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Honey Butter Fried Chicken Harold’s Chicken Finalist: Roost Carolina Kitchen

This weekend, your faithful listings coordinator turns 21, doubled, plus a presidential term (that’s four years, folks—I know it seems like longer) and she’s already on Guy Fieri mode*. You may or may not have Monday off, and even those of you who do might not feel like anything is a weekend anymore. Perhaps it’s a good time to remember what Labor Day is all about. Here’s a list of films that Ben Sachs told us about in 2019 that should help you learn about the power of a union....

Like many drag queens, Chicago’s Tori Sass has been through it this year. It started with some bang-up success: When the South Michigan Avenue drag palace Lips Chicago made its grand opening in August 2019, Sass landed a coveted showgirl gig at the venue, whose opulent interior is a cross between upscale Victorian bordello and Mad Men-era steakhouse. In addition to Chicago, Lips owner Mark Zschiesche installed Lips in New York City, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, and Atlanta....

Under the tutelage of the late, great hip-hop svengali Asap Yams, New York collective Asap Mob (whose members all have “Asap” in their stage names, though they prefer to use a dollar sign rather than an s) learned the benefits of blending the best regional rap sounds, including Memphis’s humid, syrupy aesthetic and Atlanta’s psychedelic flamboyance. With Asap Rocky in the lead, the group have ascended to the national stage over the last several years, and it seems they, like every other popular rap act around, want to help in the kitchen and toss in some of their own sauce....

Tenspeed Hero store.tenspeedhero.com Last November, Reader street-style maven Isa Giallorenzo snapped a picture of Aleia Murawski, one of nine friends who create cycle-centric clothing under the label Tenspeed Hero. The company prides itself on making pieces that look good in or out of a velodrome, and sure enough, Murawski’s reflective leggings (which she’d paired with a faux fur coat) caught our eye. From socks covered in clouds and argyle-esque geometric patters to Lycra jerseys dotted with juicy motifs such as cartoon oranges, these designs are not your middle-aged neighbor’s bike gear....

Portillo’s Al’s Italian Beef Finalist: Johnny’s Beef

Empty Bottle 1035 N. Western 773-276-3600emptybottle.com

Big Freedia is both a practitioner and a champion of bounce music. On the first episode of her 2013 reality show, Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce, she defined the New Orleans hip-hop style as “uptempo, heavy-bass, ass-shaking club music.” Bounce music emerged in the mid-80s, after Queens duo the Showboys released the 1986 single “Drag Rap (Triggaman).” By the early 90s the sound had been adopted by New Orleans, where its mash of hip-hop and house with call-and-response lyrics reflects the eclectic nature of the city’s party spirit....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, March 8, 2016. Rahm Emanuel’s inner circle transforms in second term With the high-profile exits of “mini-Rahm” David Spielfogel and ex-police chief Garry McCarthy from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration, there’s a huge void left to fill as the mayor tries to win back Chicago’s trust after the Laquan McDonald video controversy. Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman has a roundup of who the major players will be for the remaining three years of his second term in office....

There’s plenty to do in Chicago after the holiday weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 11/28: In Sacrilege: A Nativity Story at the Annoyance Theatre (851 W. Belmont), the history of Christmas is told from the perspective of Mary Magdalene—on her way to Bethlehem while tailed by malevolent forces.

The Ube Doobie is a chewy, vivid purple pastry showered with toasted coconut flakes. Rob Menor, the chef who created it, describes it as a “big purple blunt,” partly because his recipe calls for a double dose of cannabis butter and coconut oil. Collaboration and connection are critical to his particular mission. “A lot of different Filipino chefs decided like, ‘Let’s move forward with a different philosophy than those before us....

For the last several years, Mick Dumke and I have been writing about the “grass gap“—i.e., even though everyone smokes reefer, far more blacks get busted for illegal possession of pot than whites or other racial groups. Not that it will hasten the legalization anytime soon. Remember, it’s only an advisory referendum, and Mayor Rahm and Governor Rauner oppose legalization. So I’m not sure if the no votes came from Latinos or the remaining white voters—Burke’s base, if you will....

Not every couple can navigate marriage, parenting young kids, and running a lifestyle brand and store, but Brian and Autumn Merritt do it artfully, making it look easy — a real-life definition of couple goals. The duo is the creative force behind their “classic with a twist” Chicago-based apparel label, Sir & Madame. The Merritt’s Hyde Park store brings in both customers and fashion stylists alike, with themed collections snapped up as soon as they’re launched....

Vince Vaughn Runner-Up: Behzad Dabu

Old Town Art Fair oldtowntriangle.com/old-town-art-fair Runner-Up: Wabash Arts Corridor

I Shit You Not Pooping is one of the things that unite us as humans. Hell, there are entire books on the subject (remember Everyone Poops, anyone?). And because everybody poops, many have inadvertently done it in public, which is where I Shit You Not comes in. A monthly storytelling showcase, ISYN features local comedians, actors, monologists, performance artists, and regular Joes like you and me sharing personal experiences of unintentional bodily mishaps....

All Our Tragic The day before I saw the Hypocrites’ loose adaptation of all 32 surviving Greek tragedies, I flew back to Chicago from a vacation in Austria. The flight lasted nine hours, the show 12. But although it took significantly more time to get through than it takes to cross the Atlantic, All Our Tragic was no slog—and not just because we were given frequent breaks for trips to the bar and the bathroom....

“We are what we are and what we are is an illusion.” —Les Cagelles in La Cage aux Folles That’s the situation in Music Hall, a 1988 play by French theater artist Jean-Luc Lagarce, running now in a 90-minute English-language staging from TUTA. The role of the Artiste has been performed by women in the past; Jeffrey Binder takes it on in this production directed by Zeljko Djukic. Binder does an effective job of driving the character between extremes, from Miss Mannersesque grace to something more befitting Miss Manners’s evil twin....

ARTIST: Annie Klein SHOW: Thomas Comerford and A Flor de Piel at the Hideout for a matinee show on Sat 9/28 MORE INFO: Annie Klein

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, March 10, 2016. Director formerly known as Andy Wachowski comes out as transgender When the Chicago-based Wachowski filmmaking duo created and directed The Matrix back in 1999, they were known as the Wachowski brothers, but now they’re the Wachowski sisters. Forty-eight-year-old Lilly Wachowski, formerly known as Andy, announced Tuesday that she is a transgender woman after being approached by the London-based Daily Mail....