Taste Chicago

Defining heroism is something even the youngest viewers at Adventure Stage's fast-paced, mostly lo-fi, family-friendly adaptation of Robin Hood seemed to have no trouble with during a preshow chat. It's the follow-up question that left the kids a little stumped: Who gets to define which actions are deemed heroic?

Twenty-plus characters and a concise mini epic about vigilante economics and moral relativism later, they still were short on answers. But answers don't seem like the endgame for Adventure Stage or Adrian Danzig's production—merely getting the wheels turning in young audience member's heads is enough of a goal. Warm and approachable performers Felipe Carrasco, Gabriel Fries, and Carlyle DePriest wear a lot of hats (literally) in a frenzied, puppet- and projection-filled run-through of the classic folk legend. It's so playful and frantic that, between all the accents and role swapping, this full-grown viewer had a little trouble keeping things straight, and I suspect some of that dynamism is what resulted in some fidgetiness among the little ones toward the end, even given what is par for the course in the young-audience genre.

Not all of that fidgeting was related to being antsy—one child, who looked about five, jumped and danced and moved in his seat in tandem with the performers onstage until the final curtain. And it's to Adventure Stage's credit that the bilingual, socially conscious, nurturing environment it consistently fosters invites that sort of whole-hearted interaction.   v

Opening

Eataly (43 E. Ohio St., River North) has opened Baita, a new Alpine-themed pop-up that replaces Sabbia, its coastal-inspired spot that launched this summer. The new restaurant will feature dishes inspired by the Italian Alps, including melted raclette and hot chocolate. (Its name means “ski lodge” in the Piemontese dialect.) Not exactly light fare, but these dishes will probably hit the spot after or during a day of mid-winter shopping downtown.

Morsels

We have a few closings this week: Bar Lupo, the Italian restaurant on Huron, has shuttered after two years in business. Zella, an 18-year-old favorite for brunch in Lincoln Park, is closing in two weeks. Plus, one esteemed chef has left his s head chef, Mark Hellyar, whose replacement will be announced soon by Boka Restaurant Group.

A new food hall is coming to the South Side next year. One Eleven Food Hall plans to open in Pullman, as the Trib reports. It will feature four spaces for now, including a bakery, a vegan restaurant, and one spot for rotating pop-ups.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit the U.S. Pizza Museum (1146 S. Delano Ct., South Loop), you’re in luck — the temporary museum has just had its run extended. The pop-up, which features all sorts of pizza memorabilia and artifacts gathered by founder Kendall Bruns, is currently housed in the Roosevelt Collection. No specific end date has been announced, but the platform to get tickets (which are free but required for entry) suggests that it will be open at least through January.

Look, The New York Times noticed something awesome in Chicago! The acclaimed Pacific Standard Time (141 W. Erie St., River North) got the profile treatment from the Gray Lady. Yes, its author, Ari Bendersky, is a Chicago-based food writer, but it’s always great to see our city and its dining scene get national attention. Oh, and Conde Nast Traveler also named Chicago the best big city in America, so there.

Here’s a somewhat depressing bit of news for fans of local food: Subscriptions for CSAs (sometimes called farm shares) are way down. It’s not clear whether customers are overwhelmed with choices, whether the local food trend has peaked, or if there’s some other cause. But the numbers don’t lie, and plenty of farms have either stopped offering CSAs or cut way back. Personally, I still love my CSA (Tomato Mountain, which delivers to my home) but can see the cooking challenges they pose for a busy family.

Share

The Chicago Bears have been working this offseason to replace Cody Parkey, though haven’t appeared to make much progress.

So amid the search for a new kicker, the team is now turning to golf for help.

[Join or create a 2019 Yahoo Fantasy Football league for free today]

The Bears have implemented “Augusta silence” every time a field goal is attempted during OTAs — a practice of complete silence often seen before every shot at Augusta National during the Masters each year. That, special teams coordinator Chris Tabor said on Wednesday, has provided an unusual atmosphere on the field.

"No one talks," Tabor said, via ESPN. "Obviously we're doing the 'Augusta silence' [for a reason]. That's been awesome. I am used to people yelling at me. You know, I'm used to, I mean my daughters and my wife will yell at me, so I'm used to it. But when it's quiet out there it is, it is a different feeling.”

Parkey missed eight kicks last season in Chicago, most notably the infamous 43-yard blocked double-doink during their wild-card playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles in January, which resulted in Parkey essentially being run out of the city in the aftermath of the miss.

The Bears brought in eight different kickers to their mini-camp this spring, though even that got off to a rough start. Last month, Bears coach Matt Nagy brought all eight kickers in to attempt a 43-yard field goal — the same distance Parkey missed from at Soldier Field — in front of the whole team. Combined, they went just 2-of-8.

Now, according to ESPN, Chicago has cut that group down to just three guys: Chris Blewitt, Elliott Fry and former Oakland Raiders kicker Eddy Pineiro.

"We're creating as much pressure as we can on these guys," Nagy said, via ESPN. "We're getting the 'Augusta silence' out here with the team and that's eerie."

Nagy, though, still isn’t sure which kickers will accompany the team to training camp next month.

"Honestly, we have not figured that out yet," Nagy said, via ESPN. "We wanted to get through, get right into the end of minicamp and just kind of get back collectively and talk about it, collaborate. But we're kind of up in the air. We're trying to let this thing play out. The more kicks we have, the more of a library we have."

More from Yahoo Sports:

Officials implementing gender-informed practices in California’s prisons say small things can make a big difference.

Things like allowing women to wash their own undergarments rather than sending them to an industrial laundry, and adding solid panels to open bathroom doors so women’s private parts are obscured as they shower.   

But as in other states, significant disparities in discipline rates between men and women still exist.

Correctional officer Daniel Johnson, who trains other officers to work with female inmates in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, the state’s largest women’s prison, says that women simply do commit infractions more, and sanctions like taking away phone privileges are necessary.

“If phone calls…are important to them, [discipline] will curb their behavior for the future,” he said. In a cell, he points out potential disciplinary infractions: items not stored in lockers, papers and photos taped to a wall, an unauthorized cache of food including tortillas and milk. The rules are meant to keep order and protect women’s health, he says, like making sure women don’t eat spoiled food.

Some women inmates agree that they break rules more than men, and more sanctions might be justified. LaVerne Dejohnette, 49, has been disciplined for “manufacturing a slashing device” and for “pen pal fraud,” she said, while serving a life sentence in Chowchilla. This year a board recommended the governor commute her sentence. She is awaiting a decision.

Photo by Kari Lydersen

Laverne Dejohnette

“From my understanding, men don’t do as much as we do,” said Dejohnette, who credits prison with saving her from the destructive path she was on because of a cycle of abuse. “The hurt, the pain, the trauma, they [women] act out here, and [correctional officers] do meet that accordingly with the right discipline.”

Other times, inmates say, women are disciplined unnecessarily or unfairly.

“You can get written up for altered clothes on – but it can be your own clothes that you done had and just decided to make shorts out of,” says Victoria Williams, 58, originally from Gary, Ind., who is serving 25 years in Chowchilla for a burglary conviction under the state’s three-strikes law.

“Or if you want to fix your room up nice and take some Kool-Aid and dye your pillowcase, you get written up for that. You get written up for not closing your doors, you get written up for jumping on the phone without permission, you get written up for jumping on the kiosk machine without permission, you get written up for going out of bounds in someone’s room or in the hallways.”

Williams has been sanctioned many times. “Sometimes they take like 30, 90, 150 [good credit] days or they take your yard, your phone, your boxes, your canteen” privileges away. “That’s too much, and that’s what causes a person to act out.”

Johnson noted that while women get more violations than men for fighting, the stakes are different. “When there’s a fight [in a male prison] someone is taken out in an ambulance, people are actually trying to kill each other…The same thing with the staff assaults – we have more staff assaults here, but it’s kicking, throwing something on staff. At a men’s institution they have a weapon and are actually trying to kill staff.”

He says the gangs that proliferate in men’s prisons actually help maintain order in part by imposing a strict hierarchy. Women interact more freely, and more dramatically, with each other and with correctional officers.

“So they have a tendency to be more defiant, and a tendency to lash out either at their peers or at staff,” Johnson said. “Are they more violent [than men]? No. Are they more defiant? In my experience, yes.”

Tracy Johnson is the associate warden at Folsom Women’s Facility, where women with less than five years left on their sentence go for job training and counseling to prepare for re-entry. She previously worked in San Quentin, the men’s maximum security prison, and notes the stark differences in behavior.

“The female inmates want to know why, and they are going to stand there until they get the answer,” she says. “But if you have those answers for them, it definitely helps in the long run.”

So this is surprising, and weird!

I recognize that it’s lame as hell to get motivation from stuff like this, but also leave it to the Chicago #EntitledWithUs crew to piss off an opponent during preseason, heh.

That game was the first after Jabari Parker was benched, the threes were hitting and Victor Oladipo was terrible. Plus it looks like Bobby Portis had a big night so that was probably the genesis of any nonsense.

Portis is injured, as are still the three other rotational Bulls who’ve been out for a while. And Jabari Parker is back as the starting power forward, keeping up with that change from last game.

The other frontcourt matchup is very interesting, with young defensive stalwart-in-training Wendell Carter Jr. taking on Indiana’s 2 center rotation of Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis. The latter came off the bench to go a perfect 12-12 for 30 points two night ago in New York, so we may see similar poundage when the Bulls are forced to go to their reserve (reserve-reserve) frontcourt options when Carter sits.

And as the Bulls have a built-in excuse of injuries when it comes to results-oriented thinking like ‘do you win basketball games?’, we have to instead look at nebulous ‘effort’. They subjectively looked a lot better in that department against the Nuggets than against the Warriors, though tough to say if it was just the opponent or their own misses making the ‘effort’ look worse in the bad game. All we can do is watch out for it, I guess, and see if lazy transition defense is afoot.

Game is at 7pm on NBCSportsChicago

[Reminder, if you want to do a game preview this season please sign up ]

Although I like Victor Caratini and can easily see a nice big league future for him, heading into 2019, I’ve made no secret that I’d like to see the Cubs pick up a veteran, back-up catcher to pair with Willson Contreras out of the gate. The possible benefits for the pitching staff and for Contreras, himself, are too much not to explore very seriously and aggressively.

To that end, the good news is that the market has some nice back-up catcher options this year, though one in Jeff Mathis went off the board on a two-year deal with the Rangers this weekend, and now another one is off the board, also on a two-year deal:

Terms aren’t out yet, but I reckon he got a decent chunk thanks to his offensive breakout the last two years, even at age 35. Suzuki is regarded as solid with pitchers and good defensively, but he consistently rates poorly as a framer. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deal he gets.

Note that for the Nationals, Suzuki would come with the bonus value of having work very closely with Braves pitchers and coaches for the past two years. Think the Nationals want to have that info?

As for the Cubs, it’s an option off the table, though I will concede I don’t necessarily expect them to devote a lot of resources to this area. Maybe they can get Brian McCann on a reasonable one-year deal …

Quick poll: Does the word “moving” trigger your anxiety?

How about “moving more than 100 plants”?

Former Chicago Botanic Garden horticulturist Tom Weaver recently moved to Minnesota to start a new chapter. Along with his husband and dog, he brought his plant family, a love he has nurtured since childhood. “My mom makes fun of me because I knew the Latin names of plants before I could read,” he said.

Part of Weaver’s houseplant collection, grown under grow lamps in his basement.

Now he’s a proud plant parent to more than 100 plants. The collection is impressive, to be sure. But just how does one transport a thriving plant collection?

As I prepared for my own move (only a few blocks away), I sat down with Weaver to learn how to make the transition happy and healthy for my green, leafy friends.

Weaver’s dog, Pepin, isn’t so sure about the monstera coming along for the move.

Weaver’s trunk-load of houseplants.

1. Research state restrictions for plants

   “First you have to consider—if you’re moving across state lines—whether you can even bring your plants,” said Weaver. “California, Florida, Arizona … pretty much any warm-climate state has strict rules about what you can and cannot bring because there are so many agricultural pests.” For a current listing, refer to the National Plant Board.

2. Sort and purge

   Just as you might sell, donate, or trash unwanted clothes, take a good look at your plants. Toss any you don’t want to bring to your new home. “Why bring something if you’re just going to throw it away once you get there?” Weaver said. “Now is the time to get rid of anything disease or insect-infested.”

3. Make cuttings of large plants you can’t move

   If you’re like Weaver, you may want to take only a cutting of large specimens like his 6-foot monstera or 8-foot dracaena. Decide whether you want to bring the whole plant, or save room in your moving truck by taking a cutting (and gifting the large plant to a friend). “The nice thing about aroid plants like monstera is the vines have roots growing all over the place,” said Weaver. “You can easily chop a leaf off and root it without really having to think about it.”

4. Pack plants with care

   Make sure plants are packed snugly in boxes so they don’t move and break. Weaver recommends wrapping plants in newspaper so dirt won’t spill, and so that plants like cacti don’t poke holes in their plant buddies.

5. Water plants before moving

   Plants can tolerate two to three days in a box without any major problems, said Weaver. Just be sure to water them before you leave, especially if you’re driving through intense heat. “If it’s going to be 100 degrees and you make pit stops along the way, your plants will get hot,” said Weaver. “You’ll want to water them enough to get them through the trip.”

6. Be patient with the adjustment

   Getting used to a new home goes for your plants, too. “Once you get to your new place, they’ll go through some transport shock,” said Weaver. “They may lose a couple of leaves. With anything, adjusting takes time. It’s best to put your plants in a spot that is a similar environment to their old home.” Be patient with the learning curve.

©2018 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

Over Memorial Day weekend, the CTA began the first of 14 weekend repairs on the Pink and Green lines. The work will continue through November and free shuttles will get passengers between stations.

The service disruptions, known as “line-cuts,” started with tracks between Roosevelt and the 35th-Bronzeville-IIT station on the Green Line. More improvements will be made on the south section of the Green Line between 17th and 30th streets. Repairs are also ongoing for the Green and Pink lines between the Loop and Ashland.

The work is part of the CTA’s FastTracks program which aims to cut trip times by six minutes off the Red, Blue, Brown, and Green lines. The $179 million investment will improve electrical signals and replace deteriorated tracks that cause “slow zones.”

For now, ongoing work is happening on the Green and Pink lines, but there is work scheduled through 2021.

Other improvements include:

• Blue Line O’Hare branch (electrical power improvements)
• Red and Blue Line subways (State Street and Dearborn)
• Blue Line Congress branch (Clinton to Forest Park)
• Brown Line (between Western and Kimball)

To stay updated on when work is scheduled, residents can sign up for CTA alerts or check the agency’s website for scheduled work.

Porchlight Music Theatre Presents

Gypsy

Book by Arthur Laurents

Director Michael Weber

October 12 – November 25

Gypsy Showcases the Ultimate Stage Mother

The Marx Brothers, Drew Barrymore, Shirley Temple, Elizabeth Taylor, Brooke Shields, Dorothy Dandridge, Lindsey Lohan, and Kim Kardashian all had overbearing stage mothers dubbed as “Momagers” to push them to success. However, long before Kris Jenner hit the scene to do whatever it took to make her daughters famous, there was one legendary “Stage Mother” by the name of Rose Hovick, a woman who was a force to be reckoned with and would stop at nothing to make sure she and her daughters were in the spotlight.

If you haven’t heard of “Gypsy,” let us introduce you to this musical fable written by playwright Arthur Laurents. Gypsy was considered by many to be the greatest American musical. It is loosely based and inspired by one of showbiz’s unique personalities, Rose Hovick, and the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist. Gypsy’s  mother, Rose, has become known as “the ultimate show business mother.”

Rose is the most profit-making “Stage Mother” of the mid-twentieth century, a star in her own right. The musical includes some standard favorites such as  “Let Me Entertain You,” “Some People,” “Together, “Wherever We Go” and the show-stopping, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

“Gypsy” is set in various cities throughout the United States in the early 1920s to the early 1930s, where the world of big-time, family oriented vaudeville is quickly fading away to the adult-themed burlesque industry.

In this electrifying and heart-wrenching story of a woman who raises her daughters to navigate their dreams of stardom whether they wanted to or not, Mama Rose, a victim of her wander-lust for personal success, becomes the “Momager” from hell where agents and producers refuse to work with her.

“Gypsy” is an old favorite that hit the stage with several talented actors such as the unconquerable entertainer with the extraordinary gift to capture an audience, E. Faye Butler, who leads the cast in “Gypsy” as Mama Rose. Like so many before her playing the character of Mama Rose, she brought her feisty persona to life with a lot of zest.

Daryn Whitney Harrell, who played Louise, Mama Rose’s eldest daughter, was such a pleasant surprise to grace the stage. Louise comes out of the shadows of her younger sister June (Aalon Smith), the one Mama Rose invested so much in; Louise eventually rose to stardom as the sophisticated “Gypsy Rose Lee!”

This well-rounded cast also included Herbie (José Antonio García). His character fell instantly in love with Mama Rose as he waited patiently on her terms to marry her. He tried to add balance to her life as he became the girls’ official manager.

Director Michael Weber showcases this dynamic fast-paced musical as it follows the dreams and hardships of Mama Rose to raise her two daughters to perform on stage and it casts an affectionate eye on the struggles of business life during the vaudeville era.

Let’s Play “Highly Recommends” that you check out this amazing musical “Gypsy” at Porchlight Theatre where “everything’s coming up roses!”

The cast includes:

Faye Butler (Rose)

Daryn Whitney Harrell (Louise)

Aalon Smith (June)

José Antonio García (Herbie)

Honey West (Agnes, Electra/Miss Cratchitt)

Dawn Bless (Mazeppa)

Melissa Young (Tessie Tura)

Marco Tzunux (Tulsa)

Saniyah As-Salaam( Newsboy)

Larry Baldacci (Uncle Jocko / Mr. Weber / Mr. Goldstone / Pastey)

Tatiana Bustamante (Marjorie May)

Joshua Bishop (Bougeron-Cochon)

Elya Faye Bottiger (Agnes, showgirls)

William “Pierce” Cleaveland (Clarence)

Jared David Michael Grant (Georgie / Mr. Kringelein / Phil)

Michelle Huey (Dolores)

Jillian-Giselle (Baby Louise)

Hannah Love Jones (Balloon Girl)

1. Michael Jones (Pop / Cigar)

Marvin J. Malone II (Yonkers)

Desmond Murphy (Arnold)

Renellè Nicole (Gail/Renee)

Jeff Pierpoint  (L.A.)

Ariel Triunfo (Edna Mae)

Isabella Warren (Baby June)

Also On The Chicago Defender: