Chinatown

My old college chum, Kathy, is now a PhD psychologist doing neurofeedback here in Chicago. I get to see her occasionally when she visits with her mother in a retirement community in Lexington, NC. Her mother is a librarian and it's always a treat to visit with them. Kathy's  husband is Chinese and sailed in the Merchant Marine before settling in doing mechanical work for a local private school. He's retired now but they both have interesting tales to tell. So Kathy offered to take us to Chinatown to visit the local shops. I have a new Buddha figurine and a Tshirt for Ben. Local restaurants fill their windows with food. Chinese epicure shops offer exotic ingredients, including dried abalone for $830/lb. I settled for a wonderful watermelon ice at lunch. 

Her husband is a wonderful cook. I asked her if he shopped here to buy his ingredients. So she took me to his favorite grocery store and among many other things, this is what we saw: 

The frogs were the size of softballs. There were crabs, eels and a wide variety of fresh and dried fish. They also had turtles and conch shells with the critter in them. 

Fortunately, the Taste of Chicago reception at the conference was much more normal fare. I ran into Mary Lane and had a good chat with her. I also caught a glimpse of Kei Malesky (I did tell you I had a quilting class with her sister-in-law at the Folkschool?). Didn't see anyone else I knew but specifically went to the InMagic booth and shook hands with Mike Segur's boss and told him how great Mike was and how grateful we were to have his help.  

Since I'm moving and have a taste of environmental concern, I've not been grabbing "gimme" items from the booths. And I'm trying to be judicious with brochures. But I am scanning for useful things tho so far, I've not seem much that relates to us that we don't know about already.

Still, lots of excitement. The place does not seem very full considering the size of the hall. I suspect folks are still arriving. We'll know tomorrow. 

Sessions begin at 8a. and end at 5:30p. We've been invited to supper with another school chum from high school and college who lives in Racine, WI now and will take the train in to meet us at a nearby restaurant. We'll get a real taste of Chicago then and a good visit. 

Looking for new insights . . .