How to survive yet another trip to Indiana

heh

Fly into Chicago, grab an 18-course meal until the wee hour in the morning, stay overnight near the airport, fly out to Indiana at daybreak on a mini-plane, get your meeting done, and fly home that same evening!

That’s how.

Actually, this week has been even crazier than a simple day-trip to Indiana. It’s more like Orlando, Chicago, and Indiana, exactly one day each, and now I am safely back home.

I can’t complain though, the 18-course meal was taken at the fabulous Trio. As Louisa said, this was the end of an era. The chef, Grant Achatz, is leaving soon, and Trio will never be the same without him. I’ll post in more details about it later, promise.

This trip was also fun for another reason, meeting an old friend for the very first time. Louisa and I have been playing catch up for like a year, in a few countries no less. It’s hilarious to think that we finally caught up with each other, in Evanston, Illinois, of all places!

It was actually a funny story, how Louisa and I met (virtually). When I started posting on eG last year, someone named Lou kept answering my posts and even invited me to share a meal while in Paris. I just ignored that invitation. eG is a public site, all sorts of people post on it, prudence would not let me go to dinner with, for all I know, some big burly guy name Lou whom I’d never met!

After I came back from Paris that trip, I wrote about a few meals there, including one at Café Constant. Louisa sent me a message, furious, that I was practically on her street and didn’t tell her. That was the very first time she signed her message, Louisa. We had a good laugh over this. Had I known that she was a Louisa and not a big burly guy named Lou, I would have had lunch with her everyday. I was in Paris all alone for a few days that August. How funny. We managed to miss each other during my subsequent trips to Europe, for one reason or another, so I hadn’t a chance to meet her face to face until just yesterday.

She’s going back to Paris later this year, to work for Jean Francois Piège, after she’s done with her summer stage at El Bulli! I am green with envy.

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  • sher

    I started giggling as soon as I saw your latest post. Very clever solution your Indiana problem, I must say.
    I sure miss Chicago.
    Sher

  • Allen

    Wow, that sounds really grueling. I used to have family in Chicago, but they moved to another city. Thanks for your comment, it really made my day. :)

  • http://chezpim.typepad.com Pim

    Sher, I know. :-) I think this will be how I deal with my future trips to Indiana from now on.
    Allen, you’re welcome. Thanks for yours. :-)
    Pim

  • christine

    Boy am I sorry to hear this. We have some wonderful food here in Indiana. Not, Trio, I grant you, but it gets better every year. Holler next time you are out our way and I’ll point you in the right direction.

  • http://chezpim.typepad.com Pim

    Christine,
    I’m sure you do. Indianapolis is a nice town I hear, but unfortunately that was not my destination. I was at this tiny town called Kendalville, whose name I kept mispronouncing as “ken-dal-veel” to fool myself.
    Some old laday at the airport in Fort Wayne did a double take when I told her where I was heading…”whatever are you doing there?” she finally asked, clearly puzzled. So was I…
    cheers,
    Pim

  • christine

    Well if you end up in Fort Wayne again, find your way to Roanoke and look up a place called Joseph Decuis. The chef is a talented woman named Lisa Williams, and she takes what she does very seriously.
    I am writing a book on Indiana restaurants (the 15 best, not all of them) and there are some winners. Not all (or even most) in Indy, either. Of course, there is a lot of dross.
    By the way, I’m with you on the Passard egg. Nothing wrong with being derivative, but it marks you as, well, derivative. When the original is so exquisite, why not just do something different?