EXTRA: Could Taste of Chicago shutdown create moment in the sun for police-motivated protests?

It is one of those events that has taken on a certain aura in Chicago history – the Rev. Jesse Jackson managed to impose a boycott over the now-defunct ChicagoFest.

 

Will Saturday crowds be on the decline due to proposed shutdown?

It was back in the 1982 version when Jackson got black activists to picket the event held at Navy Pier, and several entertainers cancelled out of a sense of solidarity – including Stevie Wonder.

I CAN’T HELP but think that somebody thinks they can pull off a repeat a third of a century later with the Shutdown they’re hoping to accomplish on Saturday at the Taste of Chicago being held in Grant Park.

This event isn’t quite as adventurous, activists are merely calling for people not to go and stuff their faces with overpriced food for a four-hour time period in the afternoon. The rest of the five-day event that runs through Sunday night is fair game for people to attend.

But it seems all of the police violence being inflicted upon individuals of not quite a pure Caucasian persuasion has Chicago-area people feeling the need to do something.

And it’s not just the shooting death of Laquan McDonald that has them angered. This particular boycott, or call for one, was motivated by the activities of this week in which two separate cities saw moments when police killed black men and there was the incident where five Dallas police officers are now dead.

THAT’S A LOT of bloodshed, and I’m going to be curious to see just how many people actually bother to show up. Or perhaps I should say don’t bother to show up, since this is a call for a boycott.

I suppose that since I have no intention of going to Taste of Chicago on Saturday, I could be lame and claim I’m doing it in solidarity. Although the plans I have for the day have been in place for so long I have to say my absence has nothing to do with expressing my view about police violence.

This is an issue that is exploding across the nation. It is NOT a locally-based problem, which is part of the reason why I have had problems placing blame on Chicago political people – including Rahm Emanuel – for what happened to McDonald.

I don’t see that we have any worse a situation in Chicago than any other city does. I’d also argue that anybody who tries to dump blame on Chicago is merely trying to detract from the seriousness of the situation in their home city.

WE’LL SEE LATER Saturday if there’s any notable lack of people in Grant Park. I suspect there won’t be.

For Taste of Chicago is such a touristy event (I haven’t gone to it in years, and don’t think I’ve missed a thing as a result) that I suspect many of those feeling compelled to gnaw on giant turkey legs or wolf down pizza slices will be out-of-towners who didn’t see the “Taste of Chicago Shutdown” page on Facebook – which is how I learned of the attempt to express outrage.

For all I know, they may not have cared if they had been told. They want that turkey leg.

Personally, if I really feel compelled to have a cheezborger (yes, the Billy Goat Tavern is among the restaurants serving food this weekend), I can get one any day of the year. It’s not a weekend-only edible treat.

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Does this weekend -- filled w/ events that have seen better days -- matter?

Perhaps it’s all too appropriate that the Taste of Chicago and the Crosstown Classic (the silly pseudo-title given to the times of year when the Chicago White Sox take on the Chicago Cubs) are both taking place this weekend.

Will this be accurate again soon?

I didn’t feel the need to make it out to either event in person because they both seem like they have experienced better days. Even though they would have been distractions from the political nonsense that has taken up too much of our attention in recent weeks.

AS FOR THE Taste of Chicago, the event was interesting enough that I had a cousin who felt compelled to go; in large part because it was a chance to see and hear Erykah Badu perform live.

Then again, she is from San Antonio, Texas, and was in town for the week as a tourist. Which means she was probably in similar company.

The Taste of Chicago just doesn’t seem the same as its glory days of the 1980s into the early 1990s when major restaurants all used their political clout to be included and it was a part of the way Chicago celebrated Independence Day.

Now, it’s just a shell – only five days, and scaled back to the point where I suspect there are suburban festivals that come across as more interesting. Maybe even the Air Show in Gary, Ind., that may wind up costing the city government more money than it brings in?

THEN, THERE’S THE head-to-head competition between Chicago’s two major league ball clubs – the mediocre Cubs vs. the grossly underachieving White Sox.

Not exactly the matchup that’s going to inspire anyone to care – except for the fact that it provokes the standard South Side vs. North Side rivalry that exists in just about every aspect of Chicago’s nature.

Now I don’t know if I agree with one-time Chicago Tribune sports columnist Bernie Lincicome, who wrote a commentary for Friday implying that the match-up is lame and never mattered worth squat. Even though I’ll agree that interleague play feels like a distraction from the regular season games that matter!

BADU: The weekend's highlight?

I’d agree to the degree that being able to say you’ve beaten up on the Cubs isn’t any great achievement – every other ball club does the exact same thing. Why should this series be any different?

BUT THE FACT that neither of these teams is in any serious contention makes the matchup seem all the more cheap. It would be sad if the White Sox wind up saying that their Friday 1-0 victory was the season’s highlight. (A hit batsman, a stolen base, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly provided the lone run – Wee Willie Keeler would have been proud).

I didn’t even feel compelled to watch much of Friday’s White Sox victory on television. I actually caught a portion of a rerun where Buffy beat up on some ridiculous demon once again, before changing the channel to WGN where I caught the end of the White Sox’ broadcast.

The Cubs’ broadcast, by comparison, was relegated to Comcast Sports Network. Now I realize times have changed and the W-G-N call letters are no longer synonymous with baby blue baseball, but it still feels like a flawed juxtaposition.

I may not catch any of the other games. I have family obligations (my other relatives beckon on Saturday) that may keep me away from a television.

BESIDES, WHAT COULD have been the key baseball story of the series won’t happen. White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija last pitched on Thursday against the Toronto Blue Jays (winning 2-0). The former Chicago Cub from Valparaiso, Ind., won’t go against his former ball club.

That would have been interesting, because I wonder if the Cubs who fantasize that they still have a shot at a playoff spot this season ought to try to acquire Samardzija from the White Sox, who may wind up unloading ballplayers in hopes of saving money and picking up potential prospects for the future.
 

Will Chris Sale be the star of Tuesday's game?

It would be hilarious if Samardzija (who was supposed to bolster White Sox pitching for their ’15 pennant chances) wound up accomplishing the same thing for the Cubs instead.

Besides, the real meaning of this series is that we’re at the unofficial mid-point of the baseball season – the All Star Game will be played Tuesday in Cincinnati. Maybe the second half won’t be quite as depressing.

  -30-

If Asian carp are a delicacy, does that mean aldermen have some value too?

It looks like the Asian carp have finally made it within sight of Lake Michigan – a thought that on a certain level has environmentalists quaking in their pants.

What's lower; Asian carp or aldermen?



But these carp are deceased. They have been stripped and cooked.

SO IT WASN’T that the dreaded species of fish that potentially could devastate the ecosystem of the Great Lakes managed to make it past all the barricades put up by man to keep them out.

It is that a Lincoln Park neighborhood restaurant served them up as foodstuffs to be eaten by people who attended the opening day of the Taste of Chicago.

Which means they were consumed by people standing in Grant Park, which is right at the downtown Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan.

So if someone were to take bite of the Asian carp, decide they didn’t care for the taste, and decide to chuck it into the lake rather than a trash can, would that count as an instance of the species making it all the way into the Great Lakes?

I MUST ADMIT to getting a bit of a kick out of the idea, particularly after reading a Chicago Sun-Times report that included comments from an Illinois Department of Natural Resources official about how the only thing wrong with Asian carp as food is a “perception problem.”

The newspaper peddled the idea that the Asian carp could actually be regarded as a delicacy – we’re told that some people refer to the fish as “silver fin” to avoid the negative connotation.

Although it also seems that some people don’t distinguish between the Asian carp and the regular ol’ carp that have been slithering their way through the muck of the Great Lakes and the Chicago River for decades.

Personally, I don’t think that is as much an issue as the fact that the Asian carp only gets written about in the context of some dangerous species that threatens the life of Lake Michigan and its companion lakes.

IT PROBABLY HAS people thinking there’s something poisonous or hazardous about the species itself, and that coming into contact with it can be fatal.

Certainly not something turned into tiny White Castle-like sandwiches smothered in jalapeno chutney – as was done on Wednesday at the Taste of Chicago by people from Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet Shop.

Although that perception, in and of itself, is incorrect.

The problem with Asian carp is that they’re gluttonous. They devour everything in their path – including substances that provide life and nourishment to other species that are native to the Great Lakes.

THINK OF THE Asian carp as the equivalent of the new people in the neighborhood who throw loud parties and intrude on everyone’s solitude, yet never bother to invite you.

Yet they’re also sly enough that if you try calling the cops on them, they become peaceful enough to get the police to back off (just like the carp manage to leap over those electronic barricades that are meant to electrocute them if they get too aggressive in trying to work their way toward the Great Lakes.

Personally, a part of me accepts the fact that they’re going to make it someday. They first got introduced to this country as part of a fish “farm” in Mississippi not far from New Orleans and managed to escape.

Since then, they have worked their way up the Mississippi River and across Illinois to where they are now dangerously near the Great Lakes.

Just as vile, at times

THEY JUST CAN’T be stopped. Take out a few. And some more crop up in their place. Or so it seems.

It sounds almost as futile as federal prosecutors thinking they can completely eradicate crime and corruption from within the ranks of our local government.

Then again, the Asian carp are persistent and unstoppable, and greedily devour everything in sight without regard for how it impacts others.

When you phrase it like that, it makes the Asian carp sound just like a Chicago alderman. No wonder the species is a menace.

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It just doesn’t “feel” right

I comprehend the idea of a shorter Taste of Chicago as an event that fits better within the budget of city officials.



Grant Park's pristine beauty will be besmirched for a few days this week for our city's annual, but abbreviated, food fest



I’m sure there are many people who only go one day per year. So they will still have five days to pick from beginning Wednesday, and they will have the option of gorging themselves on whatever edibles they choose to spend lots of money on.

AND AS FOR those people who work downtown and like to make several stops, they’ll still be able to do that for a few days this week.

But somehow, I can’t help but think that this year’s Taste of Chicago just doesn’t feel right. And it’s not because of the fact that the guy who cooks those ridiculously huge turkey legs (bigger that some peoples’ heads) won’t be among the event’s vendors.

It’s the timing of the event. I can’t help but think this is taking place a week late. Monday should be the day that we do the final review of how much cleanup had to be done to restore Grant Park to its potentially-pristine condition. Because it should be over by now.

But it isn’t. It hasn’t yet begun.

IT’S GOING TO take some getting used to.

Because in my mind, and those of many other Chicago residents, the Taste of Chicago is a summer-time event that coincides with Independence Day celebration.

It was a 10-day string that would be scheduled to include the July 4 holiday proper, along with the July 3 fireworks display along the lakefront near Navy Pier.

Chicago knew how to throw an Independence Day party. But that is all now history.

FOR CITY OFFICIALS gave up a couple of years ago on the downtown fireworks display – leaving many Chicago-area residents who used to converge on the central and near North part of the city to have to resort to whatever nearby suburban village was having its own fireworks show.

And now, we’re waiting until after Independence Day is over and done with before even beginning the Taste of Chicago. Although I suppose those people who show up on Saturday can claim to be celebrating Bastille Day!

Even if, to the best of my knowledge, none of the restaurants whose foodstuffs are being offered up are serving anything even remotely resembling French cuisine

For those who want to rant that it would be wrong to celebrate a French holiday, keep in mind that Milwaukee has an official festival for that date each and every year.

AND IT WAS the French who were the original European colonizers to much of the Midwestern U.S. Does anyone really believe that the English would have come up with a name like Illinois?

Even if they tried to use variations on native tribal names, they likely would have come up with a more Anglicized spelling than anything ending in an “ois.”

Not that I’m pushing for a Bastille Day celebration in Chicago any time soon. Or that I even care all that much personally about the idea of a shorter Taste of Chicago.

It just seems that we’ve lost something that made the event rather special by having it tied into the holiday in which we celebrate our nation’s birth.

BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT tie, the event becomes nothing more than a chance to feed one’s face with too many variations of pizza and barbecue, along with various takes on ethnic cuisines ranging from Italian to Mexican to Irish to African.

And, of course, fried chicken from Harold’s – which portrays itself as the ultimate South Side joint.

Although if Taste of Chicago officials really wanted good chicken from a neighborhood joint, they’d include a stand from Hienie’s -- located around 104^th Street on Torrence Avenue, for those of you who never venture south of Roosevelt Road.

Smothered in the store’s “hot” sauce (forget the mild version), it is a treat I don’t get all that often. But is something that adds to the cuisine character of Chicago. Which is what this event is supposed to be all about!

  -30-

Will Chicagoans care for shorter Taste?

It is no secret to people who read this weblog that I don’t think much of the Taste of Chicago.

The annual food fest has always struck me as grubby people sweating it out in a Chicago summer eating overpriced, greasy foods.

THE SIGHT OF someone chomping on a turkey leg bigger than their head while walking through Grant Park has become such a Chicago cliché, as well as a distasteful sight!

So in theory, I ought to be pleased that city officials on Wednesday indicated that they will scale the annual food fest back. It will now be a five-day long event, half the length that it has run in recent years.

Yet a part of me wonders if city officials are symbolically shooting themselves in the foot by cutting back on the event that has become one of Chicago’s primary public events.

Scaling it back could wind up having the effect of making it appear to be cheaper and lower-key – which would take away from the unique character that makes some people (if not myself) WANT to go to it every single year.

IT STRIKES ME as similar to the service cuts that have hit mass transit in recent years. Lesser hours and fewer routes have the effect of making it more difficult for people to use buses and trains (the el and subways) to get where they want to go.

Which further reduces the willingness of people to use the Chicago Transit Authority to get where they want to go. Which causes ridership figures to go down.

Which then makes Chicago Transit Board officials convinced that the only way to maintain the system without losing money is to cut it back even further.

How many years until the Taste of Chicago gets reduced to a couple of booths near Buckingham Fountain?

In short, an endless cycle of cuts that ultimately fail to maintain the system’s ability to fund itself.

I’M WONDERING IF that is what we’re going to see in coming years with the Taste of Chicago – a steadily-shrinking event that city officials will pretend still maintains the aura of its glory days of the 1980s and early 1990s.

That is, until the day when it just fades away altogether. As it is, the Taste of Chicago for 2012 will be held in mid-July, which means the Independence Day holiday will already be complete when it takes place.

The idea of a million people showing up at the Taste of Chicago on July 3, then sticking around to see the lakefront fireworks display for the holiday, had become something that was a part of the Chicago character to celebrate U.S. independence.

Now, it’s a thing of the past – just as much as the Chicago Sting, the Daily News and Goldblatt’s department stores. How long until the “Taste” as a whole joins the list?

  -30-

“Whole wheat” pizza isn’t worth high prices charged at Taste of Chicago

I have never been a fan of the Taste of Chicago, the nearly three-decade-old food festival whose 2008 incarnation began Friday.

The annual event that is supposed to give the unique assortment of restaurants in Chicago a chance to show off their custom items is really nothing more than an opportunity to overpay for bite-sized morsels of pizza and barbecue.

NOW SOME PEOPLE are more than comfortable trotting out to Grant Park in the July heat of a Chicago summer to eat these items that I can order up just about any time I want.

Personally, I will avoid the park for the next 10 or so days, until after the Taste of Chicago is complete and the crews have removed all the trash (which leaves such a lingering aroma of unpleasantness that wafts its way into the Loop proper).

The Taste of Chicago’s food fare is too predictable.

Fair officials this year are promoting pizza as one of the unique food items. Specifically, they are touting the pizza by Connie’s Pizza, which is making some slices with a special whole-wheat crust – claiming it to be a healthier food choice than “regular” pizza.

I DON’T HAVE a problem with pizza crust made by whole wheat dough. I have had it on occasion, and it has a nice texture to it. But it is not the kind of item that I will make a special trip for (and have to pay Taste of Chicago-type prices).

And for those who take offense to the notion of eating any version of pizza that pretends to be healthy, be assured that there will be plenty of more conventional versions of pizza for sale from many other vendors at the Taste of Chicago.

How ridiculous are the event’s prices?

In theory, tickets for the Taste of Chicago (which must be used to purchase food – vendors don’t take cash or charge cards) cost little more than $0.60 apiece.

BUT TICKETS ARE not sold individually. They are sold in strips of 11 – at a cost of $7 per strip. Even then, most food items cost anywhere from five to eight tickets apiece, which means that a single strip isn’t going to get one much more than a lone bite or two of something greasy.

Multiple strips must be purchased, and that is just if one comes alone. Bringing a friend adds to the expense. A group of three can easily go through $50-60 to spend a couple of hours tasting a few food items – then have to spend more money to eat elsewhere because the portions were so small that they weren’t all that filling.

And what’s worse is that I have never been able to see anyone manage to use every single ticket. It is all too common to be left with a stray ticket or two – which means returning to the Taste of Chicago for a second day (and more money spent on ticket strips).

The mystery of the number of tickets sold on a Taste of Chicago strip ranks right up there with the question of why hot dog buns are sold in packages of eight, while hot dogs often come in packs of seven.

CROWDS ALSO CAN make a mess of the Taste of Chicago, particularly on Thursday of this coming week – when the combination of overpriced food and an elaborate Day-before-Independence Day fireworks show will cause more than 1 million people to cram their way onto the Chicago lakefront.

That is the day to avoid Chicago at all costs, unless your life is not complete without pyrotechnics.

But even on the other nine days of the Taste of Chicago, the mass of people can be overwhelming.

I still remember the Taste of Chicago from 1998, when then-Democratic gubernatorial nominee Glenn Poshard tried to use the summer festival (which is billed as Chicago’s preeminent outdoor event of the year) to get the urban people of Chicago to accept his Southern Illinois ways.

AS A REPORTER-type person with the old United Press International, I was working that day – following Poshard around as he tried to mingle with the masses.

Yet it quickly became obvious that the event was overwhelming. Poshard himself ate nothing more than an ice cream cone, and seemed bewildered that so many people could convene in such a small space for the explicit purpose of eating greasy junk food.

His reaction might very well be evidence that he had a strain of common sense.

AS MUCH AS I can enjoy crowds (a capacity group in a sports stadium doesn’t freak me out in the least), the sense just exists that the Taste of Chicago has no taste whatsoever.

If I really want to experience some of the unique culinary experiences of Chicago, I’ll get in the car (or figure out how to take the “el” or a CTA bus) to try out some of the unique restaurants located in the neighborhoods.

If I am able to find one new restaurant this summer in Chicago that serves me a truly unique meal, then I will consider that a much more worthwhile experience than spending a couple of hours at the Taste of Chicago.

AND FOR THOSE people who just have to experience some time in Grant Park this summer at a public event, I’d suggest trying the music festivals.

The Chicago Blues Festival has already passed, but the gospel, Latin music and jazz festivals all are coming up this summer and will offer one a much more pleasing (and less grubby) way of spending an evening in downtown Chicago.

I’m actually looking forward to hearing the skilled saxophone playing of Ornette Coleman, who aside from being thoroughly enjoyable any time of the year is scheduled to be the highlighted musical act performing on my birthday.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: It may sound interesting that Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt and Chaka Khan all will perform at the Taste of Chicago. The only problem is that the stages (http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalEntityHomeAction.do?entityName=Taste+of+Chicago&entityNameEnumValue=166) where the music is performed usually get lost amidst the mass of greasy food.

Soldiers in Iraq will get to experience a piece of the Taste of Chicago, as Lou Malnati’s (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5heP2QK8kxePru5jZ5U1nZHGqBXtgD91H21280) pizzeria has arranged to ship up to 3,000 of the pizzas they’re selling at the food festival to the troops.