Crossing Things off the Chicago Bucket List

Happy Monday! Did you have a great weekend? I did! It was full of quality family time, tons of good food, and crossing stuff off of my Chicago bucket list. Let’s recap!

Class with my dad

After hitting the gym and making breakfast on Friday morning, I met my dad outside the econ building before class. He got to sit in on Economics of Sports, where my TA gave a presentation on his research regarding biased refereeing in UEFA Champions League and we talked about discrimination and markets. My dad got to answer some sports trivia questions because he’s a sports geek and most of us were too young to get the references. 

Cubs vs. Yankees at Wrigley Field

My dad is a huge baseball fan, and we’ve know that we want to hit a Cubs game before I graduate… but we hadn’t done it before Friday. I almost went with my house last year, but ended up busy and ditched my cheap ticket in favor of studying (#typical). Right after econ, we went back to the dorm to drop my bag off and meet my mom before heading to Wrigley Field to meet my dad’s friend, Steve, for the game.

First, I’d like to say that Wrigley is not the shitty venue everyone makes it out to be. Yeah, it’s old, but it’s not falling apart. No, it doesn’t have a swimming pool like the Diamondbacks’ stadium, but it’s perfectly fine.

Second, guys, it was so freaking cold. Truthfully, it was around 50°F (not cold), but the gusts of wind attacked almost constantly and made it feel closer to 35°F. People crowded under the stadium for shelter (you seriously couldn’t move down there). And, yeah, aside from the first, eighth, and ninth innings, I was one of those people. You expect football to have varied temperatures from September to December, but you pretty much expect baseball to be warm. Not this day.

My mom and I sat in a nice little warm diner with fries and hotdogs while Steve and my dad braved the wind after lunch.

All that said, I still saw the most exciting parts of the game, so I feel like it counts.

Corridor Brewery & Provisions

Steve headed home after the game, but recommended we go to Southport to find food. It was such a cute little area. I loved it. We wound up at Corridor Brewery & Provisions. It was random, but it was a great choice by my dad.

My dad ordered a beer flight and tried to get me and my mom to take part, but neither of us are really beer people. I tried. But nope. And then I got a Moscow mule and my mom ordered a paloma. We all kind of wanted the same thing, so we ordered two turkey, bacon, avocado sandwiches with fries and an order of mini lobster rolls.

We’ve become lobster roll snobs, and these were good but not the best ever. The sandwiches were awesome and on some of the best ciabatta bread in existence. And the fries were out of this world. Ultra crisp on the outside and insanely fluffy on the inside. It was a great meal.

Firecakes (and Jeni’s)

Next door to Corridor, there was a little clothing store that also happened to sell Firecakes donuts, which I’ve been wanting to try. So, we stopped in and got two pistachio donuts and an old-fashioned one for the next day. And, despite being stuffed, we swung by Jeni’s.

I got the Darkest Chocolate and Brambleberry Crisp. Of course, we can get that in Columbus, but… it’s really freaking good. If you can get Jeni’s, you should.

The Infinite Wrench

In my first year at UChicago, my RAs said that everyone should go to this late-night show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. I always kind of wanted to go, but also prioritized my sleep. See, it ran on weekend nights at 11:30 pm, which is past my bedtime always. Well, unless there’s homework due the next day that isn’t done. I intended to go late in my first year, but I had a migraine that night and it was also pouring rain. I passed.

And then… it stopped running.

But then it came back, just under a different name: The Infinite Wrench. It’s run by a group called The Neo-Futurists, and the premise is that it’s 30 plays done in 60 minutes. I told my dad about it and he was also interested. So, we went for it on Friday night. (Friday was a long day.) We came back and napped after dinner and dessert, and then we left the hotel around 10:45 to go up to Andersonville for the show.

I was exhausted and afraid I’d regret going, but it was so fun. I’d recommend skipping out on your bedtime one time just to do it. It’s hard to describe, but funny and witty and poetic. It’s only an hour, and it’s an experience. When we got back to the hotel, we each ate half a pistachio donut before crashing around 1:40.

Au Cheval

After sleeping in a little on Saturday morning, my dad and I went for an intensely windy four-ish mile run along the lake, and then headed to the West Loop for Au Cheval after a too-small breakfast. I had been before, but I wanted my parents to experience their famous burger.

LOL. They told us the wait was around 4 hours at 11:30 am. So, we put our names on the waitlist, but… I was hangry. I needed food and was tired and didn’t want to decide where we were eating or what we were doing. It was not my finest moment. 

We ended up getting lunch at Bad Hunter, which was very good, though more filling than necessary. I had smoked salmon with veggie cream cheese, a pumpernickel pretzel, and a little salad.

Then, we drove back to my dorm, where I packed a whole trunk full of stuff for my parents to take back while having a small breakdown about leaving Chicago. And then we drove back to Au Cheval for a 3:00 pm dinner. It was good that we came back earlier than they told us to, because our names were called about an hour before we expected.

But we got the burgers and super crisp fries, so life was good. We sat right by the door and laughed as people balked at the long wait times. Also, we nearly died of thirst due to the inattentive waiter. Whatever.

The rest

After that, my dad went to the casino to play poker for a bit, and my mom and I crashed at the hotel for a while. We watched bad movies and dozed and worked a little. Good times. They left me early-ish on Sunday morning. I cleaned up some of the apartment, walked to Whole Foods and got a pretty decent haul of food before spending several hours prepping food for the week. 

From top to bottom and left to right: paleo microwave English muffins, strawberry-balsamic salmon, hummus-coated chicken, and homemade nut and seed paleo bread.

And then I ate snacks and blogged. ‘Twas a great one.

See what @EllenSlater crossed off her #Chicago bucket list last weekend! @neofuturists @cubs @AuCheval Share on X

Your turn:

Do you skip out on late-night events? 99% of the time. I like to be in bed by 10.

Best thing you ate this weekend?

Do you meal prep? Why or why not?