Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/89744
ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL O'LEARY WHEN IT COMES TO HOLIDAY FEASTING, THIS TOWN WAS MADE FOR CARNIVORES. BY PAIGE WISER meat me in chicago F or Chicagoans, Thanksgiving is just as romantic as Valentine's Day. It's a day filled with incredible affection and romance—lust, even—toward our first and only true love: Meat. Glorious meat. Sure, the Windy City has its share of scrawny vegan types, too. (We are the 10th-most vegetarian-friendly city in the country according to Chicago-based delivery service GrubHub. com.) Maybe soy poisoning has made them too weak, or maybe they're bicycling their way to California, the land of sprouts and honey. But they've wisely learned to keep quiet, because this place couldn't be more carnivorous. The air is practically porterhouse-scented, courtesy of Morton's, Tavern on Rush, Ditka's, and Chicago Chop House, not to mention Fogo de Chão, an all-you-can-eat fantasyland that makes us wonder how the Brazilians came up with it before we did. This town was built on meat, hosting 400 million doomed livestock by the end of the 19th century. But mistakes were made: The Chicago Fire turned our great city into the world's largest wood-burning grill. And no one thought we'd make it through the Battle of Banned Foie Gras. But in the end, didn't it make us stronger? Hungrier? Meat-packing isn't just an industry to Chicagoans; it's a way of life. We pack it on ourselves, strategi- cally, to develop a protective layer for winter. And on Thanksgiving, we give thanks for a city that doesn't judge us for our burger toppings: "Peanut butter? Sure." We reflect on the miracle of sausage— which is, after all, just a delicious, conveniently wrapped gift to ourselves. Let Los Angeles have Tofurkey. We Chicagoans will indulge in turducken, a duck breast fillet inside a chicken inside the mother of all turkeys. And nobody made turducken like Charlie Trotter. Before his restau- rant served its Last Supper in August, he transformed Thanksgiving into a holy day, with a fabled turducken that was 18 hours in the making, assembling the meat layers in-house with Andouille sausage, stuffing, spin- ach, and corn bread. Only he would think to complement the giblet gravy with chorizo and pickled elephant. If Thanksgiving had a Santa Claus, it would be Charlie. After all, we are Chicagoans. We make reservations at avant-garde Alinea, then swing by Al's Beef for dessert. On weekends we venture south to the Maxwell Street Market to sample the eyeball tacos. Goat eye? Cow eye? A real local doesn't ask. We embrace our reputation as a meat mecca. When Conan O'Brien brought his show here in 2010, he headed to Lou Malnati's for deep-dish pizza, where he was humbled by its dense sausage-slab layer. "I've been here for two days and I already have a 30 percent blockage in my artery," he shared. "You're gonna die," a cardiologist allegedly told him. Not us. We were born to eat meat. After generations of carnivorous breeding, we have arteries of titanium, and that's why Thanksgiving means so much to us. We're sur- rounded by family—hearts and tummies full. When we take our postprandial nap, we dream contentedly of a Chicago where every day is Thanksgiving. MA 144 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM Onward!