Back in da hooooouse and best BBQ ever

So we made it back in one piece except we returned to a missing window in our bedroom. Yep..a window. It's long and complicated but it really does make you realise how much you take windows for granted..we have a blanket crackhouse style arrangement going on for the moment and are drowning our windowless sorrows in the 10kg of ghiardelli (does anyone actually know how to say that?) chocolate I lugged back...it's working so far. Above is a creepy picture of chitown's greatest for you...areaghhhh he's watching you!

It's so so very good to be back to the world of homecooked food..tonight is roast night!! overseas we pretty much existed on a diet of sausage pizza, weird molecular gastronomy and cupcakes. I think even i'm over cupcakes right now (I really don't mean that). It's nice to have proper feta, which is one of my major food groups, and not the funny crumbly tasteless stuff.

In non food related news we saw Winston from Ghostbusters or Warden Glynn as I know him and we had a moment waiting for the plane bathroom and Neil Young on the way back who was very grumpy, old and totally rock.

So one of our very fave things from Chitown was our chauffered adventure (Stan's the man) to a popular little place called Smoque BBQ.




It wasn't all that easily accessible to crazy foreigners such as ourselves and we knew it was popular when advised to get their at opening time. So this was effectively breakfast....yeeeeeeeah why not.



D picked well with his Brisket. Brisket usually screams out to us on a bbq menu because it's just so rare here (philosophical beef sidenote... why though? the cows are the same...give us the brisket!) and this was pretty much best ever blows everything else out of the water mouth watering. It just fell apart...no cutlery even required. Smoque tends to do things with a dry rub then gives you a few pots of sauce to go alongside should you choose to accept it...which we did.


I, being the lady of the table, got 2 giant racks of ribs. One of the baby back, which were beautifully tender, and one of the St Loius which is a meatier rib. I absolutely would go the St Louis again next time... meatier, juicier and more bone to meat satisfaction. The best ribs i've ever encountered bar none and this whole meal was basically the foundation for all my BBQ aspirations. Speaking of which did anyone used to watch that guy on foxtel who was some sort a bbq master guru and had like 10 bbq's out on his patio all going at once..it was so good. I made a brocolli salad once from the show. It was super tasty but kind of a pathetic choice of recipe from a bbq themed show if I say so myself..


So sides were good...I had mac n cheese with a nice baked crunchy top. There was nice vinegary coleslaw and the piece de resistance..proper freshly made peach cobbler. I made Paula Deen y'all's peach cobbler recipe once and it was ok but didn't make the keeper list but this was OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD. Fresh huge chunks of peaches with a sweet buttery crust that now has made cobbler one of my favourite desserts ever.

Chicago is always good to us foodwise...we had some other great meals worthy of mention. The Publican, which is a pork and beer house and we got to sit in little pig stall booths (double points for awesome themeness) was really, really great. But judging by how busy it was it's not exactly a secret! Following our pork theme (we are over pork for a a while!) was a new place called the purple pig which was amazing too and had so many unusual but they actually all worked dishes. Stuff like mortadella smear which was effectively smushed mortadella, crushed pistachio's and caramelised balsamic on chunky ciabatta. So so so good. Graham Elliot, as TC Masters lovers will recognise, was great too. Caesar salad twinkies, cream cheese ice cream, loud indie music (that I may or may not have had on my ipod) and chuck taylors as far as the eye can see. It all really worked though. I even got addicted to some truffle popcorn that was sprinkled with crack there too and truffle oil is never my style...but this was magical.

If you are heading to chi-chi anytime soon you can't go wrong at any of these places!! but I must say that first bite of vegemite toast really puts things back in perspective...good to be home!