Thirst: “The uncomfortable or distressful feeling caused by a desire or need for water (or another beverage).”
Anyone who has truly been thirsty at the height of a Chicago summer quickly will note that Websters first definition is too tame and move on to the second, “to have a strong desire or craving.” That’s more like it!
After all, things have heated up. The thermometer registers 90-plus. Humidity defies science and breaks the 100 percent barrier. Not a flutter of air. In the desert, at least, there are mirages to temporarily cool a fevered brain and an occasional oasis for real relief.
And relief is what is needed. Liquid, of course, is essential to survival, and nature has no intention of allowing us to expire for lack of it without setting off a loud (and very painful) alarm beforehand.
Good Eating comes to the rescue with a panorama of favorite thirst quenchers in the Chicago area. Join the lines waiting to order licuados on 26th Street or Sno-Kones at Lincoln Park Zoo, refresh yourself with a milkshake at Oberweis Dairy or lemonade sold by youthful entrepreneurs at sidewalk stands.
For thirst, happily, cures are available.
SMOOTHIE SAILING
It’s dizzying enough to walk down busy Michigan Avenue, much less stop in Viacom Entertainment Store for an assault by TV sitcom theme music, cartoon dolls and a galaxy of merchandise from the “Star Trek” series.
But maybe that’s not why you’re here. Maybe you wanted to cool off with a cold one that won’t knock you flat on a hot day.
So take your consumerist cravings to the second floor Station Break Cafe. A menu board lists smoothie selections, all made with non-fat yogurt and bright-looking fresh fruit.
A good choice is the Banana Nirvana, a whirl of bananas, strawberries, orange juice and yogurt; other drinks come with crushed peaches, raspberries and apple juice or lemonade. All cost $3.50. If something a little less natural appeals, try the Funkalicious with chocolate, peanut M&M’s and banana.
Station Break Cafe, 600 N. Michigan Ave., 312-867-3514.
– Kristin Eddy
SHAKE, DON’T BAKE
Do you dream of an old-fashioned milkshake that is so thick it seems like a lifetime before you get the rich delicacy up the straw? And when it does reach your lips it’s worth the waitand the effort?
Oberweis Ice Cream & Dairy Store has the milkshake ($3.65) of your dreams in 10 flavors. It starts out with sinfully rich, homemade ice cream and Oberweis milk. Then it’s topped off with a generous amount of fresh whipped cream and a crisp rolled pirouette cookie.
Don’t order a shake if you’re in a hurry, though. This shouldn’t be rushed.
Oberweis Ice Cream & Dairy Store, 929 Burlington Ave., Western Springs (708-784-0200) plus seven other locations.
— Alicia E. Tessling
ICE CREAM MEMORIES
His name was Charlie. I may have known his last name once, but to everyone in my Bronx neighborhood, he was Charlie the Ice Cream Man. He drove a Good Humor truckone of the modern vans, with a built-in service counter. Every once in a while, a lucky kid got to ride around in Charlie’s truck.
One summer, I was that kid. Charlie would drive, and we’d talk about stuff that was pretty important to an 11-year-old. Then he’d pull alongside a curb where a dozen or more kids would be waiting, and I’d get to work, digging into the freezers for the ice cream, taking money and making change, while Charlie lounged in the driver’s seat.
It was the coolest thing in the world; there’s nothing quite like the look on kids’ faces when the ice cream truck pulls upand to those kids, was the ice cream man.
I didn’t get paid, but when no one else was around, Charlie gave me free ice cream. My choice rarely changed; I grabbed a Toasted Almond bar, vanilla ice cream with a bit of almond flavor, coated with chopped nuts.
Every now and then, when the ice cream truck pulls up and my children gallop to the curb with their money, I tag along too. And I have a Toasted Almond.
Takes me back every time.
— Phil Vettel
LEMONADE TO LOVE
The drinks are often watery and lukewarm, the service on the sticky side. But who can resist?
The neighborhood lemonade stand is as seasonal as lightning bugs and Little League baseball. If the kids looking to make some fast money are lucky, leafy shade is available for the small table and chairs pressed into the service of capitalism.
Customers are strictly a matter of serendipity: joggers, strollers, casual passersby.
“Moms think it’s cute so they usually buy,” says one 12-year-old veteran of the business. “And if you put signs at the corner, that helps your business too. Neighbors are good for donations. They’ll say, We don’t want any but here’s some money.’ “
And that supports the premise that although the kids’ lemonade may lack the particular appeal of something icy cold and freshly squeezed, the purchase somehow refreshes the soul.
— Denise Joyce
STRESS-BUSTER
There is such a thing as too hot. But most Chicagoans are reluctant to complain about oppressive heat. It’s sure to haunt us during frozen-tundra season-all seven months of it.
That’s why I turn to Italian ice to ease my troubled mind: Its taste improves in direct proportion to rising temperatures. It’s the food equivalent to a splash in the pool.
Two spots we found sell a rainbow of fresh, fruity flavors: Rocco’s, 6820 W. North Ave. (773-745-8719), and Gina’s, 6737 W. Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn (708-484-0944). Prices start in the $1 to $1.25 range. The watermelon and blue raspberry flavors at Rocco’s are fruity and very sweet. Gina’s serves a subtler, less sugary ice-two wonderful options: banana and watermelon.
— Ren’ee Enna
FRUIT IN A FROTH
Licuados, those frothy blender drinks popular throughout Mexico, are fresh fruit reborn. They’re icy, sweet and just nutritious enough to make one feel diet-righteous.
Watch a strawberry licuado being made at El Meson in Cicero or one with cantaloupe being whirred in a blender at Atotonilco Restaurant in Chicago: A cupful of cutup fruit-the riper, the better-is tossed in a blender with a sprinkle of sugar, a splash of milk and a handful of crushed ice. Whirled to a froth, the drink is poured in a tall glass and finished with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Licuados (lee-KWA-does) are usually made with strawberries or bananas, but cantaloupe, mangos or peaches are just as delicious-fruity cool with just a bit of milk richness.
El Meson Taqueria and Restaurant, 5710 W. Cermak Rd., Cicero, 708-652-7803. Atotonilco Restaurant, 3916 W. 26th St., Chicago, 773-762-3380.
— Judy Hevrdejs
NOSTALGIC SCOOP
Things change. Everything except Sno-Kones, apparently. The conical paper cup, the consistency of the crushed ice (somewhere between those tiny motel ice cubes and the finer grains of granita), the syrups, rainbow-colored yet all vaguely citrus-tasting, even the concern that the vendor thoroughly saturate the ice so you don’t run out of flavor 100 yards from the stand: All this remains intact since you first had a Sno-Kone, in 1963.
Even the size seems the same: a 6-ounce cone heaped with a ball of ice. The company makes 55 flavors.
A Sno-Kone at Lincoln Park Zoo costs $1. Flavors are conservative: lime, orange or cherry (or all three on one cone). Wander over to the seal pool, and try not to think about how those guys will still be cool long after your Sno-Kone is a sticky memory. Then again, they will never know that momentary, Sno-Kone-induced bliss, either.
Lincoln Park Zoo, 2200 N. Cannon Drive, 312-742-2000.
— Andy Badeker
CAFFEINE KICK
It’s sweeter than a milkshake, lighter than a Thai iced coffee and totally addictive.
No wonder Starbucks doubled its cold-coffee sales after it introduced the Frappuccino last year. Yes, we know the Frap is old hat by now. Yes, we know its healthfulness has been questioned by do-good nutritionists. (OK, so a “tall” Frap has 180 calories and a wallop of fat-but hey, it also contains calcium, right?)
But when you come right down to it, when the heat index reaches 100 degrees, the cool, icy Frappuccino does the trick.
Variations on the theme- sold at Starbucks stores all over town (from $2.45 to $3.80)-include the rhumba, (a cookies and cream approach), the mocha and the espresso, a cool drink with an extra caffeine kick.
But we like the straight model with its simple Italian-roast coffee flavor augmented with milk and crushed ice and blended into a frothy medley.
Summer in Chicago sizzles just a bit less when you’ve got a Frap in hand.
— Carol Mighton Haddix
ISLAND OF KITSCH
When only a cool tropical breeze can soothe summer’s heat, it’s time, friend, for a trip to Hala Kahiki-River Grove’s answer to Hawaii.
Hala Kahiki is more than a bar. It’s a bar resort. Enter the vast expanse of this 60-table lounge and feel the oppression of a muggy summer night vanish. Oversize Hawaiian masks peer from walls bedecked in straw and bamboo; clusters of plastic bananas mask dim overhead lighting; tropical music sinuously plays “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.” Can the ocean be far behind? (Well, yes, it can, but the Des Plaines River is close by.)
Given the elaborate kitsch of this atmosphere, you may forget about the libations; don’t. (In this atmosphere, you also may forget about your date; that’s up to you.) The multi-page menu, with Hawaiian lingo and colorful commentary, is all drinks, only drinks. The pina passion ($3.95) is fruity, rich and not too strong. Or try a Dr. Funk of Tahiti ($3.90) for a licoricey take on the tropics.
A sultry night, a tropical drink and a pseudo Hawaiian breeze: Like the song says, this is the moment you’ve waited for.
Hala Kahiki (that’s Hawaiian for hospitality), 2834 River Rd., River Grove, 708-456-3222.
— Ren’ee Enna
BASEBALL’S BONUS
One memory from childhood that remains vivid is the moment, on a not very hot day, when my father placed a bottle of beer in my 8-year-old hand and said, “Take a sip.”
I did, and vowed never to allow something so sour-smelling and bitter to pass my lips again. That vow didn’t last, but sips during my teen years did nothing to alter my attitude. It was not, I discovered, a matter of brand. They all tasted more or less the same. I had yet to learn that to truly appreciate mass-produced beer, temperature must enter the equation.
)You must be very hot and thirsty, and the beer must be very cold. The folks who make beer commercials understand this very well.
In Chicago, in deepest summer, the easiest way to become very hot and thirsty without stooping to physical exercise is to sit in the afternoon sun watching a baseball game.
Getting a truly cold beer at the ballpark isn’t easy, however. Position yourself to meet a vendor as he begins his rounds or seek out a draft early. Take a sip. If the beer is truly cold and the Cubs have just scored (even less likely), it will taste deliciously sweet, not bitter, and wonderfully refreshing.
— William Rice
PINA PASSION
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 drink
Stanley Sacharski, co-owner of Hala Kahiki, developed this recipe. When large pineapples are available, he serves this drink in one that has been hollowed out. (When you’re through with the drink, he suggests nibbling on the remaining fruit: “It makes a great snack.”)
2/3 cup pineapple juice, 5 ounces
1 1/2 ounces (1 jigger) dark rum or to taste, about 1/4 cup
1 ounce each, about 2 tablespoons: sweet and sour mix, grenadine
Crushed ice for serving
1. Mix together pineapple juice, rum, sweet and sour mix and grenadine in measuring cup or small pitcher.
2. Pour over crushed ice in tall glass or hollowed-out pineapple. Serve with drink umbrella and straw.
Hollowed-out pineapple, optional
Nutrition information per drink:
Calories …… 310 Cholesterol .. 0 mg Carbohydrates .. 53 g
Fat ……….. 0 g Sodium …… 15 mg Protein ……… 0 g
FRUIT SMOOTHIES
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Yield: 2 large drinks
Smoothies are a favorite summertime drinkand so easy to make. Use this recipe as a starting point but be creative with the fruits. Peaches, pineapple, blueberries, raspberries or even melons are options. The sweetness of the fruit will determine how much honey you need to add.
1 banana, sliced
1 mango, peeled, sliced
2 cups strawberries, hulled
1 cup of your favorite fruit juice or milk
Honey to taste
6 to 8 ice cubes
1. Combine all ingredients in blender container. Blend on high speed until smooth. Pour into tall glasses and serve.
Test kitchen note: For a frostier drink, freeze fruit several hours before blending. Or, keep frozen fruit on hand for an anytime treat.
Nutrition information per drink:
Calories …… 220 Cholesterol .. 0 mg Carbohydrates .. 54 g
Fat ……….. 1 g Sodium ……. 5 mg Protein ……… 3 g
