Events

Besides the satisfaction of making your vote count and taking part in the great american democratic process, you can get a bunch of free stuff. My favorite Election Day freebies are as follows:

Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts on Election Day

And of course you’ll need something to wash down that donut with. Fear not, Starbucks has your back.

UPDATE:

If you’re around downtown Chicago on Election Day, stop by Berry Chill for some free, Presidential nominee inspired yougurt couture.

The Berry Obama is five ounces of Original chilled yogurt topped with fresh blueberries, blue (candy-covered) almonds and blue sprinkles. The McCain Crunch is Original chilled yogurt topped with fresh strawberries, red (candy-covered) almonds and red Craisins.

Had a great time Thursday nite at NV Penthouse Lounge for the ‘Tease the Senses’ event. Enjoyed free Veev cocktails. Never heard of Veev? Veev is the world’s first acaí spirit.

What an event. 45,000 runners plus spectators, fans and volunteers. More amazing was the supplies of food and water for the runners and volunteers. You can see by a few of my pics how much food was available. Much of the food- including bananas, apples, whole wheat bagels and fruit bars- was donated by Whole Foods. Even better, any leftover food was to be donated to the Chicago Food Depository.

Had a good time volunteering, meeting some nice people and cheering on the runners.

Announced just recently, the Blackhawks will indeed play the Red Wings at Wrigley Field on New Years Day 2009. This is so awesome. Tickets will likely be ungettable, but where theres a will theres a way. Click the photo to get some more info on the game and more pics of the Hawks at Wrigley.

My girlfriend and I went to the Taste of Chicago yesterday and for the first time I didn’t catch fire. It was a very nice day, temps in the low 80’s and a decent breeze. Perfect eating weather! This year we attempted to stay away from the classics and try the somewhat bizarre and exotic. So the first thing we tried was coconut rice with roasted goat. Sounds really out there, but it was actually very simple. The rice really didn’t have coconut flavor, and the goat was comparable to a beef roast with some spices. Without a doubt though, the most exotic food we tried was grilled shark. Not surprisingly, it was very thick and tough; much more like pork chops than any normal fish fillet. The shark was topped with some kind of tomato-olive red sauce.

Here’s a list of what we ate:

• Roasted corn on the cob with Cajun/Creole spices
• Stuffed sausage pizza
• Cheesburger from Billy Goat Inn
• Coconut rice with Goat
• Italian Beef from Buona
• Gazpacho with avocado
• Chicago-style hot dog
• BBQ Pork and teriyaki chicken Bao
• Tiramisu gellato

As you’ll notice, we didn’t completely stay away from the classics, but we sure tried some different foods.