A Day In Chicago

I had to fuel for my hour and 20 minute train ride to Chicago, so I made an egg white, ham and sharp cheddar breakfast panini – I only took one picture because I was so excited to get to the train station, but it was delicious!

I was taking the train in from the far NW suburbs of Chicago.  Hannah and her boyfriend were taking the orange “L” line in from Midway.  We timed it pretty well – I only had to wait for them about 5 minutes – not too bad!

We walked one block over to take the bus up to Lincoln Park for the Green City Market.  At our bus stop where we got off, there was a huge statue – I thought it looked cool the way the sky was behind it.

I have to admit, I am horrible when it comes to history.  This statue is of Robert Cavelier de La Salle who was an early French explorer and discoverer of much of the wilderness and river systems in the Midwest.  That’s your history lesson for the day.  I’ll quiz you on Friday.

Then we walked a couple blocks to where the Green City Market started.

It was a sea of people!  Lots of dogs, lots of little kids, and um, lots of high end strollers!

I am not kidding when I say I saw at least 10 mom’s with this stroller:

That would be the Bugaboo stroller – and it begins retail at $1,109!  In case you want one for yourself or loved one who needs a stroller, they can be bought at Saks Fifth Avenue.  Because doesn’t everyone do their baby shopping there?!  Gag me.  I think I had a used stroller for Hannah I bought at a garage sale for $10 bucks that I used for 2 years. 

It was slightly cool, glad I brought a light sweater.  And I wore my pink White Sox hat so I wouldn’t burn my face in the sun.  Suck it Cubs fans.

Hannah got a rhubarb strawberry tart – the girl loves rhubarb and thought for a split second that $6 was a hefty price to pay, but in the end she said it was with it and yelled YOLO!!

In case you are wondering YOLO is:

You Only Live Once!

That would become our motto for the day!  We each tried portabella mushrooms for the first time that had been marinated – YOLO – turns out we liked them even though we don’t like regular mushrooms!

I ended up buying some chiabata bread and some horseradish sharp cheddar cheese.  YOLO for bread and cheese!

We walked over to the Lincoln Park zoo – there is a landing before you actually get to the Zoo – lots of ducks with signs that said “don’t feed the ducks!” but I am sure people did because they followed us around waiting for food.

There were lots of summer camps at the zoo now that school is out – we probably only walked around for 15 minutes.  Saw some cows!

Then we were hungry so it was back to the north loop to have lunch at Rick Bayless’s restaurant Xoco.   it’s literally right around the corner from his flagship restaurant Frontera Grill.

Of course, being the foodie that I am, I already knew what I was going to get – The Cubana!

Cubana: Smoked Gunthorp pork loin and bacon, black beans, avocado, artisan Jack, chipotle mustard.

It was amazing!  The sauce was amazing too – we also got a basket of chips and two salsas – I really need to try to make this green salsa.  It was amaze balls.

Hannah, however, didn’t realize she ordered a soup – she ordered carinitas, but what she got was a “meal in a bowl” Slow-cooked Gunthorp pork carnitas, potato-masa dumplings, chayote, roasted serrano chile, greens, arugula, avocado.  I didn’t get a good picture of it at the restaurant, but here is what it looked like when I brought the leftovers home:

This may not look like anything special, but the broth was one of the most delicious, spicy broths I’ve ever had.  The meat was super tender – it was really too spicy for Hannah so we ended up switching our meals – all good!

And then, because YOLO! We ordered the churros with chocolate dipping sauce for dessert.

I may need a moment.  Wow.  So light, delicate, not too much sugar or cinnamon and that chocolate dipping sauce?  Yep, that was dark chocolate – hands down the best churro I’ve ever had.

It was a great day!  We walked a lot, talked a lot, ate a lot.  YOLO!

Here is a sign we stumbled upon, I looked it up to find out who “Michael” is but so far haven’t figured it out.  But thought it was a great picture to end this post.

Remember, YOLO!  Make it a great day!