Since We've Been Gone

Since we just got back from Chicago this evening we had a simple meal of sweet potato hash browns, frozen dumplings and cucumber salad with wa-fu dressing. The cucumbers came from our garden - there were two large ones and a million itty-bitty ones that grew over the past five days. Unfortunately cucumbers don't win the nutritional content of the year award.

Lest I forget I wanted to mention a restaurant we visited in Chicago - Lula's Cafe. Lula's Cafe is in the Logan Square neighborhood a block or so off the blue line. I was excited to eat there because it was the setting of this episode of This American Life. Besides the staff acting exactly as they are described on the show and the table next to us being psychotic it was a good experience.

Although we arrived around 8:30 or so the wait was about 40 minutes but I love waiting as long as good friends are on hand. Compared to restaurants in New Orleans it was trendy and all the people in there seemed like they were trying to be pretty hip with mod-ish hair cuts and laid back clothes. Or maybe that is just how people in Chicago look and I have forgotten. Amos commented it was unlike New Orleans because we could see the floor and ceiling. The interior was pretty nice - fantastic silkscreens for sale on the wall, antique and modern mixed furniture, muted colors - you get the idea.

The menu seemed pretty exciting even after I had edited out all the non-vegan items. I ended up having the Moroccan Sweet Potato Tagine which was fine but nothing to write home about. Amos however had the Tineka sandwich - spicy peanut butter on multi-grain bread, tomato, cucumber, red onion, sprouts, sambal and Indonesian sweet soy sauce - which was really good. So we traveled 900 miles only to find yet more proof that peanut butter sandwiches are indeed king of the sandwich world and can dominate almost every food category known to man.