Chicago, Illinois: Long Weekend Vacation - Part 3 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Chicago, Illinois: Long Weekend Vacation - Part 3 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The next day, my tutor, her son, and I got up early and went to eat breakfast at the Hilton Café next door – pancakes, fruit cups, and hot chocolate.

We did two cultural institutions in the morning till about 1 and went back to the hotel.  We went swimming for two hours and then ate salads at the Essex Inn Café with quiet, reading time after that.

Our little group ate in Chicago’s Greek Town that night.  We all ate in Detroit’s Greek Town, so we knew what the items on the menu were.

I tried dolmas, which seemed to be a larger version of dolmades – stuffed grape leaves with different ingredients.

In Detroit, dolmades are stuffed with rice and flavored with mint with a lemon sauce called avgolemono on them.  In Chicago, I saw that large dolmas come stuffed with rice, raisins, and lamb with just the lemon avgolemono sauce on them – no mint.

I was further impressed with food in Chicago when we went to the Bakery Restaurant in the City’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.  The chef-owner was Austrian, who loved the best of all European cuisines.

The owner served dinner in two shifts with a selection of 3 main dishes based on market and pantry combinations for the season.

We ate vegetable terrines with tomato coulis around the slices as a starter followed by Beef Wellington, roast beef baked in a crust.  For dessert, we ate apple strudel with black raisins and golden Sultana raisins.

I thought our meal there was the best one I had ever eaten in my short life at the time. 

When I graduated from the University of Chicago more than a decade later, my mother held my graduation dinner at the Bakery with my family’s paterfamilias (who was a winning quarterback at the Rose Bowl for Northwestern in his youth) and my first employer, who organized the first Super Bowl in the People’s Republic of China (also a University of Chicago alumna).

On our last night together after a few days of intense museum going and reading, our group went to Ann Sather Restaurant for a dinner of Swedish meatballs, spaetzle (German egg noodles), and rotkohl (sweet tasting, braised, red sauerkraut).  We took home boxes of cinnamon rolls, so we could get up early and make it home by lunch.

As we left town, I looked back at the sprawling Chicago skyline and loved how the city found space for the wonderful museums, parks, and art amidst the office buildings.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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Chicago, Illinois: Long Weekend Vacation - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

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

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Chicago, Illinois: Long Weekend Vacation - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Chicago, Illinois: Long Weekend Vacation – Part 1 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Long before I attended the University of Chicago, I knew the City of Chicago was very nice to visit.  My mother could drive on the highway between Detroit and Chicago, so we visited often.

On one 5-day weekend for the Fourth of July, my mother and I set out for a vacation in Chicago.  We would meet one of her friends, her friend’s sister who babysat me from time to time, and my babysitter’s son.  (My babysitter took me to museums, so I considered her a tutor more than a babysitter.)

We stayed at the Essex Inn on South Michigan Avenue.  Our hotel was right next door to the 5-star Hilton Hotel.  The Hilton has a majestic façade of foliage-rich Corinthian columns with windows between them for ballrooms and expensive suites for royals visiting the Chicago Institute of Arts or attending the Lyric Opera or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

As a young teen, I preferred the Essex Inn, because it had a swimming pool.  My mother and her friend both preferred the Essex Inn, because it had valet parking on the ground floor.  The Hilton was designed for tax and limousine pick up in the lobby.

When we arrived in Chicago, my mother took me to the Hilton Café that was located off to the left side of the lobby when entering from Michigan Avenue.

I thought the café chairs were posh – rattan with flowery fabric.  I did not know about Raffles Bar in Singapore at the time, but I think it was inspired by the décor at Raffles.  I liked the lush, green foliage that set the café apart from the lobby, too.

My mother set down the rules quickly about behavior in Chicago.

“If you behave, you can eat here.  That means no fighting, pouting, or complaining,” she said.  Boss lady mom knew the power of examples.

I quickly agreed to the contract and ate eggs Benedict with tangy, lemon-flavored Hollandaise and grapefruit baked with brown sugar that had a maraschino cherry in the middle.

If you grow up in industrial cities like Detroit, trying different food in well-decorated restaurants is a vacation and relief from factory time and scenery.  Detroit looks better now, but work and money are still the huge draw to the region.

As a young teen, I liked trying different foods.  I especially loved going on vacation, because we ate out a lot.

End of Part 1.

To be continued.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey, California - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey (California) – Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We were the first customers of the day. (The first customers are supposed to bring luck in the Middle East and Central Asia). 

The saleswoman showed us a samovar and some small glasses that Persians use to drink tea.  I wondered how they managed to keep their hands from burning.

“Persians will always offer you a cup of tea when you go to their homes,” the saleswoman said.

She continued by saying, “You never put milk or lemon in Persian tea.”

She reached behind her and took out a plastic bag behind some cans.  Inside the bag were 1-inch crystallized sugar lozenges.

“In Persia, they hold these sugar cubes between their teeth and sip the tea for flavor,” she said.

I bought pita bread, the tea, and bubble gum for Florence from the saleswoman.

At home, the citrusy aroma from the tea made it taste even better.  As we drank our tea, I showed Florence where to find Persia, modern-day Iran on our family’s globe, which sat on the dining room table.

“I already know where that is.  We are studying ancient Persia at school,” said my know-it-all daughter who went to a Montessori-Waldorf charter school in Pacific Grove.

“What are you learning about? Carpet weaving? The Shamanah myth” I asked.

“All that plus we’re learning about the philosopher Zarathustra, and how many myths show about choosing between good and bad and what happens if you do not choose the good path,” she said.

“We have to spell Zarathustra for the spelling test,” she complained.

“I’ll quiz you, “ I said. 

(If you have more than one child, children can quiz each other during dinner prep.  With only one child, you have to stirfry, make salad, and spell check at the same time.)

I made Salade Sabzi from Shaida’s cookbook The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, which includes savory and tangy herbs like mint, dill, and scallions.  We incorrectly put the salade sabzi in warm, pita pocket bread and thought it tasted great with lemon-oil dressing.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Ruth Paget Selfie