Ground cover

Chicago has been named the most caffeinated city in the country, which doesn't surprise me. I can think of four Starbucks within walking distance of me, not counting the ones in the grocery stores or the ones in the grade schools, or the many other coffee shops that are not named Starbucks. According to the article we eat a lot of chocolate and we also drink a lot of pop, or as the rest of you call it, soda. Not to mention there's no shortage of Red Bull and its clones to keep the hands shaking. Plus, the ink in our newspapers is laced with caffeine so that anyone leafing through their daily rag gets a boost just for having thumbs.

Last year we were named the fattest city in America, which did surprise me. I look around and see a city of mostly fit, mostly young and frequently symmetrical people. Of course we will never make the short list for thinnest city but when I'm out and about I rarely observe the undulating jars of jelly that populate the suburbs and surrounding environs. You can always tell you're near one of the tourist traps by the expanding waistlines of the people waddling about on the sidewalks. Navy pier is not only a sea of fanny packs; it's a sea of fannies. And sometimes Asians.

Not that people who live here don't know how to eat. This city never met a chicken wing it didn't fry, a mozzarella stick it didn't dip, a chili it didn't slurp, a rib it didn't gnaw, a pad of butter it didn't spread, a gram of saturated fat it didn't store. Ours is a city that knows its way around a wet wipe and its way into a bottle of Tums.

(Uch.... these photos are taking FOREVER to copy... maybe if I were a better photographer I wouldn't need to take 163 pictures in a day... damn old slow computer...)

Here there are too many restaurants to explore in a lifetime, although attempting to do so is going to be fun, I suspect. The selection is as diverse as a student UN meeting. Just in my little hood I can walk to four Mexican, one Thai, two Chinese, one Hungarian, two Italian, one Guatemalan, three American, two Irish, one Gyros, three Sushi, Two Dunkin', one goofy Vegan breakfast place, ten or twelve bars, and four sandwich places. That's all within a four to five block radius, and I live in one of the "quiet" neighborhoods. Give me a cab or a train and I'm eating on any continent I choose. (Tip for the Antarctican restaurant: Bring a sweater.)

I've always considered Chicago a city of good-lookin', hard-workin', g-droppin' people. We eat, we drink, we wipe, we repeat. And we're a bunch of caffeine addicts, although I'd have to count myself out of the long lines of coffee drinking foam-sippers. I do fancy the pop and the occasional red bull and vodka, but I couldn't tell you the difference between an espresso and a cappuccino if you paid me in chocolate-covered coffee beans.

Pay me in chocolate-covered raisins and we might have something to talk about.