Eddie Lakin will compete in the Hamburger Hop, the kick-off event to Chicago Gourmet. The event takes place September 23 at the Harris Theater and tickets cost $89. He will be joined by 16 competing chefs and judges include Bon Appetit Editor-in-Chef Adam Rapoport.

Our Third Wednesday Block Party in Culver City. This month is Spanish themed: tapas, porron and flamenco music and dancer. Check out our menu on our website.

Executive Chef Marc Bernard takes his turn at the stove for the 2011 Chef Garden Series at the Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road in Glencoe from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the amphitheater. The cooking demo will feature ingredients from Heritage Prairie Farm where Big Bowl began its seed-to-table collaborative this year.

WHOA!!!! B&L will be hosting the venerable Michael Ruhlman for a book signing. He will be signing copies of his newest book, Ruhlman's Twenty. We will also be offering up a demonstration (details to come). Mark your calenders now!!!

The fortune cookies at Big Bowl, which are going au natural, will be more fortuitous than usual on September 13 - National Fortune Cookie Day. Those slivers of white paper tucked inside the crunchy iconic cookies will bestow well wishes, but many of them will offer complimentary treats. They will include FREE fresh squeezed lemonade, housemade ginger ale, potstickers and egg rolls. The everyday fortune cookie is burdened by a lot of artificial ingredients so why not offer one that fits Big Bowl's commitment to natural, sustainable, organic, local and eco-friendly? Fortella, a family-owned business in Chicago's Chinatown for the last 25 years, took up the challenge and created a recipe that's all natural without dyes and artificial ingredients. The new fortune cookie is made of wheat flour, sugar, coconut and or soybean oil, soy lecithin, natural vanilla, natural anatto and salt.

In celebration of Vincent's 1 year anniversary, Chef de Cuisine Chrissy Camba is bringing back some of her favorite menu items from the past year!

Chicago's premier sporting parlor, Old Town Social celebrates the Chicago Bears’ regular season kick-off game on Sunday, September 11 with their “PACKS & PIGS” PARTY! With 23 plasma flat-screen TV’s-- strategically located throughout the restaurant for game time events-- what more could a fan ask for? Executive Chef, Jared Van Camp, will be roasting a succulent whole hog on the patio for BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches with house made BBQ sauce and house made coleslaw, in addition to OTS’ signature weekend Dixieland Brunch served until 3 p.m. In true tailgate-style, 6-packs of Old Style Tall Boys will be on special, and the first 100 people in the door will receive a complimentary Old Town Social koozie. OTS doors open at 11 a.m., with kickoff at noon.

i can't say enough about the Scuppernong grapes that we are using at HB right now...delicious indigenous American vines... we are currently using them on our house ravioli with asparagus pesto, chili, tomotoes, and scuppernong agrodulce... i am headed in today to attempt to make a clafouti with them

We are pleased to announce our first Whiskey of the Month (WOM) will be Rowan’s Creek, by Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, Ltd. of Bardstown, Kentucky. Rowan’s Creek represents just the type of whiskey we hope to turn you onto through the Big Jones Bourbon Society – interesting producer, small production, off the beaten path of the mass market, and delicious. Sometimes, our WOM will be something more familiar, sometimes it’ll be more obscure, but we promise to always being you delicious, interesting whiskeys that are either a discovery or sometimes perhaps something dear to your heart. We think Rowan’s Creek is a discovery. The Whiskey of the Month is a monthly selection in conjunction with the Big Jones Bourbon Society, a group of whiskey lovers.

Lil' Johnny Links!!! Our favorite collaboration sausage with Johnny from Birrieria Zaragoza are in the case now! Goat sausages with the secret Zaragoza family mole and a few other goodies mixed in. Get here soon- they wont last long....