I'm Every Woman

Just back from Chicago, met up with Missy and some of her friends for dinner. Funnily enough we ended up hanging out pretty close to my office, at The Smoke Joint. Almost three years and I've never stopped by the place and after my recent experience with BBQ I thought that I'd give it a try. We began the evening by chilling at Moe's Bar, until it was time to go back to the restaurant. It was nice to just chat and hang out.

Eventually we made it to the The Smoke Joint. Being Saturday night and all the place was pretty packed. It was six of us and we ended up sitting in a pretty cramped area, near the door where people waited and ordered food to go so I'd say the place gets a Meh for atmosphere. After much deliberation I ended up going for some pulled pork with a side of cornbread, coleslaw, pickles, and mac and cheese.

Unfortunately the food was not the highlight of the evening. I was very disappointed with the pulled pork, the mac and cheese was just so-so, but the cornbread was good.

The music playing at the restaurant skewed very 90's, and soon enough Whitney Houston came up. Missy piped up to share that Whitney was her first crush and before we knew it we were all cursing Bobby Brown and remembering Maya Rudolph's SNL hilarious imitation. No sooner I had finished my last "Awwrite!" when Mi Cariño texted me to let me know that Ms. Houston had been pronounced dead.

It felt like too much of a coincidence. Something about the death of a celebrity... you don't know them, you know things about them, but they and their work are present in your life, specially when we're talking about music... and then it's worse when you start with the "they were so talented, so young," etc. etc.

All I know is that the weeks I spent obsessed with The Bodyguard and its soundtrack are embedded in my memory and are important to the being that I am. Talking to my neighbor Paola, daydreaming of my voice suddenly developing into Whitney's and being able to belt out her notes and suddenly earning the admiration of everyone around me... hell, even just the morning in Miami when I watched The Bodyguard on cable while Mi Cariño slept. Her life integrated with mine, even though we never met.

I went home soon after dinner, and the pork came back to haunt me later when I needed to regurgitate it out of my existence. Let's just say I will not be going to The Smoke Joint again.  And I will miss you, Whitney.

Chicago Again

Another week of recordings in Chicago. After MUCH deliberation, John and I decided to try Lou Malnati's recipe. The first location we went to was chuck full of people, so we drove around until we found one without wait time. It worked for John since they were showing the college basketball games.

The place was deceptively big. We ate on the second floor, surrounded by TVs. It was a bit awkward - our first trip together since John officially joined the team and I gotta say it was a struggle to find what to talk about. And for John it was a struggle to decide on what to eat. I ended up asking for a salad with a lovely vinaigrette

It was nice and filling in a good way with your regular salad offenders (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, romaine). It did take forever to arrive, it felt. But then again, we were starving.
For the main course I chose an individual pepperoni deep dish pizza. I'd never had one before and I can't say that I will be having many in the future... it wasn't bad, it just wasn't... pizza.

Too many years of eating New York Style have probably biased me too much in order to enjoy it properly. Don't get me wrong, I ate up all of that sucker, but it wasn't cheesy enough for me, and the sauce isn't so good to warrant such a "deep" container. The crust was almost like pie - barely a shade away from sweet.