chicgail

Location:

Chicago

Best meal I ever ate:

How do you pick just one? Here are some "silver box" highlights. Guy Savoy in Paris. Alinea in Chicago. Chote Chitr in Bangkok. NOLA in New Orleans, Walt's in Covington, Ky. Posada Margheria, a tiny Italian restaurant on the beach in Tulum, Mexico.

I really wish I could:

Bake bread. Bake pies. Bake. Naw, on second thought, let someone else do that.

My "Go-to" dinner party dish:

I can't say I have a "go-to" dish because I like to experiement; I like to match food to the seasons, to what I think people will enjoy and, frankly, to my own mood.

My favorite comfort food:

Popcorn. Mac and Cheese. Mashed potatoes. Potato latkes. There's a carb and fat theme here.

My top 5 favorite restaurants:

Too hard to choose just five.

My most tattered cookbooks:

Believe it or not, it's a Women's Club cookbook primarily written by my former mother-in-law, a very talented chef. Most of the recipes are hers and avoid the kind of canned cream of mushroom soup sauces that these things generally feature. I learned to cook in part from that book.