cultivate chicago

Cultivate Chicago held its first ever festival of food stars, artisanal eats, local beers, and music in Lincoln Park. Chefs like Richard Blais, winner of Top Chef All Stars, and local food hero Paul Virant, of Perennial Virant, did cooking demos with local food producers. The festival was free to enter and you could purchase tastes of everything from artisanal coffee to blueberry upside down cake to pork tostadas to Great Lakes Brewery beers. The festival had 16,000 people in attendance throughout the day and raised $50,000 for FamilyFarmed.org, a non-profit that works with farmers to build local food systems. It was run by Chipotle's Cultivate Foundation, who's mission is to help create a more sustainable and healthful food supply. Really fun!

Cake!

Yesterday was my husband's birthday and we had a fun dinner party for two at home. Menu: thyme rubbed beef tenderloin, roasted golden beets, leek bread pudding, and "favorite cake" (the basic white cake from Joy of cooking with a whipped cream frosting). The key to the light and fluffiness of this cake is sifting, lots of sifting. Am looking forward to leftovers today!

We celebrated on Sunday night as well, at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard's Girl and the Goat. Our meal was well worth the two month wait for our reservation- the space is well done, flavors were amazing, and small plates to share is my favorite way to eat. I haven't really been dying to try goat, but the T bone was surprisingly good. As a bonus to this excellent meal, we saw Fabio Viviani from Top Chef eating at the counter and generally hamming it up with other diners.

A river runs through it

Cute chicago print on etsy. i also like this one.

Sprinklesmobile

The cupcake movement continues! Just when we thought people were moving on, Sprinkles is opening a new store today (thank you Kelly for the heads up) on the Gold Coast. The store will be followed by a cupcake truck, spreading baked goodness all over Chicago. Here's my Q- How will I know how to find it? Or is that part of the trendy frustration that accompanies the food truck thing? Anyway, it doesn't stop there. Feast reports that Magnolia is planning on a location in Chicago as well. Basically, it's raining cupcakes in chicago. Yay.

Old meets new

Cute ipod case. From Jayson Home & Garden.

Southport cupcake truffle

How have I not eaten one of these yet? Love brunch at Southport Grocery and have even had a cupcake pancake there, but no cupcake truffle yet. Will have to go this weekend and remedy the situation.

via Simple + Pretty

West elm lincoln park grand opening

I stopped by the brand new West Elm store at North and Sheffield at the old Whole Foods location this morning to check it out. The store is huge, 20,000+ square feet, with a design center where associates can help you plan the layout of your space. I was warmly greeted by Parker Ray, the general manager, who showed me the School of the Art Institute of Chicago student works that were being displayed for sale in the store. There were various types of media, all merchandised on the walls of "living room" display set ups. The store was also offering a SAIC collaborative gift with purchase (no minimum) of a framed letterpress image of a Chicago landmark drawn by a SAIC student. I bought some cute blue and white napkins and got one of the Buckingham fountain.

Overall, I was impressed with this store, the product offering looked comprehensive (and included lots of organic bed and bath products) and the visual merchandising was creative and inspiring. I especially liked the strands of white origami paper cranes coming from the ceiling in the "bedroom" display and the piles of tree cross sections in the "dining room".

U2 360 Tour Soldier Field

We were lucky enough to get amazing seats for the U2 tour opener at Soldier Field on Saturday (thanks Missy!) and it was quite a show. Bono repeatedly referred to the staging as a "spaceship" which was the only way to describe it. It was definitely a spectacle, but it came off as cool and the 360 degree stage let the whole audience see what was happening in a stadium that holds over 60,000 people. My favorite part came almost halfway when the entire stadium sang along to I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and a cover of Stand by Me by Ben E. King. Chills. The set ended with an encore that included With or Without You and a giant disco ball that sent glittering lights over the whole audience. Chills again.

Set List

1 Breathe
2 No Line on the Horizon
3 Get On Your Boots
4 Magnificent
5 Beautiful Day/Blackbird (Beatles snippet)
6 Elevation
7 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For/Stand By Me (Ben E. King snippet)
8 Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
9 Unknown Caller
10 The Unforgettable Fire
11 City Of Blinding Lights
12 Vertigo
13 I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
14 Sunday Bloody Sunday/Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello snippet)
15 Pride (In The Name Of Love)
16 MLK
17 Walk On/You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
18 Where The Streets Have No Name

Encore
19 One
20 Bad/40 (snippet)

Second encore
21 Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
22 With Or Without You
23 Moment of Surrender

Photo via U2

Photo Booth Fun

An extremely creative photo booth via Kiss the Groom.  

A cute personalized save the date by Bird and Banner.

A mosaic of photo booth strips as the chicago skyline!