It doesn`t matter what kind of doughnut you usually order. Buttermilk, apple-filled, double chocolate, Bavarian cream, nut-topped or jelly-filled. The next time you have a craving, go to Amy Joy, 7246 Milwaukee Ave., Niles, and order a vanilla cream. The best time to do this is around 7:30 a.m.
(They`re usually not ready until 7 a.m.) It`s the best 36 cents you`ll ever spend. And be prepared to wait a couple of minutes for a seat at the counter. You live in Wheaton? You live on the Gold Coast? You say that`s too far to drive for a doughnut? It`s been done. Many times. Take it from a vanillacreamaholic.
I haven`t been to every doughnut shop in the Chicago area. But I`ve had doughnuts in Westerly, R.I., Bethesda, Md., Bloomington, Ind., York, Pa., St. Petersburg, Fla., and Miami. Nothing has beaten an Amy Joy vanilla cream.
Amy Joy opened in 1962 and operates 24 hours a day, but does close for two days at Thanksgiving and 10 days around Christmas.
And your car will be quite safe in Amy Joy`s parking lot. It`s next to the Niles police station.
SOURCE: Alan Sutton.
KITCHENWARE STORES
If the hammer is the basic tool of carpentry, then pots and pans are the equivalent for cooks. And Chef`s Catalog, the Store, at 151 Skokie Valley Rd., in Highland Park, has one of the largest, best displayed collections of pots and pans in the metro area. It ranges from the soft glow of hammered copper, to the diminishing sheens of stainless, aluminum and cast iron. Here you can buy everything from a 200-quart stock pot identical to the one used by the Queen of England`s kitchen staff, down to some of the best utilitarian one-quart stainless steel sauce pans. And behind the counter are some of the most service oriented cookware salesclerks in the area.
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Like Chef`s Catalog, the Cook`s Cupboard flagship store at 3003 N. Clark St., is both a designer store with the newest products, and a nuts-and-bolts cookware store offering a wide variety of tastefully displayed basic kitchen equipment, coffee, spices, grains, and gourmet specialty foods. Some of the sharpest cookware buying in the city goes on here. They carry the latest kitchen toys, imports, and trendy, hard-to-resist new age paraphernalia, all displayed with boutiquish zeal. Cooks Cupboard always keeps you coming back for more.
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Entrenched in the middle of Randhurst Shopping Center in Mt. Prospect, Cooks` World is a world unto its cluttered self, stacked floor to ceiling with not only some of the most classic and utilitarian pots, pans and roasters
(remember this store for Thanksgiving), but with one of the city`s best arrays of equipment for baking, decorating and candymaking. Here you`ll find everything from sturdy commercial cake and sheet pans, to rolling pins, doilies and corrugated cake circles. Owner Barbara Zissman is determined to maintain a quality utilitarian cookware store in a shopping mall.
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Although Williams-Sonoma, 17 E. Chestnut St., (and 271 Market Square, Lake Forest), treats the kitchen as a living room, featuring upscale equipment and table-top baubles, their gadget section is nonpareil. Most selections of gadgets, impulse items usually piled in bins, are tacky and superfluous next to their lean, carefully chosen selection. Every cook should own at least one of their quality hand-held gadgets, from the perfect oyster knife or zucchini corer, to a truffle cutter.
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With its nuts and bolts utilitarian home canning supplies, cast iron cookware and spice racks, Freehling Pot and Pan Co., 1365 E. 53rd St., is the epitome of the personalized neighborhood hardware store-but for cooks and chefs. Unlike most hardware stores, though, Freehling`s has such cookware esoterica as larding and trussing needles, English teapots, and imported German cutlery.
SOURCE: Jolene Worthington.
POLISH SAUSAGE
You hardly can go wrong when it comes to buying Polish sausage in Chicago. Several butchers have wide followings for their links, the largest of which perhaps is the venerable Slotkowski Sausage Co., at 2021 W. 18th St., which sells wholesale and retail, telephone: 226-1667. Among the
establishments using Slotkowski Polish are the Busy Bee Restaurant, 1550 N. Damen Ave., and Jim`s Original Hot Dogs, a greasy stand on the northwest corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets, where probably more Polish sausages are consumed Sunday mornings than all week at any other place in the city.
Some sausage devotees also swear by the homemade Polish from Gene`s Sausage Shop and Delicatessan, 5330 W. Belmont Ave., available both fresh and smoked for about $2.29 per pound. Hours at Gene`s are from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the week, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Telephone: 777-6322.
SOURCE: Steve Pratt.
FISHMONGER
Wonderful fish at competitive prices isn`t all you get at the Chicago Fish House, 1250 W. Division St. Cooking advice from Hawaiian-born store manager Alvin Tomiyama-previously chef at the former L`Epuisette restaurant-comes free with the halibut-or you could make that albacore tuna or even green-lipped mussels.
”Fresh fish should be used in 24 hours,” Tomiyama repeats to customers. ”Otherwise, fish odor will increase even in the refrigerator.”
When people come in and say they don`t like ”fishy” fish, Tomiyama leads them to very mild orange roughy, tuna, mahi mahi or lake perch. ”We recommend that they cook fish one of three ways: broil, saute or poach. Most people want to broil it.”
Samples are offered daily, plus a free cooking demonstration noon to 2 p.m. every Saturday by local chefs or the Fish House`s culinary consultant, Nancy Abrams.
In addition to fish, you can buy Italian or sourdough bread, cheese and even wine.
SOURCE: Patricia Tennison.
BREAD
Bread you can get your teeth on . . . that`s how someone once described D`Amato`s crusty Italian loaf. You do have to work to get past the crisp-but- chewy crust that has absorbed the wonderful flavor from the wood-burning oven still used in the old bakery at 1124 W. Grand Ave. And once you get past the crust, you come to the softer, but no less flavorful interior. No wonder most of the city`s finest Italian restaurants serve D`Amato`s in their bread baskets. In addition to the Italian loaves, the bakery offers French bread and a great pan pizza. The bread is also available in selected food stores for about $1 to $1.50 a loaf.
SOURCE: Carol Haddix.
ICE COMPANY
Actually they no longer make the ice at Polar Ice Co., 2300 W. 21st Pl., but it`s still always available-24 hours a day 365 days a year. And isn`t that what you want: lots of ice when you need it?
If it`s late at night or early in the morning and there`s no one on duty, you can buy solid blocks, bags of cubes or bags of crushed ice from the ice vending machines there. During business hours there is dry ice for sale. In fact, Polar is the only place in the city where you can drop in and be sure of getting both dry and regular ice, all at prices equal to or below the competition, of which there is precious little, according to proprietor Jim Rakestraw.
There is a large parking lot and loading dock and for a service charge Polar Ice will deliver ice to your door by truck. Best to call first
(254-6420) to see if there will be someone on duty when you want to pick up your ice. Otherwise bring a pocketful of quarters.
SOURCE: Steven Pratt.
