Soaked in beer and lightly grilled

Spent the weekend in Chicago for Leslie's 40th bday bonanza. Myself and the other out of town interlopers took the opportunity to sample Chicago's finest at Hot Doug's Encased Meat Parlor. As the tshirt says, there are no finer words in the English language than "encased meats". I had one regular Chicago dog "dragged through the garden" and a bratwurst, soaked in beer and lightly grilled, with sauerkraut and mustard. Both were delectable and not scary at all to eat, although the electric green relish on the dog was a little disconcerting. As a special giant kick in the ass to my diet, we all split an order of fries which, on the weekend, are fried in duck fat. They were ok, but not sure its worth violating The Surge.

The party was a typically baroque foodie affair: one attendee made 200 mini cupcakes (4 different flavors including hostess cupcake and lemon almond) with little pictures of Leslie in 7th grade on each (each!) one. Another brought 200 minicheeseburgers. I stuck pretty close to the vat of Leslie's Lime Punch, which reminded me of the punch Liz, Verna, and I created in inflatable pools during high school (hope Mom & Dad arent reading!).

In other news, the LAPD raided Junkie Palace across the street twice last week: SWAT-ified, guns drawn, all the bells and whistles. I tried to call Hollywood PD today to get the lowdown on it but no one had heard of the operations. How many raids can they conduct in a week to have not heard of what's going on?