"Though I grew up with Dunkin' Donuts as my weekend snack, these days I’m more likely to hanker for a bagel." Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of goyem, I will fear no lack of bagels, for thou foodie gods art with me. I figure if I repeat this mantra enough, it’ll eventually stick, but the truth is I’m pretty down on the lack of good Jewish eats in Chicago. Though we have a sizable metro population, only about 30 percent of the total Jewish population lives in the city proper. There wasn’t always a local diaspora. In the mid 1800s, a significant number of immigrant Jews lived in the central loop, Pilsen, and the famed...
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Everyone, or just about everyone, has (or should have) and needs a go-to breakfast, the one they eat just about every weekday morning without thinking, a breakfast that is easy to prepare, can be eaten while reading the paper, and is a breeze to clean up. It should be reasonably filling, not too fattening, and nutritious according to some objective standard. Your go-to breakfast can't be bacon and eggs or pancakes with sausage, because those are too unhealthy, fattening and time-consuming. Either of those could be your weekend go-to breakfast, but that's not what we are talking about here....
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Everyone has their own version of a Food Sur-Thrival Kit, a small group of reasonably priced go-to foods that we try to keep around at all times, so that no matter how bedraggled we feel when we get home, we can whip up a pleasure-inducing, satisfying meal in 20 minutes or less at any time on any day of the year. You not only survive on these foods, you thrive on them. Hence the name. Here's my Food Sur-Thrival Kit. Kossar's bialys: (fresh or sliced and frozen) A toasted bialy is just one of life's greatest and simplest eating pleasures. It supplies my daily requirement of crispness and crunchiness. Once the bialy is toasted, I melt a slice of...
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