full of mistakes

An experience

John and I had our first dinner out (just the two of us) in Chicago since we arrived two months ago. However, I had been waiting for this dinner for years.

Alinea was opened in 2005 and shortly afterwards I read about it and wanted to eat there every time we visited Chicago. Many family plans and two little girls kept it from happening.

The dinner was worth the wait and all expectations.

Alinea chef and owner Grant Achatz is a wizard of molecular gastronomy. What happens at his restaurant is not your traditional dinner experience. You eat food, but it is served in most unexpected ways and portions through many courses. They are little pieces of art, delicately arranged. You can see in the online kitchen photos, everybody has little tweezers like tools to work on little leaves, chopped bits.

My favorite course of the night was the mushroom concoction served on a pine and juniper aroma air filled pillow. The pillow was releasing the air as you were eating your dish, stimulating all your senses…

Another entertaining course was the table décor. It was a big cube of ice with what seemed like two red rods in it. By the fifth course, when we were given two glass straws, we realized that they were two drilled holes filled beet juice, infused with hibiscus and licorice. We drank from our table décor!

We also had the wine pairing for the dinner just to make sure we would make no mistakes. Our sommelier was very knowledgeable. He sometimes entertained us by sprinkling more than a few words from the native country of the wines he was serving that we were not sure what he was telling us!

Of course, with lots of wine paired through many courses, I got tipsy, and unnecessarily grilled a server after overhearing his introduction of the dish “Scallop acting like agedashi tofu.” I, obviously, cannot remember exactly what he was saying but it was degrading to tofu. Everybody has the right to have opinions but I thought that he had to be fair to each ingredient of the dish. In the end, it was tasty but it was one dish that I questioned that night. It was introduced as the scallop acting like tofu as if it had no resemblance to tofu but it had soymilk in it: soymilk that makes tofu!

Well, I could not take a photo of it, as it was served just as the dashi broth that would go in the dish was starting to boil right in front of us in a funny apparatus. I was busy taking photos of that.

The dinner ended with a highlight. The chocolate dessert was served by Grant Achatz, himself (all guests get to enjoy that). Not much chatter but a focused display of chef-in-action.

Another fine museum

When we were in Istanbul, we treated our one year stay as a long vacation and kept exploring the city as much as we could, instead of settling into a routine. In Chicago, while we are trying to settle into a routine and also get a lot done, we are still trying to be tourists. We have been to another great museum this weekend, the Field Museum. In a very beautiful, big building, the museum did a fine job of making every detail work very well. Beautiful exhibits, kiddie corners all around instead of just one room designated for the kids and also a giant children's area named PlayLabs. 

Images above are: the entrance with the giant elephants, Aztec marketplace clay-model with super intricate details and a little house from Pueblo for kids to play in the PlayLab area. Good places like this seem to prevent meltdowns in our family. We all had a great time. And the longest fast food lunch at McDonalds (not my choice)! Adele and Lula really enjoy their rare french fries and ketchup outings slowly.

House number #23 is seen. Might be promising.

Gray Days and Bright Technology

When we first arrived in Chicago, we bumped into another dog owner walking her dog at the park early in the morning and started chatting with her. She welcomed us to the city, saying that she moved 15 years ago or so and loves living here, just not its long, gray winter. I wasn't sure what it meant but now that we are here for 1.5 months, I can see it. Yes, it has been warmer and sunnier than its usual but gray is a dominant winter color here! I like sunny days but I also love gray photos. I am still not complaning. The photo above is from our drive to Wisconsin this weekend. The wind was brushing roads with snow. 

During our last month in Turkey, both my cell phone and red Dell laptop started giving me a hard time. They both took a very long time to perform simple tasks and my laptop sometimes just did not start. It is an irritating thing to backup your data every other night thinking that you might not have it the next time.

When we arrived in Chicago, I got a new iPhone and shortly afterwards, an iMac Pro. My two last Dell laptops did not age very well and I have not been using any Windows-only software for a while. So, when John proposed I return to Mac, I thought why not. I am delighted to be a Mac user again. I am mesmerized with the technology they developed, especially iCloud and Time Machine. I have an iPhone and an iPad. Now, without connecting anything to anything, they can all have the same calendar, address book, photos... on them. For the organized virgo(me), this is just great.

I still questioned the sales guys at the apple store quite a bit when I was buying my laptop (wanted to make sure that I was doing the right thing). He gave a dealbreaker answer when he said: "Do you see a Windows support store around? We make hardware and software and are around to help you when you have problems." It is true. 

Back in the US

Our 12 hour flight from Istanbul to Chicago actually went remarkably well.Turkish Airlines has constant TV programming, which kept Lula busy for a long time. Adele took a nap and made her usual fuss, but not much more. Just threw up in a way that managed to cover all of us while we were standing at the back of the cabin together. Even that was not that bad. The hardest part was the sorrow of departure sinking in every other hour.

We had a great year in Turkey. We got to spend time with our old friends. We made wonderful new friends. We visited sights in Istanbul for over a year with the excitement of freshly arriving tourists. We ate a lot of good food and tasted a variety of Raki. And the best - we were spoiled by the love our of big immediate family.

We believe that Chicago will be a better place for our family, for Lula and Adele in the long term, but obviously, it is quite hard to be away from Turkey now. We are at least relieved to have the direct and fantastic Turkish Airlines flights in between Chicago and Istanbul!

Now, we are in Chicago. For the time being, the weather is close to Istanbul's and we can go out for walks. We are comsuming food that we thought of in Istanbul (I did not really miss too many things as I was catching up with the Turkish food I missed in the last 10 years). Good and cheap sushi to begin with. I love seeing the runners on the cold streets, it is motivating me. We are driving around the neighborhoods to see where we might like. John was born and raised here, but hasn't lived here for 25 years or so. He knows his way around but we are looking at the newness with the same eyes. Kids are happy to ride along. 

We will be reunited with Buddy today. Now, that will be fun!