20 ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago

 

Celebrate the ‘Celtic Muse’ at Davenport’s, Wicker Park, 8 p.m. tonight and Friday, March 19, $15 plus two-drink minimum. Gillian Kelly and Claire Bigley perform Irish favorites such as “The Nightingale,” “Finnegan’s Wake,” and “The Rising of the Moon.” $3 Harps and Guinness, too.

Visit the Irish American Heritage Center, Irving Park, through March 20. Events begin [...]

Get a taste of local farming at FamilyFarmed Expo’s Local Food Festival

The FamilyFarmed Expo began today at UIC Forum, bringing together farmers, financiers, locavores and others who share an interest in improving and supporting Midwestern agriculture. While the complete four-day, $350 event may be too intense for most of us, Saturday’s Local Food Festival offers a taste with cooking demonstrations, seminars, tastings, shopping and more.
Tickets are [...]

Eat this! (St. Patrick’s Day edition): Guinness, an iconic taste of Ireland

What it is: After shamrocks and leprechauns, the most distinctive icon of Ireland in the world may be a glass of Guinness stout, a rich, dark beer made with roasted, malted barley and hops, topped with a creamy white head.
Where it comes from: Guinness dates to 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease [...]

Two rivers: Drinking green in Chicago this St. Patrick’s Day

Who cares if they don’t tint beer green in Ireland?
I don’t know who first thought of green beer, but in a town that has — despite canceling one — still boasts two other St. Patrick’s Day parades, I shouldn’t have to tell you why green-tinted beer is a Chicago thing, or when and where [...]

Free Irish whiskey for St. Patrick’s Day

If you don’t start in the morning, you can’t drink all day. Binny’s Beverage Depot celebrates St. Patrick’s Day from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 17, with a free breakfast open house featuring Irish scones and coffee made with Feckin’ Irish Whiskey, plus music from the City of Chicago Pipers. The event takes place [...]

Chicago Flower & Garden Show offers theatrical preview of spring

Do you need a breath of spring? The snow’s still piled up and we’ve weeks of mudtime ahead before things start turning green, but you can get a preview of the coming season starting tomorrow during the Chicago Flower & Garden Show on Navy Pier through Sunday, March 14.
The 2010 show’s theme, “Cultivating Great [...]

Has bacon jumped the shark?

It’s been nearly four years since I first wrote about the sizzling trend of bacon, and presenting — only slightly tongue-in-cheek — my signature recipe for bacon-wrapped bacon. That was just after John Scalzi taped bacon to his cat.
Bacon was still going strong more than a year later, when Pilsen Chef Justin Hall (Fig Catering) [...]

Eat this! Cobia, Chicago’s next hot fish

Rarely seen on Chicago restaurant menus until now, cobia (Rachycentron canadum) is a rich, buttery tasting, white-fleshed fish, mild, firm and flaky.

Night out: Visit Middle Earth this Saturday

Journey with Montreal’s Theatre Sans Fil to J.R.R. Tolkein’s Middle Earth, as the company performs “The Hobbit,” the wonderful adventure of Bilbo Baggins on his epic journey to a new level of wisdom, staged as a marvelous adaptation with 48 giant puppets bringing to life Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum, a 25-foot dragon and others.

Check out Chicago’s best chefs of the future

Taste the talents of tomorrow’s greatest chefs Friday at a benefit showcasing Chicago’s top culinary students.