Illiana Regan is seen here in July 2021 cooking ham hocks at the Milkweed Inn in Michigan. Photo by Kendra Stanley-Mills for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Plus, with Chicago back at “high risk” COVID-19 levels, will masks return inside restaurants?
Three years after publishing her widely lauded first memoir Burn the Place, Iliana Regan, the award-winning forager chef who founded Michelin-starred Elizabeth Restaurant in Lincoln Square, has released info on her follow-up book.
Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir chronicles Regan’s transition from big-city restaurant life to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where she and wife Anna Hamlin have lived and operated a bed and breakfast called Milkweed Inn since 2019.
Early details, via Bookshop, reveal Regan will share her desire to return to her rural roots with the arc of that journey interspersed with stories of her extended family — some fraught with alcoholism and domestic strife, noting the specific “harm men do to women and families, and harm men do to the entire landscapes they occupy.” The synopsis also mentions Regan and Hamlin’s efforts to conceive a child in the midst of the pandemic.
Regan officially sold Elizabeth in October 2021 to longtime collaborator Tim Lacey, whom she met more than a decade ago at Trio, the suburban Evanston restaurant that birthed culinary stars like Gale Gand and Grant Achatz. Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir is now available for preorder, with a January 2023 release.
Will the mask mandate return?
LA officials have paved the path for an indoor mask mandate to return at the end of July if COVID numbers continue to spike. With Chicago’s numbers also rising — the city has returned to “high-risk status” — could the city follow suit? It’s something that bears watching, especially as Lollapalooza returns next week. Restaurant owners in Chicago were prepping for a mandate in July 2021 and similar conditions are setting in.
Potbelly avoids wreck with PPP forgiveness
Despite stoking fears among investors and warning of a possible shutdown, Chicago-based sandwich chain Potbelly was notified in July that the U.S. Small Business Administration forgave its $10 million Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan, according to Crain’s. Instead, taxpayers get to shoulder the $10.2 million (including principal and accrued interest) — the cherry on top of Potbelly’s garbage sundae of PPP-related drama, which began in April 2020 when it joined companies like Sweetgreen in gobbling up government funds before many small businesses had a chance to apply.
A White Sox player’s pregame meal is a doozy
Liam Hendriks is an Australian-born pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. He’s considered of the best relief pitchers in the game and represented the team in LA at the All Star Game this week. Apparently, he also has a ritual before every game at Guaranteed Rate Field. According to MLB writer Anthony Castrovince, Hendriks eats a Philly cheesesteak with hot sauce and fries. There’s no word where Hendriks procures his meal, or if he considered subbing in an Italian beef with hot giardiniera.
The only truly important thing I learned at All-Star Media Day is that Liam Hendriks eats a Philly cheesesteak covered in hot sauce and fries before every home game.
(Important to note that Liam Hendriks does not play for the Phillies.)
— Anthony Castrovince (@castrovince) July 18, 2022