Adventure: Chicago

I went to Chicago this weekend. It was a great trip. I met some cool people at the MidSingles conference and I will probably go to more MidSingles conferences. But here's some things I saw in Chicago.

I had spent most of Friday walking around Chicago. I started out at the Magnificent Mile.
This was the first thing I saw when I left my hotel. I thought it was really funny, and yes, all the burgers are named after a Three's Company character. I did consider going to this restaurant, but it was a little too icky looking.

I wandered around for a little while with no real goal in mind. I ended up here at this park by Delaware Place. I thought it was just a really pretty park. And I especially liked the lamp.

I went to Millenium and Grant Parks after the Magnificent Mile. I was actually looking for the metra entrance and ended up walking through the parks all afternoon. Mainly because I found out the parks have some pretty cool stuff.

"The Bean" is in Millenium Park.

And this garden with the butterflies.

Then there was this other garden in Grant Park with things like chard and kale and other edible plants.

On Friday evening, we went to the South Shore Cultural Center. It was a nice location, though it was kind of cold outside for the BBQ.

On Saturday morning, I went to Lincoln Park for the service project. It was over pretty quick since the Northwestern first year law students were also working on the same project.

I ended up with some extra time on my hands on Saturday morning, so I went to the Newberry Library. The Newberry Library is one of the largest humanities libraries in the world. There was an exhibit there called Origin. The exhibit was about Darwin's Origin of Species and also several other influential works that were published the same year: Adam Bede, A Tale of Two Cities, Self-Help, and 2 other books.

Saturday afternoon at the Art Institute was great. I met up there with some people from the conference and "we saw priceless works of art." My personal favorite was the Cy Twombly exhibit in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute.

The weather was perfect on Sunday. Would have been the perfect day to go to the Sears Tower, but I figured I should go to Church with my fellow MidSingles Conference attendees.

The trip was great and I would definitely go again. I already have my list of stuff started of things I want to do next time I'm in Chicago.

What's Cooking: An Update

I've been cooking a lot more than I've been blogging lately. These are some things that I've made during July and August.


All the items in this salad are from the Farmer's Market. It's one of the best green salads I've ever made. I'm not a huge fan of salad and usually when I go to restaurants, I have a no salad policy. The salad is either all salad dressing, or boring, or iceberg lettuce with a few withered carrots. Fresh and interesting ingredients make all the difference.


And this is purple cauliflower that I found at the Falls Church Farmer's Market.



And when it comes to pancakes, I've had as many successes as I've had failures. I didn't try to make pancakes without an electric waffle maker until I was in college. I could just never get them right. But this time that I made pancakes, they turned out great! I made the pancake mix from scratch using a recipe from "How to Cook Everything: The Basics." There wasn't even a "sacrificial pancake" at the beginning.


When I was making these cupcakes, I was just thinking about how far I had come as a cook. A funfetti cake out of the Betty Crocker box with frosting out of a can was something that I frequently made when I was a teenager.

Currently Reading: The Time Traveler's Wife

One of my favorite phrases is "space-time continuum." It's in this book. And that's what this book is about. Great story.