Weekly Round Up: Chicago and a Spinach Save

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I actually cooked something, I've got books, and there was a family getaway.

Content warning: the family getaway involved a stop at the Trump Tower in Chicago.

Eats

I made something that was OK and something that was incredible.  The first thing led to the second thing.

First up, Stepson #1 had the sniffles and requested fancy ramen for dinner.  The fam turned to me, and I turned to the internet to find Pinch of Yum's Quick Homemade Ramen.

Stuff I changed: regular mushrooms instead of Shiitake mushrooms, spinach instead of kale, no sriracha for the tender taste buds in my family though I added a quick shot of chili oil to my bowl, I skipped the panko topping in favor of a sprinkle of furikake, and I added an egg.

The fam liked it, but it fell on the OK side for me.  My #1 complaint was that there was Too Much Broth in proportion to the solids.

But anyway, the punchline is that I was left with half a bag of spinach, and the normal outcome of leftover spinach in my house is that it gets abandoned in the fridge for a while before being tossed on the next trash night.  However, that did not happen this time.

I stumbled on Recipe Rebel's Creamy Italian Sausage Pasta, and I saw it at a time when I did not want to go to the grocery store - how close could I get using what I had on hand?  Well, well, well, for sure the spinach was no problem.  I had sausage in the freezer (thank you Costco).  The recipe doesn't say to sub wine for part of the chicken broth, but clearly that is a typo in the recipe, so instead of 2 1/2 cups of broth I used 2 cups of broth and 1/2 cup of wine.  I didn't have heavy cream but that was no problem since it always feels a little heavy for pasta so I usually use half and half anyway.  The only thing that I had to skip was the roasted red peppers.

The result was heavenly and you'll be seeing this recipe again - naturally there will be roasted red peppers next time.  And it was sooooooo satisfying to use up the whole bag of spinach.

Workouts

Same old, same old with the addition of a lot of Chicago walking.

One thing that I have a long standing issue with is the phrase "sitting is the new smoking".  This was something that I heard a lot back circa 2015-2020 when I had a standing desk at work and was also running a lot.  I would try to stand throughout the day, but I could never stick to it because I was fatigued from running.

So I was very amused to see this article saying that it ain't so.  Standing around like a lump is the same as sitting around like a lump.  Although I do take issue that the link is "standing desks may be bad for your health" when the title of the article is "standing desks do not reduce risk of stroke and heart failure" - clickbait much?  Hey it worked!

Watching

Nada.  Too busy partying in Chicago with the fam.

Reading

Oh man, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings was quite the roller coaster.   

The first thing I am going to give you is a trigger warning - specifically if you can read this book without being triggered, there is something wrong with you.   Yeah, you can probably tell from the title that we're dealing with domestic violence, and to the extent that if you read this book you are going to have some uncomfortable moments and maybe even a few nightmares.  For that reason I wouldn't fault anyone who wants to skip this.  But be advised that if you do you will miss out on an incredible story, an important message, and brilliant writing.  I hope that this is the first of many books for Levings.

And then for something completely different!  Everyone who is anyone has read The Wedding People by Alison Espach.  At first I stayed away because I usually don't do well with "lite" fare - it's not that I don't want to dig into something light and breezy, but my typical experience is that either the plot is improbable or the characters are unbelievable.  There are a few shades of that to be found here - I mean when was the last time that you attended a week long wedding at a luxury hotel? - but overall the story had good bones that held up against the fluffy parts and the end result was 😻😻😻

The lead character checks into a luxury hotel to commit suicide, but the place is overrun with the guests of the Wedding of the Century and [spoiler!] the wedding party gets all up in her business and she never gets around to the suicide part.

Family Chicago Bash 2024

I saved the best for last - this weekend we had a family spree in CHI!

Our Family Fall Spree History is:

2022: I talked my SILs and nieces into doing a girls' weekend, which just happened to line up with one of the niece's birthdays.

2023: Our Chicago niece got married, and everyone came to town for the wedding and had a blast.

2024: Everyone says it would be nice to do another girls weekend, but no one can commit to a date.  SIL#1 makes plans to come see the birthday niece, who lives in Indiana.  The birthday plans snowball...if they're going to Indiana they might as well go a little further and go to Chicago, where another niece and SIL#2 live...and then if SIL's 1 & 2 are meeting they might as well invite the rest of the fam...

Not everyone was able to make it.  SIL#4's family had a conflict, and Hubs and the boys were...you guessed it!...Boy Scout camp.  SIL#3 was on the fence, and part of the reason was the cost...until she realized that I would be coming alone and that we could share a hotel room.

On Friday morning SIL#3 and I drove to our nephew's house and carpooled with him and his girlfriend (who we like very much and squeee! it was her first trip to CHI!!!).  Our first stop was West Beach at the Indiana Dunes.  Oh wait did I have the foresight to get an annual pass back in May and was I thrilled to get another use out of it especially when the fam was tagging along?  Why yes I did and yes I was.  BTW, the weather was drop dead gorgeous all weekend.

We met up with SIL#1, BIL#1, and the birthday girl and had lunch at the park and then a long walk before getting back in the car and heading for the big city.

Once there we settled into our hotels - we didn't all stay in the same place but we were all very close to the resident niece's apartment downtown.  There was a big family dinner at an upscale pizza place.

The next day we met up closer to SIL#2's place and went to Lincoln park and hit up the conservatory and the zoo.

Afterwards it was lunchtime, but we couldn't find anywhere that could handle a group of 10 people without notice.  Finally we decided that we'd get takeout and go back to the park.  We went into the Angry Octopus and they overheard us talking about going to the park and asked if we wanted them to set up some tables on the sidewalk?

And so they did, and we had a delightful lunch outside.  I had a gyro, and anytime that our family is back in the neighborhood we'll be sure to send more business their way.

Afterwards we ubered to Navy Pier and had a long afternoon walk to complement our long morning walk.

We met up again at an Italian restaurant for the official birthday dinner, and then there was talk of going out afterwards.  But where?

The Chicago BIL made a suggestion, "well, unless anyone has a problem with it, the bar at the Trump Tower is pretty nice".

Just to be clear I have a problem with Trump but when in Rome and when my family is going there...oh hells yeah I'm going to the Trump Tower.

The only reminder of where we were was my nephew's drink...although the bar is called Terrace 16 so maybe the T stands for Terrace?

My nieces all got espresso martinis, and I had one as well to fit in with the Cool Kids.  I wouldn't want to tell tales but there were eight people in our group and eight cocktail glasses - but only seven of the glasses are currently in possession of the restaurant.

On Sunday our first order of business was to check out of the hotel.  The second order of business was a stop by the Bean.

After that we headed back to SIL #2's neighborhood for brunch.  The location was The Pancake Cafe, which is a decent walk from SIL #2's house.  I was torn between avocado toast and eggs benedict, and when I finally had to chose, I went with the avocado toast.  You can't tell from the picture, but there was practically an entire loaf of bread there.  They treated us well, and you can bet that I'll be taking my family there the next time we're in CHI.

We came back along the lakeshore, made a stop at SIL #2's rooftop (see top of post for pic), and then it was time to head home.

Until next time Chicago!

Does anyone else have a problem using up the entire bag of spinach?  Who's read The Wedding People?  When was your last trip to CHI?  Would you have gone to the Trump Tower?