Author: paladin1787

New direction

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

Something from Bonsoiree. Yes, I know that not giving an excruciatingly detailed description is a mortal sin in the food world, but let’s face it: whatever this is will taste better simply because it looks so awesome. I had dinner at Bonsoiree on Thursday. (Creative Commons photo by Flickr’s ewwhite)

I’m planning to start blogging again, so a quick catch-up is in order.

First, since I stopped writing here I landed and left a cooking job. Actually, I had various roles with the underground supper club Clandestino. In a later post I’ll share pictures of some dishes for which I served as prep cook/line cook.

But when I got word in late July that I was to intern under Steve Dolinsky, ABC Chicago’s food reporter, I jumped on it. I am, after all, a trained journalist. Not so much a chef.

Dolinsky has a thrice-weekly TV news segment called Hungry Hound, reviewing all things food in Chicago. As of last week, I now help him put it together. He also has a popular food blog at Vocalo, a project of Chicago Public Radio.

He’s won 12 James Beard awards, and maybe I can help him win a 13th. He’s been nominated the past couple years.

So now I am…

  1. Mentally preparing for another full-time semester of courses toward my “science journalism”  undergraduate degree at Columbia College Chicago
  2. Helping produce a much-loved food TV segment
  3. Brushing up on my cooking technique by reading On Cooking (a text that Kendall College culinary students read), The French Laundry (Thomas Keller’s cookbook from the restaurant of the same name), and The Bread Bible (because why shouldn’t I know how to bake great bread?)
  4. Making ends meet by working part time for a catering company and maybe (fingers crossed) a gourmet spice shop
  5. Visiting all the restaurants I can afford to visit. Last week my girlfriend and I had a tour de force with La Madia, Big Star, Girl And The Goat, and Bonsoiree, the latter two being new to me. Reviews to come.

So as you can see, I’m not stagnating. I’ll start to write here again as well—about school, restaurants I visit, cooking exploits, and my experience interning with Dolinsky, who’s among the most well-known food critics in the states.

…just don’t expect me to drop any hints at upcoming stories!

Third Coast FilmLESS Festival Part II

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

I know it’s 10 days late, but other deadlines—having to do with my academic or professional lives!—hung over my head until now. So here’s a final review of other select pieces from the 2010 FilmLESS festival for radio arts, in downtown Chicago.

Tupperware, by David Nelson and Nikki Silva, aired in 1981 on All Things Considered. (I hear this piece was the debut of the now-infamous “Kitchen Sisters” duo.) The only thing that hinted this was made in 1981 was a bit of sound quality degradation. Otherwise, it was an avant-garde piece if I’ve ever heard it, about the fanaticism and just plain weirdness in the way this product is sold. I can’t believe something with this kind of production was on All Things Considered. Voices drifted in and out of one another, overlapping. There was no narrator. It bordered on noise at some points, but it was relevant—Tupperware parties are noisy things, apparently.

Si Se Puede, by Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister, aired on Latino USA in 2009. This ran longer than the others, at 22 minutes, but it was worth it. The piece chronicled the fight of 300 workers at Republic Window and Door to obtain what their contracts outlined once the plant closed. Republic had no choice but to deny them things like continued health insurance because Bank of America wouldn’t extend credit to the company.

Continue reading →

Third Coast FilmLESS festival part I

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

The Third Coast FilmLESS festival, sponsored largely by Chicago Public radio, just can’t fit into Twitter posts. Been there, tried that.

So here’s my rundown of my favorite segments so far:

1. Lucy and the Bike Girl, by Hillary Frank, aired in 2007 on This American Life. It’s the story of Lucy, who has cystic fibrosis, making her very susceptible to germs. Every day she sees this girl in red pigtails ride a bike by her house, and when she finds a picture of this same girl on an internet message board for CF, she chats her up. They become awesome friends, better than Lucy’s in-person friends. But she doesn’t tell her she lives right down the street, because they might be tempted to meet. …Lucy’s tempted, though, despite the bike girl’s having a type of bacteria that could kill Lucy.

Continue reading →

Mobile tech + democracy = awesomeness

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

So I’m in this class called mobile journalism, and we’re doing a lot of cool stuff.

Liveblogging Arianna Huffington was only the beginning—we’ve Skype’d with people in Africa and Japan on the same day about how they use their phones, Skype’d with Kevin Thau, a VP of Twitter about (what else?) the future of Twitter, and now we’re designing the mobile presence of Chicago News Cooperative, the new nonprofit heavy-duty reporting outfit that covers the city for the New York Times.

Also my fridge project is for this class. Orion Magazine, whose photo project was inspiration for mine, has tweeted about me TWICE THREE TIMES. They’re my favorite mag and have been called the most important environmental magazine, so you should know I’m psyched. Feel free to follow my prof, Dan Sinker, on Twitter.

But interestingly enough, today I felt compelled to post because of the textbook for this class—Mobile Design and Development by Brian Fling. An excerpt:

The Estonian government will be putting the concept of media context to the test in their 2011 parliamentary elections, allowing citizens to vote for their leaders using SMS. In this case, the government can tabulate results instantly. But imagine a day when citizens can vote on local or national issues in real time, eschewing having to wait for traditional media to report on the effect of their vote, instead seeing the results in real time, as it happens.

There are already many opting to use the mobile media context in order to be heard. On the immensely popular television show American Idol, more votes were cast using a mobile phone in 2009 (178 million total text message votes) than votes cast in the 2008 presidential election (131 million ballots cast).

If that doesn’t deserve an “OMG,” I don’t know what does.

My idea: direct democracy. I think it’s possible with saturation of mobile.

Continue reading →

Header change

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

The dining room of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Westcott House, Springfield, Ohio. As was Wright’s custom, he designed the furniture in the house as well as the structure. This table with integrated electric lighting was re-created in the early 2000’s from Wright’s drawings. (Photo by me)

I decided to flip the header today, simply because I got bored with the last one. I don’t think I ever explained what it was—the roof of the abandoned building I lived in last summer.

Here’s the photo essay explaining THAT situation.

I plan to sell the story of the Westcott house to TRIP, the biennial travel publication of Brown Publishing’s southwest division. I’ll show you the spread when it’s printed.

Poem my MFA friends are proud of

/ paladin1787 / Leave a comment

I’m usually pretty self-conscious about my creative writing. Unless it gets published I usually only share it with good friends.

Except with this most recent poem. My friends who have—or are just about to receive—Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing like it. Ergo, here I am, showing you.

Scab Scratching

Like spread-eagle in snow
with too-few clothes
the sting froze
anesthete

Placed the needle precise
small scratch belied
voluminous
slice

Don’t you revisit pain
—sometimes in vein—
for a taste
life?