Oooh, how I ate. Oh, how I spent! Living in a smaller city, I can’t buy much “fancy food” without paying high shipping costs, so I used this trip to buy every affordable non-perishable item that I’d ever yearned for. When I wasn’t enjoying a deep-dish spinach pizza from Caffe Florian in Hyde Park, an arbol chili dark chocolate pyramid from Bon Bon in Andersonville, or a raspberry petit four from Swedish Bakery, I was buying three pounds of fat chestnuts at the Green City Market in Lincoln Park, dried scallops in Chinatown, or exciting salts like earthy red Hawaiian, architectural Maldon, and sticky gray fleur de sel. You know you’re having a good time when you’re shopping at an organic farmer’s market, sample a sugar snap pea sprout (tastes just like sugar snap peas!), and trip over a pink fingerling potato. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever tripped over!

The fleur de sel was probably overkill, but because I couldn’t buy all the stinky cheese, delicate fruit, and pricey meat that I wanted for fear of spoilage, I comforted myself with foods that would last decades. Besides, I don’t drink. Think of the thousands of dollars that I’ve saved by not buying wine every week. Oh heck, think of the millions of dollars that I’ve saved by not buying cases of 18th century wine every day! Don’t I deserve a little hand-raked sea salt? The salt may still be around when I’m 80 because it’s too expensive to use. I’ll bring it out to show guests, but I’ll be sure to let them know that they’re not important enough to eat it. If anyone requests a taste I’ll say in a shocked tone, “You think I’m made of salt?” (Insert biblical spouse joke here.)

The Amedi chocolate bar, salt caramels, and Trader Joe’s grade B maple syrup—I finally found grade B maple syrup—will disappear before the decade is out. I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do with dried white fungus, but I’m going to enjoy figuring it out. I know excactly what I’m going to do with the dried morels. (Hint: It involves the Italians and rice.) The Arbol chili pyramid is long gone, but the lingering heat kept me company for at least five minutes before it faded into a warm memory. Can you be addicted to a chocolate after one dose? And could the flavor be improved with a dip in fleur de sel? There’s only one way to find out.

I hope to go back soon clutching a new shopping list in my hands and wearing an extra-absorbent bib around my neck. After all, I still haven’t tried every deep-dish pizza in town, nor have I tried one of the famous hot dogs that you can’t order with ketchup or else an angry mob will drag you to the stocks to pelt you with lake effect snowballs. Also, the one store I found that stocked El Ray had run out of the white chocolate, I need to find a decent masala dabba in Indiatown, and I hear that Szichuan peppercorns packed in oil can knock a grown man into a stupor. Now that’s Chicago.

Link du jour

Chicago-based Fancy Toast is a treasure of a food blog. It’s beautiful, hilarious, and a little—just a little—completely insane. I love it.