Chicago, Kim and Ems Style: Part I

The loneliness in my apartment is always palpable after a visitor leaves. So much laughter and conversation bounces about the walls when I have company in town, making the contrasting silence of emptiness feel a bit jarring when I come home alone. Already, though, I am settling back into the quiet, wrapping it around me, biting into it with Debussy, as I sit and dream and write…

The weekend was lovely, as weekends with best friends typically are. Driving west on Addison Friday after work was a surprising treat, and proof once again that I have grown accustomed to my habitual haunts. I’ve lived in Chicago for nearly two years, and there’s so much I’ve never bothered to see, despite the fact that I am on a constant search for everything new and different. Addison took me by surprise as it was both beautiful and pleasantly traffic-light the whole drive west where I met Kim at the blue line stop.

Once I’d collected him (what a sight for sore eyes!), I chattered away practically the whole drive home, which is increasingly unusual for me these days. I suppose this is the biggest clue that I’m really and truly comfortable with you—we just start talking and before you know it, you can’t shut me up (yes, I know, shocking, right?). And from that point, the fabulous Chicago weekend was full-steam ahead!

We headed to Xoco for dinner, to which neither of us had ever been. Kim is definitely a bit of a foodie, and he was pretty keen on the idea of hitting up a Rick Bayless restaurant while in town, as was I, since everyone’s always talking about his spots. Of course, I couldn’t have planned the timing better if I’d tried—we walked in and Bayless was behind the counter. Kim had a mini freak-out before I even knew what was going on. I’ll be honest—I had no idea what Bayless looked like, so I was a tad confused at Kim’s frantic unzipping of his camera bag. When I asked what was going on, Kim said from the side of his mouth, “It’s f--ing Rick Bayless!”

Bayless only hung around for about five minutes more, leaving us plenty of time to examine the menu and shoot the shit before we ordered. We opted for the guacamole and tortilla chips, pork belly vermicelli for Kim, seafood caldos for me, and churros for desert. I’m not much of a soup fan, so it was unusual that I ordered the seafood caldos, but if you could have seen and smelled the soups, you wouldn’t have passed it up either. The food was amazing, but so was the company. It’s odd how your emotional appetite can satisfy your hunger, because we couldn’t finish a single dish we’d ordered. We laughed about it, pointing out how, if we’d been at our desks for lunch (or dinner), or otherwise eating alone, we’d have been able to scarf down the entire thing. Le sigh.

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So, a little while after writing this entry, I came across this little gem at Huffington Post. Yep, that's Xoco!