SPICY AND ICY
TRIBUNE RESTAURANT CRITIC PHIL VETTEL
Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice. While you’re waiting, why not try a bit of both? For fire, head over to Heaven On Seven, in the city (600 N. Michigan Ave., 312-280-7774) or suburbs (224 S. Main St., Naperville, 630-717-0777) for creative Cajun-Creole cooking that doesn’t spare the spice. Not hot enough? There’s an entire wall of hot sauces in the dining room, most of them with names unsuitable for a family newspaper. Better still, sign up for one of the “Hot as a Mutha” dinners, which are held every couple of months or so. At these, chef/owner Jimmy Bannos dishes up food that will cauterize your tastebuds. I think Jimmy has these dinners months apart because it takes that long for his regulars to recover.
For ice, I recommend the Arctic Blast dessert featured at NoMI (Park Hyatt Chicago, 800 N. Michigan Ave., 312-239-4030). Pastry chef Suzanne Imaz churns out absolutely faithful fruit sorbets and serves them on a thick, ice-cold slab of glass that looks just like a block of ice. It’s cold enough to rattle your teeth, but oh, is it good.
TO A ‘T’
TRIBUNE CULTURAL CRITIC JULIA KELLER
I am spending my fall and early winter as a visiting professor at Princeton University, where I’ve been impressed by the great Gothic spires, the elegant stonework, the atmosphere of solemn meditation on profound issues of enduring relevance to humankind–and by the crazy array of T-shirts and sweatshirts with the Princeton logo available in the college bookstore. I’ve wandered these aisles for hours, marveling at the rich sartorial panorama. Princeton’s colors are orange and black, but are those the only hues available? Perish the thought: You can cover your nakedness with hot pink or bright green or wild red or crisp white or ponderous gray. You can get a short-sleeved T-shirt or a long-sleeved one. Sweatshirts come with hoods and hand-warming pouches or not. All of which makes me realize that one of the guilty pleasures of winter is indulging in T-shirts or sweatshirts emblazoned with the name of your favorite college or university. These items–casual, yet so radiantly suggestive of American pluck and vigor–truly reflect the national soul. Do they not?
BETTER TO GIVE
TRIBUNE MOVIE CRITIC MICHAEL PHILLIPS
This Thanksgiving our family is volunteering at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center on the Near West Side. We’re hoping to put little peppermint candies into gift bags, hundreds of them. We worked the candy-bagging station two Thanksgivings ago and had a fine time. The bags are later delivered to area prisons as well as various nursing home and homeless clients of Harbor Light. The candy gig is popular on this particular holiday, but extra hands are always appreciated for serving meals, assisting on building upkeep and maintenance, teaching classes or “any type of business skills, from interviewing to rZsumZ writing,” says operations director David Stupay. So do some good, why don’t you? 1515 W. Monroe St.; 312-421-5753 (Ask for Kimberly, the volunteer coordinator). harborlightchicago.org
AN ARMCHAIR JANUARY
TRIBUNE TELEVISION CRITIC MAUREEN RYAN (Maureen Ryan’s title as published has been corrected in this text)
For the last couple of years, TV viewers have muddled through the chilly post-winter blahs, cheerful in the knowledge that “24” would begin a new, nail-biting season in January. True to form, the series, which last saw Jack Bauer (the velvet-voiced Kiefer Sutherland) abducted by Chinese agents, returns to WFLD-Ch. 32 on Jan. 14. Twenty months will have elapsed since the end of last season, and Fox promises a season of “unthinkable” twists. At the other end of the TV spectrum are two genial, genre-busting comedies. “The Knights of Prosperity,” an ABC comedy about a crew of hapless thieves who try to rob Mick Jagger and other celebs, begins its run in mid-January (don’t miss the premiere, which has an enjoyable cameo by Jagger). Improv Olympic and Second City veteran David Koechner teams up with Dave “Gruber” Allen for “The Naked Trucker and T-Bone Show,” which premieres on Comedy Central on Jan. 17.
HIGH ON LOW
TRIBUNE MUSIC CRITIC GREG KOT
The 1999 “Christmas” EP by the Minnesota trio Low is just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, a blend of hymn-like originals and covers that makes most seasonal recordings sound like cliches. For my money, it’s rivaled only by “Phil Spector’s Christmas Album” for holiday listening. Low is a mesmerizing live act, and the band may break out some of its Christmas songs Dec. 8 when it headlines at the Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-728-6000.
ROLL WITH IT
TRIBUNE ARTS CRITIC HOWARD REICH
When it’s too cold or snowy–or both–to head to a jazz club, it’s time to turn to (jazz) man’s best friend: the CD player. And nothing warms this listener’s heart more than the music of New Orleans’ first and foremost jazz composer, Jelly Roll Morton, as heard on the definitive, five-CD boxed set, “Jelly Roll Morton” (JSP Records). Yes, New Orleans trumpeter Louis Armstrong to this day receives enormous credit as the first international star of jazz, and he deserves it. But Morton was writing jazz classics such as “New Orleans Blues” and “King Porter Stomp” in 1905, when Armstrong was but a 4-year-old. The “Jelly Roll Morton” set contains everything Morton recorded at the pinnacle of his career, from 1926-1930, with his Red Hot Peppers. These recordings of Morton’s classic compositions–from “Black Bottom Stomp” and “Dead Man Blues” to “The Pearls” and “Jelly Roll Blues” –represent the greatest documents of early New Orleans jazz in existence. And in this lustrously remastered edition, listeners will hear inner voices and subtleties of harmony that never were apparent before. “Jelly Roll Morton” is available at jsprecords.com and amazon.com, and at the best jazz record stores.
SEND UP THE CLOWNS
TRIBUNE THEATER CRITIC CHRIS JONES
Clowns who love danger and a cynical musician might not sound like the ideal ingredients for holiday festivities, but there are only so many carols, Rockettes and Tiny Tims that the stomach can annually digest. You might think of the glorious “500 Clown Christmas” as a show born in healthy opposition to seasonal saccharine. In its place, Chicago’s wildly inventive 500 Clown substitutes a droll but weirdly mature variety show, composed of political satire (“Merry Christmas from a blue state/Happy holidays to you,” went one of last year’s lyrics, “And I’ll bet you didn’t see this coming/Back in 1992”); sardonic songs about the pain (or is it the pleasure?) of being alone on Christmas; and acrobatic clowning that makes you fear for the clowns’ ongoing health. Incredibly, though, there’s nothing juvenile or cold about this show, which tends to attract an alternative, NPR-type crowd with ready laughs and more than a few gray hairs. It’s a veritable feast of witty smarts, and at the end of the night, you’re invited to pull up a chair and stay for a chat about the madness of it all. “500 Clown Christmas” plays Nov. 18-26 and Dec. 8-Jan. 6 at the Storefront Theatre, 66 E. Randolph St. Tickets are $15 -$20; 312-742-8497.
BIRTHDAY GIFTS
TRIBUNE ARTS CRITIC ALAN G. ARTNER
Next month, one of my favorite art museums, the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, will be 20 years old, and those who never have visited cannot do better than to savor one of the massive volumes with the title “Paintings in the Musee d’Orsay,” by Robert Rosenblum (1989 reprint, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) or Serge Lemoine (2004, Harry N. Abrams). The celebration in Paris includes the exhibition “Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant Garde,” but–what do you know?–the Art Institute of Chicago will get it first (Feb. 7-May 13). Next year the Musee National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Georges Pompidou, devoted to modern and contemporary art, will be 30. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves in any sense. This winter’s landmark birthday is for the museum that presents art of the 19th Century in greater depth than any other showplace in the world.
