For this edition, I’m sticking to my local homies (or at least out of towners I kinda know), plenty of good readin’ there:

1. Ronnie Suburban ate cured meat at Vie, The Publican and Mado, and took mouthwatering photos.  I ate about that much meat going to Wisconsin for a day and a half, or at least it felt like it on the drive home, with little of the aesthetic delight.
2. Christopher Borrelli writes a paean to hippie restaurants in the Chi-Trib.  Comes out more like an exercise in masochism to me, but it’s pretty funny.
3. The totally insane Chicago Gluttons does an even funnier paean to The Bristol, complete with cheesy music video and obscene Cathy parody (that’s the comic strip, not Cathy2).
4. This Serious Eats piece would be frightening if it were merely an insanely detailed history of food on Star Trek. That it’s merely scratching the surface of a subject which has already generated two cookbooks…
5. Why Dominic Armato did not get to go to Commander’s Palace, and what he ate instead.
6. Hugh Amano makes stuff himself, prompting the comment, “You can’t make pickles, you can only buy them.”
7. Fig Catering recounts everything that went into their particpation at the Mole de Mayo. Best entry: “1 week prior…Since our health inspector has ignored us for the last year, but we need a health inspection within 6 months in order to participate in the event, they have to be called in. Molly handles this one solo and learns exactly how weird health inspectors are (make sure you ask about his Nutri-System diet).”