Read More

Candace Parker and Kahleah Copper celebrate after defeating the Phoenix Mercury in Game Four of the WNBA Finals to win the championship at Wintrust Arena on October 17, 2021. | Stacy Revere/Getty file

The Chicago Sky, reigning WNBA champions, will be honored at a parade in the Loop and rally ending at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.

For the first time in five years, Chicago has a professional sports team worth celebrating. And on Tuesday, that’s what the city plans to do.

The Chicago Sky, reigning WNBA champions, will be honored at a parade in the Loop and rally ending at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.

“The city of Chicago could not be prouder of our winning Chicago Sky,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement. “We are thrilled to throw a celebration worthy of this historic moment in Chicago sports and congratulate the Sky for bringing our city its first WNBA title.”

The Sky beat the Phoenix Mercury 80-74 Sunday at Wintrust Arena. The win made the Sky the first Chicago sports team to win a title since the Cubs won it all in 2016, ending a centurylong drought. The Sky were also the first team to win a championship at home since the Blackhawks in 2015.

The parade will begin at 11 a.m. when the Sky leave Wintrust Arena and head north on Michigan Avenue from Roosevelt Road to Randolph Street. The entourage will go east on Randolph to Pritzker Pavilion.

Street closures will begin after 10 a.m. on Indiana Avenue from 21st Street to Cermak Road. Michigan Avenue will reopen as soon as the championship motorcade passes.

The rally will begin at noon and is free and open to the public. There will be a security screening at entrances to the Pavilion on Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street.

COVID-19 vaccination is not required for fans to attend, but the city highly encourages it. The Pritzker Pavilion will be open to fans beginning at 10 a.m.

Read More

The Chicago Bears are now one-third of the way through their 2021 season, and with a record of 3-3 representing them well, have been a fairly inconsistent team thus far. After getting blown out by the Los Angeles Rams in prime time to start the season, the Bears bounced back with a victory over the […] Chicago Bears Week 7: Some players rising, others falling badly – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

Trisha Yearwood attends the ACM Party For A Cause at Ascend Amphitheater in 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee. | Getty Images

Yearwood says the last five years hosting her Emmy-winning Food Network series “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen” has helped boost her kitchen skills and expand her recipe development.

NEW YORK — Trish Yearwood is a collard greens kind of gal, but her husband, Garth Brooks, is definitely not a collard greens kind of guy. So she had to be a little sly when it came time to perfect her Collard-Stuffed Wontons.

When the country star and her collaborator and sister, Beth, made them the first time at her Nashville home, they didn’t tell Brooks and his buddy what was in them when the two men came into the kitchen after working on their farm.

“I said, ‘You try this.’ Didn’t tell them what it was. And they ate them all. They were like, ‘These are amazing!'” Yearwood recalls. “And then I told him he ate his collard greens for the day.”

The quirky South-meets-Asia wontons are a feature of Yearwood’s fourth cookbook, “Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family,” which has 125 recipes that blend her knowledge of soulful Southern cooking with influences from China, Italy and Mexico.

AP
This cover image released by Mariner Books shows “Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family” by Trisha Yearwood.

Yearwood says the last five years hosting her Emmy-winning Food Network series “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen” has helped boost her kitchen skills and expand her recipe development.

“I’ve entered into a really cool phase and I really attribute the show for just giving me confidence to try new things. And now they’ve become kind of family favorites and they feel like things that have been in the family forever,” she says.

Yearwood is open to ideas, even asking at restaurants how the chefs make favored dishes. She walked away from a sushi restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the origins of Garth’s Teriyaki Bowl, which uses marinated chicken and steak.

That same restaurant inspired her Steak & Avocado Rolls, which use soy wrappers to mimic sushi rolls. Neither Yearwood nor Brooks are fans of raw fish — “we’re sort of roll-it-in-flour-and-fry-it people,” she confesses — but their girls are, so the recipe is a compromise.

Yearwood also leaned on several family recipes for dishes in the new book, including some from her dad’s mom. Her grandmother was a dessert specialist but none of her recipes seemed to have survived until the family recently found a little book with handwritten recipes, including one for Hundred Dollar Cupcakes. Trisha and Beth also recreated a dish that was never written down, Jack’s Fried Pies, named after her father (see recipe below).

Jerky turns out to have a special place in her kitchen, and yet she has learned that she doesn’t need fancy equipment or a dehumidifier to make her BBQ or teriyaki jerky. She just turns on her oven.

“It’s really a low and slow in the oven, like at 200 degrees for hours. It’s not expensive to do. You can get a really inexpensive cut of meat and slice it yourself, or you can have your butcher slice it in the strips for you and then you marinate it and then you just slow bake it. Then it can be as tender or as tough as you like,” she says.

Other nifty recipes include one for Camo Cake she made for her nephew’s birthday that uses food coloring to mimic the look of camouflage, and Chicken Potpie Burger, which combines a classic chicken potpie with a bun.

“Everything that’s in the book is the way she really is and the way she really cooks. And it is a reflection of her life and her personality,” says Deb Brody, vice president and publisher of adult trade at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “It’s not just a celebrity putting her name on a cookbook. She actually cooks this way.”

Though Yearwood includes plenty of vegetarian options, bacon plays a key role in “Trisha’s Kitchen,” including a breakthrough in snack technology called Bacon Straws: twisted bacon strips brushed with maple syrup and red pepper flakes and sprinkled with cheddar cheese.

“When I’m cooking, if there’s bacon going on a burger or something, anybody at my house walks by and they’re going to take a piece of bacon. We all just want the bacon, like, it doesn’t have to be on anything,” she says. “So this was that idea of making it its own thing, making it an appetizer and it’s crunchy and crispy. You just walk by and grab one — or 10.”

The pandemic accelerated the book’s creation, with Yearwood’s touring scheduled stilled and lockdown forcing her into her kitchen. Easy comfort food was a natural way for her to cook her way out of quarantine.

“I did a lot of sitting on the couch and drinking coffee and going down the rabbit hole of depression. But then — I think it was getting close to a few months in — I was like, ‘This would be a perfect time just to write a new book,'” she says.

“It kind of had been knocking on the door, almost like when you need to make a new album. In a way, it was really therapeutic and cathartic for me to be able to focus on something like that, because food really does bring us together.”

Trisha Yearwood’s recipe for fried apple fritters

“My dad, Jack, used to reminisce about small fried apple fritters that his mother, Elizabeth, would make for him when he was a kid. Of course, like many passed-down family recipes, this one wasn’t written down anywhere, so Mama went to work, trying to figure out how to make them just like his mama had. That’s never an easy job, because our childhood memories often make those original flavors impossible to replicate. Beth and I remember those pre-made dough pockets sitting on the kitchen counter, and Mama frying them up in a cast iron skillet. We also remember how happy Daddy was with the result. We’re not surprised she got it right! Grandma Yearwood always fried with lard, but if that scares you, vegetable oil is perfectly fine!” — Trisha Yearwood

AP
“Jack’s Fried Pies,” from the cookbook “Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family” by Trisha Yearwood.

Jack’s Fried Pies

Makes 10 pies

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and diced in 1/2 -inch pieces
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground ginger
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 pounds lard or
1 1/2 quarts vegetable oil, for frying
1 box (2 crusts) refrigerated pie crusts (I like Pillsbury)
Special Equipment:
4 1/2 -inch round cookie cutter

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a small saute pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, brown sugar, salt, and 1/4 cup water, stir, and cover to bring to a simmer, 5 to 7 minutes, then cook, uncovered, until the apples are slightly softened, about 4 minutes.

2. In a small bowl, stir together the cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water until combined and pourable. Stream the cornstarch slurry into the apple filling and cook on a low simmer for 2 minutes more, or until the liquid has thickened.

3. Pour the apple mixture into a shallow bowl (a pie plate works great) and cool in the fridge, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes.

4. Put the lard or vegetable oil in a deep Dutch oven. Clip a deep-fry thermometer to its side and heat the lard over high heat to 360?F.

5. Lay out both rounds of pie dough and use a 4 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to cut four circles from each of them. Gather the scraps, roll out again, and cut out 2 more circles.

6. Fill each round of dough with a heaping tablespoon of the apple filling, then, using a little water on your fingers, wet the edge of the dough and press together into a half-moon. Crimp the edges with the tines of a fork to seal.

7. When all the pies are assembled and the oil is to temperature, fry 3 or 4 pies at a time for 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer the pies to a paper towel-lined tray to drain and cool slightly, then repeat to fry the remaining pies, letting the oil come back up to 360?F between batches. Enjoy warm.

Trisha’s Tip: The apple filling can be made the day before and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Excerpted from “Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family” , copyright 2021. Reproduced by permission of Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Read More

Charges have been filed after police officer was shot October 18, 2021 in Lincoln Park. | Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Before Jovan McPherson allegedly shot the officer, he kidnapped and restrained a 21-year-old woman, according to Chicago police.

A man has been charged with shooting a Chicago police officer in the face Monday afternoon in a strip mall in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Immediately before Jovan McPherson shot the officer, he kidnapped and restrained a 21-year-old woman, according to Chicago police.

McPherson, 23, of Elgin, faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery of an officer, unauthorized use of a weapon, kidnapping with a firearm, aggravated unlawful restraint and resisting arrest.

He was expected to appear in court later Tuesday.

McPherson shot the officer after an altercation broke out inside an Ulta Beauty store in the 1000 block of West North Avenue, police said.

Someone inside the store had been acting erratically and officers patrolling the area nearby were called, police said. There was a struggle that continued into the parking lot, where the person fired three shots, striking him once in the cheek.

The officer was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center and later released.

McPherson was arrested and a weapon was recovered at the scene, police said.

Read More

Allie Quigley shoots a three against the Mercury. | Photo by Mike Mattina/Getty Images

For the record, Quigley spent approximately zero time thinking about attempting to defend the Sky’s first title.

A WNBA championship on Sunday. A downtown parade on Tuesday. But what did Allie Quigley — the star of the decisive Game 4 with a career-playoff-high 26 points — do on Monday?

“Totally nothing fun,” she said.

It was perfect.

At home in Deerfield with wife and teammate Courtney Vandersloot, Quigley awoke from a hard-earned slumber at about 9:30. Not the worst attempt at sleeping in for a rain-making deep shooter who’d hit the hay at 1:30 after a night of celebration with Sky players.

“The second you wake up,” she said, “you remember what just happened. It’s hard to go back to sleep after that.”

More like impossible. Quigley, 35, a former Joliet Catholic and DePaul great, had a couple hundred texts waiting for her that she’d ignored the night before because she wanted to be present with family, friends and these triumphant women who took Chicago sports fans — and one another — on an unexpected and intoxicating ride.

The texts cascaded in from former teammates and coaches, and from family. A number in the Quigley tree told her how proud her father, Pat, who died when she was in first grade, would’ve been. Something about that, even after all these years, moved her deeply.

“I had quite a few people touch me emotionally,” she said. “They said just with how the game ended, the fourth quarter, how things worked out for us with them missing layups and us just hitting shots, that my dad was there, smiling down and watching, that he was a part of that. That was pretty cool.”

The Phoenix Mercury — not the only WNBA team that cut Quigley in the early, trying days of her career — did miss some bunnies. At the other end, Quigley, with the Sky since 2013, soared. With the Sky down 11 at the 9:14 mark, she drained a deep three. Then another 34 seconds later to cut the deficit to five. In all, she poured in 11 points in the quarter — a three-time All-Star’s finest hour.

Until Monday, arguably. Just chilling — “enjoying doing nothing,” as she put it — was sublime.

“We picked up our dog,” she said. “We haven’t seen our dog much because we’ve been in hotels and traveling and practicing. It was so nice to hang out with the dog and just kind of reminisce, think about the game and let it sink in.”

Gemini, a French bulldog, is 5. We can neither confirm nor deny that the trusty pooch was glued to a television when the magic happened at Wintrust Arena.

For the record, Quigley spent approximately zero time thinking about attempting to defend the Sky’s first title.

“No,” she said. “Definitely not. I mean, that’s the last thing I’m thinking about right now. I didn’t think about that once.”

The glory was too fresh, too sweet. And Quigley was too hungry. The nervousness and stress of the whole playoff run — especially the Finals — made it hard for her to eat. All the Sky had exit physicals Monday. Quigley’s ran longer than she would’ve liked, but she was pretty much A-OK.

“Just emotionally and physically tired,” she said.

It’s no wonder. Some time to check out from the grind and do nothing — totally nothing fun, a parade notwithstanding — is just what the doctor ordered.

JUST SAYIN’

The preseason AP Top 25 college basketball poll is out, with Illinois ranked 11th. In a related development, someone you know was roped in as a new voter this season and also ranked the Illini at No. 11. I also had 10 of the top 11 teams in common with my fellow voters on the whole. Of this, I am not particularly proud.

Preseason polls are the epitome of predictiveness. Don’t buy into them much until the games are happening and there’s actual evidence with which to contend. And even then don’t buy into them too much because, let’s face it, most voters — beat writers, which I’m not — are blind to the big picture while they fixate, necessarily, on specific teams and miss most of what’s happening around the country.

I’m a nut for college ball — best teams, best games — and will do my best to get it right. Unless the AP kicks me to the curb for being too honest about how the sausage is made.

o Illinois football coach Bret Bielema publicly eviscerated former coach Lovie Smith and his own offensive linemen Monday.

“I don’t believe we have a player in the two-deep that they’ve recruited here over the last three years that is really significantly doing anything for us in the playing department,” the first-year coach said, “and that’s a major concern.”

Bielema also ripped his quarterbacks in what seemingly is an ongoing effort to distance himself from Smith’s recruiting. By the way, Smith’s recruiting was poor at best; Bielema didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. But should he have said it for all the world to hear?

I’ll take the 2-5 Illini to finish 2-10, sadly.

o You’re Kyle Schwarber. The Cubs kind of broke your heart, but you went to Washington with a great attitude and killed it. But the Nationals couldn’t hang in the playoff picture and sent you away, so you went to Boston, took a roller coaster ride, reached the American League Championship Series and started hitting grand slams.

What an adventure for a great dude.

o The gambling sites are listing the Bulls at right around 43 wins. Take the over. You can thank me later.

Read More

Post ContentRead More

Post ContentRead More

Post ContentRead More

Post ContentRead More