The Practicalities and Pleasures of Homemade Train Food
While on an Amtrak train ride from Chicago to California, I reflected on the sociology of train food and what's happening to us here, in this pivotal era, and our history.
My Recent Work
For 40 Years and Counting, This Halal Butcher Has Served as a Community Hub in Albany Park
In Albany Park, a hub of Arab and Middle Eastern grocers and restaurants, owner and head butcher Hasan Faraj runs Lebanese Meat Market, a cornerstone of the community here and across Chicago. Since 1984, Faraj has provided zabiha halal-certified lamb, goat, beef, and chicken.
How real is Shōgun?
Because of the fierceness of the warrior class and Japan’s distance from Europe, the Portuguese didn’t have the ability to conquer Japan through force, the way they did in places like Brazil and parts of India. Instead, they used religious conversion and trade to try to accomplish a cultural and economic conversion, exploiting the fractious nature of the warring lords to expand their trade routes. In fact, Japan still bears marks of Portuguese contact.
The revolutionary spirit of Soul Train
Soul Train was an ensemble show, featuring musicians, dancers, comedians, and special guests who came together to put on a grand show. It was glittery and glamorous, but also intimate and personal, with celebrities like Patti LaBelle, Elton John, and Little Richard mingling with the dancers in the audience. Simply put, you couldn’t miss it.
The lasting impact of The Color Purple
This latest version of The Color Purple is a different work from the Broadway show before it, and the film before that and the book before that, because every adaptation is its own unique piece of art, fulfilling its own purpose and often even appealing to different communities.
The truth about Napoleon and Josephine’s marriage, divorce, and lasting legacy
In the film, the divorce ceremony is attended by luminaries and family, and stresses the couple’s love for each other even through the dissolution of their union.
What is life like in Palestine? These short films offer a glimpse.
That night, we see the residents of the house, a married couple, as they try to have sex. They draw toward each other, softly touching feet and thighs, but they are interrupted by the sound of bombs, which makes their infant cry. The husband then takes a condom, blows it up, and lets it float through the apartment wherever it may land — on the floor, on the bookcase, on their child. We realize this is his compulsion, a coping technique, a way of keeping score of what is taken from them.
The enduring allure of a good love triangle
I’m a huge fan of love triangles, but even I have to admit that The Summer I Turned Pretty is a little ... intense.
Swarm isn’t a love letter to Black women. It’s hate mail.
Donald Glover has A Problem.
Atlanta’s third season explores the horrors of intimacy with whiteness
The theme of whiteness and how it haunts and damns its own recipients becomes almost cartoonishly apparent by the first scene of season three, later revealed to be a dream within Earn’s (Donald Glover) own dream sequence. Dreams have long been the perfect medium for surrealist art. A stylistic movement developed in the aftermath of World War II, surrealism uses discomfiting, contradictory, irrational images to evoke a dream-like state of being. The subconscious takes these images and reorders th...
Euphoria changes the narrative around Blackness and addiction
After watching season two, episode five — which Zendaya described in an Instagram post as part of Rue’s “rock bottom” — some were shocked that Leslie didn’t resort to more intense violence as her panicked and distressed daughter rampaged throughout the house.
Chicago’s Best Halal Street Food
Want more halal options in Chicago? I got you.
The Best Middle Eastern Restaurants to Try in Chicago’s Southwest Suburbs
A glimpse into the best of Chicago's Little Palestine
What you’re feeling is grief
COVID-19 and what it's done to us
A Tattoo Will Earn a Lifetime Supply of Crab Rangoons at an Avondale Chinese Restaurant
Through Friday, April 17, Friendship Chinese restaurant in Avondale is offering customers a chance to earn free egg rolls and crab rangoon for life. The catch could be considered another perk; you have to get tattooed with the restaurant’s logo.
The Hard Sell of Meghan’s Soft Life
A critical reading of Sussex's new lifestyle and cooking show
Brunch, Decolonized
Indigenous brunch is here in the Twin Cities, being served at community staple and James Beard Award-winning restaurant Owamni.
Inside Ayesha Curry’s journey from home kitchen to budding culinary mogul
An interview with food and lifestyle entrepreneur Ayesha Curry.
Chicago’s Best Zero-Proof Drinks and Non-Alcoholic Cocktails
Chicago’s Best Butchers and Stores to Buy Meat
A list of the best butchers in Chicago, and places to buy uncommon meats like rabbit, duck, alligator, venison, pheasant, and goose.
In Pilsen, Sleep Walk Chocolateria Presents a Rich and Decadent Story Powered by Tradition
For Día de Muertos, there’s an ofrenda recounting the memories of the deceased loved ones of the employees at Pilsen’s Sleep Walk Chocolateria. “Día de los Muertos is mostly a journey for elder ones that are no longer with us; to keep their memories alive,” says Jorge Fierros, the chocolate program manager at Sleep Walk, a division of Dark Matter Coffee. “The fact that we remember them every year — that keeps their essence alive,” he says. “
A Dominican Legend Known for Her Fried Chicken Rises Once More
Morena’s Kitchen returns with a new location in Humboldt Park three years after the pandemic led to the restaurant’s closure.
Natasha Rothwell takes center stage in her new Hulu series
I interviewed Natasha Rothwell and we spoke about her new Hulu show "How to Die Alone."
Does Chicago’s Only Lebanese Tasting Menu Restaurant Match Michelin’s Hype?
Checking out Beity, a Fulton Market restaurant from chef Ryan Fakih, was meant to be the highlight of my week, for good reason. The Michelin Guide recently recognized the Lebanese gastronomic experience, which opened in early August after two years of anticipation in a food scene with few Middle Eastern fine dining options.
Load More