Well, folks, I've been very successful in my pursuit of only eating at locally owned/Michigan based restaurants.


For the past 15 days I have had no- I repeat NO- fast food in my body. I feel so good. I think I'm burping less,too. And my seemingly ever-present heartburn is nowhere near as frequent as it used to be.


I only just realized all these things because I have been *craving* Taco Bell and Burger King. Even McDonald's sounds good to me, and that hardly ever happens. However, I have been staying strong and staying away from the national chains. 


This week, Boyfriend and I ate at Little Panda on the westside of Lansing. I used to go there before when I lived on that side of town, but I decided to branch out from my typical order of General Tso's Chicken and go for a noodle dish that reminded me of a certain chain restaurant's street noodle dish. It was really good! Spicy, but not too spicy, well cooked nood, good veg, lots of meat. Can't ask for anything more! 


Before I started writing this blog, I took photos of lots of food I was about to eat. For some reason now, though, I keep forgetting. I have to remind myself now to do it, especially when I order really pretty food. I did take photos today of the French onion soup I made. Wanna see? If you like the look of this soup, let me know and I'll pass the recipe along. Its time consuming, but not particularly labor intensive. The majority of the cook time is baking the onions.

These are the raw ingreds. (This is the time I should tell you the recipe for this soup comes from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook)


The onions cooked down about halfway.


Happy deglazed onions!



The final (super delicious) product.

Chicago Chicago one heck of an eating town!

Boyfriend, his sister and I decided to head down to Chicago on New Year's Day to see some of his family. 


I was very prepared to also explore some eateries down in Chi-town, too. We ended up at four awesome places during our day-and-a-half stay. We even did the family get together and eat thing! Which is one of my favorite activities!


We had a fantastic meal at a Mexican place in the Pilsen neighborhood. I can't remember the name of it, and I should have written it down (Bad blogger Abby!) I had tacos al pastor (pork cooked with onions and spices - not for the kosher). I have had plenty of tacos from a variety of small, locally-owned restaurants, but these were ah-mazing. I think the combination of pork, spices, salsa and a little cilantro made these into my top three taco experiences.


After some catching up with cousin #1 at her house and a quick nap we headed out for some libations at one of her favorite little bars The Skylark (www.skylarkchicago.com). The drinks were reasonalby priced, as was the food - I had a big plate of mussels for only $8, BF had a proscuitto sandwich, and his sister had grilled calamari. This was not your typical bar food - although we did start our meal with tater tots. The specials at The Skylark are put together by their chef and I was very sad I didn't have enough room in my tummy, time, or money to eat my way through their whole special board.


For breakfast the next morning, we dined at Cafe Jumping Bean (cafejumpingbean.org). Best. Mexican. Hot. Chocolate. Ever. I had an everything bagel, Boyfriend had a delish focacia turkey sammie.

For that day's activity, boyfriend, his sis, and I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory, the second largest conservatory in the United States. Even though it got hit by a major hail storm in the spring and two of the rooms were completely closed, there were still loads of things to see. There was an entire room of ferns. Need I say more? No. I don’t. This isn’t a fern blog. Its a food blog. I’ll move on.

From Garfield Park we went to Fat Duck (www.duckfatgrill.com), a Tavern and Grill in Forest Park. We met other cousins of boyfriend (and his sister), and had a fabulous meal. I had the burger. Brie, bacon, and some of the best cooked ground beef EVERR! And of course fries, because its a natural combination. Fat duck has its name for a reason. It fries its potatoes in duck fat, which, according to the menu has low saturated fat and isn’t as bad as you would think. Also, those fries were DELICIOUS! They came with three dipping sauces: a really great pesto-y sauce, a horseradish aioli type sauce and a chipotle ketchup. All three were fabulous, but the pesto one was my favorite.

So, now we’re back from Chicago (and we’ve been back for awhile, its taken me a bit to post this) and I look forward to more trips. But I will be eating around Lansing in the near future, too, so stay tuned!