(Here's another of my favorites, about a little "me" getaway I had last year.)
I had a great time, even if it was cold and rainy. To me, the best thing to do in Chicago is this: walk. The lake is gorgeous, and the architecture is both stunning and historical. I stayed at The Drake for the first time, and oh, I'm in love. Staying anywhere else from now on will feel like infidelity.
I saw in the paper that there was an exhibit of 9/11 photos somewhere called the Newberry Library. It's on Walton Street, which meant nothing to me. I am totally directionally impaired; my kids just assume I will get them lost if we are going someplace new.
So I looked at the map in the phone book, and noticed that my own hotel was on, um, Walton Street. The library was a stone's throw away. Oh.
The exhibit was a bit of a letdown; not enough photos. The library was beautiful, though, and I would have spent a small fortune in the bookstore if I didn't have to worry about hauling it all on the plane.
Thursday night I ate at The Cape Cod Room, and it was so cute. Red-checked tablecloths, candlelight, and a waitstaff which has, according to the menu, 400 years of service between them.
I believe this, because they were each about 100 years old. So sweet and polite, though.
Here is what makes me not happy: Bookbinder soup. It was delicious, supposedly containg red snapper and so when I got home I tried to find a copycat recipe.
What I found is this claim by the Soup Lady:
Is it now painfully obvious that everyone except the Soup Lady understands that the soup I enjoyed so much was a red soup made from a snapper (turtle), not a soup made from a red snapper (fish).
No, I didn't eat turtle, did I? More:
Now it may seem like a fine culinary line to you, but eating fish is something I'm used to doing. Eating combative reptilian scavengers when you are expecting to eat fish is another thing entirely.
Exactly. Thank you. But it was, you know, yummy.
Anyway. I brought "Velvet Elvis" with me as reading material, and the author really had me thinking on what it would look like for someone to live like Jesus now, today. I had all of these fives and ones because I got twenties from the ATM, and kept using them and getting change.
Normally, when walking in Chicago, I get approached constantly by street people wanting money. I've learned to not make eye contact, to keep walking.
But I had my Jesus groove on, and I decided I wanted to give away that money, and also engage the recipient in conversation. I mean, think what you will about folks begging for handouts, but the truth is that your life and my life are so much better than theirs that we aren't even able to comprehend what would drive someone to do that. I have been abundantly blessed, and I wanted to share the wealth.
Except, wouldn't you know it, I didn't run across one person asking for money. I did engage one gentleman in conversation; he had a poster about religious persecution in Russia, and was shouting stuff about it into a megaphone.
Great! I'll give him the money, and he can help persecuted Russians with it, right?
Um, no. Actually, what he wanted was to make America realize that we are being overtaken by Russian communists. That they are secretly infiltrating our society, and are poised for takeover.
I'm like, no way; we're far too materialistic to allow Communism, and he said, yes, that's a distraction, but it's really happening. So I said to him, you're out here in the cold trying to get your message across. What is it that you want me to take away from this, what would you like me to do?
And he says, demand DNA testing from every politician. They're all Russians! They change their names, but the truth will come out!
At this point the circus theme song playing in my head became even louder, and I bid him farewell. Dude was Looney Tunes. Also he had this thing growing on his eye, and I couldn't look away.
I did then pass an actual street person with a cup in his hand, but he didn't want to chat. As he said, "I ain't got no story, ma'am. I'm just cold and hoping to get some McDonald's."
I gave him the money. But I felt somewhat unfulfilled in my mission.
And I had turtle in my digestive system. That's just wrong.
(Original comments:
11 comments:
may said...
seriously, turtle? and the russians....hhhmmm. he could be right you know :)
7:45 PM Susan Palwick said...
Hi, Marcia! Good for you for trying with the street people. Eye contact's important even if you don't plan to give them money. Someone I know who used to be homeless told me, "If you don't want to give money, don't. But at least look at people and say hi. The worst part of being homeless is feeling invisible."
As for turtle . . . well, I love turtles -- they're sort of my totem animals -- so I'd have been distressed to learn that I'd eaten one without knowing it. I'm glad it tasted good, though!
10:29 AM Caleb Powers said...
Well, if it's any consolation, the turtle you ate was probably farmed. I visited a turtle farm once in the Cayman Islands, and it was quite interesting. I'm not sure that "wild" turtle is served in restaurants anymore. If it was wild turtle, it was probably the noble snapping turtle of my youth.
Either way, it wasn't the cute little red eared slider turtle in your photo; it was about 100 times the size and no doubt tastier. We used to catch and eat snapping turtles when I was growing up, and they are quite good, though you have to be careful of those jaws: they can take off a finger.
I always find it interesting how homogenized our food supply is getting. We are increasingly squeamish about eating things like turtle that have been traditional foods in western cookery for centuries. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I admire you for your talks with the homeless, too. Homeless people are not exactly common in Lexington, but they are here, and I always try to give them a little money when they ask. I often eat lunch on Saturdays at a McDonald's near downtown Lexington that is a kind of hangout for people who are, if not homeless, not quite with it economically.
I have never admitted to anyone that I go there to talk to homeless people, but I don't exactly go for the cuisine (No McTurtle on the menu there) Let's just say I've had some interesting conversations.
Christianity teaches us that we are to do what we can "for the least of these," and that certainly includes the homeless. I was moved by your description of doing just that.
11:49 PM apgaRN said...
He might have been more believable if he claimed that they were body-statching aliens, but Russians? Come on!
9:45 AM molly said...
LOL...
11:28 AM Marcia said...
I'm becoming more squeamish about eating any meat, really. I love a good hamburger and I love steak, but I have to not let myself think on it too much.
Yes, Russians. He was so serious, too.
11:30 AM Marcia said...
Hey, Molly, jinx.
11:32 AM Caleb Powers said...
Marcia, you know I can't let anything alone.
A few minutes of internet bliss suggests that what you ate was red snapper as opposed to turtle after all. So says the recipe from the hotel, published in the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Cookbook. It's available online at:
http://www.recipezaar.com/75333
So, perhaps the Soup Lady was wrong. I suspected this when she accused the waiter of deceiving her by referring to the soup as a "red snapper" soup when she claims he meant a red soup made of snapper.
Chicago's ABC TV affiliate says that the original Bookbinder's soup from Bookbinder's Restaurant in Philadelphia was made with snapping turtle, but at some point the Drake started using red snapper instead. This is at:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=News&id=2588727
Ya know, nothing is more fun for me than tracking down totally usless bits of trivia. Maybe that's why I went to law school lo those many years ago . . .
3:42 PM Bryan Riley said...
Don't ruin her great post by turning the turtle into red snapper. The whole closing line was like the proverbial icing on the cake. It's like you just turned the wine back into water. Ugh.
9:24 PM Marcia said...
Yeah, Caleb, you could have emailed me that information and not ruined my post. ; )
8:59 AM Caleb Powers said...
Yeah, Marcia, but like, where would the fun have been in that???
And it certainly doesn't ruin your post, just adds to the mystery of what you ate . . .)
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