Pequod's Pizza

 

 

Hey Chicago,

where do you stand on Pequod's?

Here's a brief commentary on Chicago pizza in time-line, City Lights style.

Your first Chicago pizza: Giordano's.

Giordano's is where I went on high school trips to Chicago, and then where I went with my family when they visited me throughout my first year of college.

LouMalnati's.

Lou's is where students taught me to go early on into my college career.

I went with my roommate, first for their chocolate chip cookie pizza, and then increasingly

with groups of friends for the deep dish butter crust.

Enter (future) husband.

Lou's was his favorite at the time, so Lou's began to edge in.

Eduardo's.

Eduardo's catered many student leader events throughout my last two years of college. 
Deep dish, thin crust, it was free.

Gino's East.

The place which shall not be named.

Pizano's.

As an upperclassman, I found myself an undeserving member in a small insider's group of Pizano's friends.

A friend I worked with inducted me into the group, which was never more than 5 or 6 of us.

We swiped our U-passes through the brown line "L" turnstiles to the Loop and settled into a corner table for free pizza after 10 or 11pm with the purchase of drinks, a student deal that our group kept under wraps.

Pizano's II

After husband and I got married, he worked locally at the Four Seasons Hotel off Michigan Avenue.

Right there in our neighborhood was a hole-in-the-wall Pizano's, full of Chicago character and neighborhood charm.

It's dark, small, and cozy, with red-checkered tablecloths and red twinkle lights draped along the ceiling throughout.

We've never, ever looked back from this place and the thin crust Rudy's Special.

Pequod's.
A lot of our new friends talk about Pequod's.

It's a bit more tucked away from the tourist scene, lodged in trendy neighborhoods nearby, but according to our friends it's essential to the Chicago pizza scene.

We tried it the other night while the weather was warm, and it was a success-

meaning we did enjoy the night, but it didn't come close to the Rudy Special.

What's your favorite Chicago pizza?

Bridgeport Coffee Co

The month of March.

When the lion and lamb charades come out to play, we try to guess the character of the day.

First Vespa ride,

Iced lattes,

Bicycles and parks?

Blankets and books,

Coffee shops and sweaters?

Rain, wind, shine, blooms? 

March is a sweet month in our little world, not because charades is our game but because

the lost art of spring break is our game.

Husband's job at a college gives a novel 2 weeks,

so every minute I wasn't at work, we went out into the city, letting the daily weather charade give us clues.

Last summer, my friend Kirra lived in the Bridgeport neighborhood and every time we rode the Vespa down to her place, she was all, "You guys gotta stop at Bridgeport Coffee!"

Hey.  You.

You gotta stop at Bridgeport Coffee. 

If the day looks like the form of a lion, spend the afternoon at Bridgeport Coffee with it's twinkle lights, bud vases, big windows,

and vintage ceiling tiles, with thick old white paint.

It's the kind of day spring dreams are made of.
Lion or lamb.

 

 

It's Done

 

The Shamrock Shuffle

 

This weekend will be a first for this Chi-Town girl,

my first Chicago race event.
Can we get an "It's about time!" 
Word on the street is people love Chicago's race routes, and I think it's time I get my own pair of feet on the streets.

The Shamrock Shuffle 8k (or the Sham Shuff as we've taken to calling it around here) is what's happening.

At 40,000 runners, it's the biggest 8k in the world, but for me, the party will be all about the four people I'm running with and getting to spend the weekend with them, for sure.

(My dad, my sister, and my two brothers...xo!)

The Shamrock Shuffle rings of the city's Irish heritage and love of St. Patrick's Day, which honestly is such a bust in Chicago.

It's probably the only day of the year that I don't like Chicago.

After work on St. Patrick's Day last Saturday, husband and I walked over to our favorite neighborhood pizza place, a pretty typical Saturday night practice.

Within the few blocks from our apartment to the restaurant, we passed more drunk groups of people than I see in Chicago in a year, and our little locale was spilling over with more of the same.

It was all so obnoxious and so not what we love about Chicago that we turned around and went home.

True story.

I'll probably want to turn around and go home after mile 1 in the Sham Shuff this weekend, but, you know.
Everyone will be sober, right?! 

image source

Inauguration Day

 Montrose, people, Montrose.

 

Return of the City Walk Cards

A couple Sundays ago the first signs of spring washed over the city.

Those signs came in over-exposed sunshine and a bright hue of blue to the sky that reminded me of Lake Michigan's summer ceiling.

Husband resolutely left his winter coat behind, while I still wrapped up in my favorite scarf and gloves.

I think I ended up being the happier, but thanks to husband all the same for his nod to spring ideation.

But it's true, there was enough spring in the day to bring us out into the streets and neighborhoods, to find new nooks and corners of the city to meet.

 City Walk Cards are part of our Chicago habit, and this day we chose the University of Chicago in Hyde Park.

Have you been?  I mean.  I freaked out the whole time.

And the ivy tracing every face of the buildings wasn't even budded yet.

The Hyde Park neighborhood holds not just UChicago, but 

old bookstores, and more old bookstores, and then the oldest used bookstore in Chicago, O'Gara & Wilson.

Okay fine.

I like you.

At afternoon's end, we did the only city-walk-respecting thing to do, which is to walk into a local diner, ask what's good, and pay cash because there's no assurance that a historic neighborhood diner with a fuzzy old TV set humming in the background takes credit cards. 
But they do take explorers.