Karl Klockars

As we shuffle through the muck of an attempt to flee occupied Chicago for the East Coast, the only thing I can think of in terms of departure are related around food.  Is that bad?

I’ve been a Chicago-an all my life, unless you’re one of those dogmatists that believe you can only call yourself that if you’ve lived within the city limits the whole time.  Okay, fine, suburbanite for a majority of it, whatever, I still went to the Air & Water show like everyone else and I’ve seen just about ever series of Christmas windows at Marshall Fields throughout the first 27 years of my life.

So I suppose that means we’re about due for a change of venue.  After you get over the initial “you mean I have to learn a new public transit system” terror, it gets to be a pretty exciting prospect to have a whole new world to explore, to learn about, to discover the history of and the like.  All the things I’ve jumped into headfirst in Chicago, I can do again about 12 hours to the east.

And with all the preplanning of figuring out how to do things, when to do them and who to do them around and with, I haven’t really stopped to smell the remaining days worth of roses in the city.  I still have a long list of places to go, things to experience and otherwise devour in the city of Chicago.

There’s a very good chance I will never get to them.

I’m okay with that, because of the possibility of a tremendous amount of new things in the Washington DC area, which then quickly becomes expanded out to places within a half day’s drive, the likes of which are more varied than here.  If you want to drive for 4 hours from Chicago, you mostly get to corn, or Milwaukee, or Indianapolis.

From DC, there’s stuff all over the place.  And pair that with trains and cheap airfare and youv’e got a whole world to explore.  This is exciting.  But I know that as we prepare to pack up all of our collected shit and throw it into boxes and schlep it across these great lands, I’m making time to prepare myself for some holes in my life.  Actually, strike that – some holes in my dining repetoire.

Where is a guy supposed to get pho?  How will I ever be able to consume a gargantuan hamburger without having doom-metal slamming in the background?  Where will I find the bar with the most obscure beer-dork-approved brews on hand?  What is a guy supposed to do when he needs a goulash & schnitel fix?

This is surely a completely narrow-sighted view of where we’re headed, but all I can imagine is overpriced, underwhelming expense-account hotel food.  I know it’s not fair and I hope I can change this outlook when we fly out for a whirlwind weekend of doublechecking our emotions about the area.  I’d like to think that there’s more than just Five Guys – which we have here now anyways.

There’s gotta be more than that, and I know there’s plenty of places in their Chinatown to inspect, an interesting subculture of Ethiopian food and all the seafood from being so close to the Atlantic and all.  And that’s great.  But what does a guy do when he needs a hot dog?  A bowl of soup from Spoon Thai?  A taco that’s worth killing over?

I intend to find out.  The fact is that we’re spoiled as hell in Chicago, and all it takes to remind you of that is to begin to contemplate the idea of not having it anymore.  I’ve spent the last 3 years or so around here tracking down good food.  The part of me that grabs hold of those things and struggles to not let go is crowing loudly in the background.  But the sensible rational version has to wrap its fingers around its throat and squeeze until the sounds go away and the hope for new experiences comes back around.

It’s in there.  And the new horizon is brighter than it was 2 weeks ago.  But make no mistake – the So You’ve Decided To Leave Chicago Tour of Gluttony is going to be epic.