It was like this, but green.
Have you ever lit a single candle on a birthday cupcake all by yourself and blown it out seconds later in complete silence? It is impossible to pull it off and not seem like the most depressed person alive. Before I tell that story, here is a fried chicken review and the provenance of the cupcake.
On Saturday November 5th I turned 37. Yo: I look 35, so it’s not like I’m sweating it. An ex-girl of mine invited me out to dinner for my birthday. It’s cool, our relationship is completely de-militarized. Knowing my obsession with fried chicken, she suggested Lillie’s Q in Chicago. She claimed it was the best fried chicken she ever had. I can’t ignore bold claims like that, so consented. We went this past Tuesday night.
On Saturday November 5th I turned 37. Yo: I look 35, so it’s not like I’m sweating it. An ex-girl of mine invited me out to dinner for my birthday. It’s cool, our relationship is completely de-militarized. Knowing my obsession with fried chicken, she suggested Lillie’s Q in Chicago. She claimed it was the best fried chicken she ever had. I can’t ignore bold claims like that, so consented. We went this past Tuesday night.
Lillie’s is a barbecue place, hence that cryptic “q” in the title. The menu and the décor lean heavily on a southern theme. The ambience is hipster chic, like every other place in the tattoo-ridden land of Bucktown, but they serve the food on metal cafeteria trays. Yes, just like the ones used as weapons in prison movies. The beers are served in slim pint glasses. Of course I am kidding: they are served in Mason jars. So authentic. My ex-old lady asked for a sample of some beer and it came out in a mini-Mason jar. No lie. Appetizers appear on the menu as “For The Table,” so I assume dinner is “For My Lap.” The list featured such southern delights as hush puppies (not the shoe), fried pickles, boiled peanuts, and Bill Faulkner’s Cheez Stix. I made up the last one.
Entrees are divided unevenly between “Q” and “Non-Q,” with the Q—as you would expect-- playing the lead role. I was there for the Non-Q. I could do bits galore about the tri-tips and hot links and all the other stuff on the menu. Shit, brother, it would be easy. Even at 37. But screw it. I got nothin’ to prove to no man. Without further adieu here is the fried chicken report:
It’s not actually fried chicken. It’s smoked fried chicken, and “smoked” is no mere adjective. It is smoked chicken and it is fried chicken, an absolute collision of taste. As smoked chicken, it's great. Slow cooked till the texture is tender and the hue a pinkish glow. I could really taste the sequoia. As fried chicken, it’s also excellent. Buttermilk-soaked and then battered in what my ex-lady claims is “that really fine Japanese flour.” My breast was a tad dry, but what can you do: the breast is the worst part of the bird, as I said before. The leg and the thigh were both cooked perfectly.
However, the flavor collision was, in the end, problematic: there was just way too much going on. As an appetizer—wait, I’m sorry… As a For The Table, it would have blown my mind and then been over long before I could feel overwhelmed with taste. As an entrée, I found it too much. It was like a Cameron Crowe movie—it did not know what it wanted to be.
Still, it was quite good, but probably not something I would try again. Two reasons:
1. Note I did not mention the wing. What is with chicken places in Bucktown? In my previous review (linked above) I went to Dee’s Place on Dee-vision, and they also only gave me three pieces. Four pieces is de rigueur since God Herself first crafted the chicken as (Genesis 2:7) “[A]n eight-piece flightless bird ideal for the deep fryer, easily divisible into halves or quarters.” To Christians like me, 3/8ths of God’s finest creation is an abomination. Yet do they care in Bucktown, that ecstasy ridden den of apostasy and fixed-gear bikes? Evidently not.
2. It cost 18 bucks and had no sides. Hey, I am all about fried chicken taking top spot on a menu, price-wise. Charge me an arm and a leg, but include the frickin’ wing and give me some mashed potatoes. Don’t flip me upside down and shake the change out of my pockets like some goon. I got a side of macaroni, and admittedly it was fantastic. Better than the chicken. Some kind of white cheese melted to kick-assness with another or the same kind of cheese shredded on top, plus a bunch of crumbly things added to make it a bit crunchy. It was the sort of macaroni that makes you want to call your mom and say thanks for, like, everything. Even still, I wish it just came with my meal.
I admit my objection is mainly a mathematical and psychological bias. I don’t like having to add my bake potato to my bill at a steak house. In my belief system, (Catholicism), the potato is assumed. Here, if they charged 25 for the smoked fried chicken and included a side, I’d have paid more and bitched less. I admit that that’s silly. But hey—you don’t include a wing, you don’t get a good review. So there.
And now, the cupcake:
My former boo brought it and a candle. She also gave me a nice card and a few books I lent her a few years back. (In the interest of protecting her identity, I will call her Alexica DuPrey.) I had two beers and a fullish belly (yeah, even without my precious wing) so after all that I felt that the cupcake was a bridge too far. I asked Alexica if I could take it home and eat it later.
“Yes,” she said in her sultry Eurasian accent. “But take-a thee candle. You must enflame-a you cupcake and sing youself thee song. Happy birthday a-to a-me, Happy birthday a-to a-me! Oh! And you make-a thee wish our I cry then sometime and make sad.”
I kept my word and, last night, followed all of her instructions.
November 17, 2011. 37 years and 12 days. Fit, alert. Far more liberal today than I was at 20. (“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”) Sure, a gray strand occasionally makes an unwelcome appearance in the amber locks over my ears. OK, yeah—I can no longer make a fist with my left hand. I often forget where I live. But I’m still young… at heart.
Childless. Single. A career somewhere off on the horizon. It… doesn’t matter. I’ll get there. {Cough! Cough!} I’ll get there. Some day.
I had to make sure I could not be seen from my windows so I hovered in the corner of my kitchen and used my body to block the cupcake from view. This was not out of embarrassment. It was a precaution: anyone passing through my courtyard would have killed himself on the spot from a sudden and overwhelming sense of pity.
Really though, I didn’t care. I’m my own man. I'm totally comfortable with singing “Happy Birthday to Me” twelve days after it happened. Alone. In a cramped one-bedroom that I merely rent. I have no problem making a wish, taking a deep breath, and blowing out the flame while standing in a corner. It's not weird. It's totally, totally normal.
So I lit it. And then, before I knew it—out, out brief candle.
Entrees are divided unevenly between “Q” and “Non-Q,” with the Q—as you would expect-- playing the lead role. I was there for the Non-Q. I could do bits galore about the tri-tips and hot links and all the other stuff on the menu. Shit, brother, it would be easy. Even at 37. But screw it. I got nothin’ to prove to no man. Without further adieu here is the fried chicken report:
It’s not actually fried chicken. It’s smoked fried chicken, and “smoked” is no mere adjective. It is smoked chicken and it is fried chicken, an absolute collision of taste. As smoked chicken, it's great. Slow cooked till the texture is tender and the hue a pinkish glow. I could really taste the sequoia. As fried chicken, it’s also excellent. Buttermilk-soaked and then battered in what my ex-lady claims is “that really fine Japanese flour.” My breast was a tad dry, but what can you do: the breast is the worst part of the bird, as I said before. The leg and the thigh were both cooked perfectly.
However, the flavor collision was, in the end, problematic: there was just way too much going on. As an appetizer—wait, I’m sorry… As a For The Table, it would have blown my mind and then been over long before I could feel overwhelmed with taste. As an entrée, I found it too much. It was like a Cameron Crowe movie—it did not know what it wanted to be.
Still, it was quite good, but probably not something I would try again. Two reasons:
1. Note I did not mention the wing. What is with chicken places in Bucktown? In my previous review (linked above) I went to Dee’s Place on Dee-vision, and they also only gave me three pieces. Four pieces is de rigueur since God Herself first crafted the chicken as (Genesis 2:7) “[A]n eight-piece flightless bird ideal for the deep fryer, easily divisible into halves or quarters.” To Christians like me, 3/8ths of God’s finest creation is an abomination. Yet do they care in Bucktown, that ecstasy ridden den of apostasy and fixed-gear bikes? Evidently not.
2. It cost 18 bucks and had no sides. Hey, I am all about fried chicken taking top spot on a menu, price-wise. Charge me an arm and a leg, but include the frickin’ wing and give me some mashed potatoes. Don’t flip me upside down and shake the change out of my pockets like some goon. I got a side of macaroni, and admittedly it was fantastic. Better than the chicken. Some kind of white cheese melted to kick-assness with another or the same kind of cheese shredded on top, plus a bunch of crumbly things added to make it a bit crunchy. It was the sort of macaroni that makes you want to call your mom and say thanks for, like, everything. Even still, I wish it just came with my meal.
I admit my objection is mainly a mathematical and psychological bias. I don’t like having to add my bake potato to my bill at a steak house. In my belief system, (Catholicism), the potato is assumed. Here, if they charged 25 for the smoked fried chicken and included a side, I’d have paid more and bitched less. I admit that that’s silly. But hey—you don’t include a wing, you don’t get a good review. So there.
And now, the cupcake:
My former boo brought it and a candle. She also gave me a nice card and a few books I lent her a few years back. (In the interest of protecting her identity, I will call her Alexica DuPrey.) I had two beers and a fullish belly (yeah, even without my precious wing) so after all that I felt that the cupcake was a bridge too far. I asked Alexica if I could take it home and eat it later.
“Yes,” she said in her sultry Eurasian accent. “But take-a thee candle. You must enflame-a you cupcake and sing youself thee song. Happy birthday a-to a-me, Happy birthday a-to a-me! Oh! And you make-a thee wish our I cry then sometime and make sad.”
I kept my word and, last night, followed all of her instructions.
November 17, 2011. 37 years and 12 days. Fit, alert. Far more liberal today than I was at 20. (“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”) Sure, a gray strand occasionally makes an unwelcome appearance in the amber locks over my ears. OK, yeah—I can no longer make a fist with my left hand. I often forget where I live. But I’m still young… at heart.
Childless. Single. A career somewhere off on the horizon. It… doesn’t matter. I’ll get there. {Cough! Cough!} I’ll get there. Some day.
I had to make sure I could not be seen from my windows so I hovered in the corner of my kitchen and used my body to block the cupcake from view. This was not out of embarrassment. It was a precaution: anyone passing through my courtyard would have killed himself on the spot from a sudden and overwhelming sense of pity.
Really though, I didn’t care. I’m my own man. I'm totally comfortable with singing “Happy Birthday to Me” twelve days after it happened. Alone. In a cramped one-bedroom that I merely rent. I have no problem making a wish, taking a deep breath, and blowing out the flame while standing in a corner. It's not weird. It's totally, totally normal.
So I lit it. And then, before I knew it—out, out brief candle.
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