The Story of Eli: A Chicago Legacy That’s More Than Cheesecake

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Catherine Lambrecht

A Chicago Legacy That’s More Than Cheesecake

Presented by
Maureen Schulman, Diana Moles and Jolene Worthington
Co-Authors of The Eli’s Cheesecake Cookbook

This year marks Eli’s Cheesecake’s 35th anniversary, which was the driving force behind the creation of The Eli’s Cheesecake Cookbook, celebrating one of the country’s most famous desserts. The book chronicles founder Eli Schulman’s rise to success, from opening his first restaurant, Eli’s Ogden Huddle on Chicago’s West side to Eli’s Stage Delicatessen at 50 E. Oak Street and finally, the legendary Eli’s The Place For Steak, at 215 E. Chicago Avenue, where he invented Chicago Style cheesecake as well as many other famous dishes. Continue reading →

Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Catherine Lambrecht

“For many people Henry Ford’s 1913 Detroit assembly line is a symbol of technological triumph. This book shows that Chicago’s 1865 disassembly line was an earlier more complete wonder, rapidly transporting animals, keeping them healthy and watered, dividing them into a wide variety of products, communicating ownership and destination, and keeping meticulous accounts of all the processes. Continue reading →

Soul Food Restaurants & the Civil Rights Era

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Catherine Lambrecht

Presented by Dave Hoekstra and Paul Nathin

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. loved the fried catfish and lemon icebox pie at Memphis’s Four Way restaurant. Beloved nonagenarian chef Leah Chase introduced George W. Bush to baked cheese grits and scolded Barack Obama for putting Tabasco sauce on her gumbo at New Orleans’s Dooky Chase’s. Continue reading →

Grandbaby Cakes: A Loving Legacy of Southern Family Tradition

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Catherine Lambrecht

You all know of the Cookie Monster, but how would you like to meet the Cake Angel? For that’s what we consider Jocelyn Delk Adams. Jocelyn has penned an oh-so-sweet book that captures not only her southern grandmother’s luscious baking legacy, but her loving warmth as well.

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BBQ History Heats Up January

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Catherine Lambrecht

Presented by Chef Bill Reynolds,
Proprietor, New Buffalo Bill’s, New Buffalo, Michigan

Menu

It may be January, but we’ll be warming you up with a program that we typically hold in July—on the bliss and history of BBQ. Why January, you ask? Because that’s when we could get our speaker, Chef Bill Reynolds, a formidable force in America’s culinary scene; Chef Bill was finally able to take a break from his BBQ emporium, New Buffalo Bill’s, that he opened last summer in the lakefront getaway of New Buffalo, Michigan. Continue reading →