Monday, July 03, 2006
Diablos en Lunchico!
With much of the working world taking the day off for an extended holiday, including the federal courts for the Northern District of Illinois, as well as the Lake County state courthouse, Monz carries on. At noon(ish) he ventured into hot, humid downtown Waukegan. Little was open. A devil of a day! So what else could Monz do but have a chicken diablo sandwich (grilled chicken with hot spices of somesort, onion, mayo, lettuce and tomato, some of which Monz removed.)
With this as our inspiration (though we didn't know it at the time), the editors traveled to Champaign-Urbana (central Illinois for readers out of the area - more on this later) to take care of some ministerial tasks. On the way back to Chicago, we knew we had to get Monz one of the purportedly greatest pizzas in the world: Papa Del's. Unfortunately, the Food Editor (FE) discovered he forgot to bring the large "keeps hot food hot and cold food cold for up to 3 hours" bag. So we traveled to a CVS (which until three weeks ago were Osco's -- so sad). THey had no coolers large enough for a frozen za except for an Igloo(tm) brand that was so large it might not have fit in the car and cost $40. So we went to Walgreens and found a styrofoam cooler which looked big enough to do the job, plus two bags of ice. We had fun smashing the ice bags on the parking lot to break-up the ice, but should have known better than to put the ice in the styrofoam cooler. Because when we arrived at Papa Dels, ordered 2 pizza slices for each of us and went to the freezer for Monz' za, we decided to pick up two more: one for our friend T.T.T. (who attended school there and was one of the testifiers for this joint) and one for the EIC's folks. After paying the big $$$ we discovered to our chagrin that no way in Hell (which is what Champaign-Urbana felt like this hot, humid day) would these fit in the cooler. We shreded our hands taking out the ice, puting two of the 'za's in bags, shoved them in the cooler and refilled it with ice. OMG! Not enough ice!! We went back to Walgreens, bought 3 more bags of ice, dumped all the emergency car stuff out of a large plastic box and into the trunk, put the other 'za in the box and used the ice (also crushed on the Walgreens' parking lot floor) into the containers. We then headed back to the city with the A/C on full blast (though the car was low on that fake-freon stuff), hoping and praying we'd get back in time before the ice and/or pizza melted. We did! They're in the freezer now.
Without the Monz' inspiration and munificient spirit, those pizza's would have been donated to the dishevled homeless guy we saw on Old U.S. Route 45! How he'd have cooked it we're not sure...
On behalf of the myl staff and the Monz, we wish you a happy, safe and yummy holiday!
With much of the working world taking the day off for an extended holiday, including the federal courts for the Northern District of Illinois, as well as the Lake County state courthouse, Monz carries on. At noon(ish) he ventured into hot, humid downtown Waukegan. Little was open. A devil of a day! So what else could Monz do but have a chicken diablo sandwich (grilled chicken with hot spices of somesort, onion, mayo, lettuce and tomato, some of which Monz removed.)
With this as our inspiration (though we didn't know it at the time), the editors traveled to Champaign-Urbana (central Illinois for readers out of the area - more on this later) to take care of some ministerial tasks. On the way back to Chicago, we knew we had to get Monz one of the purportedly greatest pizzas in the world: Papa Del's. Unfortunately, the Food Editor (FE) discovered he forgot to bring the large "keeps hot food hot and cold food cold for up to 3 hours" bag. So we traveled to a CVS (which until three weeks ago were Osco's -- so sad). THey had no coolers large enough for a frozen za except for an Igloo(tm) brand that was so large it might not have fit in the car and cost $40. So we went to Walgreens and found a styrofoam cooler which looked big enough to do the job, plus two bags of ice. We had fun smashing the ice bags on the parking lot to break-up the ice, but should have known better than to put the ice in the styrofoam cooler. Because when we arrived at Papa Dels, ordered 2 pizza slices for each of us and went to the freezer for Monz' za, we decided to pick up two more: one for our friend T.T.T. (who attended school there and was one of the testifiers for this joint) and one for the EIC's folks. After paying the big $$$ we discovered to our chagrin that no way in Hell (which is what Champaign-Urbana felt like this hot, humid day) would these fit in the cooler. We shreded our hands taking out the ice, puting two of the 'za's in bags, shoved them in the cooler and refilled it with ice. OMG! Not enough ice!! We went back to Walgreens, bought 3 more bags of ice, dumped all the emergency car stuff out of a large plastic box and into the trunk, put the other 'za in the box and used the ice (also crushed on the Walgreens' parking lot floor) into the containers. We then headed back to the city with the A/C on full blast (though the car was low on that fake-freon stuff), hoping and praying we'd get back in time before the ice and/or pizza melted. We did! They're in the freezer now.
Without the Monz' inspiration and munificient spirit, those pizza's would have been donated to the dishevled homeless guy we saw on Old U.S. Route 45! How he'd have cooked it we're not sure...
On behalf of the myl staff and the Monz, we wish you a happy, safe and yummy holiday!
Comments:
3 comments
The school goes by Urbana-Champagne, but in everyday conversation people say it "Champagne-Urbana." I've yet to notice a big difference between the two towns.
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