![]() ![]() The doors could be birth,ĭeath and something else, maybe one is suicide while the other is natural causes. I think it's about living and dying honestly. My personal interpretation is probably a stretch too though. I have no idea what it's about so maybe seagreen is right but honestly I feel like that's a bit of a stretch. No doors this time, just a gap in the roof Then I'm alone again no keys and three doors She remembers the first time when she stood alone in front of a pig, armed with saw and boning knife, and had to urge herself to just touch it.Just a blurred out portrait, in a photo frame Next, she went on to learn what you could do with each cut, nothing wasted. In many ways, this was similar to the kind of tasks she did in the pastry kitchen. ![]() At first, she made the brines and sausage seasonings, weighed to the gram. When Andrea’s assistant abruptly left, Louisa stepped in. In that kitchen she met Andrea Deibler, in charge of whole animal butchering as well as sausage and charcuterie making. From there she ran the baking program at Cleetus Friedman’s now defunct City Provisions. When Karen died of cancer, Louisa moved on to Katherine Anne Confections and learned to work with chocolate. Karen Gerod, pastry chef and owner of the Swim Café, was her first mentor. To put herself through school, she started bartending, moving on from there to restaurants, and finally getting into the kitchen. She was a student at DePaul, getting her degree in philosophy and art history, imagining a career teaching at a university or working in an art museum. Up until six years ago, Louisa never thought that her work would land her in kitchens. In my experience in the food business, butchers and the bakers have different DNA. She breaks down the pigs and goats as they arrive from Slagel Family Farms and prepares the sausages and other charcuterie. At the Hopleaf, she is in charge of pastries and the dessert menu, but she is also the butcher. They have created a unique environment that attracts not only interesting customers, regulars and tourists alike, but also talented and unique people in their kitchen. While staying true to the original vibe of the bar, Mike and Louise continue to reinvent the Hopleaf. Just as Mike is obsessed with the quality of beer on tap, he is equally interested in the pedigree of ingredients on the menu. The menu originally started with mussels and pommes frites that today remain the anchor, but the food has taken off from there. In 2003, not wanting loyal customers to leave and go elsewhere to eat, they added food and the bar became one of the city’s first gastropubs. It’s now a destination for people in the neighborhood, the city, and way beyond. From the start, Hopleaf was the place for Belgian beer in Chicago-a spot where you could enjoy a staggering selection of brews, but also count on having some interesting conversations. No bank was interested, so they financed the project with personal credit cards and a lot of sweat equity. Mike and Louise had a different vision of where the neighborhood was headed and what their place could become. There was a pay phone in the back for placing bets and a porno flick was shown every day at noon. The bar had no windows and it was perpetually submerged in a fog of cigarette smoke. The conversation was about who had died from what. At 7AM when it opened, there were already customers lined up outside, old men waiting to get in. We were their neighbors at the time and Mike told us about the bar he just bought. In 1992, Hans Gottling sold Clark-Foster Liquors to Michael Roper and Louise Molnar.
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