Package arrived this morning from a friend in Chicago. 3 big packs of Cretors Caramel and cheese popcorn. She knows we really love the Garrett's Chicago mix (which has the same flavours). What is even funnier she has said we have to take one pack to give the the waiters in our local Indian restaurant because they make her so welcome when she visits. I really need to get back over to the US.
Ask your Chicago friend to send you some Jeppson's Malort. One of my favorite periodicals describes it as "the crudely-mannered Swedish cousin that absinthe never talks about," and it's apparently a big thing there.
I want to go back to Chicago solely for the deep dish pizza from Giordanos. It is only a 30 minute flight. It's tempting.
Garretts is good stuff, but any Chicagoan knows Lou Malnatti's is better than Giordano's. Palermo's is my pizza of choice in Chicago. Brown's Chicken has the best fried mushrooms. I miss Canfield's swiss creme soda the most though. I grew up on it and can't seem to find it anywhere in the last few years.
We went to Lou Mainattis on S State just round the corner from Dearborn Station. Great Pizza. Is Hackney's still there? Had a few good meals in there. Also was taken to Ed Devebics once, that was an experience! We followed it with a Wolves game! Couldn't get over the fact they were letting off fireworks inside a wooden arena! When I used to take UK highschoolers to Chicago we would do the Giordanos deal on a meal and tickets for the Sears tower. Good value if there are 18 of you.
Al's Italian Beef sandwich is also a not to be missed (or repeated) experience! The dry cleaning bills are just too steep
We took almost a hundred 14 year olds to Chicago in 2019, and we did the Giordano’s deal and then took them to the ledge. They loved it. We had tons of leftovers, and they ate it all at the hotel that night. One kid had never been very far from our town, and he went with us. He had never stayed at a hotel either. During the meal he got up from his table, walked all the way across the restaurant, and told me that was the best pizza he had ever had in his entire life. I was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, and they have a Giordano’s. I wanted to eat there, but we weren’t able to order through Grub Hub or Door Dash or even Uber Eats. We had been out all day, so we were too tired to go out again.
I recall the first highschooler trip. One girl had never been out of the UK. She was already on the ceiling just be being at the airport. When we landed in Chicago I had arranged for a yellow school bus to pick us up and take us downtown. Her head nearly exploded (in fact all the kids were pretty exited by this although having ridden on one of these buses before I wasn't exactly looking forward to the trip). One the way in she kept on squeaking with excitement pointing out how amazing it was that America had MacDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC etc. The other kids thought this was hilarious and spent the rest of the week pointing out places like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts to her! On a subsequent trip another girl, on the same bus ride, noticed that we were driving on the right hand side of the road and asked why. So I told her that it was Physics, if the whole world drove on the left we would spin the world off it's axis so half of the countries drive on the right! She spent the week telling everyone she met about this!
