A feeble attempt at my own city guide: an ode to Chicago

Inspired by Alissa Walker's "Dwell's Guide to Los Angeles," I've decided to start a list of my favorite places in Chicago. This will be a growing list, which I will add to as I come across new venues or am reminded of those visited in the past. For the fifteen years we have lived in Chicago, friends and family have visited us and endured our suggestions, maps, and drives-about here and there to our preferred spots of the moment. These are the places that stand out to me tonight in no particular order (some new finds, some well worn, and others just somewhere in between):

Penelope's  Neighborhood: Ukrainian Village/Wicker Park. When we moved to Chicago in 1998, we first lived in Ukrainian Village south of Division. At that time, the only shops on Division were old Polish bakeries, sausage shops, and even a Russian bath. Soon some lovely little boutiques and restaurants came in, one of the loveliest being Penelope's, which features apparel from eclectic designers, accessories, and some other objets d'art from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. 

Coffee Studio  Neighborhood: Andersonville. A beautiful little neighborhood coffee shop that blends cozy design with well-crafted drinks made with Intelligentsia Coffee. The owners are wonderful, and the baristas know your name and drink preferences. It opened the winter after our son Ettu's birth earlier that fall. He's literally growing up there. Hop across the street to Roost for some vintage browsing. Oh, and if you go to their website, you can see the back of my head and Ettu's in the first photo on the page. Cool. 

L'Patron Tacos  Neighborhood: Logan Square. Okay, so here's our new fave rave. Can't get enough of these tacos. We read on Tasting Table about the stretch of great taco joints on Diversey and had to try them out. We've only made it to this one as of yet and can't bring ourselves to try the others out of sheer desire for going back here. The pastor tacos, fish tacos, and homemade horchata have been particularly inspiring. Only counter seating that makes a U-shape within the small location, but if you go off-hours, you may just get a spot. 

Green Genes  Neighborhood: Andersonville. This great little children's boutique, selling eco-friendly clothing, toys, and other accessories for children and adults opened in the spring of 2008. Owners Heather and Christina are warm, knowledgeable, and lovely people. And their store is pretty great, too! 

Winnemac Park  Neighborhood: North Lincoln Square. Our boys just started riding bikes without training wheels, and this is where they both learned. A park located on the central north part of town, Winnemac has great sidewalks for walking, biking, and scooting; prairie gardens, nature trails, baseball and soccer fields, and a playground. A true little oasis in the heart of the north side. 

Smart Museum  Neighborhood: Hyde Park. This small but truly significant art museum on the University of Chicago campus has been home to some of our favorite exhibits over the years. Smartly curated and boldly envisioned, the exhibitions and events are not to be missed. And given that the admission is always free, it is one of the best things do do on the weekend. 

Seminary Co-op Bookstore  Neighborhood: Hyde Park. When we moved to Chicago in the winter of 1998, I had just left a doctoral program in comparative literature. I was feeling a little woozy with this decision and was happy to find a cavernous bookstore on the south side of town at the U of Chicago that fulfilled my every academic desire. This bookstore has since emerged from below ground to a beautifully and naturally-lit location nearby but still retains its labyrinth feel through its book shelves. Widely considered one of the best academic bookstores in the world, I still go here to get my academic and bookish fix every once in a while. 

Black Dog Gelato  Neighborhood: Ukrainian Village and Roscoe Village. The first location of this gourmet gelato store was housed in a corner storefront literally four doors down from our first apartment in Chicago. Back then it was the Lava Lounge. Now, it is its own sanctuary of sorts. Amazing artisinal gelato that inspires the taste buds. A particular favorite? Goat Cheese Cashew Caramel. Doesn't that just say it all? 

Aroy Thai and Rosded  Neighborhood: Lincoln Square East/Lincoln Square. Here's the gist of it. These two thai restaurants represent both our new and old selves in Chicago. Aroy Thai is our relatively new discovery with a great authentic Thai menu (you have to ask for it separately, and you must order from that!), and Rosded is our old stand-by from our earliest days in Chicago. Great, simple Thai food. Consistently. Enough said. 

The Sweden Shop  Neighborhood: Albany Park. I'm going to give away a little secret here. Every time I want a truly special gift for someone, I try to find it here. The owners and employees at this Scandinavian design and home store are magical merchandising mavens. Everything from table linens and Finnish pottery to children's toys, this shop has the most beautiful elements from all over Scandinavia. A lovely little gem near North Park University. 

Sandmeyer's Bookstore  Neighborhood: South Loop. I haven't been here for quite a while, mainly due to the fact that my life now keeps me far off from the South Loop, our old stomping grounds. But back in the day, I spent many hours perusing shelves at this amazing and one-of-the-few-left family-owned, independent bookstores in Chicago. 

Pastoral Artisan  Neighborhood: Lakeview and Downtown. A good friend of mine in Lakeview introduced me to this artisan cheese, food, and wine shop a few years ago, and soon after, I discovered my favorite lunch craving when it opened a sister store just a few blocks from my office downtown: the Sandwich Campagne, with country pate, gruyere cheese, whole grain dijon mustard and cornichons. Exceptional offerings and great service.

So there it is for now. Obviously there are oodles of places I have left off the list, so I will continue to post as things come to my mind. For now, happy dreaming of your favorite spots, wherever you may roam.

The writing on the wall: do we really grow out of creativity?

A painting project with the boys

My husband and sons have been reading books on the Lascaux cave drawings and have even gone as far as taping up large swaths of paper in our hallway for the boys to recreate their own cave drawings. So far we have dolphins, snakes, zebras, mammoths, birds, etc. scaling the walls. This project is one of many that seem to take place around our apartment, the most frequent being Ettu's tape installations, where various colors of masking tape can be found on walls, windows, and baracading bedroom doors. Nalin and I were recently watching a video of Khoi Vinh, the former designer director at NYTimes.com who acutely states that "as we get older, we grow out of creativity." What a solemn thought. Vinh goes on to illustrate, through his own daughter, how children are endlessly interested in creating and imagining new things. And yet, somewhere along the way our children are taught, just as we were, that the values of creation are of secondary importance in life. Or perhaps we become more and more self-conscious of the ways we can contribute creatively on a personal or especially on a societal level.

Entrepreneur and blogger Andrew Chen wrote an interesting post today for new college graduates, stating quite simply and emphatically: Don't sell your time. Step number 1: "Learn to make something, anything." And yet this notion seems to baffle most of us. If anything, perhaps the frustrated economy of the last four-to-five years may compel some to let go of some of the tried-and-not-always-true beliefs that our education and upbringing alone will help us survive, navigate, and even succeed in the new economy. Our challenge for ourselves and for our families is ever more complex. Or perhaps it is simply more basic. We need to go back to the roots of creativity that are evident in all of us from the beginning. And we need to have an unembarrassed and unencumbered faith in ourselves in ways we haven't felt since we were very young. And that is the writing on the wall. A foray into the new, building upon something very old: our own tenacity of spirit and will — growing from and through creativity, rather than outgrowing it altogether. And like the painters of Lascaux, we can explore artistic expression and make creative decisions that may just set us apart, in the end.

What do paper-clips and wicker furniture have in common?

Love this. Thanks, Nalin, for sending this from Explore. Gotta assemble my own list and then find some lovely artist to illustrate. This might prove to be an exciting challenge! Anyone want to join me?

Lynore Avery illustrates Susan Sontag's favorite things

Brooklyn's best (and a new Manhattan story)

WTF Coffee Lab in Brooklyn. Photo by Nalin Bhutt

Last month, Ettu celebrated his fifth birthday. Prior to the big event, he informed us that he desired nothing greater than to wake up the morning of his birthday to be surrounded in bed by these, and only these, few things: a cupcake, a present, and the company of Nooa, his papa, and me. When we told him that all of that could be arranged and then asked him if it was okay that he was going to wake up that morning in New York instead of Chicago, he seemed a bit worried. Perhaps that might just ruin his grand plans. Well, we did make that little trip to New York, and he did wake up in an apartment in Brooklyn with all the other things he requested (with cupcakes from Clementine's, the lovely bakery right next to our building), and he seemed quite happy, even amidst the change in venue. The boys quickly took to referring to our abode as our "Brooklyn house."

In past years, when we were kidless and fancy free, Nalin and I would take trips to Manhattan and think nothing of being out all day and late into the evening. When we stayed in Chelsea two years ago, with a one-year-old and a nearly three-year-old, it seemed that our enjoyment of this grand city might be compromised, at least in the ways we had formerly known. Perhaps our past, easy-going times in Manhattan as we once knew it was over, or at least put on hold for the time being. Don't get me wrong, we are city people through and through, raising our kids in the heart of Chicago, but something seemed a bit more challenging about our recent visits to New York with small children.

Funny face at great heights

And then we found Brooklyn, choosing this time to stay in Clinton Hill and wander the borough with abandon, taking the G trains and R trains to destinations known and unknown. We had, of course, visited in the past, but this year we took a five-day trip to New York and spent four out of five days in Brooklyn, going into Manhattan really only on the birthday boy's day to fulfill some of the fantasies he had been dreaming of through books at home, as if to build our own story of New York through his eyes, instead of our own: ascending the heights of the Empire State Building, seeing the four-way clock and the ceiling of constellations up close and personal at Grand Central Station, passing the Statue of Liberty and the gateway to my German grandmother's American arrival, and surprising a young space enthusiast with a visit to the Enterprise Space Shuttle at the Intrepid on the Hudson. The rhythms of Christoph Neimann's Subway book coursed through us each and every stop along the way. The rest of the time, we stayed wrapped in our cozy confines of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene in our fabulous airbnb-hosted apartment. 

Poached eggs with biscuits and gravy at Milk Bar

And here's what we found and loved in and around our adopted neighborhood and beyond: walking to Choice Market on Lafayette around the corner for our morning coffee fix, pastries and breakfast; Milk Bar near Prospect Park for amazing cappuccinos and a lovely brunch; WTF Coffee Lab on Willoughby Street for seriously good coffee; a ride on the G train west toward the river to eat awesome Thai street food with good friends at Pok Pok NY; and Sunday mid-morning grazing at Smorgasburg, Brooklyn Flea's food haven in Williamsburg. I know this barely begins to cover the vast food oasis that is modern-day Brooklyn, but it was a start, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time, especially with the kids. Perhaps their ages helped, perhaps the pleasant nature of the neighborhoods with kids galore helped, but it was hard not to feel welcome during our brief and lovely stay. 

Ettu's drawing of three friends saying goodbye

And this time was made even more special with our friends Brian and Kumiko and little Mia, who became the third musketeer with the boys. On the day we took the Staten Island Ferry to Battery Park, we stopped for a bit of time on Wall Street, eating from the food trucks and enjoying the outdoors with the kids frolicking on the greens up high near the S&P building. It occurred to me that the city, on either side of the East River, has so much to offer families with children. It's just all in the way you navigate it, and that might be different than what we knew before. And that is the joy of travel. New discoveries for the new expansions in our lives. And when we returned to Brooklyn that afternoon to pack and leave for Chicago, we felt sad to leave. For it had become a little home away from home. And we will certainly be back again one day soon. 

Understanding my place in this space. Thank you, Mr. Sendak.

I was listening to one of the most intimate interviews I have ever heard (now twice) again a couple of weeks ago, replayed on Fresh Air, upon the death of the beloved Maurice Sendak. Terry Gross interviewed him for the last time last September. I remember the day I listened to it then. I was visiting my parents in Missouri, and I was in the kitchen preparing food for the family. I recall stopping chopping to sit down and enter in. Someone posted part of this interview on their Facebook page on the day of Sendak's death:

I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Many may or may not know that Sendak never had any children of his own, and as a gay man (who came out quite late in life, although he had a long-time partner for four decades who died in 2007), this could have been perceived to be a result of being gay in a time where it wasn't as prevalent for gay men and women to have children. However, he rejects this notion. He tells Terry Gross that he never wanted children (well, maybe one daughter who he thought would be nice to have around in his latter life — but only if she came out fully grown so he wouldn't have to worry about how to dress her every day, etc.). He loved his life of the mind, so to speak, to be able to read, write, and submerge himself in his work in a way he would never be able to do had he had even one child. He understood the commitment of parenthood and how that would, ultimately, take him away from his life's purpose. And this was a choice he was not ready to make. Ironically, the major canon of his work has been beloved by children and families for years.

The New York Times began their article on Sendak like this:

[Sendak was] widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century... [and] wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche.

I understand this quite well, as the only book we own of Sendak's is his picture book Brundibar, created with Tony Kushner (who wrote the text) in 2003 and based on an opera originally composed by a Czech Jew who died at Auschwitz and originally performed by children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. It's darkness is captivating. I've often wondered to myself the affect of this book on my children as I read it to them occasionally. It is a beautiful and haunting story. The other book we know quite well from several library borrowings is In the Night Kitchen, which I've thought often of writing about in this blog, with its enticingly nocturnal journey through an idyllic New York landscape and the baking of bread with a naked little hero ("nangu boy" as my boys call him in Hindi) named Mickey at the center of the story.

But I digress just a tad. What I've thought about most often the last couple of weeks since his death is this very conversation he had on Fresh Air, where he opened up so genuinely about his choice not to have children. Here is someone who has touched the lives of children in ways a parent can only dream. And yet Sendak, like so many other children's book authors, has created worlds centered around the hero child, with the parent in the proverbial background, either asleep, sick, overworked, you name it. I don't have his books in front of me, so I hasten to say this will fall short of any sort of true literary analysis, but from what I recall in reading his books, some more recently than others, the parent figure is both villain and savior. Their actions, either purposeful (like a punishment) or inadvertent (like an illness), tend to pave the way for the break of independence that sends the child off on his or her journey, and yet the very bond of the relationship lures the hero back home in to the arms of the waiting, perhaps even remorseful, and loving parent. This brings to my mind an inherent conflict: in what ways do we truly shape our children, as they explore the world on their own terms. And as well, Sendak's seeming understanding of what one gives up to be a parent, at the expense of oneself or even one's child hangs like a cloud over his landscape. For certain, endless articles and books have been written on these subjects, but I come to this from a purely emotional place.

My love for my children has changed my life, as have the choices I've made to be a parent. And my own journey to the land of the monsters, with the fear and trembling along the way, reminds me that Sendak's work is much more universal than what sits before us on those beautifully illustrated pages. We are all seeking that same unconditional love and acceptance, along with an ever-present desire for independence from those most close and devoted to us... our partners, our children, our parents, our friends. It is the loneliest and most exhilarating place all at once. And Sendak's greatest gift may have been that he led us to that place where we abandon the familiar in search of the new; and when we go back home, we have all changed for the better.

An unlikely communion

Okay, I know I'm going to sound a bit strange now, but one of the things I miss most about working (outside the home, that is) is riding public transportation. No, I don't miss the constant stale and body-odorous smell of the red line in the winter or the traces of spilled or neglected food or drink left behind in the seat crevices; what I miss is the interaction, however brief, of my being in contact with other beings in small and [hopefully] speedy containers. Most of the time we are all involved in our own insular worlds, with our smart phones, headphones, perhaps even a novel or two, but the understood trust and camaraderie, even if forced, is inherent in the air around us. Jason Kottke recently posted a fantastic photograph taken by Stanley Kubrick in the the 1940s of a subway rider when he was working as a photographer for Look magazine. The Museum of the City of New York has a collection of hundreds of his photos taken on the New York City subway during this period. You can check out some of the photos here. It is interesting note that some things are still quite the same amongst subway riders from city to city, from time to time.

These days, relying on my well-driven minivan (yes, I did become one of those moms), I cart my kids to preschool and activities and drive myself to the gym and grocery. You see, Chicago is one of those big cities that has a relatively good public transportation system but still has a remarkable number of drivers, unlike New York. Part of that is that we actually have places to park those cars for the most part, unlike that other large city on an eastern coast. We may not be quite as car-reliant as LA, but we're probably close. Most families I know in the city have one or two cars, although those working in the city almost always take public transportation to work. Several mornings, I get texts or emails from Nalin on his way to work. He's been browsing his phone or iPad on his commute down and sends me some invaluable story or tweet to get my day started. I envy this time to melt into oneself. I read many novels and magazine articles just in the time I was on the bus or subway after Ettu was born. I was still working, and this travel was the only time I found I could really have all to myself (well, in proximity to 50 others, that is).

So perhaps this post is ill-named. After all, it doesn't seem that we share much with anyone we ride with on these trips of necessity — with the exception of the brief bodily brushes and occasional head nods. But perhaps communion doesn't necessarily have to involve true intimacy with those around us. The greater power is in knowing that we are part of a larger fabric, and this precious time we have to ourselves with the present awareness of a bigger and, yes, sometimes stranger world is what gives us our humanity. And that's a communion I can really dig.

A tree grows... wherever (and a special shout-out to urban dwelling)

Photo by Andreas Laszlo Konrath for
The New York Times Style Magazine

Once one starts writing, the repetition of themes creeps in and takes root. One such theme that seems ever so pervasive in my thoughts is city-dwelling in all its pains and glories. We live in the third-largest city in the United States. No, we're not on the coast, but our lovely "little" lake helps us feel a bit closer to this supposed ideal. A few of my earlier posts such as A tree grows in Chelsea and A space of one's own and learning to love the little things, ironically published almost exactly a year ago, celebrates city living in all its diversity, complexities and, at times, inconveniences. While skimming The New York Times Style Magazine last week, I came across a small story about Ramdane Tahoumi and Victoire de Taillac who decided early in their relationship to live the life of nomads, and three children later, they have lived in Paris, Jaipur, Brooklyn, etc. This takes the idea of urban dwelling to a new level; after all, most of us stay put for more than two years at a time, but they seem to make it work for them:

Some 15 years and three children later, however, the “T-n-T” clan, as they are affectionately known, are living a life of nomads, hopping from continent to continent and city to city — Paris, Jaipur, Tangier — setting up camp in temporary lodgings and then, when it’s time to move on, literally pulling the rug out from beneath their feet. “We do two years per country,” Touhami says. “That is my rule.” And that would sound like a compromise in the couple’s relationship if it weren’t for their incredible talent for making themselves at home no matter where they are in the world.

God knows that this is a lifestyle we can't all achieve, regardless our aspirations, but I do fantasize at times about being able to just get up and go live in India for a bit, then perhaps Tokyo, New York, or Sweden... lovely places with lovely friends. Like the "T-n-T" clan, our children share a heritage divided between two diverse continents, and the thought of them growing up in the midst of both places is certainly something worthy of dreams. What makes this particular family so unique is the way they crave and embody creativity. The nomadic life not only allows them to fulfill various professional goals, but provides for them a richness of diversity and beauty that few can brave to imagine.

And there's that magical word "imagine," which brings me to another string of thought. On the way to pick up my children from preschool the other day, I was listening to a local public radio program and an interview with a writer whose name I hadn't yet caught. This guy was speaking so articulately about, in essence, how living in cities can actually make us smarter. I was provoked by this strand but had to leave my car before catching who was actually doing the talking. Turns out that the interviewee was Jonah Lehrer, prolific writer-extraordinaire for The New Yorker and Wired magazines. His new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, explores the catalyst for invention and innovation. Today, I sat down and read the review of his book in The New York Times and was drawn to these last few paragraphs of Michiko Kakutani's review of the book:

...Mr. Lehrer makes a strong case for cities as incubators of innovation. Echoing Jane Jacobs, he argues that the sheer density of urban life, “the proximity of all those overlapping minds,” forces people to mingle and interact with a diversity of individuals. This, he goes on, creates exactly the sort of collision of cultures and classes that often yields new ideas. He even quotes a theoretical physicist, Geoffrey West, who says he has found data that validates Jacobs’s theories.

“What the numbers clearly show, and what she was clever enough to anticipate,” Mr. West says, “is that when people come together, they become much more productive per capita.”

One study by Mr. West and another physicist, Luís Bettencourt, Mr. Lehrer writes, suggests that “a person living in a metropolis of one million should generate, on average, about 15 percent more patents and make 15 percent more money than a person living in a city of 500,000.”

In the later pages of this engaging book Mr. Lehrer turns from analysis and reportage to prescription. The jostle and serendipity of city life, he believes, can provide a model for how the Internet might be retooled to accelerate creativity.

“Instead of sharing links with just our friends, or commenting anonymously on blogs, or filtering the world with algorithms to fit our interests, we must engage with strangers and strange ideas,” he writes. “The Internet has such creative potential; it’s so ripe with weirdness and originality, so full of people eager to share their work and ideas. What we need now is a virtual world that brings us together for real.” 

Obviously, not everyone can or wants to just quit their lives and move to a bigger city. After all, there are so many pros and cons on both sides of the coin. I regularly dream of the space we could have for such a lower cost if we were simply to leave this city and move somewhere significantly smaller. And as I approach the inevitable process of determining the right school situation for my nearly five-year old, I wince at the prospect of finding the optimal opportunity for him (after-all, as a dear friend mentioned to me just this morning, in the public school scenario, at least, the idea of choice is often a fallacy, as we are at the mercy of our lottery-driven system). What these stories and books attempt to convey though, in no uncertain terms, is that wherever we are we can dare to imagine a better, more innovative life for ourselves, quite simply in the very ways in which we interact with those people and objects around us, wherever we are, that challenge our boundaries of thought and place. What takes root then may grow into something that allows our creativity to soar above the humdrum. And that, my friends, is a life worth living.