Chicago, Illinois: Long
Weekend Vacation – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
That
night after a swim and shower, our little group went to Trader Vic’s for
dinner. Trader Vic’s was a kitschy
Polynesian place with tiki torches blowing fake flames and big masks on booth
walls with long, straw hair watching over your meal.
My
mom’s friend’s sister who babysat picked out the restaurant and had
recommendations for me. I considered her
a tutor in art and fine food.
When
she babysat me, we went to the Detroit Institute of the Arts and would devote
ourselves to one type of art and its galleries at a time: Egyptian, Greek, European armor, Dutch,
French, and African with an exit stop at the Diego Rivera Mural of the Ford assembly
line.
Our
après-museum visit place for lunch was Lelli’s Italian Restaurant. I ate the same thing that was invariably
good: pickled vegetables and assorted salume antipasti, lasagna Bolognese, and
spumoni ice cream. I still love that
combination.
At
Trader Vic’s, I ate rumaki – fried chicken livers with water chestnuts held
together with fried bacon strips on a toothpick. I was surprised I liked that dish. I also liked the shrimp and chicken curry I
ate, which is similar to South African peri-peri I discovered later in life.
My
tutor set out the agenda for the young teens on vacation.
“Visiting
Chicago is not all about eating in restaurants.
The restaurants here have excellent food, but there are world-class
cultural and educational institutions here that I will take you to,” she said.
“Such
as?” I asked, knowing full well that cultural outings came with lunch
afterwards for kids.
She
smiled at me and her son and named the following 5 places:
-the
Shedd Aquarium
-the
Adler Planetarium
-the
Chicago Institute of the Arts
-the
Field Museum of Natural History
-the
Museum of Science and Industry
My
tutor’s son and I both thought those places sounded great. I knew my mom’s friend’s sister wanted to
visit these places as well.
She
wanted photos of us on the esplanades around these institutions and in front of
the museum porticos with columned façades by Lake Michigan.
End
of Part 2
To
be continued.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
