Travel – In Good Taste

The Guac Stop: Chicago Style Guacamole

Maris Callahan — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 22:06:39 +0000

A Chicago style Guacamole recipe from Wholly Guacamole. Let’s get this out of the way right now: since I moved to Chicago, I have gained about 25 pounds. I know, I know. I’m all about the body image healthy eating love yourself and all that. Bear with me here. As much as I do love to feel healthy and to slide into the smaller pair of jeans, I also love eating. Like, a lot. It’s a happy accident that one of my very favorite foods happens to be quite wholesome and full of nutritious goodness. Wholly Guacamole makes fresh prepared guacamole made that’s made with real, simple ingredients like hand scooped Hass avocados. This summer, the brand is launching the first ever guacamole themed lounge also known as The Guac Stop. The Guac Stop (in Chicago June 14 – 18 at Navy Pier) is literally making avocado and guacamole lovers’ dreams come true. In the spirit of “living wholly” the Guac Stop features a customizable guacamole bar, including all the fixings to create a limited-edition “Chicago dog”-style guacamole featuring pickles, tomatoes, onions, peppers and celery salt. While guacamole is the main attraction at this free event, it’s certainly not the only thing on the menu. The Guac […]

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Where to Dine Gluten-Free in Chicago Restaurants

Maris Callahan — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 01:50:43 +0000

Last month, my cousin Kristin came to visit Brad and me for a weekend. She goes to University of Alabama and because she grew up in New York City, was clearly craving an urban adventure in the Midwest. Even though we’re about 15 years apart and didn’t grow up together, Kristin and I are so similar in so many ways. One of those ways is that we both love, love, love to eat. Usually, I have a go-to laundry list of restaurants to take out of town visitors. It includes deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati’s, tacos at Big Star, classic Italian food at Club Lago, Chicago-style hot dogs at Portillo’s, the list goes on and on. This trip was a little trickier because Kristin was diagnosed with celiac disease a few years ago, so she eats a gluten-free diet. When Kristin booked her ticket, I did some research to find restaurants with gluten-free menus or gluten-free options in Chicago. I thought it was going to be challenging, but it turned out that we were able to go to many of my favorite restaurants and make only minor modifications to our orders. It’s hard to believe that we fit this much eating into one weekend, but […]

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Chicago: Dyeing the River Green for St. Patrick’s Day

Maris Callahan — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 06:00:49 +0000

There are very few things that will get me out of bed at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Among those reasons: a television segment, a flight and probably the fire alarm. St. Patrick’s Day has never before fallen under that category. Luckily I’ve never had to test that theory. Now we can add a fourth thing to the list: dyeing the Chicago River green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day with Country Financial. First, I have a confession to make. Until this year, I’ve never been to Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration. For the first couple of years I lived here, I was out of town for the festivities. For the past few years, I’ve celebrated with my friends by going out to brunch, or doing some good old fashioned day drinking in the afternoon. I had never been to the river dyeing, a tradition since 1961 that attracts hundreds of thousands of people each year. According to Mental Floss, the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local was instrumental in the inception of the tradition. In the early days of his administration as Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley was a man on a mission to develop the city’s riverfront area. There was just one problem: The river […]

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Chicago Cubs Spring Training: Where to Stay in Arizona

Maris Callahan — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 06:47:14 +0000

Our recent getaway to Phoenix, Scottsdale and Mesa was inspired by two things: my desire to sit by the pool in warm weather and Brad’s desire to watch the Chicago Cubs play Spring Training baseball. When we talked about taking a winter trip, I wanted a destination where we could spend some quality time by the pool, and Brad wanted to make sure there was plenty to do besides sit by the pool (his idea of sitting in the sun is sitting in the shade with a towel covering his head). There is definitely a lot to do in Arizona, and I’ll start off by admitting that we could have packed more activity into our schedule, but since one of our main goals was to relax, we also did a lot of sleeping in and making last minute important decisions about, say, ordering room service vs. driving three minutes to the gastropub down the street. Where to Stay We wanted to see as much of the Valley as we could, so we decided to split our time at a few different resorts and hotels, which also helped us get better deals. We picked one just outside of Phoenix, one in the Old Town area […]

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Grilling Season is Here: Johnsonville #FirstBratsContest

Maris Callahan — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 06:00:25 +0000

One of my very favorite things about the beginnings of spring is that it signifies the beginning of grilling season. Winter in Chicago has been unquestionably mild this year with only one significant snowfall in December and a handful of days in February that reached 60 degrees F. Even so, Chicago winters are long, gray. and sad, and when I took my dog out this morning and saw crocuses peeking through the ground, I almost did a happy dance. Crocuses are green and green means spring which means grilling which means summer which means pools and warm weather and patios and everything good in the world. Johnsonville, a brand that absolutely shares my enthusiasm for grilling season, kicked things off this weekend by partnering with the Special Olympics in sponsoring the 2017 Chicago Polar Plunge. My cousin and I decided to go watch people jump in freezing water while we ate brats and planned out where we should go next to get lunch. The Polar Plunge was fun for a few reasons. One, I didn’t have to participate. I ran a few road races last year and I was always a little envious of the spectators who were warm and happy, while I dreaded running […]

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