Welcome to The Daisy Shop on Oak in Chicago
women's couture resale
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Volume 11:Number 3, August/September, 2010 Published by The DAISY Shop, women's couture resale (15 years of operation) 67 East Oak Street, 6th Floor, Chicago, IL 60611 USA (001 International +1) + (312) 943-8880 FAX: (001 International +1) + (312) 943-6660, a secure line for ordering by credit card (VISA, M\C, Disc) To “Reserve” merchandise (24 hour hold), e-mail us. E-mail address Head Daisy
Publisher: Barbara, Head Daisy Feature Writers: Ms Terry; Ms Romance Foreign Correspondents: Rym Daisy Critic Emeritus: The Daisy Mother, Bea Daisy Godmother: Marie
All prices shown $US. All sales are final sales. All merchandise is authentic, 2nd hand couture.
Our popular historical articles have been compiled into an e-book, An Interpretive History of Sorts. If you have Microsoft Reader software, you can download the e-book and read the compilation to your Aug2006IssueSubscribersPage_files's content. Click here to go to the e-book: An Interpretive History of Sorts© If you have Adobe Reader, you can access the articles in .pdf format at this link: An Interpretive History of Sorts©
By popular demand, an archive of past issues of The Perspicacious Woman OnLine is available in .pdf format. Click here to obtain any of the past three issues: Archives of The Perspicacious Woman OnLine©
THE PERSPICACIOUS WOMAN ONLINE© BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY: If you have perspicacious friends, send us their e-mail address. We’ll put them on our fashion ezine subscription list, and let them know you referred them to us. E-mail us at Editor. All email addresses are held in privacy. None will be released, distributed, sold, or traded. We thank you for your referrals. Be sure to add editor@daisyshop.com to your "Permitted" list of e-mail addresses on your e-mail program. LAY AWAY AVAILABLE AT THE DAISY SHOP! No service charge. Minimum of 30% deposit. Maximum of 4 months to pay! E-mail us at Customer Service with your FAX number and we’ll send you a form to complete and return to us via 1st Class Mail. ADVERTISING NOW ACCEPTED IN THE PERSPICACIOUS WOMAN ONLINE© Have a product or service that perspicacious women might be interested in? Perhaps, an ad in our fashion ezine might be good for you. Here’s some information: * Our proprietary, opt-in subscribers list exceeds 2,500 email addresses * 86,198 unique visitors come to our website in a two month period * 1,649,472 hits occur from these unique visitors * These website visitors spend an average of 11 minutes, 26 seconds on our website * The fashion ezine is the 2nd most popular web page on our website * Google has 4,660 listings for The Perspicacious Woman OnLine© At publisher’s discretion, advertising will be accepted in this fashion ezine. No adult content products or services, financial schemes and offers, work-at-home offers, religious, political messages, philanthropic requests will be accepted. Should your advertising contract be accepted and your payment information verifiable, the advertising contract constitutes a 2-month agreement between The Daisy Shop and you in exchange for $100 flat for the following advertising: * A text ad containing no more than 50 words (spell check, please) * A .jpg format image (72 or 96 resolution), sized 200x200 pixels * A link to your website, should you have a website; other wise, address information (part of the 50-word text) The text ad, image, and link will be published in The Daisy Shop's bi-monthly fashion ezine, The Perspicacious Woman OnLine©, located at http://daisyshop.com/newsletter.asp, at various ezine directories, various search engines, and sent one time to subscribers of The Perspicacious Woman OnLine©, a private, opt-in subscribers list, owned by The Daisy Shop, which will NOT be made available to advertisers. Deadline for text, image, and link information is 15 days prior to the publication date: October publication - September 15 December publication - November 15 February publication - January 15 April publication - March 15 June publication - May 15 August publication - July 15 Should you miss the deadline, your ad will be published in the next bi-monthly issue. The Daisy Shop, The Perspicacious Woman OnLine©, and all parties involved in these two entities are held harmless for any and all malfunctions of the Internet which prevent a two month display. No refunds or accommodations will be given in compensation. GoTo http://daisyshop.com/AdContract.htm for a printer friendly contract. FAX this to The Daisy Shop, (312) 943-6660. ADVERTISERS
Best Chicago Barbers
67 East Oak Street, 6th floor, Chicago, IL
60611
67 East Oak Street, 2nd floor
Chicago, IL 60611
Hours: Mon-Sat 10am - 6pm; closed Sun
67 East Oak Street, 4th floor Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 642-2540
Hours: Mon-Sat 9:30am-4:45pm; closed Sun
67 East Oak Street, 3rd floor Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 867-0332 Hours: Tue-Sat 9am-6pm; closed Sun-Mon Haircuts and styles for men, women and children; Up-dos and formal hair; Hair color; Hair extensions; Eyelash extensions; Brazilian Keratin treatment http://www.mondragonsalon.com/
Lisa's Nail Salon
(312) 787-3838
67 East Oak Street, 4th floor Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 266-6620 Hours: Mon-Thurs, noon-6pm; Fri 10am-3pm; closed Sat; Sun, 9am-noon selection of Judaica and giftware
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ARE YOU HAVING AN AFFAIR?
'Tis the time just before the opening performances of the Chicago Symphony (September 23, Berlioz Spectacular), Lyric Opera (October 1, MacBeth), Theatre (Here's the link: http://www.chicago-theater.com/), and you're mulling about what to wear to Opening Night and to subsequent Fall\Winter charity galas. Fret not. Staff and moi selected a medley of garments in stock for your frugal consideration. Some current couture; others Vintage, all photograph beautifully. These in larger sized photos can be viewed at this link: Party Apparel.
Here's another view of Party Apparel. You can't stop the scroll. Just enjoy it.
Or, The Little Black Dress...
To Bill, shoe shine man extraordinaire, at Chicago's Best Barbers, our neighbor, who baby sits our early visitors to the Shop so well (We open at 11A, Wed-Sat; noon, Sun.); to Charles and Matt, who patiently explained shopping carts to me, when I knew nothing; to Rashid who figured out what's what with credit cards, when I was confused; to Bill, a newly found cousin, who keeps me up to date on my family history; to Barb from Arizona, who keeps in touch when she visits Chicago; to Joan for her arnica tip; to Fearless Reader, who selected "The Perspicacious Woman OnLine" as one of her favorite ezines.
CONGRATS
To Frank on his 90th birthday; to cousins Erin and Ron on their one month wedding anniversary; to the Daisy Brother, Jeff, on his birthday; to the Daisy Cousin, Allen on his birthday.
MONEY MATTERS
Haute couture: Making a loss is the height of fashion
By William Langley (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/7883236/Haute-couture-Making-a-loss-is-the-height-of-fashion.html)
In this topsy-turvy world, selling a £50,000 dress at a £15,000 discount turns out to be very good business indeed, says William Langley. High fashion for low prices: Haute couture houses trade in fantasy, and, in these times, more people want to fantasise. Given that a good year in the haute couture business is one where you lose even more money than usual, the prevailing mood in Paris last week was of recession-busting buoyancy. The big-name designers were falling over themselves to boast of how many outfits they had sold at below cost price, and how this proved that the fashion business was healthier than ever. Jean-Paul Gaultier reported record sales, “but we don’t make any money out of it,” the designer assured journalists backstage. “No matter how successful you are, you can’t make a profit from couture,” explained Jean-Jacques Picart, a veteran fashion PR man, and co-founder of the now-bankrupt Lacroix house. Almost 20 years have passed since the Alice in Wonderland economics of the couture business were first exposed. Outraged that he was losing money on evening dresses costing tens of thousands of pounds, the couturier Jean-Louis Scherrer – to howls of “trahison” from his colleagues – published a detailed summary of his costs. One outfit he described contained over half a mile of gold thread, 18,000 sequins, and had required hundreds of hours of hand-stitching in an atelier. A fair price would have been £50,000, but the couturier could only get £35,000 for it. Rather than riding high on the follies of the super-rich, he and his team could barely feed their hungry families. The result was an outcry and the first of a series of government - and industry-sponsored inquiries into the surreal world of ultimate fashion. The trade continues to insist that - relatively speaking - couture offers you more than you pay for, but it’s not as simple as that. When such a temple of old wealth starts talking about value for money, it isn’t to convince anyone that dresses costing as much as houses are a bargain. Rather, it is to preserve the peculiar mystique, lucrative associations and threatened interests that couture represents. Essentially, the arguments couldn’t be simpler. On one side are those who say that the business will die if it doesn’t change. On the other are those who say it will die if it does. What’s not in doubt is that haute couture – the term translates as “high sewing” – is a spectacular anachronism. Colossal in its costs, tiny in its clientele and questionable in its influence, it still remains one of the great themes of Parisian life. In his book, The Fashion Conspiracy, Nicholas Coleridge estimates that the entire couture industry rests on the whims of less than 30 immensely wealthy women, and although the number may have grown in recent years with the new prosperity of Asia, the number of couture customers worldwide is no more than 4,000. At this stratospheric peak of the rag trade, many designers never even meet the women who buy their clothes. Some are known only by numbered codes, do their buying through intermediaries and settle their bills from Swiss bank accounts. To qualify as couture, a garment must be entirely hand-made by one of the 11 Paris couture houses registered to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Each house must employ at least 20 people, and show a minimum of 75 new designs a year. So far, so stirringly traditional, but the Big Four operators – Chanel, Dior, Givenchy and Gaultier – increasingly use couture as a marketing device for their far more profitable ready-to-wear, fragrance and accessory lines. It isn’t hard to see how this works in practice. “Haute couture is what gives our business its essential essence of luxury,” says Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, which owns both Dior and Givenchy. “The cash it soaks up is largely irrelevant. Set against the money we lose has to be the value of the image couture gives us. Look at the attention the collections attract. It is where you get noticed. You have to be there. It’s where we set our ideas in motion.” The big idea being the one known in the trade as “name association”. Couture outfits may be unaffordable, even unwearable, but the whiff of glamour and exclusivity is hard to resist. The time-starved modern woman who doesn’t make enough in a year to afford a single piece of couture can still buy a share of the dream for the price of a Chanel lipstick or a Givenchy scarf. For all this, couture has been in decline – the optimists would say readjusting to changed conditions – for years. The number of houses registered to the Syndicale has halved in the last two decades. Pierre Cardin once had almost 500 people working full time on couture, but by the Eighties the number had fallen to 50, and today the house is no longer registered. Modern life tells the story. Younger women, even the seriously wealthy ones, find ready-to-wear clothes invariably more practical and usually more fun. Couture’s market has dwindled to a core of ageing European grandes dames, the X-ray wives of old money American families, and the female relatives of oil sheiks. Asia’s new wealth has slowed the decline without arresting it. “Haute couture is a joke,” scoffs Pierre Bergé, the former head of Yves St Laurent – another house that no longer creates it. “Anyone who tells you it still matters is fantasising. You can see it dropping dead all around you. Nobody buys it any more. The prices are ridiculous. The rules for making it are nonsensical. It belongs to another age. Where are today’s couturiers? A real couturier is someone who founds and runs their own house. No one does that any more.” Why, then, are the surviving couture houses smiling? Partly because they trade in fantasy, and, in these times, more people want to fantasise. “We’ve received so many orders we may not be able to deliver them all,” says Sidney Toledano, head of Dior. So the clothes are rolled out and the couture losses roll in, and everyone agrees that it’s good business. FALL FASHION PREVIEW
So here's what happened in Paris. Chanel's RTW (the money making arm of couture houses) Runway show got a lot of press. That's the good news. The bad news is that press talked about trucking tons of ice into the venue for a 15 minute Runway Show and not much about the fashion. I worried for Karl. Dash and flash don't a Collection make. What was he covering up? I turn to elle.com for Chanel's Fall 2010 RTW photo Collection: shaggy fur garments and shaggy fur trimmed garments and purses, shaggy fur boots, oversized Winter coats and jackets, to-the-knee and mid-thigh skirts, soft and full legged high rise pants, mauve (last Fall Collection's highlighted color also), black & white (tweeds, an always in Chanel Collections), Winter white, Little Black Dresses. To my eye, it was wearable fashion, Dear Reader, simple silhouettes, nothing outré. I was relieved. Karl's trying to make a living, keep the lights on and the doors open of his boutiques. He had no elusive muse for his Collection; rather, he had living, breathing women in mind. He chose the ice to get press for his wearable fashion, to avert the bad press that might have occurred had he not shown wearable fashion against an outrageous back drop. I get it. Smart guy. Only it didn't work. His Collection got panned.
Were the other couturiers providing wearable fashion during this continuing Recession?, I wondered. Those that did were panned (None had ice.); those that didn't, some were panned (This always happens); some were praised (This always happens.). What's going on? Here's what I think: The critics don't want wearable fashion at these shows. They want fanciful, impractical fashions. (Actually, this is couture talent at its best.) They got some, but not much or enough. It was the boutique buyers that got more from the Runway Shows than the critics. They got a selection of wearable trends from which to chose for their shops; they can select lines and help their stores to make a living, too.
The fashion word wizards have not yet offered trend highlights of Paris, New York, Milan 2010 RTW as I write this. They're a tad late, but I guess they're struggling to come up with trend shorthand, or maybe they lost their jobs due to the Recession, poor souls.
So, I turn to neimanmarcus.com, whose fashion buyers are a savvy bunch, to see what's what.
Their Trend Report says:
Green (Despite being forecasted as a popular color by Pantone in 2007, green remained the most difficult color to sell in my shop. Don't take much in because of this, but will change my buying habit because of this report. We have some.);
Military Influences (Think epaulets, soutache, and pointy "Ming the Merciless" shoulders, and you've got it. The pointy shoulders are a trend, Dear Reader. It'll go out of style as fast as pleated shoulders did. I'll look for more epaulet buying opportunities. We have a few.);
Pantsuits (Some matchy-matchy; others, coordinated jacket and pant. We have bunches of both.); Go to the following links to view our Collection:
Capes, Ponchos, & Vests (Too cold in Chicago for these as outer wear; too heavy for under wear. We have none in stock and doubt if I'll fill in on these.);
Fur (I just gave away my 10 year old, full length mink coat to Salvation Army, damn it. I redirect frugal fur garment trend buying opportunities for you, Dear Reader, to Chicago Fur Outlet. We do have some fur and faux fur accessories that are quite delightful.);
Lace (Easy to affix to a cuff, a hem, a waist band, a neckline...good. A good video shown on msc.com gives some lace affixing ideas (see below) and the general idea to embellish garments you already own to update them with couture trend looks.
If that's not your inclination, we have lace and lace trimmed garments that are lovely.);
Feathers (I'm allergic. We have one lovely Foo-foo belt in stock. You can find trim at the notions department of fabric shops and do what you want. ejoyce.com has bunches.);
Boots (Crotch length, are you kidding? Do you affix a panty liner to the top to absorb sweat?);
Structured Handbag (Looks like totes to me. We have a few.);
Pearl Necklaces (I got 'em in my personal wardrobe. We have some faux and real in stock. Wear 'em layered. It looks good.).
It's a pretty good trend list.
Next, Bergdorfgoodman.com (owned by Neiman Marcus) provided their own Trend Report. It says: Knits, Velvet; Pearl; Leather; Fur; Texture. (Boy! Do we have leather.)
Finally, I went to saksfifthavenue.com, a good specialty store, and discovered they had hunched. They have no Trend Report; rather, they're highlighting American Designers; Aggressive Angles (A geometric point of view I couldn't catch from their selection of garments.); Beyond BoHo (It's not beyond; it's downright Bohemian, a costumey look I've never liked.).
Here's what I recommend for Fall\Winter 2010. All wearable RTW couture have simple silhouettes.
sheath dresses with Jewel or V-necklines, to-the-knee,
A-line dresses with same necklines and same length as above,
suits with pencil skirts (to-the-knee or mid-thigh) and A-line skirts (to-the-knee) and fitted (worn with belts) or cropped jackets, tipped and plain,
pantsuits with soft, deep rise trousers, matched or coordinated fitted jackets worn with belts,
trousers, soft, deep rise worn with belts
Pencil (to-the-knee or mid-thigh) skirts or A-line skirts (to-the-knee),
soft slightly oversized blouses,
slightly oversized sweaters, and
oversized coats and outer jackets.
BOOK WORM CORNER
03/02/2009 Fiction Reviewed by staff of Publishers
Weekly Publisher: Delacorte 432 pages ISBN 978-0-385-34057-1
I couldn't and didn't figure out
this book until the author told me, and I like that very much. This is
a worthwhile read.
07/24/2006 Fiction Ward Just Publisher: Houghton Mifflin 272 pages ISBN 0-618-63463-0 A heartbreaking story, whose first chapter, will probably live in my mind forever. I recommend this book very highly.
12/17/2007 Fiction Reviewed by staff of Publishers
Weekly Publisher: Crown / Shaye Areheart 288 pages ISBN 978-0-307-38124-8
Sammy Brady, the main character,
is an every person, who grows old unmarried and without children. You
can be isolated, but kindly; interested, but distant; secretive, but
sociable; intelligent, but even handed. You can live in your mind and
do just fine. Sammy is all these things and more.
I liked him.
Baldwin Street (2007) Alvin Rakoff Publisher: Bunim & Bannigan 205 pages ISBN: 1-933480-14-9
It's a shame that only "Book list" reviewed this book. (Actually, it wasn't reviewed; it was summarized and the summary contained a few nice words.) No one else cared and it's such a good book. The locale is small, a Jewish ghetto in Toronto Canada; the characters are large, vividly portrayed; the situations are enormous, the human condition. I recommend this book very highly.
Leonard Abelson is one of seven children. He lives above Abelson's Hardware on Baldwin Street in Kensington Market in Toronto. It's the 1930s. Leonard's father, Sam, a former merchant sailor who speaks fourteen languages, does the purchasing for the store; his mother, Pearl, a Ukranian, who was a victim of pogroms and marauding Cossacks after WWI, runs the shop floor. Leonard wants to be a writer. He witnesses the affections, struggles, and meager hopes of his neighbors, fuel for his imagination. Periodically, Leonard has to look after a young philosophy professor from the University of Toronto, Menasha Rifkin, who suffers from fugue states, squatting among the stalls on Baldwin Street reading Spinoza, Kant, and the Globe & Mail. Halloween 1936: A band of young Italians invades Baldwin Street in search of blood. Marshall McDonald, the Irish cop who failed to quell the famous riot at Christie Pits six years earlier, now must investigate the death of Bernie Altman, a young boy whose senseless slaughter lingers over the Jewish community like a bad dream. In the tradition of James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan and Nelson Algren's Man with the Golden Arm, Alvin Rakoff's Baldwin Street is literary fiction at its best. This powerful novel presents a vivid mosaic of characters, the rich fabric of a community, and a boy's coming-of-age on the dusty, rough-and-tumble streets of Toronto.
PS You don't have to be Jewish to
enjoy this book, but it helps.
12/18/2006 Fiction Reviewed by staff of Publishers
Weekly Publisher: St. Martin 's Press 272 pages ISBN 978-0-312-36268-3
This book caught me by surprise
when I figured out how 3 characters tied together. I like when a book
does this. You will, too.
Reviewed by staff of Publishers
Weekly Publisher: Morrow 464 pages ISBN 0- 06-084177 -X Nope, I didn't buy the plot, Dear Reader. I didn't walk the Medieval highway, either. I got nada from this book.
CONSULTATION & COMMENTARY
Why don't you divide the website into Vintage and Contemporary? Bianca (What a good idea, Bianca! I'm going to test it as soon as I can. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop) Why don't you show sizes? A couple of folk (Because the garments are 2nd hand, none are true sizes. They've all been altered to fit the original owner. To list the original size would be misleading, I think. Dimensions are more accurate. We need to be precise, since all sales are final sales. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop) Why don't you have a shopping cart? It would be easier to order. Gloria (I'm working on a shopping cart even as we speak. I hope to be up and running soon. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop)
General Money Matters I liked your story about shopping resale. But, I don't have your 'eye.' The assortment confuses me. Do you make house calls? Clara (You're funny, but you raise 2 interesting points: 1. an eye; 2. concentration. I don't know how a person gets an eye. Looking through the photos of fashion magazines which highlight couture might work. Remember the overall style and look at the details. Associate what you're seeing at the resale site with what you remember from the photos. If there's an association, then what's at the resale site is good stuff. If there's no association, then it's not so good stuff. Concentration is easy. Pretend you're reading a book that you find real interesting while you're going through the racks. Let me know if these ideas help. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop)
Housewives Did you notice that the word 'scripted' is now being used a lot about the Housewives series? Sara (Yeah. Ain't life great? Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop) Jill Zarin went down in flames. Bethenny, Jill's target, is soaring like an eagle. As you say, go figure. Jennifer
The Story of US You expect too much from TV. Frances
Merchandise Related The Sale merchandise listing was very helpful A couple of folk Where can I get a list of couture labels? Barbara Here's a list from wikipedia. The "Vintage" couturiers are not listed.
Reel Review Cold Wind in August Where do you get your movies, Barbara? They're so obscure. Evelyn (Obscure is good, Evelyn. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop)
Model Call I tried calling you about modeling size 14 clothing, but couldn't leave a message on your phone. How do I get in touch with you? Diane (Email me. I'm daisyshop@daisyshop.com. Cordially, Barbara The Daisy Shop)
COUTURE SCRAMBLE
Make as many 4 letter words from Jean Paul Gaultier as you can. Proper nouns are a no-no.
ANSWER
agate agent agile ague alga alien ante auntie eagle elan epaulet gait gala
gale gape gaunt genial gila glee glue guile jail julep junta jute lane lapel
late league lean leap leapt legate lien line luge neat negate paean pagan
page pail palate pale pang pant peal peanut peel pelt petal pill plague
plain planet plat plate plateau platen plea pleat pull tail tale teal GRATIS PUBLICITY
Museum of Contemporary Art 220 East
Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 312.280.2660
1601 N. Clark
St.
The Newberry Library 60 W. Walton
St. (312) 943-9090 Monday,
Friday, and Saturday 8:15 am - 5:00 pm Free admission
Remember radio? It's no money fun. 98.7WFMT-FM is Chicago's only classical and fine arts radio station. WFMT is the radio home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago. For their schedule, go to http://wfmt.com.
GRUMBLE, GROUSE, GRIPE It's glorious
Summer in Chicago, Dear Reader. Nothing bothers me. GGG will
return when I'm ready to do combat. DID YOU KNOW?
Chicago sales tax rate will be 4.75% for clothes and school supplies from Aug. 6-15, 2010. The tax relief applies only to certain items whose price is less than $100. The Illinois Department of Revenue has posted on its Web site a detailed list of what's included and what's not. Here's the link: http://www.revenue.state.il.us/SalesTaxHolidayList.pdf. The Daisy Shop will abide by the Tax Relief Program. This means all bandanas, belts, blouses, coats, jackets, dresses, gloves, hats, men's ties, slacks, scarves, skirts, suspenders whose price is less than $100 will be charged 4.75% Chicago sales tax. Merchandise whose price is more than $100 will be charged 9.75% Chicago sales tax.
RESTAURANT REVIEW
Fred's At
Barneys
The table at which we were seated faced The Daisy Shop's west window, a sight I enjoyed very much. I know, Dear Reader, that this comment has absolutely nothing to do with the restaurant, its ambience, and its food, but cut me some slack. I like owning the Shop.
We were a party of 5 and it was a Thursday night. I'm pleased to tell you the restaurant had a lot of diners. This is not always the case at a restaurant in Chicago during this Recession. It's a Good Thing when a business is doing okay during this Recession.
The restaurant is pretty, spotlessly clean, but without food smells. I prefer the smell of good food when I walk into a restaurant. I guess the owners spent scads of money for fans so there are no food smells. Go figure.
The wait staff is young and perky, but not too perky and not invasive. We were not rushed to order drinks or food.
When we did order both, the drinks and food came to us timely.
Two of the party had osso bucco with a shmear of polenta, whose portions were small, and whose flavor was good. Two of the party had pasta with clam sauce, whose portions were good, but whose sauce was skimpy. I had a wonderful, hearty portion of the mussels appetizer and a good fresh house salad. The appetizer came with a surprise: lovely, wonderful French fries I shared with everyone, until I had to order another for myself. This came gratis from our server, who noticed my largesse and rewarded me. I don't think anyone ordered desert. I know I didn't. My portion came to $20 + $5 tip, pricey, I think.
I am wishy-washy about Fred's. It was nice, but I have no desire to return.
COMFORT FOOD
Recently, cupcakes (and muffins*) have taken a place as popular comfort food and this fact has come at me in many ways. Foodnetwork, a cable TV network, now has a Cupcake Wars series, which I tried to watch a couple of times, but became bored and left the channel before much had happened.
On the bus just last week, I noticed the woman sitting next to me was tenderly cradling a spectacularly iced cupcake in a plastic container. I asked her where she got it. Instead of answering my question, she told me she had spent $3.25 for this cupcake and intended to scarf it down as soon as she got home. We chatted about paying $3.25 for a cupcake and other high prepared food prices until it was my stop.
Later that week, I remembered the cupcake woman and decided that carrot muffins were in my future. It was a jarring incident: the bakery believed they sold me a dozen sugar-free carrot muffins. They weren't. I know because I took a bite out of one and got a sugar rush from hell almost immediately. Still in the sugar rush, I returned to the bakery to get my money back. Was I coherent? Not really. Was I intense. Oh yeah. So, the baker returned my money and got 11-7\8 carrot muffins back.
Just yesterday, a diner truck was parked on Walton tricked out with the Sprinkles Cupcakes logo giving out free samples. This was in preparation of their Grand Opening in Chicago on July 25. I wished them well and selected their cinnamon cupcake, intending to take a bite on my way to the bus stop, suffer the sugar rush, and throw it away. I did all those things.
So here's the skinny on Sprinkles Cupcakes:
Sprinkles
Cupcakes Chicago
$3.25, each Calories: 497 Red Velvet 272 Pumpkin 485 Vanilla 459 Chocolate
I forecast Sprinkles cupcakes and Starbucks coffee will be the prevalent breakfast in the Gold Coast area. So here's the skinny on Starbucks:
Starbucks Chicago 932 N Rush
Street
$2.00 Calories: 5 Grande brewed coffee (16 fl oz), plain
Total breakfast price: $5.25 + tax. Total calories consumer: a bunch.
My opinion: It's not worth it.
*The difference between cupcakes and muffins (from http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2006/01/muffins-vs-cupcakes-redux.html)
...cupcakes have frosting, whereas muffins do not. However, in researching, I found an excellent formulaic definition of the difference courtesy of Diana's Desserts: 'A basic formula for muffins is 2 cups flour, 2-4 tablespoons sugar, 2½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 egg, ¼ cup oil, shortening or butter and 1 cup milk. When the fat, sugar and egg ratio in a recipe reaches double or more than this, you have reached the cake level.'
It's much too lovely in Chicago to spend any time viewing movies. Reel Review will appear in the October\November issue, if the weather is not good. Should the weather be favorable in Chicago, Reel Review will not appear until the weather becomes inclement.
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Pratesi
Linens
We'll Keep You In Stitches 
Mondragon Salon & Spa
Driedles & More
WARM FUZZIES
Although
March is The Month for Colon Cancer Prevention, you just gotta be
aware that it’s a cancer that can be prevented from turning fatal all the
time. Go to 
Chicago
History Museum
The
Daisy Mother's Mushroom Barley Soup
REEL REVIEW
