Dine with Top Chef Dale Levitski at Relax Lounge

For Suzette’s birthday, I wanted to do something fun. We are huge fans of the TV show Top Chef on Bravo, and we’ve been dying to have a meal prepared by one of the chefs. After some extensive research (i.e., Google), I learned that Stephanie Izard (Season 4 winner) and Dale Levitski (Season 3 runner-up) hadn’t opened their new Chicago restaurants yet. Stephanie’s new restaurant is called The Drunken Goat and will open in Fall 2009. Dale’s restaurant, Town and Country, should open in 2009.

With a little more digging, I found out that Dale Levitski is cooking at Relax Lounge on Thursday nights – they call it Dine with Dale. It's a three-course dinner for $30 per person. I was surprised that I could get a reservation on short notice, but it’s not well-known yet. So we made plans to go into Chicago on a Thursday night (March 12, 2009), which for us is unheard of.

Relax Lounge is a long, narrow space. Foremost it is a bar, with bar food and not much dinner seating – there are about 12 tables. They have a tiny kitchen which turns every Thursday into a Top Chef challenge for Dale.

We sat at the bar and ordered some interesting drinks – mine was a Calientini made with Absolut Pear, St. Germaine, jalapeno, and cucumber; Suzette had an Eau de Veev made with Veev (acai vodka), Domaine de Canton (ginger liqueur), pear, and grapefruit. I know they sound strange, but they were really delicious. They were savory and not sweet, with the alcohol in perfect balance with the flavors.

We were soon moved to our table where we finished our drinks. We thought we might feel a bit out of place in a bar for hip, young people. After looking around, we could see the other dinner patrons were almost all over 30 and probably Top Chef fans as well.

The first course was a salad with smoked salmon, avocado puree, bacon, corn salsa, and a matzo cracker balanced on its side. The salmon was delicious and avocado was smooth and silky. You could taste each individual component and they were all really fresh.

We each ordered a glass of the recommended wines: a Hess Chardonnay and a Santa Julia Malbec. The Malbec was very fruit forward and easy to drink, and matched the entrée really well. The Chardonnay was better with the food than without, but I wasn’t crazy about it.

The entrée was Chicken Marengo, crawfish, tomato, and olives with a chicken breast atop a potato. I love comfort food and this was it! The Malbec was a perfect match for this dish.

Dessert was a brownie sundae. When I read the menu, I thought dessert wasn’t as exciting as some of the previous weeks’ desserts, such as cardamom brulee, lingon berries, and lemon crepe. All doubt was erased when our dessert arrived. The brownie had huge chocolate chunks, the whipped cream was so light, and the chocolate sauce was delicious. It was chocolate heaven!

Around 8:30, people started trickling in for the second seating. By 9:00, it was just slightly crowded. During the evening, we had a few glimpses of Dale working near the kitchen. After everyone received their dessert, Dale came out and chatted with some of the guests, but didn’t make it past the third table. He needed to prepare for the next seating. Fortunately, they were very accommodating and we were able to sneak into the back to compliment the chef and have our picture taken.

The pace of the entire meal was unhurried. At the end, I was surprised that two hours had elapsed. Two hours for a three course dinner may sound like a slow pace, but it didn’t seem like that at all.

The food was fantastic, service was great, and we really enjoyed the entire experience. Get a reservation and give it a try! If you are a foodie, you won’t regret having a meal prepared by a Top Chef!

Here are some links to good interviews with Dale Levitski:
Interview: Dale Levitski, "Top Chef" Finalist
Dishing With Dale
Life after 'Top Chef': Where's Dale?
Chicagoist Re-Grills: Top Chef Finalist Dale Levitski

- schneid

Ponzi Schemes

It's amazing how Ponzi schemes can happen right under your nose. Then things get bad and everyone tries to get their money out. But they can't because there isn't enough money! This is happening to everyone you know. It's called banks. If everyone tries to get their money out, the bank goes out of business. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me.

- schneid

It's Tuesday...It Must Be a Blizzard

I'm getting tired of these Tuesday snowstorms. On the first day of my new volleyball league, December 9, it snowed during the afternoon and rush hour. It took me about 30 minutes to drive 2 miles on my way there. The next week, it snowed so badly on December 16 that we decided to cancel. On December 23, we were planning on going to my mom's house for dinner - but we couldn't due to another snowstorm. We didn't play volleyball again until Tuesday, January 6 - guess what - more snow that day.

Now we have a game tomorrow January 13 and they are predicting a blizzard starting today. However, we might not make it to work due to the weather, but it should be cleaned up by game time.

- schneid

Keep Governors Out of Jail

In the wake of the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, now is the time to start an aggressive program to keep our governors out of prison. We must reach out to this at-risk group, help them stay out of jail, and show them how to become productive members of society. The following graph shows that governors are now incarcerated at a higher rate than whites and hispanics.


Convicted US governors from the past 30 years:

Governor	State	Term	Notes
John Rowland	Connecticut	1995-2004	resigned in 2004, convicted and sent to prison
Don Siegelman	Alabama	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
George Ryan	Illinois	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
Bob Taft	Ohio	1999-2007	convicted of misdemeanors for failing to report gifts, remained in office
Fife Symington	Arizona	1991-1997	convicted in 1997 and forced to resign, conviction was eventually overturned
Jim Tucker	Arkansas	1992-1996	convicted in 1996 and forced to resign, received probation and house detention due to poor health
Guy Hunt	Alabama	1987-1993	convicted in 1992, sentenced to parole, later granted a pardon by the parole board based on innocence
Edwin Edwards	Louisiana	1972–1980, 1984–1988, and 1992–1996	convicted in 1998 and sent to prison
Marvin Mandel	Maryland	1969-1979	convicted in 1977, sent to prison, conviction was overturned in 1987
Rod Blagojevich	Illinois	2002-present	arrested on December 9, 2008

Please help keep our governors out of prison!

- schneid

Fitness notes 12/5

I worked out 2-3 times the week before Thanksgiving, swam and went on a hike during the week of Thanksgiving, and worked out twice this week. This week really should've been 3-4 times, but it's a start. I'm going to start playing volleyball with my friend Tim next week. It has been, oh, almost 7 years since I've played regularly in an indoor volleyball league. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

And if it ever warms up to 50 (it's like 12 degrees today), I'd like to start running with the other Tim again.

- schneid

summer blend gas

I love that term - "summer blend gas". Whenever I think about it, I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from Seinfeld. Jerry is buying a car from David Puddy, and says "That undercoating, that’s just a rip-off, isn’t it?", and Puddy says "Oh, we don't even know what that is."

The plunging oil prices made me think of that. Watch out, by the way. We're not even close to the bottom of this recession. Unemployment, housing, stock market, and everything else are still on their way down. Why? There's no reason for them to go up. There are a lot more people that are going to default on their mortgages and lose their jobs. You can't improve the economy if people aren't working, regardless of what Wall Street or Washington would have you believe.

- schneid

Thanksgiving 2008

I really need to catch up on the last 6 months, but maybe I should start with the most recent events since those are fresh in my mind.

Due to the bad economy, we decided to drive to North Carolina for Thanksgiving this year instead of flying. This was the first time we drove there with the kids. We gave Anna an early Christmas present, a Nintendo DS and some games.

The kids occupied themselves with their games, books, and DVDs. We spent some time sitting in the back with Anna and keeping her busy. The first day was an easy one, a 5 hour drive to Bloomington, Indiana to visit Kevin, Amy, Carter, and Archie. We hadn't seen them (I think) since our 20 year reunion in August 2006.

We arrived around 2:00 and stayed until after dinner. Ben and Carter were excited to see each other, almost as excited as Sweetness the attention-starved (or so he would have you believe) beagle was to see us. The kids (that sometimes includes Kevin) ran around and had fun while the adults (that sometimes includes Kevin) caught up. We had fun playing Wii Rock Band and hanging out. We had a great time - thanks Kevin and Amy!

We spent the night at a hotel in preparation for our 6:15 wakeup - because I didn't want to hit the mountains in the dark that night. We did wake up on time but didn't leave quickly due to a leisurely breakfast. It had been beautiful and sunny the previous day. This day it was dark and rainy.

We drove on some winding roads back to the freeway. It seems like Bloomington is up on a hill. This was the start of hilly driving which continued for the next 7 hours until we past Asheville, North Carolina. We did get some daylight in the mountains. And mostly is was drizzling, so the drive wasn't too bad. We arrived in Clemmons around 7:30 PM.

The kids were excited to see Nana and Zadie (and Tigger and Eeyore, their cats), and vice-versa except for the cats. After a day or two, an adult would be able to rub the cats into a purr-induced coma so that the kids could pet them. The cats referred to Anna (or at least we imagined they did) as the "Pink Thing". They would take off whenever the kids were moving.

We went to Sci Works in Winston-Salem with Zadie on Tuesday. It's a nice science museum for kids and we enjoyed it. On Wednesday, we went swimming at the YMCA with Nana. Debi and David arrived with Genevieve that day. On Thursday, we visited a couple of Zadie's homes for sale and had a big Thanksgiving dinner at home. Of course, that was not much different from every other night that we had a big dinner, except that Nana did all the work on Thursday. We ate and drank too much the entire week. On Friday, we went hiking at Pilot Mountain. It was a nice sunny day and maybe 50 degrees up there. In fact, it was sunny and warm the entire week. Near the end of the hike there was a lot of grumbling, but we had fun and needed the exercise.

Nana and Zadie were gracious hosts as always - it's not easy to have a houseful of people for a week. Nana's brother also came on Wednesday and left on Friday, so they had 8 guests! I think everyone had a great time. It was fun to add Genevieve to the mix. The kids liked having another kid around and Anna really liked doing things with her.

Now that we were leaving on Saturday, of course the clouds and rain came back, although it only rained for about 3 hours on the drive home. We left before noon and drove straight back home. We spent about 12 hours driving and 2.5 hours on stops. Anna fell asleep around 8:30, but Ben was so excited to go home that he didn't fall asleep until about 9:30. We took turns driving and it went fine until we hit the wall around 9:30. The next hour or two were excruciating until the caffeine set in. The last 4 hours were tough. We were really sick of being in the car and ready to get home. We arrived around 1:30 AM. We were all happy to be back in our own beds!

Airfare was about $425 each, plus we needed to rent a car, so it would've cost a minimum of $1900. With the price of gas as low as 1.54 (in Indiana) and an average of about 1.79, we only spent about $150 on gas. We spent one night at a hotel and had some meals. The whole trip cost less than $400. Good deal. I did have one splurge - I bought a Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS before the trip. It worked very well and I left my stack of maps at home.

- schneid

again

Another day, another workout. On Wednesday, I attended a yoga class at work. I am very sore from the Tuesday fitness class, so that was perfect. The stretching felt great. Then I had a big salad for lunch.

- schneid

another workout

I worked out again today. Woohoo, two days in a row, it's a new record. I didn't work up a sweat yesterday so I decided to try the fitness class today. I have never attended a fitness class. It was not fun. I had 12 lb weights in my hands for almost 45 minutes. My stomach muscles were cramping from all the abdominal work. I know I sound like a wimp but it's pretty tough when you're this out of shape.

Thank god it was taco salad day in the cafeteria. It was almost worth it. Fortunately they have yoga tomorrow. I'll go to class and just lay on the floor.

Can't wait to try it again next week! Buy some Advil stock.

- schneid

I worked out

Yes, believe it or not, I worked out. I've been slacking off badly. I worked out hard a couple months ago and ended up with back spasms. That wasn't fun. I'm feeling better now, including my ankle, so I'm going to get back in the groove. Hopefully I can hit the gym at least 3 times this week, especially since next week is Thanksgiving. I also ate a salad for lunch. Pathetic, I know. But it's a start.

- schneid