Lauren

Old Town Gets a Fresh New Neighbor

Photo by Bret Grafton, http://photografton.com/

When I was first invited to the grand opening of Plum Market, I pictured a small cafe / grocer much like Panozzo’s or the once lovely City Provisions, which closed earlier this year. I got dressed up to meet new blogger friends from the Chicago Blogger Network under the assumption that I’d be spending a leisurely hour or two perusing, schmoozing, and sipping on free coffee.

Boy, was I wrong.

In spite of massive thunderstorms that moved through overnight I arrived at Plum Market’s inaugural Chicago branch to find a line hanging out the door of a relatively massive grocery store. More akin to Whole Foods than City Provisions, all of Plum Market’s 27,000 square feet of organic goodness were packed to the gills. I never found any of the bloggers, I never got a free coffee (for fear of running out of my free hour of parking waiting for it), and wondered the store in somewhat of a culture shocked daze after spending three weeks in unpopulated Wyoming.

After securing my bag of “blogger income” (i.e. free samples) and navigating the store, a few key points came to mind:

Grocery stores can be very beautiful. Aside from my obsession with piles of fresh food, Plum Market goes a step beyond in it’s stunning design elements, bountiful hot and cold bars, and specialty areas.
People other than hipsters enjoy organic food. I love Whole Foods as much as the next person, but sometimes being waited on by a disinterested dirty hipster is a turnoff. The staff at Plum Market are clean cut, friendly, and very helpful. If they can keep it that way I’m totally sold.
What’s good for Old Town is good for me. Just north of Division and Wells, Plum Market is in an ideal location bordering hoity-toity-ville, gross bar-ville, and homeless-man-hanging-out-by-the-red-line-ville. This market will easily satisfy the residents of Old Town, is walking distance to the Ruth Page Center for the Performing Arts, and hopefully will give the miserable Jewel at Clark and Division a run for it’s money. Though grocery stores don’t necessarily make for great tourist attractions, Plum Market extends Old Town’s charm a little further to the South then the average visitor would be apt to walk, and provides a lovely stop to grab a cup of coffee and a break before turning around and heading back.

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Experience Plum Market for yourself at 1233 N. Wells St. Store hours are 8am-10pm; free parking for 1 hour with validation. For more information, visit www.plummarket.com or @PlumMarket on twitter (#PlumMarketCHI). Plum Market is also on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

Low Country Boil on the High Plains

Of the many good moments I’ve had here in Wyoming, perhaps one of the best was this meal. In honor of Father’s Day and Julie’s birthday, our excellent home stay family (and, coincidently, very good friends) created a full-on New England boil. The last time I had a boil was circa 1989 when a bunch of relatives shipped live Maine lobsters for a family reunion to California. In Wyoming a boil is less seafood-y for obvious reasons – quality seafood is not easily found smack dab in the middle of the country. Confidentially this was better (sorry, Grammy).

Low Country Boil

(recipe courtesy of Mandy Love)

3 halved lemons
1/2 tin Old Bay
3 bottles of dark beer
Small potatoes
Kielbasa
pearl onions
Corn cobs, halved
Crab legs
Artichokes
Shrimp (deveined, uncooked)
Mussels

Instructions:

In a massive stock pot, fill about 1/2 or 2/3 with water and add lemons, Old Bay, and Beer to the pot. Bring to a boil.

The quantities of each of the ingredients is somewhat up to you, and how much room you have in the pot.

Cooking times are as follows:

Potatoes, Kielbasa and onions: 10 minutes
Corn, Crab, Artichokes: 5 minutes
Shrimp and mussels: 4-5 minutes

Drain, dump, and dig in. The only thing that makes this more delicious is a dipping bowl of melted butter

Don’t Knock Wyoming ‘Til You’ve Tried It

If you had told me a year ago I’d be spending June in Gillette, Wyoming, I’d have called you a liar.

But, here I am.

And, that means that my current blog-worthy material is, again, Wyoming.

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I haven’t had much occasion for days off while working for PAW (Performing Arts Workshop), but last Sunday I certainly made the best of it.

From Gillette, a drive up I-90 West takes you past the Big Horn Mountains (you know, like, THE Little Bighorn…) and straight into Montana. After a stop in charming Sheridan for lunch, we entered one of two open shops (Note: Sheridan on a Sunday is NOT, generally, open for business). The cowboy/shopkeeper suggested a day trip through the mountains, and though I’m not often up for following a stranger’s directions without a plan, a map, or cell phone service, I was up for an adventure. We drove further up I-90 to the Montana border (because we could), and then took a lengthy tour over the mountain range, down, and back again. Eight hours later, we were back in Gillette, having literally traversed the entire Northeast quadrant of the state on the advice of a few strangers.

What strikes me about this area of the country is how quickly the landscape changes. The high plains shift to arid foothills, to red clay hills, tall, snowcapped mountains, and rolling green pastures. Towns with populations smaller than the building I currently live in are scattered among cattle ranches, oil fields, and uninhabitable natural landscapes.

Here’s a peak at some of Wyoming’s NE corner:

tumblr_mo4wlvsawQ1qmywbko1_500 — I-90 West toward the Bighorns

tumblr_mo4x16DAxP1qmywbko1_500 — The uninhabitable foothills

tumblr_mo5o9xV1Uf1qmywbko1_500 — Unattended gas station in Greybull

I won’t go on – I’ll just simply say that Wyoming is a pretty phenomenal place, and totally underrated. I could have anticipated natural beauty and livestock, but what I didn’t expect to find here are kind, generous, tolerant people who take care of one another, and even take care of people they don’t know.

I guess when you live in a place where there aren’t that many people, you tend to value them more.

Sheridan

I’m Seriously Considering Moving to Wyoming…

Chicago is a beautiful city. I love living there and calling it my home.

But…

I’ve always said that I was meant to be a country girl, and my first week back in Gillette, Wyoming has pretty much sealed the deal. Drive-through liquor stores, rodeo, and the Camelot Pet Castle. What more could a girl want?!? But seriously, this place is strange, and beautiful, and random. It is simultaneously depressed and thriving, much like every other small American town.

Oh, you want to know what I’m doing here?

I would agree that Gillette, WY is not the ideal vacation destination, and I couldn’t be farther from on vacation. I’ve returned to my roots and am spending three weeks as part of the amazing staff of PAW (Performing Arts Workshop). I was extremely glad to leave children’s musical theatre when I did, and then almost immediately missed it. This job is hard, and not always as rewarding as one might hope, but you don’t always see the impact that you make as a dance teacher at a small community theatre.

The rehearsal room is intense, but the lives that some of these kids lead is far more so. Stories trickle down about kids who don’t have permanent residences, or kids who are resented and ignored by their parents. Our job is to create a relentless, realistic, professional atmosphere, not to provide recreational song and dance or all-day babysitting. Some of the kids are toughened by their home lives and thrive, and some fall apart in this program. But we tendu on, and, somehow, pull off a fully-produced musical in three weeks. THAT is a reward in and of itself.

Each day of the program is hard and presents both the kids and staff with new challenges to face, and then you leave the theatre each day greeted by this:

and this:

Yeah, if you saw that every day you’d want to move to Wyoming too…

Starbucks Around the World: Denver, CO

The last time I was in Denver I lived there. I was 8, Stapleton was the only airport, and cookies and milk were far more important to me than coffee. It was a quick layover on the way to Gillette, WY to teach musical theatre for three weeks, and this misto was just what I needed to get through the next flight on a really tiny plane.

Starbucks Around the World: Bolingbrook, IL

Well, I’m back on the road to St. Louis for the second time in a week. The Starbucks off of I-55 in Bolingbrook was pretty much the same at the Starbucks in Springfield, with one notable exception:

The cashier appeared nervous. Perhaps he somehow knew that I’m a famous travel writer visiting Starbucks-es around the world (she says sarcastically). Actually, he had cut his hand and I think felt nervous about serving customers. He was wearing a glove (good move), explained to me why he was wearing it…

…to which another barista replied that he was actually imitating Michael Jackson today…

…to which I replied that he would do a better imitation if he studded his plastic glove in rhinestones.

Starbucks Around the World: Springfield, IL

Once you leave the St. Louis area on the way to Chicago, there are no Starbucks-es until you reach our Illinois state capital: Springfield. Not an easy distance, I traversed 60 miles on zero caffeine convinced that I’d see a siren along the way, to no avail. So this Grande Misto was one of the tastiest I’ve had in a long time – if for no other reason – because it happened to be my first cup of the day…..

…at noon.

In fairness, this Starbucks was clean, fast, and friendly. They didn’t overfill my personal cup, which has happened a lot lately. Right next door to the Starbucks is the adorable Sgt. Pepper’s Cafe, where they make good and crispy hashbrowns and use little yellow submarines all over the place for decoration, but don’t have very good coffee.

So, if ever you find yourself in Springfield, IL and highly under-caffineated, go eat some hashbrowns, and then cross the flower bed for a great cup of coffee.