WBEZ | Taste of Chicago

A taste of Taste dispels the love-hate

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:00:00 -0500

After all the talk about this year's Taste of Chicago — much of it on the turkey legs that wouldn't be there and the Asian carp sliders that would be free — I hopped on the bus from Navy Pier to check out opening day for myself.

I did indeed taste the slider. You should know by now that I love the fish and hate that it's called an invasive species. This thick, hardwood-grilled patty — made with fresh garlic, lemon zest, oregano and nutmeg, bound lightly with olive oil and panko and crowned with a tomato jalapeño chutney — was a lovely, summery bite. The firm-fleshed fish flashed flavors from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Seas.

Dirk and Terry Fucik, the husband and wife team behind Dirk's Fish and Gourmet Shop, created the sliders at the request of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources's Target Hunger Now! program. According to IDNR, "Target Hunger Now! is one of the largest humanitarian efforts undertaken by the State of Illinois." The state and its corporate partners hope "to encourage hunters and anglers to donate deer and Asian carp for processing into healthy, ready-to-serve meals."

The Fuciks served all of the 750 sliders they made for opening day by early afternoon. People waited in a line half a block long to get one, and the general consensus was that they were good — surprisingly good — which was the point; though research now suggests this "Asian invasion" may not be dangerous after all.

If you missed this batch of sliders, Dirk's grills up free samples every Saturday. The restaurant also sells Asian carp burger patties for $8 per pound.

Another new, must-see Taste feature was the Celebrity Chef du Jour booth, which kicked off with Carlos Gaytan of Mexique. His dinner was long sold out, but diners could buy his signature jamaica glazed pork belly on a celery root slaw (the dish was made and served by Washburne students, as WBEZ's own Niala Boodhoo reported). Jamaica (pronounced HUH-my-kuh) are the blood red hibiscus calices used to make agua fresca that looks like punch.

I didn't actually taste this one myself. This dish pictured above was ordered by George Nydza of Chicago, and his friend, Rita McGuire of Grayslake, Ill. They've been friends for 30 years and have been coming to Taste since the beginning. "I saw the chef making it on WGN this morning," said Nydza. "I've heard a lot about pork belly but never had it, so I thought this one has got to be good — and it's not that expensive." At ten tickets, Gaytan's huge pork belly portion came out to $6.67; at Mexique, a lunch-sized pork belly sandwich rings up at $12.95.

I hear the complaints: that Taste is too hot and crowded, that the food's no good, that nobody goes anymore. I've made those complaints myself. But a walk-through on a relatively cool opening morning reminded me why other people still love it and have always loved it. It's big city life — or at least a taste.

Weekender: A cure for cultural indigestion!

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 05:00:00 -0500

I’ve been taking a photography class for a while now, and this week, at our final session, a discussion about how to shoot photos in a crowd turned to talk of Taste of Chicago.

In outraged tones a couple of people declared, “They’ve ruined the Taste!” “They” of course is the city and ruined meant a bunch of things: a shorter fest and no fireworks, fewer food vendors but more expensive food tickets, and having to pay for seats at the music acts.

All of this even before they found about there’d be no barbeque turkey legs, at which one point one of them threw up her hands and said, “But that’s what the Taste is all about – food on sticks!”

Clearly the "they” who are “ruining” the event are, to some, further signs of the new Chicago – more upwardly mobile definitely, less old-school Chicago possibly. Talk to newer city dwellers and many view the Taste with horror – one colleague who moved here recently was told to steer clear to “avoid being stabbed.” But if you grew up with the Taste, chances are you view it like an oddball relative – sometimes annoying but still family.

If familiar, frumpy Taste has been undergoing an upgrade, what’s the big deal? For such an established Chicago event, change has been the mantra of the Taste – from the size of the portions to the rules about which food vendors actually qualify as local, to who actually runs the thing (it’s gone from the city to the Park District and back again in the past two years).

And as long as its crowd-pleasing run has been (since 1980, with a one-year hiatus in the early '80s due to political infighting), the Taste in recent years has been equally divisive: plagued by violent altercation and anxiety about food poisoning (though apparently that really only happened once, at least on a grand scale). Add in declining revenues at Taste, plus general belt tightening at the city, and is it any wonder something’s got to give?

But I think all the talk about stuff going away isn't just about new economic realities or tougher policing. It's also a reaction to a cultural sea change, a shift in mindset about what kind of city Chicago should be. What, these days, is our city's character? And how well-behaved should its citizens be? Are we "Taste" – or are we in good taste?

My fellow shutterbugs talked about the event’s unruly nature as a positive feature – not the outright stabbings, but the Fest’s tendency to spill over official boundaries and regulations. If the upscale foodies take over the Taste, as they seem to be doing, how long before Grant Park's a sea of orderly white tableclothes rather than a mess of grease-stained cardboard containers?

In that sense changes at the Taste are a bellwether of a little more order and (to some) a little less fun and personality to be found on our city streets and at our community celebrations. Gay Pride tightened up its act this year and the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Bridgeport went away and then came back with a radical makeover. Celebrations of Cinco de Mayo or Puerto Rican Independence have also been curtailed over the years. When I moved to Chicago 12 years ago, traffic in and west of Humboldt Park came virtually to a standstill on those holidays – as an impromptu bumper-to-bumper parade of flag-waving motorists took over. Not so much these days.

So far the City seems to be making an effort to keep the Taste an event that can accomodate both old and new Chicago, both giant cheesecakes and celebrity chefs (a line deftly navigated by Asian carp sliders?) But you tell me – are the changes to Taste of Chicago a timely re-do? Or is the Fest ruined beyond recognition?

Weigh in below – and while you're there, check out the rest of Weekender’s picks!

1. Ramadan Food Rituals

Saturday 10 a.m.

The culinary and spiritual elements of the annual Islamic fast.

Kendall College, School of Culinary Arts

900 N. North Branch Street

2. Flying Lotus

Saturday 4:15 p.m.

The slap-happy, experimental beat meister is back!

Pitchfork Music Festival, Union Park

3. The Black Six

Saturday 7 & 9 p.m.

NFL football players transformed into big, bad bikers!

Doc Films Max Palevsky Cinema

University of Chicago Ida Noyes Hall

4. 27th Annual Woodstock Folk Festival

Sunday 12:30 p.m. - 6 p.m.

Folk legend Tom Paxton and more in the town Groundhog Day made famous!

Woodstock Square

Woodstock, Ill.

5. Adult Swim Pitchfork After Party: The Eric Andre Show Live

Sunday 10 p.m.

A manic take on the late-night talk format – as if it could get crazier?!

Bottom Lounge

1375 W. Lake Street

6. The Atom Smashers

Monday 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Fermilab's race to find the elusive Higgs Boson particle – we know the ending now!

Landmark Century Cinema

2828 N. Clark Street

Click here to subscribe to the Weekender podcast.

What're you up to this weekend? Let us know in the comments below or email weekender@wbez.org

Taste of Chicago to charge for concert seating, special meals

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:05:00 -0500

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is making more changes to the Taste of Chicago, including charging festival goers for concert seating and specialty meals prepared by well-known chefs.

"Year in and year out it has lost money and then the tax payers paid, and not everybody went," said Emanuel after introducing the ordinance at Wednesday's City Council meeting.

The mayor wants to charge $25 for seating at the Petrillo Music Shell and $40 for three-course specialty meals prepared by renowned Chicago chefs. Stephanie Izard of Girl and The Goat and Jimmy Bannos of The Purple Pig are among the chefs who have expressed interest in cooking at the annual event.

The city reports the Taste of Chicago has an operating deficit of $2.7 million over the last three years. Attendance has also declined by nearly 35 percent since 2008.

Former Mayor Richard Daley has said the Taste of Chicago should always be free, and he rejected a proposal to privatize the event.

Under Emanuel's ordinance, entrance to the food fest and lawn seating for concerts would remain free.

The mayor has already shortened the taste from 10 days to five and moved it from Fourth of July weekend to later the same month.

The additional changes still need approval from City Council.

Mayor defends decision to shorten Taste of Chicago

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:35:00 -0600

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is defending the decision to shorten the Taste of Chicago.

Officials from the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, which is organizing this year's event, announced last week the annual food festival would be cut down to five days in 2012. The department also said the summer event would be moved to July 11-15 instead of centered around 4th of July weekend, as has been the tradition.

Emanuel said Wednesday that re-evaluating the event was one of his campaign promises and that families will still be able to enjoy the shortened event.

"After 20 plus years of tinkering around the edges, we're bringing fundamental changes to it," said Emanuel. "But I have all the confidence that people will continue to enjoy it."

Last year the city tried to privatize the 10-day event but couldn't come to an agreement with a vendor.

The city said it likely lost money on last year's Taste of Chicago.

Mayor Emanuel weighs in on future of Taste of Chicago

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:38:00 -0500

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wouldn't give any hints Tuesday about whether the city will once again seek to privatize the Taste of Chicago. The Taste of Chicago just wrapped up on Sunday, but already the park district is bracing to take a financial loss on the food festival, according to the district's interim CEO.

This was the first year the Park District ran the Taste. The city tried to privatize the event, but those plans fell through when the only bidder threatened to charge admission.

Emanuel said the Taste was a success because people from around the world visited it.

"I want that to continue," he said. "It doesn't mean we still do it the same way we've done it. We'll ask some core questions."

Emanuel said he'll wait to make a final assessment of how the Taste went until he gets a formal report.

Meantime, Emanuel also wouldn't promise the city will bring back its big 3rd of July fireworks display next year. In an effort to save money, Chicago canceled its holiday fireworks and relied on a scaled-down display at Navy Pier.

Park District head: Taste of Chicago likely lost money

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:00:00 -0500

The head of Chicago's Park District says this year's Taste of Chicago was a success, even though he says the city likely lost money on the festival.

Leading up to this year's Taste of Chicago, which ended Sunday, the city had considered privatizing the event in an effort to grab some quick cash. But when the only bidder suggested charging admission to the food festival, the city instead turned the 10-day event over to the Park District.

"I don't think this thing made money, but I don't think it lost a lot of money, either," said Michael Kelly, the interim head of the Chicago Park District.

Kelly said it's too early to know the exact net loss for the Taste. He said he considers the event a success, in part because crime wasn't a big problem as it has been in the past. He said by ending the event half an hour earlier each day, police had more daylight.

Kelly said he's not sure if the Park District will still have control of the Taste of Chicago next year, but if it does, he said he'd try to keep a focus on events for kids and families.

Teen antismoking 'Truth' Truck at Taste of Chicago

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:54:00 -0500

The "Truth" tour aimed at preventing teen smoking is coming to the Taste of Chicago.

The tour includes a truckload of teens making stops around the country to talk with their peers about the dangers of tobacco.

They're teaming up with the Chicago Tobacco Prevention Project and will be parking their orange truck at the Taste on Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The truck features a DJ booth, sound system, dance floor and lounge area where teens can hang out and share information about tobacco products.

The Chicago Tobacco Prevention Project aims to cut youth smoking in the city by 25 percent.

City ramps up security for the Taste

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:29:00 -0500

The Taste of Chicago is opening this Friday, and the city is adding more security compared to previous years.

Recent robberies downtown involving groups of young people have police changing their strategy for the festival. Garry McCarthy is the city's police superintendent. He said there will be the same amount of uniformed officers as in previous years, but extra officers will take up support roles.

"Some of the technical assistance I was referring to will be manned by officers. And at the same time, we're going to have a deployment of plain-clothed officers throughout the crowd which for obvious reasons I don't want to give you those numbers," McCarthy told reporters at a press conference in Grant Park.

McCarthy said those extra plain-clothed officers will mainly be targeting pick-pockets and monitoring crowd activity. He said video surveillance will be ramped up, and police will also use a helicopter to observe the festival. Other security measures include bag searches at entry points and police presence at transit centers.

Unlike in previous years, the Taste of Chicago is being coordinated by the Chicago Park District. The festival runs from Friday, June 24 to Sunday, July 3. On most days the festival will last from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., except for the last day when it ends at 6 p.m.

A Park District official said there will be no firework display to mark the last day of the festival. Instead, the district has scheduled a Disney performance to close out the Taste.

Poor Pat Quinn: Are you ready for your legacy?

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:03:00 -0500

Yay. New budget. Yay. New casino in Chicago. Yay. Quinn has 60 days to slow this story to a crawl, giving more and more media outlets the chance to speculate on what is next. Yay.

Poor Pat Quinn. Remember when his job was all about walking across the state to raise awareness for health care? Or telling us the dangers of household cleaners?

The one-time liberal crusader is now faced with the unthinkable: Approving a casino in Chicago. And not to mention approving a budget that will short-change education and social services. All that adds up to a legacy, gov'nor. It will definitely be historic and will tie Governor Quinn's name to gambling forever. All this while his former boss tells his life story in Chicago.

And did you see this front page picture of State Senator Terry Link?

"YES. YESSSSS. YESSSSSS!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSS VICTORY IS OURS!!!!! YESSSS, NOW LET"S DESTROY THE JEDI KNIGHTS!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS."

B story: Daley joined a law firm. Not just any law firm, but the law firm that brokered the infamous parking meter deal. C'mon Rich. Seriously? Were you that hard up for work that you took the only offer on the table? This does nothing for your reputation.

But this is the way of the world of Chicago politics. Once you serve the public, you serve the corporations who want to benefit from the public. Daley says he won't have anything to do with city contracts, but that certainly woulnd't stop him from saying to colleagues, "Oh, that contract? Yeah, just call my buddy Jimmy..."

C story: It's sort of like when an employer cuts a bunch of jobs and then when the economy turns around, they still don't fill those jobs. That's what it's like, these 4th of July fireworks. You are ruining the sacred ritual of drunk teenagers who come out in the cover of darkness to watch pretty fire.

Who wins? Lollapalooza. They get the runoff of drunk teens, looking for that one summer trip on the Metra.

Weather: I missed the news cycle on Monday, but caught up with Emanuel's presser about the closing of North Avenue Beach on Memorial Day. Too much heat, he said. The Tribune has an awesome next morning video, right out of a zombie movie. But in the end, was the unusual closing really about too much heat? Or was it about gangs?

Sports: Last night, the NBA Finals began with a Game 1 win for the Miami Heat. I watched the 4th quarter and during a timeout, noticed a big celebrity sitting courtside. His name is Julius Peppers and he plays defensive line for the Chicago Bears. In the Eastern Conference Finals, Peppers was spotted sitting courtside with a Chicago White Sox hat on. I gave him mad props for supporting the Chicago team. But now, I'm not so sure. Is it possible that Peppers is a Heat fan? And if that's the case, should the Bears just cut him outright? Forget what I said earlier about how great he is on the football field, what I mean to say is that he is lazy, unproductive and a liability.

Because of this betrayal, I hope football never comes back.

Foxes in the hen house: Park District to run city music fests and Live Nation likely to get Northerly Island again this summer

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:00:00 -0600

On Thursday afternoon, the Daley administration made the latest in a series of inscrutable moves to assure a future of stultifying mediocrity and/or political shenanigans at Taste of Chicago and the six other Grant Park music festivals.

As first tipped by Crain’s and then reported at length by the Sun-Times and the Tribune following a press conference that the mayor did not even deign to attend, the Chicago Park District will take over running Taste of Chicago this summer—with no “big musical acts” and the focus on food, food, food.

The four smallest music festivals—the Viva Chicago Latin Music Festival, the Country Music Festival, the Gospel Festival, and the Celtic Music Festival—will be folded into Taste, leaving only the Blues Festival and the Jazz Festival as free-standing events run by the surviving patronage hacks of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, thereby ensuring they still have jobs while many Cultural Affairs veterans are unemployed in the wake of the merger that led to the new Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

This follows a mind-boggling chain of events that started with Daley last fall saying that he’d like to privatize the festivals and granting that there probably would have to be an admission fee; the administration issuing a request for proposals and receiving only one bid from a world-class troika (Jam Productions, AEG Worldwide, and the Illinois Restaurant Association) that would have turned the Blues Festival into a true competitor of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Taste of Chicago into a cooler Lollapalooza with food (AEG has a hand in the New Orleans fest and promotes Coachella); the mayor arbitrarily rejecting that bid and saying that Taste should be free forever and about food not music, and the city following suit by formally torpedoing the plan at 4:30 the afternoon the blizzard of the century hit Chicago.

Confused? Who isn’t? As reported by this blog, even now-retired Cultural Affairs maven Lois Weisberg has been mystified by all of the doings of late—and they’re all intertwined: the festival privatization, the decimation of Cultural Affairs, and the bid for the concert venue on Northerly Island, all loose ends Daley seems to be trying to tie up before leaving office, leaving a long-term legacy a la Lollapalooza, which has a deal to remain in Grant Park through 2018. It helps to read the many stories this blog has run attempting to shed light on all of these issues—see the links below—but for the moment, let’s just focus on the reason why Park District involvement with the city music festivals is a very, very bad thing.

Plain and simple, the Park District consistently has favored big, corporate, out-of-town concert promoters at the expense of Chicago musicians and promoters. It approved the long-term, tax- and competition-free deal with Lollapalooza, negotiated in part by attorney, lobbyist, and Mayor Daley’s nephew Mark Vanecko, who worked for promoters C3 Presents. It awarded C3 a contract to promote cultural and music events at Soldier Field during the Bears’ off-season, though that deal has yielded almost no events of note. And it gave Ticketmaster/Live Nation a three-year contract to book concerts on Northerly Island, extended that deal for the two one-year extensions allowed in the contract, and then threw in an extra year last summer without the bidding process seemingly required by law, claiming it just wouldn’t have been practical to bother with all of that when the city was making plans to host the Olympics (which of course soon became moot).

But wait, you say, what does it matter if the Chicago Park District favors corporate concert promoters if music won’t be a big part of Taste anymore? Well, that might be part of the reason for this whole shell game: C3’s deal with the Park District states that no other concert promoter can run a “similar” festival in Grant Park as long as Lollapalooza’s deal is in effect, though it makes an exception for the seven existing city music festivals. If C3’s rivals Jam Productions and AEG took over Taste of Chicago, they’d be competing in the park that C3 has come to consider its own private venue to book some of the same name rock acts that might otherwise play Lollapalooza.

And the blues and jazz festivals? Well, they’re the biggest losers in all of this, because the partnership of Jam and AEG could have done truly amazing things with the bookings at both, albeit with music lovers now having to pay a nominal charge for the privilege. And no one in any of the music communities involved ever was given a chance to weigh in on any of this or suggest alternative plans. (Public hearings? We’d don’t need no steenking public hearings; we’re the Daley administration! At least for a few more weeks.)

How exactly will the Park District take over the thousand practical aspects of running Taste? It’s unclear whether all of the work will be kept in-house or if it will partner with outside companies—and gee, wouldn’t it be interesting if C3 Presents turns up to lend a “helping hand” as a contractor?

Meanwhile, just to the south and east, it looks as if the Park District will wind up with Ticketmaster/Live Nation once again promoting concerts on Northerly Island this summer.

As this blog recently predicted, the Park District has admitted that it never will have time to weigh the four bids it’s received and award the long-term contract to turn the former site of Meigs Field into an ecological playground and natural concert amphitheatre in time for construction to be completed by this summer. So yesterday, it sent each of the four bidders a letter inviting them to erect a temporary concert facility at the site and promote shows there this season. Their responses are due by Feb. 23.

The problem here: Only one of those bidders, Ticketmaster/Live Nation, is in a position to practically respond in such a ridiculously short period of time, having already erected the temporary venue for the last six years, and publicly stating that it’s already holding concert dates for this summer “just in case” it’s chosen by the city. It’s impossible for the others to compete, so the dreaded “Death Star of the concert industry” (so named by many employees who work there; it’s not a phrase this blogger coined) just got a big, wet Valentine’s Day kiss a few days early.

Oh, and lest anyone think things will get any less friendly for the corporate concert bad boys any time soon, let’s note once again that the two top executives of Ticketmaster/Live Nation both have donated to the campaign of mayoral frontrunner Rahm Emanuel, whose brother serves on their board of directors, and that 15 employees of his brother’s talent agency, which co-owns Lollapalooza with C3, also are among his donors. This reporter still is waiting for the Emanuel campaign to respond to questions about those contributions and comment beyond its one-sentence pledge to turn all dealings with those entities over to an independent negotiator to avoid the charge of favoritism. It’s been four days and counting.

Earlier reports in this blog about privatizing the city festivals and the battle between the Mayor’s Office of Special Events and the Department of Cultural Affairs:

Feb. 9: The push to privatize Taste of Chicago is back on

Feb. 2: Daley rejects the only bid to privatize the city music fests (and finally make them world-class events)

Jan. 20: Lois Weisberg: “This is one of the worst things that ever has happened to the city.”

Jan. 7: Privatizing Taste: What changed for Daley since November?

Jan. 6: "It's called Taste of Food. We're not in it for music."

Jan. 3: And the mystery bidder vying to privatize Chicago's music festivals is...

Dec. 27, 2010: Only one bidder wants to privatize Chicago’s music festivals… but who the heck is it?

Dec. 20, 2010: What's really going on at Cultural Affairs, and what happens to arts and music now?

Dec. 16, 2010: Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs is dismantled as 29 are laid off

Dec. 14, 2010: Nope, they won’t have to remain free… and answers to other questions about privatizing the city music festivals

Dec. 7, 2010: City festivals chief responds to this blog’s reporting on the push for privatization

Dec. 6, 2010: Are a political power struggle and a sweetheart deal fueling the city's push to privatize the summer music festivals?