Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Hope everyone had a spooky and candy filled day! We were lucky enough to have treats to go with some awesome Dungeness Crab! Steamed the crab and unwrapped the candy bars for a feast of a meal! Very scary delicious! Also enjoyed a good laugh as we watched a favorite clip from "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" Here is the clip below....hope you enjoy as much as we did!

Turning 50 with my wife Cheryl is spectacular! What a great food extravaganza! Great time with family!

Here are some pictures from some of my fun birthday celebration! Along with info on all the fun I had with my wife and wonderful family!

Above we have a picture of our dinner tonight at my brother Jerry's house. Awesome job Jerry and Denise thanks for making it a great day! Short ribs with a hoisin sauce that is out of this world, served over mashed potatoes! My sister-in-law Mary Kay made the great salad with heirloom tomatoes from her and my brother Chris's garden, simply delish!

Appetizer at Jerry's homemade pizza with artichokes, pine nuts, and buffalo mozzarella! Mmmm good!

 Above picture was from our brunch at 10 this morning at Bread & Wine http://breadandwinechicago.com/ located at 3732 W. Irving Park. Here we sat at the counter where chef Michael Dean Reynolds worked his magic in the restaurant and were able to chat it up with him and his sous chefs. Great guys and great cooks! Above you see our two main brunch courses we split. On the left is Breakfast Banh Mi

pork belly, ham, pâté, kimchi, fried eggs, hash browns

On the right is Crispy Semolina Gnocchi

poached egg, hollandaise, spicy tomato confit

Here is our starters to get our morning off to a great day! From left to right you see a marvelous jam, boucheron style goat cheese, pickled watermelon, BBQ pork rinds, with toasted crostini bread in the back, an unbelievably tasty mustard, and last is a divine chicken liver pate!

 A couple of tasty drinks to start off with! Bloody Mary and Mezcal with ginger beer! On the right in this picture is chef Michael Dean Reynolds....what a great host! We will be back soon!

Here my lovely niece Catherine brings me my wonderful chocolate mousse cake that came from Bennison's Bakery in Evanston! I had a great night at Jerry and Denise's home, with my nieces Catherine and Olivia (who per my request entertained me with her great piano playing!) thank you Olivia!

All of the above is from my birthday today! Last night was a special birthday dinner celebration with my wife. We went to Riccardo Trattoria in Lincoln Park....sorry no pics! Here is link to their website http://www.riccardotrattoria.com/index.php/ amazing dinner. I find that I use the word amazing quite a bit when talking about food! Started off with a great Prosecco sparkling wine to go with our antipasti Focaccina di Recco with Stracchino cheese, truffle oil, arugula & prosciutto followed up by Grilled Calamari with salmoriglio sauce & tricolor salad, lemon Followed up by Pappardelle Alla Ligure rabbit ragout, white wine, artichokes & olives and grilled whole branzino fish with garlic green beans! Accompanied with a great bottle of Campaccio wine from Tuscany! 

Thanks to all who made me so thankful to have a great family! Missed all the rest of my brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews...wish you all were there!

Lastly, I want to thank my wife....my wonderful companion these last 21 years! Thanks for this great journey in life! To share it with you has been the best that I could ever ask for! Look forward to many more great times with you!

Weekend fun at the Easter Seals Walk of Life fundraiser down at Soldier Field!

Earlier today, my wife Cheryl and I volunteered and participated in her work's fundraiser.Cheryl works for Easter Seals and today they held their walk fundraiser down at Soldier Field. We were joined by our sister-in-law Denise, niece Catherine, and her friend Aphrodite. Here is a picture of the two young ones enjoying cupcakes we brought from our new favorite place Baker Boy Bakery!

I was able to meet many of Cheryl's colleagues from work and learn about all of the services Easter Seals provides to individuals and their families of all ages. We had beautiful weather for the walk! After the walk we enjoyed sandwiches from a new find Pane's Cafe located at Sheffield and Wellington in Lincoln Park. Great sandwiches by the way! http://www.yelp.com/biz/panes-bread-cafe-chicago

Friday night masterpieces!

Tonight, Cheryl and I cooked a couple of great seafood dishes that I found in La Cucina Italiana magazine. The magazine is a recent subscription gift from our good friends Larry and Michelle who live in Packerland U.S.A. Fon Du Lac, WI. We put the magazine to test tonight with an appetizer of stuffed clams with pancetta. This recipe is courteous of the great Italian chef Marc Vetri whose restaurants are located in Philadelphia!

I must say these were amazing and very easy to make! We used cherry stone clams we purchased from Burhop's Seafood in Wilmette.

Next we made our main course from also from the magazine. This dish was merluzzo su cipolle caramellate e pomodoro aka cod with tomato and caramelized onions. OMG! This was out of this world good! Cod also purchased from Burhop's. There was no reference as to where the recipe was from. If anyone would like either of these recipes let me know.

Happy cooking this weekend to all! Ciao!

It's going to be a great day!

Walked out our back door this morning to this beautiful view! Looking forward to a great day! On the menu for tonight cod for the main course and appetizer of stuffed clams. Recipes and pictures to follow later....gotta get back to work!

Then to top it off on the drive in to work heard one of my all time favorite songs on WXRT. This is the day! By The The. Enjoy this beautiful fall day!

My love for all things chicken!

This pic above was taken in Kauai, Hawaii in 2009 while on vacation....after a long hike in Waimea Canyon, we came across a woman surrounded by chickens and were quite amused, so took this photo. Recently, I was thinking about......why do I love eating chicken? I started thinking of my youth and all the ways chicken was served to me & my family. We had grilled Grecian chicken, chicken noodle soup, grilled chicken smothered in barbecue sauce, chicken curry(my Dad's recipe from his days in Burma), chicken salad sandwiches, chicken cacciatore(my Mom rocked this), chicken tettrazini, chicken with orange slices on top....to name a few! Oh wait one more....our weekend morning breakfast with chicken livers, smothered in lemon juice!!!! Yum!

Do you love chicken, like I love chicken? How do you like your chicken cooked?

Perhaps you like to just visit with chickens like the woman in this pic! :)

Do tell! I look forward to your responses!

Nothing like making the most from the leftovers from the weekend!

We have not been home much the last couple days, due to work. My wife was in Bethesda, MD on business and arrived home late last night. I was leaving the house at 7am and arriving home at 9pm, so not much food the last couple days. I did have nice salads for lunch and fresh fruit from our trip to the Evanston Farmer's Market over the weekend. Tonight we went with some wheat rice pilaf, topped with fresh sauteed peppers & zucchini, which was then doused with our venison sauce from the weekend meal we made. Outstanding! In looking at the picture I took above.....I was not impressed with the blurriness of the pic....but meal tasted great! Good to have the wife back home!

Off to Orlando for work next week. Any good restaurant recommendations for this area?

I am headed to Orlando next week on business. I am looking for recommendations for Orlando eateries? I go there once a year....if not twice a year on business and have had some decent finds for restaurants. I have a favorite Italian restaurant down there I always go to that usually puts a smile on my face with their food. It is called Fresco's Fine Italian Dining aka Fresco Cucina Italiana.

Here is their website  http://www.frescoorlando.com/  It is located in a little strip mall off the beaten path of the touristy places. Here is the link to their Yelp page http://www.yelp.com/biz/frescos-fine-italian-dining-orlando I'll be sure to post on here some pics when I go there next week. Below is a pic of the outside of the restaurant. Doesn't look all that great from the outside but the food is amazing and ambiance is nice!

Bike ride yesterday finds us at the Baker Boys in Highland Park! Thumbs up on this!

Went for a bike ride yesterday with my wife Cheryl and turned into a longer ride (30 miles) due to the beautiful fall day that it was yesterday! Ended up in Highland Park and looking for some energy and spotted what we figured was a coffee shop and turned out to be a bakery.....Baker Boys. All I can say is we both went with the Chocolate Eclair and it was quite delicious! Look forward to more trips here! Here is a link to their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/bakerboyshighlandpark Definitely stop by on your next trek to Highland Park just East of the Metra tracks and just a little east of Green Bay Road.

Here is a pic of the beautiful fall day taken Kenilworth beach.

Meals from the trip to the Evanston Farmers Market

This weekend my wife Cheryl and I headed to the Evanston Farmer's Market and brought home lots of goodies for our weekend cooking! Pictures below...all comments excepted.

Pictured above brussel sprouts sauteed in an iron skillet cooked in the bacon grease from the country bacon that we later chopped and added to this dish. Outstanding....love this dish!

Our friend Larry the hunter caught his first elk ever.....him and his wife Georgene were kind enough to share their catch with us a beautiful venison roast. I braised it in dark beer, carrots, potatoes, vegetable stock, fresh rosemary and cooked for three hours. It just fell apart with the touch of our forks. Served it with Ancient Crusted bread from Whole Foods Bakery. Delish!

Here we grilled shrimp on skewers with mustard dill dressing and kalamata olive yogurt sauce. Awesome! This one was courteous of the great chef Bobby Flay. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-shrimp-skewers-with-mustard-dill-dressing-and-black-olive-yogurt-sauce-recipe/index.html

Ultimate Love For Food

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post. For those of you who are appreciative of good food and cooking I look forward to your comments and posts on our "Ultimate Love for Food"! My love for food and cooking started in my early twenties. It was at this time I had moved out of my parents house (I do want to say that both my mother and father Ellen and James Irmiter were both great cooks and I learned quite a bit from just watching them over the years of my youth) and had to fend for myself in the kitchen. I found that cooking came very easy! I was given the cookbook The Joy of Cooking and this would be a great help in my kitchen endeavors. I was following the recipes to a tee while making many of the dishes in this book and found that my guests that I was feeding were enjoying my food immensely. I was quite thrilled by this! It brought me great joy (no pun intended)! Since then my cooking has come a long way. I am now able to know what ingredients work with all the different herbs and spices. I hope all those viewing this blog enjoy my thoughts on food and cooking. Let the blogging begin!