I guess that was part of my disbelief. You have a (I assume at least weekly) farmer's market and you stock up on that much?

You should see my mom at the farmer's market. She goes a little nutty.

It really sounds like my kind of town.

Your kind of people, too?

People who... will smile at you?

The "raiding" was staged enough that there was a camera inside one of the houses before the chef's came knocking. If they had that set up ahead of time, I'm sure there had been some careful stocking too.

Which makes me wonder if there were "staged" ingredients they missed grabbing.

Some of them mentioned in Ep 1 that Chicago has finally gotten a reputation as being a top-flight foodie town

Hasn't this been true since Charlie Trotter's opened, which was well over a decade ago, if not two? Or was he the lone voice in the wilderness back then?

Well, for most of the 1980s and '90s, Trotters was the most significant nationally rated restaurant in town, especially after Le Francais here in Wheeling lost its luster. The past few years, with the advent of Alinea, Moto, Avenues, and other cutting-edge restaurants, has put Chicago on the national Foodie Map, instead of coasting on the old standards.

The embracing of ethnic cuisines that's been happening nationwide for the past 15-20 years is also giving Chicago a boost with its wide range of neighborhoods and restaurants. I remember starting my first job post-college downtown in 1988, and trying Thai food for the first time. I'd never even heard of that cuisine before, and here I was working in an area with at least four different places to go within a five-block radius.

That sounds a lot like Boston, which has also finally come into its own as a foodie town. Shaking the "stodgy and frugal" tag has been a slow painful process.

I shudder to think what the condescending assclowns would have prepared if it had been a Boston block party.

Chowda.

And it probably would have been the red kind.

I'm wondering if Padma's referring to Chicago as "a city of neighborhoods" sounded stupid to non-Chicagoans? We pride ourselves on our neighborhoods, but I would think that most cities are "a city of neighborhoods."

Thing is, in Chicago, some people can spend their whole life in their neighborhood and never leave it. There are quite a few people on the South Side or in Little Warsaw who have never been to the Loop. The neighborhoods are defined by the ethnic group that lives there, and the boundaries are pretty well-defined (IOW, segregated) even now.

I'm wondering if Padma's referring to Chicago as "a city of neighborhoods" sounded stupid to non-Chicagoans? We pride ourselves on our neighborhoods, but I would think that most cities are "a city of neighborhoods."

No, it's not strange. Boston's got a ton of those (and it's sometimes hard to remember which are the neighborhoods and which are plain old different cities).

Off the top of my head - North End, South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South Boston (although that may be it's own city, like East Boston), Dorchester, Roxbury, Allston/Brighton, Fenway/Kenmore, Downtown. There used to be a West End, but that was pretty much torn down for government buildings and a really hideous apartment complex. Anything across a river (except the Muddy River) is a different city. Some people never leave those either (though people will move to/from more than in the past).