And the embers never fade in your city by the lake

Please note: this post is about a week old. deal.

welcome to this special report of bor, broadcasting from chicago. yesterday we spent most of the day on a plane. we sat next to a very nice young man who'd just been studying in milan for three months. he was on a hellish journey from milan to sfo, via london and chicago. we enjoyed some delightful chat, he flattered me to the moon when he asked me if i was also studying in europe. i realised it's been 13 years since i was in college.

but i know what you're all focussed on is what i've eaten so far. well, last night we went to ing (not to be confused with that big bank), and had the 'nightmare before christmas' tasting menu. steve8 had oraganised the whole shebang and met me at the hotel after i got in. anyway, here are some pictures along with what, after about fifteen different drinks and jet lag, i can remember. 

 first up was this ball of something with mushrooms in it painted to look like the guy from the movie. neither steve8 nor i have seen the movie so we had no idea what the connections were, but it did look familiar. what was less familiar was the octopus underneath it. it wasnt quite my scene but it was good to taste. the broth and the weird ball were amazing.

i also had a pumpkin sour, which was, shall we say, not that great. they served it with this miracle berry stuff, which changes the way everything tastes. steve8 advised me i might not want to have that before a 10-course tasting dinner. some of the courses also came with booze, and we had a bottle of wine. you can imagine what sort of shape i was in after eating and drinking all that when i'd been up for untold hours.

 accompanied by low-lit pictures, and in no particular order, here's what else we had. pork belly with like six different kinds of foams and purees, accompanied by a luscious shot of rum and apple cider and pumpkin something. this was top notch. it also came in a massive silver skeleton hand, which was unnerving.

there was a deep fried frog's leg (meh), some little sweet potato things filled with sage, green cardamom and caraway pastes. delightful! oh, those came with truffle shavings. holy. fucking. shit. those are great.

then there was a whole fucking plate of duck. a devilled duck's egg, potatoes with a duck-fat gavy, sweet potato sticks fried in duck's fat, confit duck leg with stuffing foam and some berry thing.

then we ate the berry stuff and ate a lemon and it tasted amazing. the chestnut ice cream was also amazing. all in all, it was one of the most epic dining experiences ive ever had.

we had a chilean wine.

today i went to the gym and then went a little apeshit on the mag mile. i had to go to the apple store to get something and on the way back i basically stopped at every store i could find and bought at least one thing. after all this, i was pretty freaking hungry so i went to the corner bakery. here i was able to get a half a rueben and something called fully loaded potato soup.