The Freddie from Calabria Imports (Claire Hungerford)

Inspired by a recent article in Dining Chicago on the city’s lesser-known signature sandwiches, I set out last week to find and consume three that are native to the South Side: the big baby, the Freddy and the mother-in-law. My expedition very quickly deteriorated into a desperate search, however. I met with caged, closed storefronts, wrong turns, and bad directions. I drove past blocks of boarded buildings, torn signs, and trash, then unexpectedly emerged into neat rows of houses, time-warped out of the ’70s. My physical journey through the South Side landscape to discover the sandwiches illuminated a historic movement of people, cultures, and tastes.

My first success was finding the big baby, a distinctive incarnation of the double cheeseburger. Its birthplace, Nicky’s the Real McCoy, was bright and yellow and red. Devoid of authenticizing pieces of memorabilia, it had the fast-food sterility of McDonald’s, with plastic tables fixed to the ground and brown tile floor. Yet the menu lacked McDonald’s predictability. While families with small children ordered up barbecue, two spindles hung with meat for gyros rotated slowly and beef patties sizzled for the quintessential American double-cheeseburger that would soon melt in my mouth. The big baby was by far the best sandwich I encountered, with its classic combination of juicy beef and onions, American cheese, mustard, and ketchup.

The eponymous founder of Nicky’s, Nick Vaginas, was a Greek man who opened some hot dog and burger stands in the ’60s. Vaginas appropriated the established tools and forms of production in America—hot dog stands, burgers, and buns—and injected Greece into them, in the form of gyros and pita bread. Though Vaginas didn’t stick around (he returned to Greece after only a few years), his sandwich and store remain to preserve his memory.

A similar two-way Americanization characterizes the Freddy, an Italian-style sausage patty on French bread that was conceived in Beverly during the ’70s. After previous failed attempts to lay my hands on this less common sandwich, it was with whoops and smiles that I spotted Calabria Imports on 103rd Street. Nestled in a row of tacky home accessory shops and cafés, the deli had a distinct community feel. Its founder, Benito Russo, is generally recognized as the father of the Freddy, which he named after his son. The sandwich I received was smothered in chunky tomato sauce, wilted green peppers, and mozzarella, offering a pleasing contrast of textures and flavors: the French bread was fluffy, and the sausage surprisingly well-spiced.

The community atmosphere, rather than the sandwich itself, reflected the story of the South Side’s immigrant past. Calabria Imports is a living legacy to the sorts of shops and food markets newly immigrated Italians opened that have, over the years, slowly become completely integrated.

The essential ingredients of the mother-in-law sandwich are chili and a corn-roll tamale on a hot-dog bun. Despite the efforts of Chicago food history buff Peter Engler, who traced the roots of the big baby and the Freddy, the mother-in-law’s origins remain murky. Today it is hard to find anywhere but at hot dog stands on the Southwest Side, which is where I got mine: at Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots in Marquette Park. After ordering at the window of a clapboard-roofed trailer, I returned to the car with my brown bag. Inside was a soggy brown mess; goopy, watery chili threatened to consume the squishy poppy-seed bun. All the textures—the mealy cornmeal, the grainy meat, the soaked bread—combined into an unfortunate mush in my mouth.

Though it was the least appetizing of the three South Side specialties, the mother-in-law has perhaps the most intriguing history. It bears an obvious resemblance to the Coney dog and the Maxwell Street Polish, but its corn-roll tamale is unique to Chicago, differing from both the Mexican version and the spicy variety common to the South. Both are probable influences, however; Engler’s posts about the mother-in-law on Chicago foodie website LTHforum.com even caught the attention of historians documenting the Mississippi Delta’s “Hot Tamale Trail” (tamaletrail.com). The paths of immigration and the Great Migration of Southern blacks during the early twentieth century have crossed in Chicago to create a unique culinary experience.

Nicky’s the Real McCoy, 5801 S. Kedzie Ave. Calabria Imports, 1905 W. 103rd St. Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots, 7242 S. Western Ave.

(Ellis Calvin)

“It’s a niche of the wine market that seems to be growing,” Ozelis reflects in the back room of Bev Art. Wild Blossom currently operates out of this tiny space, experimenting with new flavors and aging barrels of concoctions in the cellar. The honey used to make the mead comes directly from beehives kept by Fischer, who has been raising bees since he was a child in New Paltz, New York. When he met Ozelis through a local homebrew club, he was looking for a way to put his honey to use. “He could sell it as honey,” Ozelis explains. “But it’s much more interesting when you turn it into wine.”

Interesting, and a little “esoteric,” Ozelis says with a smile. While Fischer knew that the honey he was producing was of a high enough quality to make good mead, neither he nor Ozelis was sure if customers would buy it. “The only thing he had to worry about was if people would be interested—will they understand it, will they accept it,” Ozelis recalls. Part of mead’s appeal is its rich history, but that can also be a bit intimidating. “People don’t know too much about mead,” Ozelis admits. “They think of Vikings rampaging, drunk out of their skulls.”

Wild Blossom meads shouldn’t cause the average person to go berserk. Prairie Passion, the brewery’s most traditional mead, lacks the hallucinogenic components, such as fly agaric mushrooms or toad skin bufotoxins, that the Vikings are theorized to have ingested with their mead. Instead, it’s laden with sweet and heavy floral notes, and the bottle cap is filled with Chicago wildflower seeds, encouraging the customer to help maintain the renewable source of their beverage.

Wild Blossom’s product is “about as local as you can get,” according to Ozelis. Some of Fischer’s hives are located on the site of the abandoned U.S. Steel plant on 92nd Street. Where most people saw “leftover industrial real estate,” in Ozelis’s words, Fischer saw opportunity. His bees pollinate the wildflowers on the property and, as Ozelis sees it, both the city of Chicago and Fischer are “turning it into something much more enjoyable and usable.” This seems to be a common theme among Fischer’s hives: he has several more located on top of the Mariott at 540 North Michigan Avenue, contributing to the hotel’s green roof project. “There’s a lot of flowers up and down Michigan Avenue,” Ozelis explained. “The bees just fly around, pollinate them, and come back.” Still more hives are located in the Indiana Dunes, where the fragrant black cohosh flower, indigenous to the area, imparts an intense aroma to meads made from the honey of those hives. “It’s amazing that within an hour of the city you can have bees pollinating wildflowers and turning out honey that isn’t toxic or rancid,” Ozelis chuckles.

While mead has been found on almost every continent, different cultures produce vastly different versions, depending on the raw materials they have available. Wild Blossom incorporates local produce, like blueberries, mulberries, and raspberries, but in Eastern Europe, where it’s difficult to grow fruit, meads tend to be flavored with spices. Ozelis, who is Lithuanian, felt a socio-cultural connection to mead in his early brewing days. “It was something I was familiar with, something I had sampled. It’s another excuse to ferment something.” He remembers the meads from his country being very spice-oriented: “The traditional Lithuanian meads have ginger, juniper, allspice, cinnamon; they might even add some other herbs like dill or fennel. Sometimes they would add hops in there, either for aroma or for bittering purposes. It’s more like a tonic or an elixir.” With such a sweet product, bittering is a common, if optional, step. In Ethiopia, the stems of the shiny-leaf buckthorn—a shrub known there as gesho—are boiled to produce a bitter extract, which is combined with honey to make a drink called tej. The simple mead is truly a global drink.

Like the many generations of meadmakers before them, Fischer and Ozelis are constantly tinkering with new flavor combinations. Most of their meads include some kind of fruit. “The idea with fruit,” Ozelis explains, “is that it adds a layer of complexity and depth because now it’s not just honey and water. Adding fruit to it really adds much more in terms in flavor, aroma, mouth-feel, and color.” Their Wild Berry mead is made with crushed wild mulberries and raspberries, which are left in the mead, skins and all, during a secondary fermentation. Using the whole fruit gives rise to delightful tannins, and the taste is much stronger and more acidic than their Pom-Nectar mead, which uses pomegranate juice from California since the fruit doesn’t grow locally.

One of Fischer and Ozelis’ most innovative techniques involves aging their Sweet Desire mead in old bourbon barrels, to pull out the flavor, the color, and the aroma of the barrel, as well as the bourbon. This idea was a twist on a specialty beer created by the local brew club, HOPS (Homebrew’s Pride of the South Side), which Fischer co-founded in 1995. Ozelis remembers making the brew on St. Patrick’s Day for the South Side parade. “Homebrew’s Pride of the South Side would do fifty gallons of stout on the sidewalk. We’d be boiling up beer along the parade, and we’d always put it in whiskey barrels to ferment and age, because that gives it a wonderful flavor.” When Ozelis and Fischer joined forces to create Wild Blossom, they didn’t want to try this technique with wine. “That would be like throwing a shot of Jack Daniels in a cheap chianti: not very appetizing,” Ozelis jokes. “But we thought it might work with the mead, and sure enough, it did.”

In addition to their collection of diverse meads, Wild Blossom also makes a line of South Side wines, “a sort of homage to the old Italian guys on the South Side who would make wine during Prohibition,” says Ozelis. “The grapes would come in from California on the railroad cars and all the Italian guys would get the grapes and make wine like they did back when they were in Sicily or Naples.” Unfortunately, none of Wild Blossom’s beverages can be sold on premises. Due to zoning restrictions, Wild Blossom can manufacture their wines in the back of the Bev Art Supply Store, but customers need to walk to the liquor store across the street to buy them. “After prohibition, this side of Beverly neighborhood voted for the whole ward here to be dry, and then across the street was wet, which meant that you could open up a tavern or sell alcohol in restaurants,” explains Ozelis. An unfortunate by-product of this law, he points out, is that there are no good restaurants on the dry side of Western Avenue. He remains hopeful: “It might be changing because there’s pressure to develop this neighborhood. Maybe people are eventually going to realize that it’d be nice to have a decent restaurant or a music venue. We’ll see what happens.”

The future looks bright. Wild Blossom advertises mead to be the most sustainable beverage on earth, largely because it takes so little effort to harvest the raw materials. Ozelis hypothesizes that the first people to discover mead simply found a honeycomb filled with rainwater that had been allowed to ferment with airborne wild yeast. In modern times, mead-making is a little more controlled, but Ozelis cheerfully emphasizes the lack of human hands in the process. “We just let the bees fly around, go to the wildflowers to forage and pollinate, and they give us honey.” Compared to wine or beer, as well as most farm produce, Ozelis guarantees that “you don’t have to run combines, tractors, trailers, or refrigerated trucks to move the honey, so that really cuts down on energy use and pollution.” While sustainability is a popular catch phrase these days, mead is not just eco-friendly—it’s timeless. This drink of the gods contains both past and future in a single sip: an age-old tradition, perfected over centuries, promises to be around for centuries to come.

best start-your-own catering business
Cakewalk
Baking enthusiast? Or do you think you’re a world-class pâtissier in the making? Cakewalk, a baking supply store, was started in 2003 by Chef Lori Parrett to help Chicagoans embark on all kinds of cooking endeavors. Providing for both professional needs and homestyle techniques, Cakewalk is stocked with every kind of cake mold, cookie cutter and muffin tin imaginable. The store also provides candy-making tools and a solid collection of instructional books, which range in subject matter from cupcakes to wedding cakes. To supplement their retail, Cakewalk offers an array of weekend classes. A knowledgeable staff is on premises, ready and eager to cater to their customers. 1741 W. 99th St. Tuesday-Thursday, 11am-5pm; Friday, 11am-pm; Saturday, 10:30am-5pm. (773)233-7335. cakewalkchicago.com (Sarah Pickering)

most uses for sweet potato
Jimmy Jamm Sweet Potato Pies
“Is this your first time here?” asks the man behind the counter. “Let me show you around.” Pies, you will find, are only one of the many uses of the sweet potato. Jimmy Jamm also sells scones, muffins, cookies, cakes, as well as a non-dairy ice cream, all flavored with the tasty tuber. One could theoretically get lunch first, as there are sweet potatoes stuffed with chicken or beef, sweet potato vegetable stew, and a variety of sandwiches on sweet potato bread. The friendly establishment goes through 300 to 400 sweet potatoes every few days, using recipes that have been passed down for nearly a century. 1844 W. 95th St. Monday-Saturday, 10am-7pm. (773)779-9105 (Sarah Pickering)

best (and only) meadery
Wild Blossom Meadery
While it may evoke images of Vikings and warlords, the taste of mead, or “honey wine” as it is sometimes called, is sweet, similar to a dessert wine. The Wild Blossom Meadery operates out of the back room of the Bev Art Brewer and Winemaker Supply shop. Bev Art offers classes in making your own beer and wine, and they let you store your product in their store until it’s ready. Founded by Greg Fischer in 2000, Wild Blossom is Chicago’s first winery and the only meadery in Illinois. Using local bees and wildflowers found in abandoned lots, Wild Blossom runs over 80 hives. Certain products are flavored with spices or fruit, like the blueberry and pomegranate meads, but there is really something for every audience here. Case in point: through their unique partnership with Jim Beam, Wild Blossom ages their “Sweet Desire” mead in old oak casks used to age whiskey, imparting a strong kick to its flavor profile. Using and reusing local materials is what led Fischer to promote the Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery as “the world’s most sustainable wine.” 10033 S. Western Ave. Monday, 8am-4pm; Tuesday-Saturday, 8am-7pm. (773)881-9463. wildblossomwines.com (Sarah Pickering)

The festival was founded in 1989 by Christopher Kamyszew, who “decided to bring some Polish films to the United States to show Polish culture,” according to PFFA director Ewa Domeredzka. This year she expects about 15,000 people to show up at the festival’s six venues. “These days everything is on computers…It’s harder than it used to be,” she says of attracting viewers. “We’re trying to bring more for the American audience.” Thus, all but a few of the films have subtitles, and a number are in styles that Americans will recognize.

This is true of the first run of films at the Beverly Arts Center, all three of which are comedies. It begins on Tuesday, November 11, with “Lejdis,” a modern riff on the battle of the sexes from the point of view of four independent young women. The film has proven wildly popular in Poland, breaking box-office records on its opening night and garnering interest from foreign producers eager to shoot their own versions. The Wednesday and Thursday night offerings are less promising: two rom-coms in the Hollywood vein, neither of which boasts enough originality to make it worth either the $10 ticket price or the effort of reading subtitles. “Midnight Talks” has its requisite quirky heroine who spends her time sculpting angels out of salt dough until she realizes it’s time to have a baby. Her ad for a sperm donor brings her more than she expects, though, and her (somewhat inexplicable) efforts not to fall in love make up the better part of the movie. “One More Time” is a somewhat clumsy effort to interweave two subplots, the “parallel romantic adventures” of a mother and her teenage daughter as they spend a summer together at a seaside resort. The film’s picturesque Polish setting may be a bigger asset than its plot or character development.

On the following Tuesday, however, the Center will show a film that rivals the biggest Hollywood blockbusters in scale and ambition. “Mongol” is an epic that chronicles the early life of Genghis Khan: his choice of a bride at the age of nine, the flight from his clan following the murder of his father, and his stormy friendship with his blood-brother Jemukha. With a budget of just $20 million, Academy Award-nominated director and co-writer Sergei Bodrov shot the film on the steppes of Kazakhstan, creating battle scenes on par with those of “Lord of the Rings.” He intends it to be the first part of a trilogy based on a recently discovered text entitled “The Secret History of the Mongols.”

The screenings on Wednesday and Thursday are more tragic than epic. “Children of Glory” centers on the Hungarian water polo team in the lead-up to the 1956 Olympics, where it faced the Soviet Union shortly after the violent suppression of Hungary’s attempted revolution. “Katyn,” directed by the renowned Andrzej Wajda, is another Academy Award nominee; it tells the story of the Katyn Forest massacre through the eyes of the women left behind by the 1940 mass execution of 22,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

For those looking to get a taste of authentic Eastern European cinema, these last three films offer the best opportunity. “Some are trying to make things similar to Hollywood,” explains Ewa Domeredzka. “But we have our own European style that’s not so sweet, not always a happy ending. I think that these are the best films—the ones that win awards, that we can be proud of.”
Beverly Art Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Mongol: November 18. Tuesday, 7:30pm. Children of Glory: November 19. Wednesday, 7:30pm. Katyn: November 20. Thursday, 7:30pm. $10. pffamerica.com, beverlyartcenter.com

Best Ice Cream
Shawn Michelle’s Homemade Ice Cream
One hundred feet south of the city line, technically in the suburb of Blue Island, sits the new location of Shawn Michelle’s Homemade Ice Cream. The enthusiastic staff warn first-time customers, “Shawn Michelle’s Homemade Ice Cream is not responsible for any addictions” resulting from the seriously incredible quality of their ice cream. The “Sweet Sixteen Flavors” include their superior versions of the basics, like Vanilla Supreme, Burst of Strawberry, and a dark chocolate called Melanin Magic. Unique and brilliant flavors like Honey Cinnamon Graham Cracker Supreme and Taste of Heaven Supreme (bean pie ice cream with bean pie pieces) make this establishment worth the trek out to the furthest reaches of the city. 11925 S. Western Ave. Tuesday-Thursday, 11am-9pm; Friday-Saturday, 12pm-9pm; Sunday, 12pm-6pm. (708)239-1380. homemadeicecream.blogspot.com (Ellis Calvin)

Best Italian import
Calabria Imports
Calabria was founded in 1975 in suburban Blue Island by an immigrant from Reggio Calabria. Five years ago it moved to Beverly, and it has been serving the Far South Side neighborhood’s sizable Italian-American population ever since. The deli/grocery store offers Italian specialties such as lasagna, tortellini, homemade tiramisu, and cannoli, not to mention a wide selection of Italian sandwiches and general sundries. The 1950s-esque atmosphere given off by the friendly local deli is reinforced by the 99-cent glass Coca-Cola bottles available in the fridge. It’s true what they say: it really does taste better in a glass bottle. 1905 W. 103rd St. Monday-Friday, 9am-7pm; Saturday, 8:30am-6pm; Sunday, 11am-3pm. (773) 396-5800. www.calabria-imports.com (Sam Feldman)

Best Place to Complete Your Vintage Vinyl Collection
Beverly Records
Now celebrating its 41st anniversary, the Beverly Rare Record Shop, or Beverly Records, is a haven for all your classic vinyl needs—and more. In fact, it hosts a variety of “classic” (i.e. nearly antiquated) goods of all kinds, as the big glass case at the entranceway immediately illustrates. From baseball cards to Wizard of Oz dolls, Buddy Holly posters and a brick from the original Comiskey ballpark, the door to Beverly Records is like a gateway into a lost—but not forgotten—era. VHS tapes go for a paltry dollar, and of course, there’s the variety of classic rock and other LPs from genres running the proverbial gamut, including contemporary releases from chart-topping mainstays. Owner Jack Dreznes has been running the business since 1975; before that, his mom ran the show, and it really has the feel of a family-owned affair. Personable service and an extensive library of old and rare LPs (along with CDs, cassettes and even 8-tracks) make this one record shop that can hold its own with the best of the South Side—and beyond. 11612 S. Western Ave. Monday-Friday, 10am-7pm; Saturday, 9:30am-6pm; Sunday, 11am-3pm. (773)779-0066. (Sean Redmond)

Best Place to Catch Some Quality Culture
Beverly Arts Center
Right as you finally step off the Western stop of the 112 bus to Beverly, a large brick building with colored BAC flags is there to welcome you to the neighborhood—and remind you that, just because you’re more than one hundred streets south of the Loop, doesn’t mean that you have to give up the fine trappings of big city culture. Indeed, the Beverly Arts Center attracts professional theater groups like Second City all the way to its humble stages, as well as providing concerts, galleries to showcase artists’ works, and offering classes on art, theater, music and dance—including bellydance!—for both kids and adults. Poems by Judith Valente line the walls, accompanied by photographs by John Matt Dorn, and a new art exhibit with vibrant large-print photography by Cecil McDonald entitled Domestic Observations & Occurrences is on display through October 13. So if you ever find yourself among the hilly streetscapes of this south-south pseudo-suburb, fear not—you can still get all the quality culture you need, even if you are an hour and a half away from home. 2407 W. 111th St. Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm; Saturday, 8:30am-6pm; Sunday, 12pm-6pm. (773)445-3838. (Sean Redmond)

Best Place to Complete Your Vintage Vinyl Collection
Beverly Records
Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Beverly Rare Record Shop, or Beverly Records, is a haven for all your classic vinyl needs—and more. In fact, it hosts a variety of “classic” (i.e. nearly antiquated) goods of all kinds, as the big glass case at the entranceway immediately illustrates. From baseball cards to Wizard of Oz dolls, Buddy Holly posters and a brick from the original Comiskey ballpark, the door to Beverly Records is like a gateway into a lost—but not forgotten—era. VHS tapes go for a paltry dollar, and of course, there’s the variety of classic rock and other LPs from genres running the proverbial gamut, including contemporary releases from chart-topping mainstays like Amy Winehouse. Owner Jack Dreznes has been running the business since 1975; before that, his mom ran the show, and it really has the feel of a family-owned affair. Personable service and an extensive library of old and rare LPs (along with CDs, cassettes and even 8-tracks) make this one record shop that can hold its own with the best of the South Side—and beyond. 11612 S. Western. Monday-Friday, 10am-7pm; Saturday, 9:30am-6pm; Sunday, 11am-3pm. (773)779-0066. (Sean Redmond)

Best Steak and Onion Sandwich
Calabria Imports
Beverly may be a historically Irish neighborhood, but Calabria Imports is hands down one of the best Italian delis this side of the Loop (and, dare I may be more audacious, the Atlantic—or at least Lake Michigan). But seriously, coming from a predominantly Italian-American hometown with an Italian sub shop on every corner, I can say that the beef sandwiches at Calabria’s are some of the best this reporter has ever experienced. I don’t even like steak all that much, but the meat is moist, tender, and rich with flavor; add some onions and melted provolone on some crisp Italian bread with a big bag of fries (and to think, all this for only five bucks!)—hands down, it makes the trek allllll worthwhile. Calabria’s also boasts a variety of traditional Italian dinners, such as gnocchi and chicken parmesan, as well as many other sandwiches and subs. An extensive variety of pastas, sauces, breads and Italian cookies are also for sale, and they even stock a full range of Stewart’s sodas. And while the atmosphere isn’t exactly noteworthy, the maps of Italy and the community bulletin board that adorn the walls certainly work to keep you feeling at home (although non-Italians might not feel the warmth so much). But I’ll tell you this—if quality food at great prices doesn’t put a twinkle in your eye and a spring in your step, then hey, maybe Italian food’s just not your thing. I guess there’s always Chinatown. 1905 W. 103rd. Monday-Friday, 9am-7pm; Saturday, 8:30am-6pm; Sunday, 9:30am-3:30pm. (708)388-1500.