Cake and Commerce: Gambling at The Time Out Chicago Eat Out Awards Ceremony

No one from Tipsycake was interested in going with Naomi to the Time Out Chicago First Annual Eat Out Awards last Monday. So she recruited me to be her date.

I tore out of the company parking garage at 5:30, a half an hour later than I was supposed to leave. I called Naomi to let her know I was running late. "You're not backing out on me, are you? Cause I'm counting on you." No, I assured her, I was going to go with her, but I would be late, cutting short the free drinking we would presumably be doing before the awards ceremony began.

I arrived at Tipsycake 10 minutes before our taxi was scheduled to arrive. We opted for the taxi because of the challenges of parking around the Harold Washington Library, where the ceremony was taking place. The evening was unusually warm so I showed up in an Australian sun dress by Gorman that I had purchased in Melbourne back in December, in part to honor Naomi, who is from Sydney.

At Harold Washington Library, we were directed to the top floor, the Winter Garden Room. It is an airy, bright sun room at the top of the library. There are trees and flowers and it has the feel of a function hall in the suburbs. Famous names and faces from every segment of the Chicago dining scene was there, from Hot Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's (the foie gras avenger) to pretty boy tv star Rick Bayless to the bartenders of Chicago's finest dive bars. It was a diverse and unusual crowd - and given the industry presence, it made sense that the ceremony was taking place on a Monday, the nearly universal day off for restaurants.

Naomi and I stood by the door to intercept the servers as they brought out platters of food. There were pieces of chicken piled on a cucumber (I dropped a few), pieces of mozzarella with a dollop of tomato, and grilled cheese sandwiches on a stick made to resemble lollipops. Naomi made a beeline to the booze table and threw tips to the bartenders to ensure her glass would always be full. I found myself standing in the wrong place every time another tray came out and had to follow the servers around the room, trying to nab another free morsel.

We were assigned to unlucky table 13. After we took our seats, Naomi turned to me for reassurance. "Do you think Tipsycake will win?" she asked. "No," I answered, "BomBon is going to win." I figured Laura Cid Perea's third restaurant/cafe/bakery was a shoe-in for the "Best New Bakery" honor. I can be a jerk.

Soon we were joined at our table by Chef GEB of Avenues, his front of the house manager, his sous chef, and the PR rep for the Peninsula Hotel and Avenues. They were nominated for best hotel restaurant.

I knew about Chef GEB from his posts on LTHForum.com . I had never met him, and I was surprised that he was as young as he was. The first and only question I asked him that night (he spent the rest of the night glad handling admirers and texting someone on his phone) was about his food. "So," I asked. "What do you call your cuisine? Some people have lumped you in to the molecular gastronomy camp. Others prefer to call it 'new cookery.' What do you call your cooking?"

Without missing a beat, he answered, "Contemporary Cuisine, or Chef GEB's cuisine."

I asked him what contemporary cuisine meant. It just seemed like a meaningless term for the food he was turning out of his kitchen. The explanation was cut short by the arrival of a few more associates who showed up to shake his hand.

The servers began bringing out platters of food as we waited for the award ceremony to begin. They brought out crudites, a plate of desserts, rice paper filled with rice, shrimp, and a sweet and hot sauce, and roast beef on choux pastry. Realizing that we had a long, boring ceremony ahead, I suggested to the table that we bet on the outcome of the Eat Out awards.

There were plenty of 'ballots' on the table, so each of us took one and filled out our picks for winners. Five dollars was the price of entry. By the time the awards began, we had eight people submitting ballots for a total of $40 - low stakes but enough to make the proceedings more tolerable.

I kept tally during the awards, giving points and taking off marks for each category. My score keeping was momentarily interrupted when Tipsycake unexpectedly won the Best New Bakery Award.

Yep, she won! And pulled me up on stage with her. I tried to stay to the side so that she would get all the attention and that I would - hopefully - stay out of photographs. That hope was short lived when we were pulled aside and told to pose for the camera. Luckily Time Out opted to not post our photo to their website. While she still stood on stage, Naomi grabbed the microphone and yelled out, "Aussie Aussie Aussie."

There was no response from the audience. I yelled out "Oy Oy Oy!" from my perch at the side of the stage, but since I wasn't near the microphone, I doubt anyone heard.

Back at our table, I caught up with the categories I had missed scoring. I added up the numbers after the last award - for best fine dining - had been given to Alinea. While I scored an impressive 12 points, Susan, the PR person from the Peninsula, cleaned up with 14 points. "I eat out a lot," she explained. I don't, but I try and remember what I hear about places in Chicago. Unsurprisingly, my Achilles heel was bars and pubs. I'm really pretty clueless when it comes to the 'in' dive bars in Chicago. I'm more of a stay-in-and-drink person. You know, cheap.

Susan gloated over her win:

But our night wasn't over then. One of Naomi's TOC Eat Out "Best New Bakery" competitors, Natalie Zarzour of Pasticceria Natalina, a four-week old bakery in the Andersenville neighborhood on the northside, approached her to congratulate her on the win. Of course, because I had been on stage first, she turned to me to tell me how much she wanted to meet me. Gently I directed her to Naomi, who would be delighted to be congratulated. Natalie, who brought her husband and business partner Nick along, was a sincere and earnest 24 year old who had opened up her bakery using old family recipes from Sicily. She and her husband were the main staff, and had been experiencing issues around labor similar to those at Tipsycake (hard to find bakers, high labor costs, etc). Naomi and Natalie immediately hit it off.

We ended up downstairs in Nick and Natalie's car, talking, smoking and drinking wine with the owner of the L&L, a well-known old man dive bar in the middle of Boystown. He was grumpy and fun, with a shock of white hair, a dangly earring, and a natty jacket, worn just for the occasion. We were a motley crew, hanging out in a late model Jetta parked just under the el tracks. No one took any notice of us.