Kelly Riley Barron

I ate the Hummus (oh no!!)

I didn't grow up going to the Taste of Chicago, like a lot of people I know. Living 90 miles outside of the city, and having 3 other reckless sisters, I can't blame my parents for not taking us. Instead, we went to the Taste of LaSalle. And it turns out, pretty much all LaSalle, Illinois has to taste is corn. Lots of corn.

So I was excited to visit the real Taste this year. My roommates and I biked down along the lake path on the 4 th. We ate, we sat on a blanket drinking wine in the hot, hot heat, and we bobbed our heads in enjoyment to the music as we came out of the closet for the day as John Mayer fans. I even let out a "woo" or two (or ten) when Buddy Guy took the stage. Good times.

A few days later, my supervisor gave out tickets to the Taste, and I found myself in a position of feeling obliged to go again. OK. Twist my arm. So I went back on Sunday, the last day, by my lonesome after I got off work at 6:30. I started with some pierogis, then moved onto chicken wings from Harold's, a breaded steak sandwich, washing it down with a 4 ticket Pepsi, and topping it all off with a chocolate chip cheesecake square. Delicious.

And you know what else I had? The goddamn hummus from Pars Cove. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought to myself, "hmmm, it'll be something somewhat healthy – like salad's little greasy sister – and it fulfilled my desire to be worldly and branch out of the Chicago staples of "fried" or "chicken" or both.

And that's the end of the story, really. I took the El home. I read more of my Phillip Roth book; I played guitar for a long while, and I went to bed. Ho hum. A typical Sunday evening.

But now all over the local news is the salmonella outbreak linked to the Pars Cove booth and the goddamn hummus. 378 people reported getting ill after eating there. And climbing. You know what's odd, though? I feel like I've been left out of the party. I could've been a news story! The Chicago Tribune could have taken a picture of me holding my stomach out on my back patio. But no, some other blonde girl got that honor.

I feel bad for the restaurant owners though. It'll be a long time before they live this reputation down. If ever. And I thought the hummus was pretty good, albeit not life changing. If anything, I would have put my money on the Bolat booth being the salmonella scare for the week. They were serving goat for Christ sakes!

But I've actually eaten at Bolat, a West African restaurant, at the behest of my sister who just got back from a stint in Burkina Faso. She was raving about guinea fowl and rare hot peppers, and wrapped it all up in the bow of "I'll pay." No offense to the nice and handsome men that worked there, but it was probably the worst meal of my life. The African beer was delicious, but the food, as far as I remember, involved lots of corn, bananas, eggs, and goat meat as tough as tires. And it was so spicy my stomach and small intestine were crying for mercy before it even hit my pallet. Top that off with a crazy woman who wondered in off of Clark St. screaming, "who's f-ing car is parked out front!!!" The tiny restaurant went dead quiet for about a half second, before the waiters who were sitting at a table busted out laughing in what looked like Oprah's crazy homeless sister's face.

My point is, now I have to live through at least two more weeks of snarky Tribune and Red Eye headlines playing off the phrase "taste of…" and all I have is this lame story of how there isn't a story. And when I see the headline, or its mentioned in small talk, I'll feel obliged to say, "I ate the hummus!!" and my friends will say, "Oh yeah, what happen??!!" And I'll just bow my head and say, "umm....nothing." Goddamn hummus.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070713tastejul13,1,590955.story?coll=chi-news-hed