Birthday Outings

Like any other human (and non-human) being, I have my birthday coming up pretty much each and every year. I am not going to announce the exact date, nor how old I turned this year, as I assume that anyone who bothers reading this blog knows these facts anyways. However, I can give a small hint: it was between the previous and the current post. (And yes, the two months in between are exactly how often I am capable of updating this blog ...) The reason why I mention my birthday at all is because I was fortunate to celebrate it even twice this year. It was not my idea - I am blessed with formidable friends who just don't know each other well enough to hang out together. Hence, on the eve of my birthday my friend Carolina (top image, right), and her friends Jorge (left) and Tatiana (center) (all Colombian students at the University of Illinois at Chicago) took me out to the Beer Bistro. Nomen est omen, they have an as large as international variety of beer, which cured me from the condition of thinking that Germany is the epicenter of beer brewing. In the words of a former scientific advisor of mine (a Londoner turned faculty at the University of Glasgow): "It was quite a hoot!" This particularly applies to the dish that Tatiana ordered later on, which was decorated with a bunch of flaming hot peppers, and we made eating them a dare ...
The second (and, to date, last) night out to celebrate my 2009 (but not 2009th) birthday was actually two weeks late. That is because the person in charge, James (bottom image, left), is currently writing his dissertation, as to take his defense before the end of the year. Having completed a similar task not too long ago, I know all too well how time-consuming and tedious this is. Yet we did agree on a date, and James and his fiancee Jenn(y) took me out to Coalfire, a pizza place famous for its coalfire-prepared pizza. Now, in order to fully appreciate the importance of pizza to Chicagoans, you are invited to read about Deep Dish Pizza Chicago Style on Wikipedia. I have tried deep dish pizza myself, and despite my (in all modesty) noteworthy abilities in food intake, I usually surrender after half a medium-sized deep dish pizza. Considering that it is actually a kind of cheese pie, I still do pretty okay ... At Coalfire, however, the pizza is thin crust, which is a lot closer to the Italian original. The owner has experimented with superhot ovens, and he came up with a way of making a pizza within five (or so) minutes of placing the order. Although the pizza was a bit burned on a few spots, it was just purely delicious! I was quite sad that the place was closed when we went for a second time, when I was repaying the favor on the occasion of James' birthday, just a few weeks after mine. But we had deep dish instead at a place I hadn't tried before, so it was still a success.
By the way, Chicago is famous for three kinds of food: deep dish pizza, Italian beef, and Chicago style hot dogs. I am still waiting for a good opportunity to try the last, but as I will outline in the following post, I still have some time left.