For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.

The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them.

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.

Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York.

I don't like taking pain medicine, so I was willing to try anything.

Eat well, eat right, make your food your medicine