A Reluctant Goodbye to City Provisions

Cleetus Friedman's collaboration brew with New Holland

 Brewery - Marsha Mallow's Malted Milk Stout.

I’ve only written two blog posts so far on here, and as it happens, they’ve both been about places I like to patronize. One of those places just closed its doors for good. 

City Provisions was one of a kind. It began over four years ago as a catering company, and quickly expanded to comprise elements of a deli, coffee shop, cafe, restaurant, bar, and artisanal market. It was a local business in the truest sense. Cleetus Friedman, the chef/proprietor, had incredibly high standards for the sourcing of his ingredients and supplies. Much has been said about the food movement of the past several years, and the buzz words are used sincerely as often as they are in jest - sustainable, local, seasonal, ethically raised, environmentally friendly, organic - but all of those words could have been easily and honestly applied to City Provisions, and they were. What is often lost in the conversation about these concepts is that they are not for themselves, but are intrinsic to food that is, simply put, great. It’s obvious to anyone involved in the production of food that fresh tomatoes are only worth eating in July, August, and September, and any fresh tomato in February is invariably a spongy impostor. Cleetus embraced sustainability and all that it implies, but the reason sustainability is such a good idea when it comes to food is because it makes the best food. Chefs at fine dining restaurants already know this, and have known this for many years; seeking out the farmers themselves in many cases, buying directly from the guys growing the stuff, and only when it’s worth eating. Cleetus was doing it in a neighborhood cafe and deli. His place was excellent in the most ordinary way, which is exactly what made it extraordinary.

One of my all-time favorite City Provisions pictures. A 

delicious Americano on one of their beautifully imperfect

wooden tables.

Small businesses come and go. Restaurants come and go. Good places come and go. Places I like have come and gone, but this one was different. 

Almost two years ago, I experienced a paradigm shift in my philosophy about and daily approach to food. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma changed my life. I would imagine I’m only one of the many who have made such a statement. Grass-fed, pasture-raised, local, seasonal; for me these words became guiding principles in the grocery aisles, not simply disingenuous marketing terms.

A sinfully delicious cuban sandwich, Oct. 6, 2012

I grew up eating good food, and participating in lots of the types of activities that Barbara Kingsolver describes in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Things like freezing, canning, and pickling. June activities like pulling the tops off of 25 pounds of strawberries that we picked ourselves for eating throughout the summer, and freezing for use until the following June. August activities like shucking 50 ears of sweet corn, boiling them all, and then cutting the cooked kernels off of the cob and stuffing them into ziploc bags to be stashed in the freezer, hopefully to last until the following August. Activities such as these marked the passage of time, the changing of the seasons, and held an important place in our lives. Food was important to us in a way that was, unbeknownst to me, unusual. Restaurants were something we did twice a year on I-94 in between Minneapolis and Milwaukee. At home my parents cooked every meal we ate. But not all of them were based on entirely sustainable, ethically produced, seasonal ingredients. Many were, but not all. We didn’t buy grass-fed beef or pastured poultry. The produce wasn’t organic necessarily. We sure as hell didn’t buy fresh berries in January (an oxymoron if there ever was one), but it wasn’t out of ecological or ethical principle, it was because fresh berries in January suck. My parents cared about the quality of good food, and made choices accordingly. It just so happened that good food often meant those other things as well. But after reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, the memory of my parent’s passion for all things food related made it easier to return to what I grew up eating, and even go beyond to what Pollan was advocating. In a sense it was easy, because I knew how important it was that I do it. 

Smoked pork heart/tongue tacos, Oct. 27, 2012

When it came to restaurants it was more difficult in some ways. I’ve always loved restaurants, everything about them: the various ways to create atmosphere, the lighting, the decor/furniture; the presentation of a menu be it elegantly showcased in a tri-fold leather portfolio with reinforced metal corners, a simple white piece of paper with a sans serif font, a giant chalkboard above a deli, or just the food itself sitting behind glass; the entirely unique aroma of a particular place created by both the building and the kitchen; the people of the staff and the relationships you can forge through something as common as needing to eat; and obviously, I loved the food. Now there were so many good restaurants at which, because of my new rules for myself, I could no longer eat. No more Al’s #1 Italian Beef. No more Philly’s Best. It wasn’t that I was so much depriving myself of things I loved, but rather that I knew I wouldn’t enjoy them anymore, knowing more about their food’s origins. When I found City Provisions about a year into my new food life, I almost couldn’t believe it. My brother (who visited it for the first time only a month ago) said “it’s perfect.”

Corned beef ruben, Oct. 30, 2012

I proudly brought my family there on visits from out of town. I brought friends there and bragged about how close it was to my apartment, “just a three minute walk!” I introduced them to Cleetus, the warm, incredibly hospitable, friendly proprietor extraordinaire. I became a regular along with my wife, and we got to know the rest of the wonderful staff as well. I spent hundreds there over the past 12 months without giving it a second thought, and would spend twice as much in the next 6 months given the chance. This place was special.

Who knows, six months from now I may not even be living here in Chicago anymore. But wherever I end up, I envisioned myself returning to Chicago frequently, going back to City Provisions again and again. It was the only place that I felt completely confident that I could buy anything on the menu without contributing to the industrial food economy in any way. It was the only place I felt that I could order any meat on the menu without worrying about where it might have come from. (And yet I usually asked anyhow because not only did they know, but they loved to tell you all about its provenance.) It was the only place I felt confident that everything I bought and ate or drank was produced, grown, cultivated, butchered, hand-processed, hand-crafted, cooked, pickled, smoked, brewed, grilled, braised, baked, pulled, assembled, and served with the utmost care and passion. It was the only place like it.

A City Provisions specialty: Sunday Brunch. Simply the best 
eggs benedict I've had anywhere. Ever.

Part of why this one bothers me so much is because it feels like a defeat. Defeat of the “food movement” (whatever that means) in some small way. Cleetus himself said, “I found that sustainability - an undying commitment to what that means - wasn't sustainable.” I’ve spent so much time talking to people about food, our food culture, our food industry, and everything that I think is wrong with it, and everything that I’d like it to be. Many of the arguments against such a dramatic change in the way we do things have been economically based, and I’ve tried to argue that they’re unfounded, that doing things differently is economically viable. What has happened here has raised the uncomfortable question, “well, are they?”

cp italian, with Carburetor Rye Bock.

Cleetus Heetus Aquavit Bloody Mary 
with charcuterie spear.

On Sunday afternoon, January 27, 2013, at about 2:30 p.m., I was headed back into the city from Glenview, hungry for a belated lunch. It occurred to me that they were open until 3 pm on Sundays, and a sandwich from City Provisions sounded perfect. I called in and talked to Eric, one of the guys who had been working there as long as I had been going there. I ordered a cp Italian: “assorted cured and smoked meats, parmesan, seasonal vegetable giardinera, oregano balsamic, baguette.” They had been out of the giardinera for a little while, which I knew, and as such they hadn’t been serving too many cp italians as of late. But I really wanted one anyhow and pressed on. Eric suggested getting it with some pickled red onions in lieu of the giardinera, and although the giardinera is an integral part of it, in my yearning for a cp italian I accepted his suggestion. I picked it up at about 2:58 pm, right before they closed. I briefly chatted with everyone as usual. Then I took it home, cut it in half, carefully plated it up like I always do with all take out - always - and enjoyed the hell out of it, sandwich, delicious homemade chips, wonderfully and curiously spiced pickle spear and all. Of course it was delicious. 

The last "cp italian," and the last

sandwich made by City Provisions.

I don’t know if I would have preferred to have known that it was the last sandwich that City Provisions would make. I probably would have been more sad while eating it, and thus unable to really enjoy it. I supposed I’m glad it happened the way it did, if it had to happen at all. I was the last customer at City Provisions, and as soon as Cleetus figures out what he’s doing next, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure I’m one of the first customers at his next stop.

Cheers to you, Cleetus. Thanks for an incredible place!

Fresher produce

Mrs. Absalom's done a fair bit of gardening over the last couple summers in the limited space we had in our former domicile in Chicago.  Every last tomato fell prey to the neighbourhood squirrels, but the basil fared much better, producing plenty of pesto, caprese salads, and pizza toppings.  This spring she embarked on an ambitious program of growing a wide variety of vegetables from seeds, starting them inside.  Unfortunately, they did none too well when they were moved outside; we were forced to scrap them all and regroup.  Our new plants - including basil, bell peppers, hot peppers, strawberries, and several varieties of tomatoes - are sprouting happily and showing prodigious progress every day.

In the meantime, our friends Craig and Caitlyn, who've done a lot of planting on their property last year and this spring (including a few fruit trees), gifted us an ample bag of mint leaves they harvested.  We love having great, fresh produce from our friends' garden, but we've really had to dig for ideas on how to use all of this mint.  We're not big mixed drink fans normally, so I don't foresee a lot of mint juleps or mojitos in our future.  After a bit of online research, Mrs. Absalom decided to candy a few of the leaves, then use them as a garnish on toasted graham crackers with quality chocolate and organic strawberries and blueberries.  To say this turned out well would be an understatement.

More ideas for getting the most out of the rest of this crop would be greatly welcomed.  If nothing else, I'll make a tincture with it to give brewing a mint stout another shot next winter.

This has brought me back to thinking on the issue of eating organic versus local foods.  Much as Brs. Abelard and Thelonious have mentioned here recently, we've really come to value knowing the origins and treatment of what we eat in the last few years.  Mrs. Absalom and I usually select as much certified organic food, especially produce, as possible; avoiding extra chemicals is certainly better for our personal health.  Ideally, we'd like to be able to buy organic and local - reducing the distance our food travels and supporting local businesses would definitely be our preference - but it seems like it's difficult to have it both ways at this point, especially in a climate that's less than ideal for farming of even moderate scale.

Fortunately, we're not without options altogether here, most notably Wyomatoes (their basil is also great) and Creminelli Meats; in addition, our local Whole Foods occasionally offers locally raised heritage meats.  The Order has discussed recently what it would take to find locally produced organic brewing ingredients; Dave Logsdon of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales (and founder of Wyeast) just spoke of his own work on this in a Q&A on sour beer blog Embrace the Funk.  And on the East Coast there's Valley Malt, whose Malt of the Month Club makes me wish I were back in New England.  At this point, it's tough to be a year-round organic locavore in many areas; for now, though, we'll keep growing in our small space and making the best-informed choices we can.


- Br. Absalom

A Garden Meal

Okay, so it wasn't precisely a garden meal; after all, there was actually only one ingredient from the garden which actually was ready to be in the meal, but still, it was the first harvest from our garden, so I thought I'd write up a post about it...especially considering Br. Thelonious and I were recently lamenting about the lack of cooking/food posts on the site.

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past (6 years ago), in which I would not have batted an eye at eating a meal where all of the offerings had come already prepared from a box, tube, jar, or some other container. Add water, heat, and "enjoy". Fortunately I've traveled a long way since then, to the point where it's highly unlikely that anything in a meal has been pre-prepared, pre-made, etc. For the vast percentage of Americans, however, this is not their reality, and it hurts my soul to think about. Wendell Berry sums it up best when he writes:

"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous, substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality."

Yes, it can take time to make a meal from scratch (though it doesn't always have to), but the reward of knowing every ingredient that is in the meal, and hopefully from where it came and how it was produced, far outweighs the reward of convenience.

This meal consisted of two offerings: a Spring garden salad with goat cheese, and oven-baked macaroni and cheese. For the salad, Katherine and I harvested radishes from our garden and to them added carrots which we had peeled into thin slices. "But where are the greens!?", I hear you asking frantically. Worry not: we simply cut off the tops of the radishes, chopped them up, and used those as the greens. To that we added goat cheese, then combined lemon juice, melted butter, salt, and pepper and tossed it all together. The result, of course, was delicious:

 

The macaroni and cheese was also fairly simple (Katherine suggested this), which required neither a bechamel sauce nor par-boiling the pasta: combine the liquid with the pasta and the cheese; bake it, and you're good to go. I ended up blending milk, yogurt, butter, spices (I used salt, pepper, nutmeg, and habanero powder), then mixing in the pasta with some smoked cheddar and provolone, and baking for an hour in the oven. Again, the result, paired with Sierra Nevada Torpedo (seen in background):

It was a fantastic meal, made even more so because it utilized our first garden harvest. I look forward to the day when we can harvest multiple things at once, and make an entire meal from them all. 

~Br. Abelard