Chicago magazine November 2022

I HAVE EATEN A THOUSAND BURGERS, easily, in my lifetime. Precisely none of those were vegan or vegetarian or otherwise plant-based. That is, until I read dining critic John Kessler’s case for why such burgers actually taste better than their meat counterparts (page 76). This I would have to test for myself. So I went to the Epic Burger in the South Loop and ordered a Beyond Burger, one of John’s recommendations. It came piled with avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and vegan mayo. I lifted up the top bun — wheat, of course — to get a good look at the patty, which I was relieved to see was brown, albeit an unfamiliar reddish shade. I dug in. My verdict? I didn’t hate it. Coming from a staunch carnivore, this is…

IF ANYONE KNOWS WHAT GOES INTO photographing an athlete, it’s Nolis Anderson (pictured, right), who has shot the likes of LeBron James and Candace Parker. So when Chicago asked him to capture the Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan for this month’s cover story (page 56), he knew how to approach it. “When you come on shoots and you talk to them like they’re a regular person, they respect that,” he says. The challenge was getting DeRozan to feel at ease as he was being photographed at the Advocate Center, where the Bulls practice. “You see basketball players in their uniforms all the time, and I didn’t want him to feel like he was at work,” Anderson says. The answer? “Instead of shorts, we did warm-up pants. That gave it a more casual…

@xianechronicles via Twitter This is why actual food writers/critics are so important. Only John Kessler could come up with: “This was where my reaction to the meal went from pleasurable befuddlement to full-on what-the-fuckery.” @MaraDavid via Twitter Chicagoans don’t want no stinkin’ three-star restaurants. Give them an Italian beef any day. Kirk Joseph Dongu via Facebook Everyone I’ve known who has eaten there loved it. There is no place that will be to everyone’s taste. Kristy Barnes David via Facebook COVID COMPLICATIONS One of the best articles on long COVID we’ve seen [“The Long Haul,” October]. Hopefully [Igor Koralnik] and his team receive the urgent financial support they need. @PrinceStreetENT via Twitter Reading this, I want to cry with frustration because I’ve been seen at Northwestern’s Neuro COVID Clinic (by a different doc) and wasn’t listened to. @jhtripleu via Twitter As a…

Winner! @sweetalyeats Like many people trying to fill their days during the pandemic, Alexandria Dwan, an administrator with a local communications firm, started an Instagram account in the spring of 2020. “I was getting takeout a lot,” the River North resident says, “and I started it so my friends could see what I’m eating and so I could keep track of it.” Dwan focused her early posts on desserts, but as she began putting up pictures of savory meals, she realized she had a new obsession: fried chicken sandwiches. Soon she was trying different ones around town and posting images of them. She’s a big fan of Roost Chicken & Biscuits’ version, but her favorite is the one pictured in her contest-winning photograph (above): the Nashville hot fried chicken sandwich from Fry…

1 The 2018 Final Four raised Loyola basketball’s profile and sent it seeking tougher opponents–hence this season’s move to the Atlantic 10. The Ramblers open at home Nov. 7 against a patsy, though: Fairleigh Dickinson. 2 If Tammy Duckworth is reelected Nov. 8, she’ll be the first U.S. senator to win a second term from Illinois’s Class III seat since Alan Dixon in 1986. She was preceded by five one-and-dones. (Yes, Obama counts.) 3 Nov. 28 is the deadline to submit petitions for February’s municipal elections. Departing Tom Tunney, Susan Sadlowski Garza, and Howard Brookins lead the biggest City Council turnover in 80 years. 4 Common, pride of 87th Street, is a T away from an EGOT. He could get it starring on Broadway in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Between Riverside and Crazy, which…

BRUCE RAUNER HATED UNIONS. BUT AS A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR WITH A Democratic legislature, he knew he couldn’t push through a statewide “right-to-work” law. Such legislation would have allowed employees in unionized workplaces to opt out of joining the union, costing it dues and bargaining power. So he attempted an end run: He proposed that local governments create such ordinances instead. Only Lincolnshire, a northwest suburb rich in corporate headquarters, took him up on it. But a federal court struck down its ordinance in 2018, and the next year, Rauner’s successor, J.B. Pritzker, signed a law preventing other local governments from attempting the same thing. Still, Rauner’s anti-union attempt put a scare into labor and its legislative allies. They have collaborated to place an amendment to the Illinois Constitution on this November’s…