Last month we hosted the first
Comfort Food at Comfort Station Potluck to great success--all told, about 30 people came through with a staggering array of top-notch food all the way from a deep, cool tray of citrusy ceviche to several dozen handmade tamales from first time makers, long time eaters. There was a lovely Filipino menudo, Frito pie, hashbrown casserole; chicken mole and skillet cornbread made the scene, too. A dude even strolled in, asked if he could play the piano, and dropped about an hour of Chopin on us.
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| photo courtesy Nando Espinosa |
The point here is that there was a lot of great stuff, and you should be there next time. But the funny thing about a potluck is how food--siren song sung and job of getting people to gather complete--ultimately takes a backseat to things like meeting new folks and hanging out with old friends on a lawn in the middle of Logan Square on a damn near perfect early summer day. All this, then someone rides up with a couple huge containers of Italian ice.
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| photo courtesy Nando Espinosa |
Wondering what the
Comfort Station is? It's that funky little building on Milwaukee Ave. right smack in the middle of Logan Square. It was initially built as a shelter for trolley riders...then turned into a shelter for nothing...and was finally a shelter for the City's lawn mowers. Restored in 2010 by Logan Square Preservation, it became a community-focused art space in 2011. And it's been expanding its lineup of offerings every since.
That said, we’ve got more planned in the works for the Comfort Food program at the Comfort Station, something I’ll be curating alongside
Jordan Martins--CS's Program Manager, a great Chicago artist, and one of the top food guys I know. Based around the once-a-month potluck series (which includes a visit from the
Read/Write Library's clever
BiblioTreka, a book bike with select cook/food books), Comfort Food will offer other food-related events with the goal of maintaining the Comfort Station's role as an intersection of culture, arts and living history. Stay tuned to F.o.t.D. or
like Comfort Station on Facebook for updates. Meanwhile, come to the 2nd potluck, being held Sunday, July 14 at 3pm - 5pm, and bring something good to eat (if you are coming, won't you please let us know on the
event page?). As always, there are no requirements beyond
you making something (i.e. don't stop off at the gas station and get a box of snowballs or ho-hos) and bringing a utensil to serve it. We'll provide plates and bowls and cutlery, but keep in mind there are no facilities for heating anything up. The event will always be free, but if you wanna throw a buck or two in the donation jar to cover the costs of supplies, we wouldn't hold it against you. Any questions can be directed to me at hughamano{at}yahoo{dot}com. If you have any ideas for future events, we're open to submissions as well. Hope to see you Sunday--until then, eat & share well!
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| photo courtesy Nando Espinosa |
