lovely weekend with much food

I've dropped the ball with blogging a bit, mostly because I've been taking so many photos recently that I can't keep up with the selecting and editing. Fortunately (or sadly, I can't decide), I didn't take any photos last weekend, but I still have a bit to talk about, so here's a blog post in a timely manner.

Jules drove down to Chicago on Thursday night, since she didn't anticipate a busy work-from-home day on Good Friday, and we can't go more than a few weeks of not seeing each other without developing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. So on Friday, we sat on the couch and she worked when there was work to do, and I went through photos and tried to get caught up with emails (I failed), and then at 5, we jetted out the door and headed to Windy City Scrapbooking. It's on Clybourn, just south of Fullerton, so I'd never managed to get there on my own. I don't keep my car in the city, and I cannot bear the idea of taking two buses to get somewhere. I guess it's walkable from the brown line if the weather is nice, so I might try to head back a few times this summer.

It was quite a pleasant scrapbook store! I loved the loft vibe of the space and it had a great selection. It reminded me so much of the now-closed Photos to Scrapbooks in Michigan, where I worked for almost a year. I don't scrapbook as much as I used to, but I still much prefer to shop in smaller stores than in the big craft store chains, where they don't get in new stock very often and everything feels outdated like those tragic Pioneer albums with the gold trim.

Jules and I had a scrapbooking project planned for the weekend and it's still in progress, so I won't say anything about it now. Not that the recipients of this project read my blog...in fact, does anyone read my blog? Ha. But just in case. ;-) So we picked up an album and some thematic supplies and then walked a few blocks down to Wolf Camera to pick up the photos I'd sent in. I wasn't too thrilled with the quality of the photos—the colours felt oversaturated on most of them, but we were in a time crunch, so we made do.

Oh, and between Windy City and Wolf, we stopped at Vanille's main location. Vanille is a patisserie with a counter in the French market, but this location is a gorgeous space with comfy chairs and a few tables. They make all of their pastries at this location, then take them over to the market in the morning. I had a chocolate mousse with hazelnut and something else...I lost track, but it was incredible. Jules had a lemon meringue pastry and she loved hers as well. I'd tried a macaroon from the counter at the market with Christina a few weeks earlier, but I'd never had one of their pastries. I shouldn't eat there too often, but I will definitely have to treat myself from time to time. The girl who helped us there was fantastic, too—very knowledgeable and pleasant. We chatted a bit about the French market and exchanged stories about vendors to try.

From there, we headed to Whole Foods—the "mothership" as I call it—off of North & Sheffield for dinner. J picked some delights from the salad bar and I wish I'd done the same. I've never had food there that I didn't like, but my pasta bowl had way too much sauce and felt so heavy, even though I went vegetarian with it. I only managed to eat about half of it. The trip wasn't a waste, though, because we picked up some bars that were much cheaper than a typical grocery store (quelle surprise!!), some smoked cheddar, and a few other goodies.

On Saturday, I had to work, so Jules went to the Wolf Camera on Rush & Chicago to pick up batch #2 of our photos for the book. I thought that these printed much better and the Rush location is more convenient for me without a car anyway, so I think I'll stick to this location. Of course, nothing beats Adorama, but they've been closed for Passover, so I couldn't get the prints done in time for our weekend. I'll continue to use Wolf for snapshot-type photos and rush jobs.

We met up downtown after work and headed to the French Market for a late lunch. Of course, the French Market is one of my favourite spots for food in the city, and I was excited to finally take Jules for her first trip. We both decided to branch out—she tried the Raw counter and had a fantastic salmon pate sandwich, and I tried Zullo's, an Italian counter with local, organic ingredients. I got a prosciutto panini and it was like a slice of heaven. We also split some Belgian fries and dipped them in garlic mayo and wasabi mayo. I loved the garlic mayo, and we appreciated that they literally cut the fries fresh for us. Yum!

I won't mention the basketball game that we watched at my place after that while we scrapbooked. It's best forgotten.

Afterwards, we had our hearts set on dinner at De Colores, but we so weren't hungry. We went anyway, stuffed ourselves, and ended up only finishing about half of our meals, so I have a shrimp ceviche in my fridge to eat tomorrow for lunch!

Then we headed home, our cab driver actually offered me change, we did some more scrapbooking and finished the pages that we'd planned to finish this weekend, and the fun was over far too quickly. Sunday was Easter, so Jules had planned to head back in the morning so I could go out to my cousins' and spend time with the fam. More on that in another post, though, because I still need to get those photos off my camera.

Church in the City

I stayed at my parents' house this weekend because the heat in my apartment could not keep up with the windchills downtown, and also so I could use my car on Saturday. Parking in the Chicago Loop is so expensive that my car has to live in the suburbs this year. It's not as frustrating as I thought it would be, and I've really embraced public transportation, but that's a story for another day.

The point of that intro is that on Sunday morning, I was getting ready to go to church with my parents, and an idea struck me. I asked my mom if she was completely committed to going to the church that we've attended since I was 3 that morning, and it turned out that she had the same idea as me. We finished getting ready, packed my bags into her car, and drove into the city to go to the service at the church I've attended a couple of times in the past month.

I'm so glad that we did. I hadn't made it to Park Community Church in the River North neighbourhood of Chicago since before Christmas, so I had no idea that the service would be the final week of a three-week series on racial reconciliation. In the times that I've attended Park before, I've absorbed that they are committed to playing an active role in their interesting community.

For those not familiar with Park, their main campus is now located in a renovated warehouse that's directly across from what used to be the Cabrini Green housing project, which was mostly torn down a few years ago. The neighbourhood is now quite diverse, with some low-income housing remaining, but there are also high-rise condominiums and townhouses.

So this year, timing their series with Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration of American's first African-American president, Park put together a series that implored its members to chip away at the prejudices that lie deep within the hearts of Americans. The message was real and raw, featuring testimonies from people who have seen prejudice at work in the church, and video clips from the fight for Civil Rights in the '60s set to clips from King's most famous speech.

The pastor mentioned all kinds of prejudice—not just racial prejudice, which is something that people do not always address. He talked about having prejudice against people who are poor, people with different sexualities, people from social backgrounds, etc. Another pastor took over the second half a message and actually read portions of one of Dr. King's sermons, offering explanations and tie-ins to today's Chicago.

Overall, I was just so impressed that this church was tackling a real issue that many other churches ignore. The second pastor even pointed out that the 11 o'clock hour on Sunday mornings is the most openly segregated hour that remains in America, with most church congregations being almost completely comprised of one race or another. He asked us to look around to verify—yes, Park Community Church was targeting racial reconciliation in a series of messages, but not because it was a battle that they had already won. Over 90% of the people in the auditorium yesterday were white, which is not at all representative of the neighbourhood or the city in general.

Perhaps it is mainly because of the church's location that the pastoral staff decided to bring this issue to light, but my mom and I were talking as we left about how that was never a message that we would have heard at our suburban church. I'm so glad to find a church in the city that appears to exist above the stereotypes that pervade so many evangelical churches. I think I'd like to attend regularly and take advantage of the opportunities to get involved in the community.