Chicago Summer Festival Guide

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Another sign that summer will once again come to Chicago?  The MetroMix Chicago Festival Guide 2011 has been released!

Chicago Festivals are one of the absolute best things about summer- on any given weekend, you can get your fix of food, music and art on the streets of neighborhoods all over the city.  The smell of smoked barbeque wafting through the air, thin plastic cups of beer in hand, the best people watching on the planet, running into friends…there’s really nothing better.

At the top of my list?  The Blues Festival, Wells Street Art Festival, Sheffield Garden Walk and Jazz Fest.

What about you?  What are your favorite summer festivals?

Check out the full MetroMix guide here.

One Last ____

adminChicago Summer, end of summer, Labor Day weekend, Luna Bell, Ryan, summer cocktails, Uncategorized%s Comments

Labor Day weekend is traditionally, if not officially, the last weekend of summer.  It’s been a real, live summer; a hot, sticky, lots of popsicles and swims in the lake kind of summer.  Even though the temperature dropped 15 degrees literally over night, I spent a good part of this weekend soaking up those last delicious moments that happen at the end of each season.  The ones you aren’t quite ready to let go of even though you’re looking forward to the next best thing.

It was a tad chilly this weekend but you better believe I was going to lay out.  I grabbed a blanket, book, and boyfriend and went to the park near our apartment.  I just wanted to feel the sun on my face and smell the sweet smell of freshly cut grass one last time.  This may sound dramatic but if you live in the Midwest, you know these days are fleeting and you know how difficult it is in February to remember what it’s like to walk outside and not hate…well, everything.  The above pic was taken pre-park nap.  This is my kind of outdoorsiness.

In keeping with the theme of “one last ___”, it was also time for one last summer cocktail.  Taste testing at Whole Foods procured us a bottle of Blackberry wine.  Way too sweet to drink straight but we played around a bit and came up with this:

A little vodka, a little blackberry wine, a little soda water and muddled raspberries.  Delightful.  We all know how much I love champagne so I’m thinking a splash of the blackberry wine topped with champagne will be my Fall cocktail.  Replacing the standard Fall favorite of Captain and Apple Cider.   Stay tuned.

People who have dogs were out in full force, playing fetch in the hot summer sun one last time.  We have a cat and it’s generally not socially acceptable to take her places so Ryan played fetch with her inside.

Ryan throws red ball.  Luna Bell jumps, meows and waits for him to do it again.  This went on for a good 15 minutes.  Our cat is the best dog ever.

So, farewell Summer.  Thanks for being so sunny and warm and sparkly on the water outside my window.  Please don’t be shy about showing up again, perhaps as early as April.  We’ll be anxiously waiting…

Planet Earth Live

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BBC’s groundbreaking documentary “Planet Earth” is taking it on the road and Chicago is one of six cities that is being graced with its presence.  Last Wednesday, I headed to Pritzker Pavilion to check out the phenomenon that is Planet Earth.  I’ve never seen it and figured watching clips of itin Millennium Park while George Fenton (the actual guy who composed to music for the documentary) conducts the Grant Park Orchestra is the best way to get my nature on.

Sometimes I forget that I live in Chicago, a city with a population of 2.8 million.  Someone other than me may want to see Planet Earth Live too.  Start time was 8:15pm.  I got there at 8:10pm, thinking there would be tons of empty grass space for me to plop my MSU blanket.  Umm, no.  People had clearly been camped out there for hours, with their picnics and wine and yard games, enjoying the spectacular summer evening.

Note to self: leave earlier and bring wine.

As the sun set over a sea of skyscrapers, Planet Earth Live began.  Polar bears, dolphins, elephants, tigers, oh my.  For those of you who have seen Planet Earth, this is old news but holy cow!  These animals are amazing!  Did you know that there’s a group of crains who scale Mount Everest every year?  Crains!  These big ol’ birds fly over the peak of a mountain that claims the lives of 1 out of 10 human climbers.  Unreal.

The area of grass I was sitting in was surrounded by people with the best food.  I mean, these people really outdid themselves.  I saw homemade cheesecake still in the springform pan, a build your own salad bar, tacos, takeout from Sopraffina, hummus–I  could practically smell the olives in the tapenade from the picnic next to me.  Food, music and wine–pretty much the perfect summer night.

Did I mention this whole thing was free?  Yes, FREE.  I couldn’t believe I had the opportunity to see a 2 time Grammy winner conducting his own score and a ground breaking documentary for free.  I’ll tell you one thing–I am going to start paying a lot more attention to the Millennium Park calendar from now on.

Dig Down Deep

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The 42nd Annual Sheffield Garden Walk was this weekend and I met up with some friends to enjoy the musical stylings of a band called “Cowboy Mouth”.  The Garden Walk is apparently exactly that–a walk through a bunch of cool gardens in Lincoln Park, coupled with concerts at night.  I didn’t know about the actual garden part until I got on their website tonight.  I feel a little guilty–I thought it was an even exclusively about beer and loud music.  I like gardens as much as the next person and would have totally checked the educational part of this festival out but I am willing to place bets that if this was the 42nd Sheffield Garden, there will be a 43rd and I can have a more well-rounded Garden Walk experience.

Anyways.

Cowboy Mouth was pretty fantastic.  And funny.  The drummer was placed in the middle of the stage and did a majority of the singing, which was pretty impressive considering that hitting sticks on tubs and singing at the same time can’t be easy.  Usually, if I am not familiar with a band, I have a hard time getting into the concert.  Cowboy Mouth made it impossible to not be engaged–within minutes, I was shouting the band’s name along with the rest of the crowd and doing my little concert dance that involves a lot of arm waving and hair tossing.

What really made me want to be a Cowboy Mouth fan was the moment in the concert when the drummer/lead singer was banging along and told the crowd to “Dig down deep inside, dig down really deep inside to that part inside you that you KNOW is bad ass”.  Umm, hello?  Of all the things we do to keep positive and present in our daily lives, how often do we think about and rely on that part of us that we just know is bad ass?  In those dig deep moments, have I ever been like “Man oh man, Nina, you are just incredibly bad ass!”?  No.   It’s really conjures up that confidence piece, which is always key, right?

I have been pretty much obsessed with things/people/ideas that inspire me lately, like someone who has been walking through the desert in Vegas and need a cocktail, er, water.  I’m not sure if I’m just more aware lately of all the inspiring things that happen every single day in this world of ours or if there’s something in the water at my place of employment but I have been so thirsty to soak it up.  From Dance! (Leslie was in the chair next to me while I was getting a pedicure on Friday, btw) to conversations with co-workers to just seeing the movers and shakers in this community doing their thing, I have been on an inspiration high lately.  Annnnd I love it.

High Five of the Day: My boy Rosco who provided me the lovely pic posted above.  He’s also on the internets–http://www.xroscox.com/.  It’s not porn, I swear.

Ready, Set, Summer!

adminChicago Blackhawks, Chicago Summer, Strawberry-Walnut Salad Recipe, summer, summer cooking, traffic, Uncategorized%s Comments

As far as I’m concerned, the official summer kick-off is Memorial Day and I couldn’t be happier to be diving head-first into that season.  After six and a half hour car ride back from a wedding in Detroit (accidents, thunderstorms, traffic, yuck), my man friend and I headed to a Memorial Day cookout hosted by one of his buddies from school.  We ate sliders, fresh strawberry-walnut salad, drank Corona and celebrated a birthday with ice cream cake.  We watched the sun go down from the rooftop deck and brought up a TV to watch the Blackhawks game.  All I ask is that the rest of my summer goes like that–time with friends, grilling out, ice cold drinks and spectacular views.

Here’s the recipe to my absolute favorite summer salad.  It’s nothing fancy, seriously–it took seconds to prepare and is an oh-so-perfect balance of sweet and tart.

Strawberry-Walnut Salad

1 bunch of Bibb or Romaine lettuce

1 container of Strawberries

Feta Cheese (we used to low-fat kind and it was fine)

red onion

Walnuts

dried cranberries or pomegranate seed (optional)

Poppyseed dressing

Cut up the strawberries, lettuce and slice half the onion into thin strips and toss with the crumbled up feta and walnuts.  Right before serving, add the poppyseed dressing and you’re golden.  See?  I told you it was simple.

Happy Summer, all!

High Five of the Day: The Chicago Blackhawks!  Up 2 in the series!

High Five of the Week

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I was laying out at the park when this little girl ran up to me and asked if I wanted fresh squeezed lemonade.  I only had my credit card on me and, assuming she didn’t have a credit card machine in her wagon, respectfully declined.  But this persistent young businesswoman wouldn’t take no for an answer and said I didn’t even need money–she just wanted to give out her lemonade.  Luckily, my friend Laura is responsible and carries cash so we went over to partake in this lemonade stand with wheels.

It turns out that our new friend and her Dad go around to places like “Wiggleyville” and sell dog biscuits, giving their proceeds to a park in the area.  Lemonade was a new venture in their fundraising quest and she made it all herself–squeezed the lemons and everything.  To see a young girl with such a philanthropic spirit was inspiring.  I went to the park for a tan and to read the new Vogue. I came home with a renewed sense of hope in the way our world might turn out with people like her in it.  Regardless of how much money our new friend makes for that park, she is doing more than she knows for her community.

Thanks for the lemonade.  It was exactly what I needed, in more ways than one.