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).

That's what I thought. Distinguishing Chicago as "a city of neighborhoods" is rather silly, since every city has neighborhoods. The only difference, I think, is that there are literally maps out there dividing the city into all of the individual neighborhoods, which total up to at least 25 or more.

We had our last big annexation in the late 1880s, so other than the occasional old building with two addresses on it (one from before the re-addressing/naming of streets in the early 1900s, and the current one), there's no real memory of the time when neighborhoods were actual separate cities.

Yeah, I think some newer cities are less neighborhoody, but most older cities have pretty distinct hoods, with boundaries and character and suchlike...

but most older cities have pretty distinct hoods, with boundaries and character and suchlike...

Yeah all the cities I've lived in are very neighborhoody with the exception of Greensboro, really, although the part of it I lived in was a distinct neighborhood.

Top Chef:

You have a (I assume at least weekly) farmer's market and you stock up on that much?

Okay, probably not quite that much. But in general, I only market once or twice a month, although I do go in more often for some specialty items that I buy frequently, like the fresh eggs I buy at my cookware store that are from a local farm. And I'm trying to figure out where to buy milk from the dairy that's about a mile from my house, so I'll probably buy that more often.

I was hoping that the producers at least gave them some cash, because if someone raided my pantry and fed it to my neighbors I'd be out of food for a month, then! Also, I was wondering what they did with the items they didn't use. If they kept track of who gave them what so they could give it back.

I wouldn't call all cities neighborhoody. I think Chicago is more a "city of neighborhoods" than, say, Indianapolis.