Nobody Puts Chicken Vesuvio In The Corner

Trying to give some love to a Chicago classic

For some reason, in 2018, I decided I wanted to write about tavern style pizza and how it’s the true pizza of Chicago. Deep dish is a Chicago thing, but it’s not the thing. You can’t eat it that often, and unless you go to Pequod’s or one of the other spots that do it well, then you’re likely going to get stuck among a mass of tourists trying to figure out if they use their hands or a knife and fork to eat it. I like deep dish maybe once a year, but tavern style sits next to only the proper greasy New York City slice as my favorite type of pizza overall. I’ll gladly let you get me a table at Lucali and I’ll never say no to a Neapolitan at Una Pizza Napoletana or a stop in New Haven for apizza, but my preferences are pretty set and stone, and I convinced Bon Appetit to let me go deep into why. Also, not to toot my own horn, but I think I was asking why Italian beef wasn’t a bigger thing beyond Chicago long before The Bear, but that’s another story for another time. Right now, I want to discuss another Chicago delicacy that I’m hellbent on getting people to try. So much so, that on July 26th, my friends at Gertie in Williamsburg asked Emily and I to curate a menu and host a dinner in their space, and I’ve asked them to make chicken Vesuvio as my main course. Emily’s is her grandma' Ruth’s delicious sweet and sour meatballs, but I went with the chicken dish because it was also my grandma’s. Except instead of actually making it, Nana only claimed she did, when the truth was that she was just an expert at getting takeout and putting it on a plate. Finding out Nana’s chicken Vesuvio was made at a restaurant up the block stands right next to finding out her world-famous chicken was actually…rotisserie chicken from the local Dominick’s.

Chicken Vesuvio is a funny dish because everybody I ever talk to who moved somewhere from Chicago seems just as mystified as I do that people outside of the Windy City aren’t familiar with it. There’s nothing specifically of the city about it; it’s not like the hot dog with its garden of toppings that all have some connection back to the various ethnic enclaves around the city where the iconic weiner obscured by all the onions, relish, mustard, tomatoes, and all the other ingredients grew out of like a meat flower from a crack in the Maxwell Street sidewalk. It’s a chicken dish with some potatoes on the side, so it does have the blue-collar “meat and potatoes” thing going for it. It’s a relatively simple prep, with white wine, garlic, capers, and oregano coating the chicken that you bake until the skin is perfectly crisp. It’s a Chicago thing because some restaurant in Chicago made it a thing, but the taste profile probably sounds like something you may have just whipped together one night without realizing there’s a name for what you made. Either way, it’s delicious.

We’re also adding another staple in the Goldsher-Diamond household that we’re calling “Jewish Style Cacio e Pepe.” Emily and I both love this dish, and I’m pretty sure if you had parents or grandparents from Eastern Europe that maybe you had some variation on it, but it’s egg noodles with butter, cottage cheese, and pepper mixed in. When we can’t decide on what we want to eat, one of us will look at the other and go, “How about egg noodles” and the other will smile because it’s really the perfect, easiest dish in the world.

Tickets can be purchased at Resy.

Other notes

The New York Times made a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century and as somebody who made their living putting together lists of books, I can tell you that most book lists are dumb. Not all of them are, and the Times certinally put together a smart list of titles. Do I agree with everything on it? Do I think both Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward could be in the top 3 and not in the 30s? Absolutely! Do I think The Ask by Sam Lipsyte should have been on it? Yes! Do I agree with my friend Jami that Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is one of the best of the century? Not only do I wholeheartedly feel that same way, I also think one or two of Jami’s books should have made the list. And while I’m happy Philip Roth got a couple of titles on there, noting Joshua Cohen’s The Netanyahus as a book you should read if you like The Plot Against America and not actually putting Cohen’s great, very timely, Pulitzer-winning book on the list, feels like a pretty glaring omission. Also surprised by the lack of The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart, which might be one of the last great Gen. X novels before Gen. X started creaking towards middle-age, and the fact that My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan didn’t get on the list. I see so many young fiction writers trying to figure out how Moshfegh does what she does, and her impact will only grow, while McClanahan might seem like a darkhorse, but I think it makes sense. I talk to so many younger writers outside of the NYC literary bubble who are obsessed with him, and Giancarlo DiTrapano’s legacy as an editor and tastemaker is stronger than ever three years after his death. I think either of those would have made sense. I also think about a dozen more translated books could have made it on the list. Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue is a masterpiece, and if you’re going to put Lucia Berlin’s teriffic collection on the list, why not also give Clarice Lispector some room? Like Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lispector’s collection of stories is made up of stuff that came up decades ago, so obviously not all the material on the list needs to have been written or even published in this century.

But I digress. It’s a nice list. You know my favorite part? The artwork. I love the look of all those used books as photos. It’s a nice touch.

Abercrombie & Fitch is back…again! If you know anything about the brand, you know the history of A&F goes back waaaaay waaaaaaay way further than your high school days in the 1990s when all the most obnoxious kids in your class wore their shirts. Chantal Fernandez at The Cut had a really interesting look into the rebrand and how sometimes getting rid of the logo is all it takes.