Last Friday was my birthday! I am a big believer in making birthdays extra special. I started my day with a massage, then went to the Chicago Art Institute to fill my eyeballs with art, and read a book while having a lovely caramel cappuccino and lemon cream cheese danish. For dinner, Niles and I had reservations at Thattu. It was outstanding!

Thattu isn’t far from us, but for some ridiculous reason we hadn’t made it there for a full dinner yet. Which is a crying shame, because everything was delicious! Thattu’s dishes are inspired by cuisine from Kerala, on India’s southwestern coast, and everything we ate and drank was incredible. Deliciously layered flavors, fabulously balanced spices: Niles and I kept changing our minds about which plates were our favorites. The mushrooms were phenomenal. I would have bought a gallon of the cambodge gravy that comes on the chemeen and kappa dish. I’m embarrassingly late to this party, but Thattu is a gem of a restaurant, and you should absolutely go eat there.

Then the next day, I had an afternoon dance party at Cole’s with all my favorite people, and then we all ate pizza at Paulie Gee’s. It was as good as birthdays get, I think. ^_^

Upcoming things:

This coming Saturday, February 28, I will be at the Avondale Arts Market in Chicago! It’s in a gorgeous looking event space near Diversey and Pulaski. I won’t have the cocktail book yet, but I will have postcards with a recipe for the Clover Club on them to hand out. ^_^

Other Event Dates so far are here! I’ll be updating this page as more things get confirmed. If you want this exclusive cocktails art print, you can preorder the book through Challengers Comics!

What I’m into lately:

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been asking good friends what their favorite books are and tossing them in my library queue. This week I have been reading Blindness by José Saramago, recommended by my friend Theo. It’s a little more brutal in places than I was expecting, but it’s told very poetically. Between last week’s Station Eleven and this book, I have been thinking a lot about how humans behave when our institutions fail us.

What Toki’s into lately:

This is hardly a recent thing, but Toki’s favorite thing in the world is getting this brush on his face or chin. He likes it so much that he starts licking the air, which makes for some great photos. ^_^

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