Mindy Segal

Everyone knows Charlie Trotter as the chef of Charlie Trotter's. It's his name, his restaurant, and he's the boss. But that title “chef” has many meanings, and Trotter has embodied just about all of them during his 25 years at Charlie Trotter'...

From one end of the United States to the other, Southern cooking is hot. And while Chicago doesn't abound with Southern dining options, restaurants like Big Jones, Table Fifty-Two and The Southern — to say nothing of our growing crop of Southern-...

I don't know if teachers still do this, but at the end of each school year, I was handed a summer reading list, a sheet of required and optional books that would prepare students for the coming school year. (I still owe a measure of revenge to the teacher...

Graham Elliot was an aspiring young cook in the late '90s carrying steaks to a party of 20 in the Charlie Trotter's Studio Kitchen when the restaurant's brilliant, mercurial owner stopped him in the hallway and grabbed one of the pieces of meat. "He...

Adrienne Lo and Abraham Conlon, the proprietors of the hugely popular new Chinese-Portuguese restaurant Fat Rice in Logan Square, are interesting looking, the kind of couple you see around town and wonder what their deal is. I've seen them around for...

Taste, as a jazz musician once noted, is manifested in the notes one declines to play. In that regard, Danny Grant is a taste master. The original chef de cuisine and now executive chef at Ria, the magnificent dining room within the Elysian hotel and...

Paul Kahan is the opposite of an enigma. He is easily explained. He is pleased by simple pleasures. He defines his life by four pillars: chef, record-store geek, husband, law-abiding citizen. Everything else is noise. In judgment, he renders halfway...

For the Sun WineFest's 10th year, famed cookbook author and James Beard award winner Dorie Greenspan pulled together a cookie recipe representing three facets of her life: a vanilla French sablé base with cherries, cranberries and raisins cooked in mulled...

Jared Rouben seems to spend just as much time at the farmers market as he does at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub, where he has been a brewer for four years. So it's not much of a surprise that the new brewery he plans to launch will focus on what he...

Hot buttered rum: It's that time of year when archaic hot cocktails saturate beverage menus everywhere. But at Mindy's Hot Chocolate in Bucktown, beverage director Alex Gara pulls off a neat trick — twisting a timeless recipe by upping the...

Here's a mini tradition that I wish would catch on in a big way: New Year's Day pajama brunch. There's nothing quite so entertaining as sitting down to brunch in a room full of nominal adults wearing brightly colored flannel. Factor in the condition in...

DESSERT Hot Chocolate 1747 N. Damen Ave. 773-489-1747 It’s true that this restaurant serves one of the best burgers in town, but the name should be your hint to save room for the sweets. James Beard Foundation award-winning pastry chef Mindy Segal...