11/29/2020

Pepperland Aut 20

First apartment and first quarter of sophomore year

Moving is a notoriously time-consuming, tiresome affair, but setting up our new apartment took way longer than I expected. We found a lot of good stuff at a used hotel furniture store. The highlight of all the furniture thrift sifting and heavy lifting was acquring an onyx table for the kitchen and a lime green chair for feeling cool, modern, maybe even Scandinavian. Riding around in the back of a rental van like a dog, between shop stops, was the cherry-on-top of the practical-college-apartment assembly experience.

Valois

First year, I had never tried Valois, a Hyde Park brunch staple. This year, it was my apartment’s first meal out together. The food was not unlike most diner breakfasts, but, filled with devoted regulars and young college students, the ambiance was warmer and livelier than most.

That evening, the apartment was christened with a dinner party. I served melon and proscuitto, caprese salad, more salad (greens), Wagyu Bohemian steaks, and cacio e pepe. Yeah, the menu was a bit eh, but I wanted to serve crowd-pleasers! We didn’t have enough chairs for everyone, but it was fine, because our big, ugly couch can seat a football team. Well, not really, but a coach would definitely have this couch in his basement den. He’d host a get-together and squeeze his team onto it, right before berating the season’s performance then toasting their hard work. It wouldn’t matter if team members got their shoes on the couch, because it would already be speckled with beer foam and have Dorito crumbs in the crevices.

Lake Michigan

The lake is another thing I didn’t properly explore first year. Especially with this year’s remote learning, it was a great solace.

Hyde Park Farmers Market

Matteo, Carson, and I decided to cook from produce offered at the Hyde Park Farmers Market. There, we bumped into our incredibly warm, recently-published, Canadian, ex-model, freshman resident head. Waiting in line for some squash, brushing away Chicago’s maturing autumn chill, we caught up for a while; we smiled goodbye. Back at the apartment, we made butternut squash gnocchi from scratch and baked a dish of ratatouille.

The next afternoon, Matteo fried burgers in duck fat, using ground beef we had also acquired at the farmers market the day before.

Matteo

de Donato, dashing, debonair, burger expert.

Baby, welcome to the party

Thanks to the boys and Pop Smoke, this year my ears opened to drill/trap. Looking at these pictures from home is a bit dissociative and amusing. I couldn’t see myself wearing any of these clothes around the city.