The Rundown v 15

I didn’t leave the Chicago city limits between December 28 and February 25th, I guess I went into hibernation mode. But, in the past three weeks I have left Chicago three times! Plus, as the snow started melting, Chicago came to life again.

Let’s take a look back at what I have been up to.

First and foremost, I went on a real vacation! We didn’t attend a wedding or visit family – we went away just the two of us. I will be sharing restaurant reviews and things to do in Puerto Rico over the next few weeks.

The day before that vacation I shared my 1000th blog post!

Then I returned to Chicago for 36 hours and went to Washington D.C. You see, I have the world’s nerdiest day job, and I needed to go to D.C. to attend the Global Privacy Summit. If I explained in detail you would fall asleep at your computer. It snowed 5 inches while I was there, and the city shut down; it was funny to experience how another city reacts to snow. The best part of D.C. was that I got to stay with one of my favorite friends in the world, Virginia. We go way back to our days living in NYC and working together at a law firm. One night we had dinner at Hill Country, which was one of our hangouts when we were in NYC.

I came back home just in time to throw a birthday party for Charles’s 35th birthday. We had a Whiskey Tasting, and served manly snacks including 2 pounds of crispy bacon.

Before the party, I swung by the International Housewares Show where Erin and I got to interview Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman! She was so humble and friendly, and we are excited to share the interview on windycitybloggers.com soon.

I finally checked out the Virgin Hotel – twice. First I went to a party at the diner, Miss Ricky’s and then that weekend I went back to have brunch at The Commons Club.

I joined my friend Chicago Food Authority and some other Instagram fanatics at Trellis to have breakfast for dinner. We got to sample 4 different items from the brunch menu as we shared snaps on Instagram. It was so fun having breakfast for dinner, and I think it should become a restaurant trend.

I checked out the new menu at Paris Club with my friend Anne. I will be sharing a complete review with you soon.

I traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to visit Southern Living Magazine. I spent a day and a half indulging with Southern cuisine and we got to tour Southern Living’s test kitchens. I also got to meet seven other amazing and friendly food bloggers on the trip.

My friend Margaret joined me at an event at Goddess & Grocer’s Bucktown location. Goddess is a Chicago staple, it’s a deli/grocer/caterer/restaurant. The big news is that they just hired Chef Jen Gavin, she’s been on Hell’s Kitchen and she has cooked for many musicians, including Sir Paul McCartney. Chef Gavin has taken Goddess’s already great menu and kicked it up another notch to make it spectacular.

I’ll end this post with something really exciting. I was on the cover of Crain’s Business Chicago this week. I still can’t really believe it. The headline is “The New Influencers” and talks about how people are turning blogs into small businesses. My darling friends Jess and Kelly join me on the cover, and that article mentions several of my blogging friends. The cover photo is not staged, we all started giggling over cute Noodle photos on Kelly’s phone while the photographer was testing the lighting. Big thanks to Real Good Juice for letting us shoot there (and their juice is amazing – they should rebrand as Amazing Juice). And thanks to Trendy Sparrow for the “Building My Empire” tee that I am wearing (even though you can’t really see it).

Oh, and as a result of the article, I will be doing a live on-air radio interview with WGN Radio on Monday April 6th at 12:45 CT. You can listen here.