Chicago, Chicago, That Toddlin’ Town

Before I start, I just have to put this question out there….what on earth is a toddlin’ town?

All that aside, however, I felt as though I was in Chicago on Saturday. Bill and I spent the day at Arizona’s own Wrigleyville in Mesa.

The Cubs have been holding their spring training in Mesa for 50 years. For those 50 years, it has worked well, because half of the retired population of Illinois comes to Mesa during the winter. In fact, I think a full third of all of the people I complain about blocking the aisles in the grocery stores and holding up the lines in the restaurants are boasting Illinois license plates and Go Illini bumper stickers. And let’s just be really honest. Most of the people who live in Illinois are Cubs fans. A few die-hards that live on the south side of Chicago root for the White Sox, but during baseball season, everyone is a Cubs fan. They proudly wear their t-shirts that say 1908 World Champions.

However, a few years ago, in this day and age of big sports money, the Cubs organization gave the City of Mesa a real scare. Give us some big time tax dollars or we will move our spring training to Florida, who really, really wants us, they told the city fathers and mothers. Yikes.

So, with great foresight and even greater spending money, the city underwent a massive marketing campaign, asking the citizens of Mesa to approve a tax increase to fund a brand new facility that they refer to as Little Wrigleyville. The powers-that-be promised the city would benefit from more people coming to spend their hard-earned dollars in Mesa, and a great deal of urban beautification.

The citizens of Mesa, despite the trend towards turning down every single attempt at tax increases, passed this measure handily, and the new Wrigleyville is the result. Saturday was their grand opening – a free event to show the people of Mesa what their hard-earned tax dollars have built.

And it is beautiful.

Bill and I started off our day at Portillo’s – a well-known Chicago eatery that

features hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches and crispy onion rings and hot French fries and, as an afterthought, a few salads. The first Arizona Portillo’s opened a couple of years ago in Scottsdale, just north of the Salt River Stadium where the D-Backs and the Rockies have their spring training. A few months ago, they opened a second location near the Cubs facility. Brilllllllliant!

I think anyone who had ever even cut across the corner of Illinois was present on Saturday to see the new facility, Bill and me included of course. Our tummies full of hot dogs and Italian

beef sandwiches, we walked around and saw the ball field, sat in the seats, tried out the restrooms, scoped out our seats for the games for which we have already gotten tickets – one in February, one in March. A full half of the people were dressed in Cubs shirts and/or hats. There were actual tailgaters, apparently getting into practice for the real spring training

season that will be here before you know it. Brats and Old Style beer abounded.

The weather was perfect and the crowd was in a great mood. We had a great deal of fun and it got us in the mood for the spring training season.

Go Rockies! (But don’t tell the Cubs I said so.)

In honor of long-time Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, here is his recipe for a good ol’ Chicago favorite.

Harry Caray’s Chicken Vesuvio

Ingredients
1 cup frozen peas
2 whole cleaned (4 pound) roasting chickens
1 cup olive oil
4 large Idaho potatoes
10 cloves whole garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon dry oregano
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1/3 cup chopped parsley
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Process
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Blanch the peas by putting them in boiling water 1 minute. Joint each chicken into 8 pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters lengthwise. In a large roasting pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the potatoes and garlic cloves and sauté the potatoes until golden brown, stirring so they cook evenly. Remove the garlic cloves from the roasting pan and discard them. Remove the potatoes and set aside.

Add the chicken to the pan and sauté lightly on both sides of each piece until it is golden brown. Deglaze the pan with the wine and reduce by half.

Return the potatoes to the pan. Season the potatoes and chicken with the salt, pepper, oregano, granulated garlic, and parsley. Add the chicken broth and transfer the pan to the oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees.
Place the chicken on a serving plate and arrange the potatoes around the chicken. Pour the sauce from the pan over the chicken and sprinkle the peas on top.

Nana’s Notes: I use chicken thighs, and cut the recipe by at least half. I leave out the peas Bill is not a big fan of the pea, and they really are mainly for color. Giada De Laurentis suggests artichoke hearts or lima beans, but I think either of those would just be showing off, so I leave out a vegetable. I prepare the dish in an oven-safe skillet to roast, or prepare the dish in the skillet and then move it to a roasting pan to finish.