Recently in Festivals Category

While we head out of town this weekend for a much-needed getaway, thousands are expected to head to Millenium Park Saturday and Sunday for the second annual Chicago Gourmet. The two-day event was hatched by the Illinois Restaurant Association as Chicago's premier food and wine festival, a see-and-be-seen sort of thing crawling with all the boldface-named chefs you could want. At $150 to get in the gate, it better be.

We missed last year's debut (baby business to attend to) but read it wasn't too pretty -- not enough food, too much wine, odd scheduling. We're curious to hear your impressions this time around.

Every summer millions of people descend upon Grant Park for the Taste of Chicago. As for myself, I cannot get far enough away from it. It's wonderful that the city can attract so many people (and their disposable income) downtown, but I'd rather stay away.

I prefer to get in the car, take a little ride and share my meat on a stick with thousands, instead of millions. One local food fest that I do look forward to is the Taste of Melrose Park, which took place in that near west suburb over the Labor Day weekend. (My apologies to readers for not sharing this before last weekend, but I needed to conduct extensive firsthand research on this Taste before blogging about it.)

There are many reasons to love the Taste of Melrose Park, besides the fact that it's on a smaller scale than that other Taste. While they do have an impressive number of food vendors, few of them are from restaurants -- most are just families who have their own specialties they sell, such as Petruzzi's meatball sandwich, Louie Ariola's artichoke casserole, Tony and Aldo's pepperoni roll, Vinny and Nico's quesadillas, Siciliano's fried bologna and Meno's neckbones. Yeah, that's another thing I love about the Taste of Melrose Park -- you can have your frog legs and turtle on a stick at the Taste of Chicago, but you'll find things at the Taste of Melrose Park with a real heritage; the sort of food your grandparents made, like neckbones, or things you or your parents used to eat, like fried bologna, and old favorites, such as fried dough.

One of the more popular items year after year, with the longest lines, is the sfingi made by the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles. By the way, a long line at this food fest is one that you may have to wait at the most, five minutes in, and most vendors' booths do not have lines with more than a few customers.

The portions are not huge (which makes sampling a little of everything easier), but neither are the prices. Most items were $2, but none were more than $3.

This year I paced myself, sticking to things that really intrigued me or which I really wanted. My take included D&D's arancini, the pepperoni roll, the sisters' sfingi, Mama D's braciole sandwich and the fried bologna sandwich (with onions and mustard). Everything was good, the crowd was nice, and parking was free. I'll be back again, that's for sure, and next year I'll try the neckbones.

The creators of Baconfest Chicago (which is pretty self-explanatory, wouldn't you say) took to Twitter this morning to divulge details of just how they envision this whole porkfest shaking out.

They promise a bacon expo, bacon cook-off, bacon-themed poetry slams and fashion, a bacon cocktail lounge and even the Golden Rashers -- the Oscars of bacon, as it were.

The fest is set for Oct. 25 at the Stan Mansion, 2408 N. Kedzie. Plenty of time to get your arteries ready.

A few things you should know about the Taste of Chicago, which opens 17 days from now, for those of you who live for such things:

* Each booth now will offer two smaller "taste" portions this year, "our little nod" to the recession, spokeswoman Cindy Gatziolis says.

* There are 10 fewer booths this year. The three newbies are Manny's, Blue Bayou and Garrett Popcorn Shop, whose signature items will be, respectively, barbecued turkey legs, gator sausage on a stick and the popcornsicle (a la Top Chef-er Richard Blais - see video for clarification).

* You can get a preview of what's to come at Taste at a mini-Taste from 11 a.m. To 2 p.m. Wednesday at Daley Plaza. It's open to the public.

* If you walk the Taste route from Monroe to Balboa and back, it's a mile and a half.

Update: About that popcornsicle, Jack Aiello, Garrett's vice president of marketing, tells us the company's decision to join Taste for the first time hinged upon the ability to offer Taste-goers a product "perfect for a hot summer day in Chicago" (provided it ever gets hot).

The Taste marks the popcornsicle's paid debut (it was given away for free during promotions with Blais in New York last year).

As for the popcornsicle's provenance, Aiello says the PR firm representing Garrett in New York knew Blais and connected him with the company.

At the Garrett booth, vendors will be dipping the popcorn balls to order in vats of liquid nitrogen. The popcornsicles -- six tickets each -- should stay cold for a few minutes, Aiello says.

Something called BaconFest Chicago is brewing, the folks at MenuPages say. Conceived by a trio of bacon-obsessed guys, the all-pork fest may or may not take place sometime in the fall at a yet-to-be-determined site, according to the BaconFest Web site.

Of course, there already is a Facebook group (with 232 fans and counting!) and Twitter account set up for BaconFest. Because in this city, our love of pork knows no bounds.