WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

First celebrated as a harvest festival 3,000 years ago, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which this year falls on this Sunday, September 30. Meanwhile I've been monitoring worldwide reports of the contemporary bounty of the season: mooncakes.

Estimated to be a multi-billion dollar business, mooncakes were once considered the Chinese version of the Christmas fruitcake. Today though, mooncakes appear in chocolate, ice cream and other luxury ingredients — and are considered a status symbol that can grease the wheels of global business. There's even a booming black market trade in mooncakes, according to Marketplace.

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Katherine Anne Duncan melts E.

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Friday, September 21

Did our craft beer story from Thursday make you want to whet your whistle? Perfect timing! This weekend is the end of the third annual Publican Fall Food Drive, benefitting the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Donate non-perishable food and get a complimentary beverage, immediately or for a later date. According to the GCFD, their most needed donation items are beans, canned fruit, canned vegetables, cereal, chili, jelly, macaroni and cheese, pasta, pasta sauce, peanut butter, rice, shelf-stable milk, soup, stew and tuna. And please, according to me, bring the good stuff, as in stuff you'd eat yourself.

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Homaro Cantu, the chef best known for so-called molecular gastronomy, held an impromptu cooking class at his restaurant, Moto, on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night, Cantu premiered a playful Martin Scorsese-themed menu at his adjacent restaurant, iNG, with Italian influenced food and drinks. Why Scorsese? "We chose Scorsese because we think he is one of the most creative artists and he has a sense of humor even in his most serious works," said Cantu Wednesday.

That is how I'd describe the chef and his work as well.

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Monday, September 17

Miss this year's Green City Market Locavore Challenge? Yeah, me too. But it's not over yet at the Locavore Seasonal Potluck Celebration featuring Terra Brockman at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Brockman is the author of The Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm, based on her brother's vegetable farm in central Illinois. She's also the founder of The Land Connection, an educational nonprofit working to ensure that more Illinois farmland will grow local foods for our tables. And if you've never been to the historic Hull-House for an event, it's a treat in and of itself.

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As turmoil swirls across our city and around the world, I have to admit that I hesitated to share my current favorite thirdspace: Bang Bang Pie Shop.

As you may know, a thirdspace (aka third place) follows home (first place) and workplace (second place) as your main social environment and community anchor.

At Bang Bang, it's not just co-owner Megan Miller's pie — three she changes weekly, always including a seasonal fruit, chocolate and cream-based pie — that keeps me coming back for more.

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On day three of the Chicago Teachers Union strike, I heed Peter Sagal's call to remember the sandwiches of our youth.

Like you, I'm an avid follower of Wait Wait...Don't blog me!'s Sandwich Monday feature.

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