Polish food & polka

This weekend, Chicago is celebrating one of its last summer weekend festivals - this one called "The Taste of Polonia." The Polish people of Chicago have a pretty long history here, starting in 1837 with the settlement of Polish Downtown. They settled in 5 areas around town, one of them being prominent in the meatpacking district so much so that Sinclair based his novel "The Jungle" upon Polish characters... (yeah - I'm reading that book right now)
Nowadays, Chicago is the headquarters of every major Polish organization in the US. Polish people are the largest white ethnic group in Chicago, and they claim to have the largest Polish population of any city outside Poland (185,000). Pretty incredible.
So Chris had a great idea to go see all the celebrations and watch some polka. I've always wanted to try Polish food, so of course I was down for it. And the weather was great. I got the "polish dinner" which was polish sausage, sauerkraut, cabbage meat roll, potato pancake and a couple pierogies. That's a lot of food. But good.

Backstreet's back, ALRIGHT!

Ok - so for you who don't know about Leo Burnett and their "Artists in Residence" program, our agency sometimes has musicians and other celebrities come to our office and perform. These artists have ranged from Dwight Yoakum to Jewel to OAR to Duran Duran. Sometimes we just luck out and get great bands.
Today, however, the AiR program was taken to a new level - that of the boy band.
Yes folks, I was witness to a live 3-song-exclusive performance of Backstreet Boys in my very own office.
I can't remember the names of the first two songs, but we ended with a roaring rendition of "I Want it That Way." So eloquent and poetic, these singers only had about 8 crates of equipment for their "unplugged session" on the 21st floor.
Yours truly had a great spot about 20 feet away from the stage. So of course I had to take some photos. Shown below. Enjoy.

The Process

In case you're wondering about how some clients view the "creative process" just watch this video. Bad clients do this all the time. Good clients find a way to enable the message to be simple, direct and meaningful.

Dinner at Otom... a lesson in molecular gastronomy

So tonight I was able to knock one meal off the Chicago dining wish list: dinner at Otom - Homaro Cantu's more "casual" restaurant that is the brother to his experimental Moto restaurant. Cantu has been written up in many places has having some of the most unique, creative and experimental dishes in a type of dining called Molecular Gastronomy.
Essentially, it's applying science to cooking techniques to change the dynamics of food and challenge the conventions of how cooking and preparing occurs.

Case in point: my dessert- called simply, "The Coffee Break." (shown above) But its description is misleading--- and maybe on purpose. The menu reads, "Donut, strawberry and honey brioche." That may have been true - but what you see, and what you taste are two very different things.
First - the "coffee" is actually the honey brioche and a coffee cream mousse. You then take it and dip it into a donut custard that is filled with a kind of jelly donut strawberry filling. So you dip the coffee into the donut! It's completely bizarre and thoroughly entertaining. Not just because your mouth has a harder time catching up, but because the donut custard actually feels like you've bitten into a donut and you're dissolving the pastry in your mouth. The white powder on top is almost exactly like the typical powder you feel on your tongue when eating powdered donuts.
It was definitely a first for my palette. And that's a rare thing for me these days.. rare, but very sweet.
Our waiter was attentive and knowledgeable, gracious and pleasant. All in all - one of the best dining experiences I've had in Chicago. Woo hoo!

Hangin with the bros & sisters & nephews!

So last weekend I was able to get down to Tejas for a couple days and meet all these new kids in the fam. Great times. It was extraordinary, but also tough that I didn't get to spend more time there, nor spend any time with the rest of the fam... but Thanksgiving will be here before I know it - and I can see a bunch more folks when I'm back this fall.
Till then, here's a quick album of nephew shots... go to Flickr and log-in to see the rest of the pictures from the weekend!

August Family Weekend

Generated by Flickr Album Maker

Maybe a lucky day after all?

Across the way, the Magnificent Mile
Originally uploaded by vicambulist

I woke up exactly at the 8th hour on this the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year in this century and millenium.
Exactly 1 hour before--- on the opposite side of the world, 4 billion people were expected to have watched the opening of the Beijing Olympic games... along with President Bush, President Putin, Chairman Mao and a long list of political figures and celebrities.
It's said to be the luckiest time of the luckiest day in this century to the Chinese..and I happened to wake up during our luckiest time of the day.
Since it was only 65 degrees, and a Friday, I decided to bike to work. I know I'm a broken record, but it is unbelievable to me that I can enjoy a pleasant morning in the middle of August without passing out from oppressive heat.
And thus - a good start to the day and to the weekend. I do feel pretty lucky to live in this town and to enjoy life the way it is these days.
Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.

It's our anniversary

From the CEO:
73 years ago today, a simple, profound gesture marked the birth of the Leo Burnett Company:

A receptionist set out a bowl of apples to welcome visitors to the newly formed advertising agency. While a lot has changed since Leo’s time, our agency’s core values would still feel very familiar to him if he were with us today. We still believe that creativity has the power to transform people’s behavior. And we still believe that ideas built around human-centric Acts…like putting out a bowl of apples…are the ones that truly move people.

I'm also coming up on my anniversary--- one year in Chicago and one year at Arc Worldwide. I'll probably publish a list of firsts.. or whatever I've done in the 365 days since I pulled off the highway in the west loop on September 1, 2007. Time sure does fly.