Friday, August 19, 2011.
Peter Pan In Life. On The River. Carson's The Place For Ribs.
Mary Leigh and I both slept late (she later than I), but we're on vacation. I did breakfast again and wrote today's newsletter at 312, the restaurant of the Allegro Hotel. I just found out why they call it that: 312 is Chicago's area code. So that's a bit better than the usual numerically named restaurant.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, a little on the warm side but compared with New Orleans right now comfortable. We walked towards the lakefront, routing ourselves through a farmer's market adjacent to the Illinois State office building. The Midwest is at the peak of its berry season, with blackberries that made ML's eyes pop.
As we walked along Michigan Avenue, Mary Leigh took note of a young man headed in the other direction, drinking a smoothie. "Hey! That was Peter Pan!" she said. I turned my head fast enough to see that the guy did look like the actor we saw flying around the stage last night. I wheeled around in pursuit. My ankle is still far from perfect, but I got up a good head of steam. When he was slowed by the crowd at the corner, I caught up with him and asked whether he was Tinkerbell's friend.
"I am!" he grinned, with only a tiny hint of the leave-me-alone reaction that recognizable people can't help but emit. I introduced him to Mary Leigh and said we thought his performance and the production were fantastic last night. He looked at me hard and said, "Yeah! You were in the front row, weren't you?" Yes, we were.
This reaffirmed my belief that one should always try to be the first person to rise to give a standing ovation, as I did last night. I'm sure he wouldn't have recognized me today if I hadn't.
Peter Pan himself! His name is Chuck Bradley. Pianist, tenor, dancer, movie and theatre actor. The night we were there he replaced the regular Peter Pan star. Hard to imagine the first-string guy being any better. Out on the same sidewalk as us. What were the chances? "That's the fastest I've seen you move since you broke your ankle," said Mary Leigh.
We strolled around Millennium Park, walking all around and under the big chrome bean, looking for possible lunch spots. We wound up on a long pedestrian bridge leading to the Art Institute and a chic-looking Italian restaurant. It looked a bit too suave for our needs at the moment. And, besides, we had to get to the dock from which our architectural tour would leave in a couple of hours.
En route there, we came upon the Dick Blick art store. My artist daughter was thrilled to spend a half-hour or so shopping there, even though she bought nothing. Back when I was an artist in college, I went to stores like this--always in minimally appointed old buildings--to let myself be overwhelmed by the millions of tools and materials at an artist's disposal. The staff here had the same New Age demeanor as then, and the sound system was even playing 1970s rock music. For a few minutes, I was in a time warp, and wanted to be an artist again.
I liked the river tour more than Mary Leigh did. She didn't care for the narrator, who was pedantic and doctrinaire and never stopped talking for the entire ninety minutes. But I myself am a opinionated pedant windbag, and I have an appreciation for others of my ilk. So I liked his nonstop spew of who designed what, when that building over there was the sixth-tallest building in the world, why that tower was a failure, and much too much more information.
Of this there is no doubt: the architecture of Chicago is one of its most outstanding qualities, matched by few other cities in the world.
There was something else to look at besides buildings. This weekend is the annual Aircraft And Seacraft show, in which military jet planes zoom around, making sonic booms and drawing in the sky with contrails. It was so loud that it actually made our tour guide stop talking now and then. It went on through the duration of the tour.
The sun blazed down and we both got a little burn from it. We were glad that the neighborhood was in shadows as we headed to a place where we could get a cab. We passed an interesting food store and went in. Great meats, baked goods, and produce--the kind of store of which we have far too few in New Orleans. Mary Leigh bought a slab of chocolate, having some distinct plan for it when she got it home.
Dinner at Carson's The Place For Ribs. Nobody calls it just Carson's; it's always the full Carson's The Place For Ribs. I loved this place in 1980, the first and last time I went there. My girlfriend of the time, her father (who lived in Chicago) and some of his friends went there with great excitement. And a lot of competing customers, making a forty-five minute wait for a table. I was not much of a rib eater back then. This place turned me on to baby backs for life.
We went early to avoid the crowds that did not materialize. I guess after thirty-one years a lot of other rib joints have opened. Chicago is a big-time rib town, enough so that for a few years there was a running parody on Saturday Night Live about that taste.
Carson's The Place For Ribs still has its sharp edge, however. You start with a large, individually baked, slightly-sweet cornbread. Then you have a "garbage salad." This is a Chicago name for a chopped salad with everything. We saw garbage salads on menus everywhere we went. (The one at Gibson's had the greatest variety of ingredients.) I had a garbage salad at Carson's The Place For Ribs last time I was there, so here it was again.
The ribs were just the way I like them. The menu brags that these are not fall-off-the-bone ribs, but smoked for many hours with no marinades or liquid smoke or anything like that. They came out so hot that I had to let them cool before I could pick them up. Sauce, on the side, was spicy and perfectly to my taste. Mary Leigh likes ribs, too, but she had a pulled pork sandwich. The premises--which have a decidedly 1970s look, with booths and low lighting--were less to her taste. But this is real Chicago, I told her, and she went along without complaint.
As Mary Leigh's moods go, "without complaint" means "ecstatic." She's nineteen, after all. But she is genuinely enjoying our trip together, she says. And that's real ecstasy for me.
Carson's The Place For Ribs. Chicago: 612 N Wells. 312-280-9200.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
