... And Full of Vim and Vigor

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Originally uploaded by P4O4E4T.

I rode Bike the Drive yesterday with my friends Todd and Miguel. Those rides to Evanston and back for work have really paid off. I felt like I could have done the 30-mile loop twice. Unlike the gentleman in the photo, who is actually a neighbor and does a daily round trip to Albany Park.

Anyway, I practically bunny-hopped my bike from Lawrence to the rest stop at Bryn Mawr, where the three of us were trapped by a volunteer. This man would not let us go as he told us that we should exercise for "balance, stamina, strength and flexibility." He asked if we did yoga; we each allowed that we did.

"That is good," he said. "But only do the stretchy yoga, not the jumpy kind." He wouldn't let us return to our bikes as he told us about climbing mountains in Nepal and hauling a wheel barrow from Edgewater to Washington Park. When he returned to the subject of yoga, I made a downward dog quip that went way over his head.

But the unsolicited advice was enough to carry us through our respective exits and into the remainder of the day.

Notions

Friday night I checked in with ChEfrain Cuevas at his latest underground dinner, this one in the breakroom of a grocery store on the North Side. It was originally supposed to be on the roof, but the possibility of bad weather forced it inside. I thought it worked out better this way because it gave diners the feeling of actually doing something illicit.

I was lucky to get my hands on one of the drumsticks from the turducken that was served as part of the main course. Andrew Huff of Gapers Block also snagged one. However, while Huff removed the meat from the bone with a knife and fork, I tore into the drumstick like a Viking. Or Henry V.

It was a good night, on many fronts.

Just a Few Hours Until Game Time

And this is how I'm gonna get ready for this evening's media slam at Hideout.

Congratulations

Sometimes watching the two of them together makes me fear for diabetes (I kid) but Scott and Erin are a perfect match. They're like one of those couples you refer to as one word; scottanderin, if you will.

Erin announced on her blog yesterday that they're getting married in the fall. It makes one hope that everyone could find the happiness the two of them share.

Leisurely Thoughts

New Glarus, WI - Greetings from "Little Switzerland." The beer is cold, the air less so.

I'm up here just gathering my bearings and catching up on some overdue things. One of them is finishing reading this week's New Yorker. It has a killer piece on Alinea's Grant Achatz and his battle with oral cancer, a story which has been covered exhaustively locally but is only now starting to break out nationally. It is a killer article worth the read.

In the process, author D.T. Max manages to humanize the usually reserved Achatz, a chef who rarely shows emotion but who constantly elicit them from his guests from his carefully crafted meals (a question I asked in my own interview with Achatz from last spring). Most notable is the passion with which Achatz sought the radical form of treatment that he eventually took to fight the Stage VI cancer, continuing work on his cookbook and putting in eighteen-twenty hour days at Alinea as he was fighting radiation sickness and undergoing treatment.

It's also given Achatz a lesson in trust. As the radiation treatment resulted in a loss and slow return of his sense of taste, Achatz has had to rely on his sous chefs to ensure that his "prototype" dishes are ready for the ever-changing menu at 1723 N. Halsted. I find it astounding that he was going through all of this at the time I interviewed him. According to Max, Achatz had been plagued by this since he was at Trio, nearly five years ago.

It also reminded me that, when I was in the lost post-HotHouse months trying to make ends meet freelancing, I pre-ordered the Alinea cookbook set for release this fall. Pre-ordering (and it's only $50, so don't be a cheap bastard) grants you access to the Alinea mosaic, which for me is like the ultimate Harry Potter wiki for anyone else. Customers holding pre-orders on the cookbook are allowed to view hi-res images of some of Achatz's menu creations, video of the process for some recipes, and recipes themselves. Achatz mentioned in our interview with him that it all boils down to it simplicity, a theme repeated in countless interviews before and after. After reading his recipe for cheese and crackers, I now see that.