Eggplant is delicious. What's wrong with you?

It wasn't an eggplant dish. It was a lamb dish, with eggplant on it.

People make substitutions. But, yes, I am retarded. Never denied it. The lamb that I managed to pick out from under the eggplant spooge was pretty good though. I would order it again. If I could get it without eggplant. Which I can't. But I am retarded, so I'll order it again when I'm back. Because I'm retarded. I am.

Please, re. 8: "lightning"

Just found a really great homo blog out of Chicago. Funny comments.. Sort of a mature version of Slog, though with an anti-Obama slant, and not littered with advertisements.

http://hillbuzz.org/

Dan, as a fellow Chicagoan, I can remind you (and explain to other SLOGgers) why the Blackhawks don't have much of a following.
See, for a long time, the team's owner only allowed a few games to be broadcast every season (and only on cable), under the logic that if fans couldn't see the games on the TV, then they'd be more likely to pay to see them in person. What he forgot is that if the games aren't on TV, people are less likely to become fans. And thus did a lot of kids (including me) grow up without much appreciation for the 'Hawks.
Now, of course, the old owner's son is the man in charge (and has been for a few years), and hockey is making somewhat of a comeback of late due to his sensible policy of broadcasting moar games. Add that to the Blackhawks KICKING ASS, and you'll suddenly see a lot more fans.

Good point about how our Elliott Bay and Madison Park waterfronts could have been so much more like the Chicago lakefront if only our local geography, economy and railroad/trucking system had been completely different from what they were and are. Really, really good point.

The first time I was in Chicago I was still firmly in my half-closet and spent a day with some girl friends in Boystown, the first time I'd ever been in a gay district. In some clothing boutique the very hot employee started asking if we wanted him to model stuff for us, the girls just laughed and I faux-laughed along with them while secretly wanting him to.

Then a guy came on to me at a party, the first time anyone of either gender had, and I freaked out and said no, and hopped on my flight home the next day.

I have an odd relationship to Chicago.

I think a Passionfruit Long Island Iced Tea is a making gay lemonade out of straight bar lemons -- next to some sort of Cosmo or *tini, I think you picked the gayest of drinks available. Cheers!

The sound of passionfruit long island ice tea makes me want to hurl. I can't believe you'd drink that! But, what do I know, I just finished off a lovely bottle of Buffalo Trace served nice and neat, like a man's backside in a well fitted pair of jeans. And, later I'm going to go crack a bottle of Bulleit.

Have a great day you all. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost loved ones through service in the military today.

It is no surprise that Chicago is the home town of Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama).

Don't be surprised if some Chicago and/or SEIU thugs were tailing you wherever you went. You see, they won't even trust their own.

ROTFLMAO!!!

What is "char polish?"

A char polish is a char-broiled Polish sausage.

@17: A charbroiled Polish sausage. Chicago has the second largest Polish population of any metropolitan area (second only to Warsaw) and the cuisine definitely reflects that in some neighborhoods.

@13: http://toomuchhappiness.com/photos/Brool…

I miss Super Dogs! The best hot dogs in Chicago!

Maybe you just haven't found the right eggplant yet.

What is it with bestiality lately? Is it the Bible? The whole "dominion over the beasts of whatever"? I think we've settled that issue.

So get out of Fluffy's daybed and take her for her pedicure.

I was thinking char polish was something you used to shine up a pot-bellied stove....

The eggplant spooge was probably made in advance, pre-spooged, as it were, and not subsitutable. That's what you get for ordering lamb, the most vile of meats, next to liver and blood sausage. Ehk.

PS
You saw this, right? The pardon of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga?
http://www.towleroad.com/2010/05/where-a…

After all the hoopla, I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere on Slog...

@ Canuck: That is because you cannot read.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive… (second item)

@20 what about Portillo's hot dogs?

Dan, on item 1, just stop being a douchebarge.

@8 the games may not have been broadcast on cable in the city, but the blackout didn't apply to the rest of the state. Those of us who grew up in Illinois outside of Chicago grew up loving the 'Hawks. Now, there are more than a few people in Chicago that care about the Blackhawks.

When we moved to Minneapolis, people asked me how the cities compared to Chicago--the answer: they don't. I took my girls to Chicago last summer for a week, the first time since we moved. In our aproach to MSP coming home, my 7 year old exclaimed "look at the cute little city!"

There are way too many big hairy men in Chicago, but non hairy not too big men can be found as well, most often running along the lakeshore in the morning.

@28 Ooo, my bad, Megan! I must have some alternative universe version of slog up here, but that first post you linked from the 30th doesn't show up on slog (on my computer, anyway...) The second one, just didn't see it, but I'll make sure to query the archives next time, although that will be challenging, as I'm still getting used to my braille keyboard...

I've seen better orca dildos.

And is it me, or does International Mr. Leather look kinda like David Cross?

@30: Portillos is THE SHIT.
@35: Kinda. Let's put him in a giant mole suit, call him Tobias, and see what happens!

@33: You should try this.

Theoretically at least, barebacking videos can be OK (as long as everyone is sero-sorting, and no-one's taking risks they aren't comfortable with, it could be morally OK).

But bestiality, not so much.

Conclusion: IML is even more fucked up than anyone thought.

Thanks for the comment about Chicago's beautiful lake front! It made me smile to see someone really appreciate that part of our city. That and I felt a ton of pride.

@37 Ah, there it is! And on the 29th, not the 30th (maybe I really CAN'T read....which is a bummer, because I have a shitload of new stuff on my Kindle)

Okay, I'll just go back to reading and not commenting for a couple of days, obviously jetlag, middle age and red wine don't mix well...

@40 I couldn't agree more! I just love this place! Especially from April through October!

Dan I am glad you are back in Chicago. Please stay there.

Thanks.

Dan dear, Chicago and Seattle are both beautiful cities in their own ways. Wouldn't it be boring if they were exactly alike?

And eggplant is delicious. I make an eggplant/clam casserole that everyone adores. Mostly because I don't tell them what's in it, and they think it's stuffing.

I wish I had some time off to go visit Chicago, but two days there and two days back really eats into vacation time. You're so lucky that you can travel there for business, so the train time isn't held against your vacation.

You ARE taking the train, right? ;-)

Can we all please just say Aubergine instead of Eggplant? Even if I liked eating the things, and I don't, the name Eggplant is just so damn gross sounding.

But, although the eggplant was all over if, did you ENJOY it? Come on, Dan, can't you be a just a little GGG with your food? You ordered it, you asked for it and it was brought to you...don't you at least owe giving the eggplant covered thing an honest CHANCE to BE what you put out as wanting? At the first glance on eggplant, you just went off, it seems. I'm just sayin'; seem kinda not Dan-like. Another illusion shattered.

Here's my two cents on the barebacking/bestiality scenario.

The likelihood of someone going to IML, seeing a barebacking video and then trying it themselves is higher than someone going to IML, seeing a video of some guy screwing a poodle and trying it themselves.

The amount of people who want to bareback will always be greater (at least I hope...) than the amount of people who want to have sex with animals. Barebacking is a legit sex problem, whereas bestiality is something that resides on the far, far outskirts of socially accepted sex behavior.

Savage-

1. If you were a straight guy, I'd recommend the chocolate shake at the Wiener Circle.

2. I've wanted to care about hockey since growing up in Jersey when the Rangers were good. It wasn't just the owner of the Blackhawks-it was the NHL itself. GO BLACKHAWKS!

4. For that matter, GO CUBS!

5. The lakefront. I spent all last summer riding my bike down the lakefront, from my apartment in Uptown to Grant Park.

You've made me homesick. Thanks a lot, Savage.

It's worth noting that the Chicago Lakefront was not originally preserved. The entire shore was gobbled up for industrial uses in the city, and private ownership to the North. The lakefront of today is the second draft, learned lessons from a generation of unplanned urban expansion.

It was also not created by any sort of Democratic process. Rather the barons of the day-- Pullman, Montgomery Ward, and Marshal Fields, among others-- decided that a new lakefront would be created for the public, and they forced the plan onto the city.

In other words, don't blame Seattle's founders for doing exactly the same thing that Chicago's founders did. Instead, ask why it was never re-done.

regardless of how it happened, the Chicago lakefront is pretty dammed cool. and regardless of how it happened, the Seattle "soundfront" is pretty dammed lame in comparison.

hey and those orcadicks look pretty dangerous. for humans, anyway. they are so pointy!

#11 bike the drive

@2 Eggplants: disgusting AND delicious. People are built differently, literally. We're not necessarily tasting the same thing. Maybe that's what's wrong with Dan and me.

Some people seem to have difficulty understanding this, using the standing assumption that every human experiences things like they themselves do. This is a good starting assumption, but we all know that witches don't really feel pain, they just scream AS IF they were in real agony.

Also, earlier I hadn't yet eaten dinner, and my blood sugar was low and hypoglycemicky. I stand by my comment for item 1, Dan, but I'll also kindly take issue with your item 7.

If you thoroughly understood Chicago's urban history (and no, I don't mean "during the time Dan lived in Chicago") relative to Seattle's, it becomes really unproductive to look at the present-day idyll of the Lakefront and compare that against current-day Seattle.

Their histories are so different, both in timing of origin and in the sense of purpose that each city came to grow (to the size and shape each is now), that it's sort of useless to praise Chicago and then dis Seattle on the basis of waterfronts. Chicago was always a hub city, and its growth pressures have always been informed by that. Seattle was, with exception, a pass-through city between Alaska and B.C. down to California. The former captured and kept people in place, building communities and culture early. Seattle's was always more transient, so the momentum to improve the city has taken a bit longer, and a bit more in fits and starts.

Chicago's Lakefront in daytime looked like this in December 1942 and at nighttime like this in April 1943. Those are colour photos (4x5 large format Kodachrome photos), and they're all but untouched (i.e., the colours have not been adjusted from fading). The Lakefront was all rail yards, meat-packing, stockyards, trading, and industrial use. Chicago is also, relative to America's age, much older than Seattle.

How you grouse about Seattle's waterfront is a long-heard refrain spoken by many a Torontonian whose own waterfront, development age, and urban history is so much like Chicago's that Toronto is revealed in this comparison to be in a more troubled spot (with the wall of condos, the damned Gardiner, etc.) than Seattle is.

Seattle's time is coming. It has changed even since I lived there. I'd say it has improved a bit. Enough to impress me when I visited recently. That's all. Of course, I've long since given up expecting you to put more than a tenth of the forethought in what you say relative to what Charles puts into his posts. But anyway.

@54: Aubergines are so much about the preparation than anything else. Done improperly, they're bitter and earn a bad name. Done properly (e.g., leaching the bitter compounds before cooking), they're sex in the mouth. Eggplant parm at Commisso Brothers in Toronto? QED. Magnificence.

In my forty-five years of life, I have discovered that I have no use for okra, bean sprouts and tripe. Just about everything else, however, is at least edible. Including eggplant.

I still say Dan would eat my eggplant and clam casserole. According to my cookbook, it's from a "noted Hollywood Radio Home Economist". What's not to love about that?

@57: I guess you're not much the pho fan, given that tripe and bean sprouts are two of the most common ingredients. It was my dinner tonight, actually. No, not Than Brothers, but on the same calibre.

I hated okra growing up. Then was reintroduced to it in bhindi dishes, and now I consider it amazing and underrated. It too must be fresh and prepared properly like aubergines or else it can cause crappy first impressions.

Listen, my dog loves cat turds. He eats them like chewy little Tootsie Rolls. No matter how much he tries to convince me that it's good, I'm not going to enjoy eating cat shit. We're just different in that way. I'm not going to try your eggplant.

Baba ghannoush. Delectable.

It isn't the eggplant that is the problem - if a customer makes a special request NOT to have a certain ingredient in their food, then the staff needs to do one of two things - they either need to inform the customer that the dish is not available w/out the eggplant OR they need to serve the dish that was ordered. Just saying "Eggplant is delicious - you should try it". Is never the answer. What if the Dan took a bite of the food and went into anaphalactic shock because of a food allergy? Would YOU want to be the waiter or chef who killed one of the voices of Gay America?

Telsa-- your time and geography is off. The photos you post show the Proviso Yard, 15 miles inland. You can find it there today if you map "Proviso Drive, Melrose Park, IL"

Yes, the original Chicago waterfront was all rail tracks and stockyards. But the rebuilding was already in full swing by the Columbian Expo of 1893. The Burnham plan was in full swing by 1915.

I love that you took that picture of street art! <3

@62: Thanks for the correction, eclexia. More later.

The one on the left is a dolphin dong. Ask me how I know. Hint, I have seen a dolphin have a wank at the local marine park. Dolphin, pool ladder, use your imagination.

Maybe I'm missing something big here but it seems that the thing about drastically changing much of Seattle' waterfront is that there's no where else for the train tracks to go. Chicago is all flat (in comparison) and while it is a major freight/rail hub the majority of freight transport is inland to inland so the train yard can be anywhere. Seattle is a major sea freight hub, it wouldn't make any sense to move the train yard away from the waterfront and because of the hills there's nowhere inland to move the train yard to.

Come on!? All this talk of eggplant and not one hint of its uses other than culinary!? Slogsters- you disappoint!

@67: Tape a chunk of raw eggplant over a wart and it will help remove it. Apparently something to do with the acidity, plus whatever immune stimulants might be in there. Though frankly, I've always found benzoyl peroxide more useful in that regard.

Socks?

@69: Reading comprehension FAIL. You realize that you're just making yourself look like even more of a horse's ass, right?

Holy shit, Dan,

All these people are getting on your case for wanting an item slightly changed from the menu. It sounds like they want us to live in a totalitarian regime where the Grand Chef makes things his way and you must eat it. A place where you are not allowed our American freedoms to order food the way we want. Soon we will be forced to eat breakfast foods only before 10:30, and Angie's Breakfast Kitchen in Ames, IA will be shut down for being subversive. People like me who like to pepper their peanut-butter toast will be sent off to "etiquette camps" and never be seen again, but that is nothing compared to what will happen to vegans.

Soon we will become the Conglomerated States Under McDonald's, eating only assembly-line food. It'll be an Orwellian nightmare!

Or maybe Dan should continue to exercise his American rights to order food the way we fucking wants to, and the retarded chef can take the big fucking eggplant off the top of the lamb. I've worked as a chef, and substitutions can be easy.

Guess Peggy and I were the only ones who caught the Socks (you mean Sox, as in White Sox).

You're such a nelly queen Dan Savage...

@75: Yeah, a black man got elected to the highest federal office in existence. THAT DOES NOT MAKE THE KLAN GO BYE-BYE. Obama's election is a sign of progress, but racism is still a real problem in this country. Need I remind you of the Jena Six?

@80: I'm a Chicagoan, you twat. And I live in a ~95% black neighborhood. And yes, there is the occasional racially-charged incident. But you know what? Here in the North we tend to treat minorities like decent human beings, rather than branding them cheap labor or street criminals.

dan, i thought you stopped using "retarded?"