various AIDS service organizations.

Chicago raised over $100,000 last year, and this year the organization is hoping to raise over $250,000.

So, all you have to do to help is go out to dinner!

$17 for Six Doughnuts?!

I was perusing The Oatmeal today - I'm not sure why my company's IT department unblocked it, but it's been a very unproductive day - and I came across this comic:

Why is this relevant? About two weeks ago a tiny doughnut shop opened up behind the Merchandise Mart, serving your basic, everyday doughnut. Doughnut Vault doesn't have regular hours or a reliable product supply. The only way to know that they are open and serving food is to follow them on Twitter.

Oh yeah, and six doughnuts cost $17. This may very well be the most obnoxious food establishment in the city of Chicago.

Yes, I understand these doughnuts are supposed to be delicious, gourmet, all-natural, blah blah blah. But I'm not lining up at 8:00 a.m. in the morning in the hopes that they'll open at 9:00 a.m. and that they won't run out before I get one.

And by the way Doughnut Vault, tweeting pictures of all the people waiting in line makes you look like a douche.

(Why did all of the Krispy Kremes have to go away?!)

A Kosher-for-Passover Social Life

Passover is one of my favorite holidays, but, let's face it, not being able to eat anything "leavened" until next Monday night pretty much kills any fun dinner plans.

(For my non-Jewish readers, that mean from sundown tonight until sundown next Tuesday you have to eliminate anything that might in some way be construed as bread: pastas, most desserts, Cheeze-its, etc.)

Rather than stuffing a box of Matzo in your purse whenever you go out to eat, check out some of these venues for a much tastier Passover:

Mity Nice will serve a la carte Passover specials for lunch and dinner tomorrow through next Monday. The matzo-crusted Lake Superior whitefish and flourless chocolate cake sound good!

Find an excuse to leave Bubbie's seder early and head over to Joe's to celebrate the exodus in style. Tonight and tomorrow night you can order the pre-fixed seder dinner for $49.95. (Not a bad price for a full meal at Joe's.)

You can always count on The Bagel to not only have Kosher-for-Passover options, but to know exactly what you can and can't eat. Complete with old yentas lining the booths, you'll be overcome with a sense of guilt if you don't eat everything on your plate.

If you still want your cupcake fix, Sprinkles will have flourless chocolate cupcakes all week. I recommend ditching the macaroons and picking up a dozen of these for your seder.

And if you're looking for a few fancy recipes to try yourself, check out GourmetPassoverCooking.com. Me, I'm a walking stereotype: What do Jewish women make for dinner? Reservations!

Mmmmm, Matzo Ball Soup!

Chicago's First Annual Food Truck Summit

One of the many crappy things about working in the suburbs is not being able to take advantage of the lunchtime food truck brigade. You can imagine my delight when I heard about the city's first annual Food Truck Summit.**

Head over to the Goose Island Brew Pub parking lot on April 19 to experience the city's most popular food trucks all at the same time. Participants include Flirty Cupcakes, The Southern Mac, Sweet Miss Giving's, Tamalli Space Churros, 5411 Empanadas, Hummingbird Kitchen and gaztro-wagon. The only downside is that each truck is offering a signature item rather than their entire menu.

This event is celebrating Time Out Chicago's food & drink writer Heather Shouse's new book, "Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels." The book release party will take place at the same time in Goose Island's Seibel Hall.

**I was super excited about this event until I realized that it's the second night of Passover, and I will not only be at a seder but also couldn't eat these bread laden food items anyway. I know Jewish holidays aren't a priority for gentiles, but maybe check on this sort of thing before you plan a major event.



It's a 'reptiles and bacon with cheese' Kind of Weekend

Okay, so I failed at my goal last week of doing at least half of the activities of my weekend list. I'm already expecting failure this weekend as well, but you should go forth and have fun!

National Cheese Fondue Day @ Geja's Cafe - Sunday, April 10 12:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Technically National Cheese Fondue Day is on Monday, 4/11, but I think the über official cheese fondue people will look the other way on this one. Geja's is offering complimentary samples of their amazing Swiss Gruyere cheese fondue from 12:00 - 4:30 p.m. on the patio. I LOVE Geja's, and I can tell you that you should definitely try to make it. If you can't, though, the restaurant will offer complimentary cheese fondue appetizers from April 11 - 17 to anyone who mentions National Cheese Fondue Week. You can also get cheese fondue samples at the bar throughout the week.

Take the Gorilla Challenge - Saturday, April 9 10:00 a.m.
It's a scavenger hunt on crack! For $60 you can race around the city with your team of friends, solving clues and performing tasks for the opportunity to win the grand prize and/or smaller prizes along the way. Extra prizes for costume creativity. They've opened up an additional 250 slots today to register for the event, so hurry!

ReptileFest @ UIC Physical Education Building - Saturday, April 9 10:00 a.m.
Probably one for the kiddies, but I'd totally be that creeper petting the iguana in the back. Check out the Chicago Herpetological Society for the nation's largest educational reptile and amphibian show. Climb into a tortoise pen, get your photo taken with some huge lizards and learn about the reptiles living in our neighborhoods.

CHIRP Record Fair @ Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union  - April 9 - 10, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Time for the annual Chicago Independent Radio Project Record Fair & Other Delights. Enjoy a robust selection of vinyl, CDs, posters, artwork, 'zines and crafts. DJs and live bands will entertain all day and various vendors will offer every type of music you can think of. Admission is $7, but if you bring in any ad that mentions the record fair then admission is $5. And for those hardcore record collectors, there's a special pre-admission on Saturday from 8:00 - 10:00 a.m. for $25. That includes reentry all weekend.

And don't forget that it's BaconFest on Saturday!!!!!!!! In honor of this delicious celebration, feast your eyes on the hottest trend in men's cologne:

Free Pancake Day!

With all of the trendy new brunch items dominating the menu, the old-fashioned pancake is being forgotten. Stand up for our childhood breakfest friend during National Pancake Day!

Tomorrow, from 7:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m., you can gorge yourself on a free short stack of pancakes at IHOP locations around the country. What's the catch? All you have to do is consider making a donation to your local children's hospital through Children's Miracle Network.

Don't think you can wake up early enough to make it in before work? IHOP will give you a "celebrity" wake-up call. (And by "celebrity" they mean NFL player Steve Young, 2011 Miss America Teresa Scanlan, entertainer and Children's Miracle Network co-founder Marie Osmond, Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville star John Schneider, American Idol star David Archuleta or his band One Call.)

Fun Fact: Believe it or not, this isn't a completely made-up holiday. It's based on a centuries-old English tradition of using the last of the dairy supply to make pancakes before Lent, as it would all go bad during the 40 days of Lent. Dairy was prohibited during this time year. Thus, the day was known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.

Yummy

For those with no interest in Super Bowl Sunday....

I could NOT care less about Super Bowl Sunday, and my plan was to hunker down and wait for daylight. However, the Windy City always provides activities for those in need. Check out a few of these alternatives to beer nuts and belching.

Gejas Cafe is offering a romantic spin to the evening. On Sunday and Monday, diners who purchase a Premiere Dinner will receive a second Premiere Dinner for free. Gejas calls itself one of the most romantic restaurants in the city, and normally a claim like that would annoy the crap out of me, but I have to agree. The food is amazing and the atmosphere just exhudes romance. My fiance and I actually had dinner here the night we got engaged.

Celebrate 4709, the Year of the Rabbit, in Chinatown with a colorful parade of marching bands, lion teams, floats and the Mystical Dragon. The parade steps off at 1:00 p.m. and heads down Wentworth from 24th St. to Cermak. Be sure to stick around for dinner at New Chinatown Chop Suey.

This is not yo mama's craft fair. Check out the February Craft Fairy at The Nineteen Hundred & One Gallery/Theater for over 15 local dark crafters and artists. Browse through homemade jewelry, knitting, accessories, clothing, candles, incense and baked goods.