Rachel + Chicago = Gluttony

I spent the weekend in Chicago, reconnecting with some old friends and attending a ‘re-entry’ retreat sponsored by my volunteer program.

Also, I ate.

K, the friend I stayed with, lives in a diverse part of town that is full of ethnic restaurants. We ate the first night at an Indian buffet. I have never seen an Indian buffet dinner before (I am a country mouse.). It was delicious. It being so delicious, we ate and ate and ate. We ate until our stomachs ached and we spent the remainder of the night watching Project Runway, A Daily Show, and Colbert Report, as I enjoyed how everything shows an hour earlier in the central time zone.

The following day, we didn’t start eating quite so early, but once we started, joined by S, the gluttony continued. We drank Ethiopian coffee, ate Asian vegetarian (at a restaurant owned by some sort of spiritual community), drank rum made in New Jersey that puts everything but Flor de Caña to shame, and then found a Serbian café (the kind of café that I never went to in Serbia, the kind of café that is populated by old men watching basketball and playing cards) for burek and rakija. Delicious and a great chance to trot out the srpski again.

The following morning, we headed to a local diner to further gorge ourselves on omlettes, potato pancakes, French toast, and grits. Again, delicious.