NOT YOUR TYPICAL TASTE
No tickets, no special portions as food fest moves to storefronts and the cloud
The annual Taste of Chicago, like most events that are adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, won’t be the same as many Chicagoans — and tourists — expect.
This year, foodies can experience a “re-imagined” Taste Wednesday through Sunday both online and via 42 food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurant participants.
With no pre-purchased tickets required and no “Taste portions” in sight, customers can order regular menu items online or visit the eateries and food trucks while adhering to social distancing guidelines.
“This concept is meant to reconnect the restaurant community with Chicago’s hungry crowd in a new, safe, and convenient environment,” said Abigail Barrios, the operations manager for Aztec Dave’s Food Truck Inc. “These items are not meant to be Taste items because the concept of the festival cannot be re-created in its full sense. The items listed [at TasteofChicago.us] are full-priced and were chosen because they are the most popular items on our menu.”
A food truck procession is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning at Grant Park’s Buckingham Fountain.
Also, a slate of free online programming including cooking demonstrations, virtual music and dance events is featured.
Some Taste eateries around the city, accustomed to the up-close and personal format that Grant Park provides in normal summers, say they will gladly take the publicity amid the pandemic.
“It is important for us to be a part of Taste of Chicago to create awareness about our product,” said Chloe Robinson, manager of Barangaroos Aussie Pies, a Lake View eatery that specializes in Australian Pies that can be stuffed with chopped steak, sliced mushrooms and red and green peppers, among other ingredients. “Australian-style meat pies are a very new concept, and a lot of people still don’t know about it.”
It will be a very different experience for those who revel in the annual summer lakefront tradition.
“Eateries were not required to provide special incentives or menu items to participate in Taste of Chicago To-Go,” Christine Carrino, communications director for the city’s cultural affairs department, said in a statement. “Taste of Chicago To-Go also offers online cooking demonstrations by local chefs, digital music and dance programming and Community Eats meals benefiting neighborhood organizations and essential workers.”
Some of the food trucks, such as Whadda Jerk, a food truck that specializes in jerk eats, plan to pass out food at Mount Sinai Hospital to first responders and hospital employees through the city’s Community
Eats program.
Some eateries, who were given a chance to back out of the Taste after it was the Grant Park event was canceled, were offered re-enrollment into the platform — with no enrollment fee.
“We have been a part of the Taste since 2018 and have enjoyed it, said Asana Nakornchai, owner of BITES Asian Kitchen + Bar. “Our goal has always been to introduce Chicagoans
to new Asian flavors (East meets West 2.0) and Taste of Chicago is a great platform to do so. Even though we could not be serving everyone at Grant Park this year, we are hoping people will still come out and visit us on our cozy patio or enjoy our curbside pickup/delivery.”
You can find more info on this year’s Taste of Chicago in the Taste section of Wednesday’s Chicago Sun-Times and at
“Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it’s all the same.” — Andy Samberg’s Nyles, speaking the truth in “Palm Springs.”
In the 1993 Harold Ramis classic “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray’s Phil goes it alone. He’s the only one doomed to repeating the same day, over and over and OVER, while the townsfolk of Punxsutawney as well as Phil’s producer (and eventual love interest) Rita and his cameraman Larry are all oblivious to their roles in Phil’s time-lock spiritual journey.
It would be folly to discuss the smart and charming and wickedly funny “Palm Springs” without noting the obvious influence of “Groundhog Day,” but there are variations on the main theme, most notably in that Andy Samberg’s Nyles isn’t the only one repeating the same day on a continual loop. Well, he WAS alone, for hundreds and hundreds of days, but now he has company after inadvertently dragging a stranger named Sarah into the vortex — and to say Sarah’s not happy about it doesn’t begin to describe her reaction.
Like “Groundhog Day” (and “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Happy Death Day” and “Russian Doll” and in a way “50 First Dates”), “Palm Springs” is a comedy/drama with a metaphysical twist, and the formula has rarely been mined to such resounding success. This is one of the funniest movies of the year AND one of the most romantic movies as well, thanks to the sure-handed and light directorial touch of Max Barbakow; a nomination-worthy screenplay by Andy Siara; the immensely charming lead performances by Samberg as Nyles and Cristin Milioti, and a great supporting cast led by J.K Simmons, Peter Gallagher and Camila Mendes.
“Palm Springs” hits the ground running, with Samberg’s Nyles already trapped in the same 24 hours — Saturday, Nov. 9, the wedding day of Tala (Mendes) and Abe (Tyler Hoechlin). Nyles is there as the plus-one of his girlfriend, Misty (Meredith Hagne), an irritatingly self-consumed Instagram model who wakes up Nyles, reluctantly agrees to have sex with him, and then cuts short the lovemaking because she doesn’t want to smudge her makeup and she needs to get ready for the big day.
This happens. Every. Morning.
The first time we see Nyles living it up at the posh, outdoor wedding reception, it’s clear he has on some level come to accept and even embrace his inexplicable predicament. He’s clad in inappropriate yellow shorts and bright Hawaiian shirt, he shocks the guests and the staffers with how much he knows about their lives (shades of the diner scene in “Groundhog Day”) and he executes some elaborately choreographed dance moves based on his knowledge of exactly how everyone else is about to move. (Samberg’s perfectly timed comedic dance routine is in the tradition of Chaplin and Groucho Marx; it’s just . . . great.)
Not that it’s all existential bliss for Nyles. For one thing, a mysteriously and apparently insane madman named Roy (Simmons), armed with a bow and arrows, keeps on surfacing with the intention of killing Nyles, who of course can’t actually be killed. And then there’s Sarah (Milioti), the bride’s older sister, who reacts to suddenly being trapped in the time loop with a series of f-bombs.
Samberg and Milioti have a winning chemistry as their characters bicker and banter and quibble, eventually form an alliance, and then of course consider the possibility of romance. Nyles has given up hope of breaking the spell or even trying to understand it; hey, if they happen to see dinosaurs in the distance on the beach one night, so be it. Sarah, meanwhile, studies quantum physics in search of a real-world solution.
Simmons does his trademark thing of taking a small-ish role and turning it into something memorable, especially in a late scene where we learn the truth about Roy’s life. As the father of the bride, Gallagher is in his comfort zone as well. Who wears expensive sweaters and oozes middle-aged, upper-class condescension better than Peter Gallagher?
“Palm Springs” doesn’t get bogged down in the who or why of what has happened to Nyles and then Sarah; how could it? We just go with it, and whether or not these two ever make it back to the other side, we hope they wind up together, because they are great together.