As researchers at Northwestern and elsewhere scramble to find a treatment for COVID-19, they hope this time the money won’t run out before the next threat hits | May 18, 2020

More than a decade ago, a center was founded at Northwestern University as a rapid-response operation against infectious disease.

But funding for coronavirus research across the country was sporadic — a boom when epidemics like MERS hit, a bust when they were under control. Some promising drugs never made it out of the laboratory as funding waned.

Xuerong Xia has gone to the hospital every day for the past month. Her garage is now a dressing room, where she dons plastic shoe protectors, a face mask, disposable gloves and sunglasses before climbing into her car, equipped with disinfecting wipes and rubbing alcohol.

The rest of her car is loaded with medical supplies, donated by members of the Chinese community who fought the coronavirus since its early days in Wuhan. Now, their focus is fighting it here at home in the Chicago area.

On the eve of her one-year anniversary in the Peace Corps, 23-year-old Katie Bassett packed up the last year of her life in the northeastern Isan region of Thailand and prepared for emergency evacuation.

Her last two days were filled with tearful goodbyes to teachers and students she had built deep relationships with and to her Peace Corps colleagues.

While Cheetos staked their claim on the Flamin’ Hot flavoring way back in 1992, the mouthwatering moniker has spread to a number of snack foods, and other brands have rushed to capitalize on the mass of spicy snack devotees.

Signaling adoration for all things spicy has never been easier, with apparel, makeup, bags and home goods all devoted to honoring spicy snacks like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Takis. But do all spicy snacks measure up?

Boba drinks, one of the foremost symbols of Asian American identity, are tea-based beverages (aka bubble tea or pearl milk tea) varied in flavor and texture. However, one flavor has risen to the top in recent years: brown sugar boba, with its signature marbled appearance and distinct smoky flavor, paired with tapioca balls cooked in honey and more brown sugar. So when a frozen iteration of this well-loved drink was released by the Taiwanese company Xiao Mei, the Asian internet collectively exploded.

On the eve of Lunar New Year, a time meant for celebration with family and arguably the most important Chinese holiday, many Chinatown residents found themselves instead standing in line to buy bright blue boxes of face masks, seeking to protect themselves from the coronavirus after the first case was confirmed in Chicago.

By early afternoon Friday, the lone Walgreens in Chinatown was sold out. Meanwhile, some events celebrating Lunar New Year were canceled, and restaurant owners in the community complained of waning business.

Sometimes, the grocery store check-out line chocolate bar is just not good enough. Just ask any of the thousands of patrons who frequent Chicago’s old-school candy shops.

For years, these candy institutions have been more than a place to satisfy a sweet tooth, but a destination for date nights and family outings. There’s just something special about being greeted when you walk through the door while your nostrils fill with the scent of melted chocolate and caramel. And there’s something magical about perusing the antique penny candy display cases for that obscure, retro sweet you hear your grandmother mention from time to time.

It’s hard to buy a gift for that friend or family member with all the latest food gadgets or a kitchen that looks like it fell out of a design magazine, so it’s time to think big. These showstopping gifts are sure to please the fussy food lovers in your life, no matter their aesthetic.

Frontier chef Brian Jupiter and one of Time magazine’s 2019 Next Generation leaders, Tunde Wey, will host a dinner and discussion to benefit My Block, My Hood, My City and to shed light on gentrification and how it affects Chicago’s black youth on Nov. 7.

After working in the wine industry for nearly nine years, Melissa Zeman has a lot of ideas about what a wine shop should be. Nine fully filled legal pads, to be exact.

But for now, she’s focusing on providing a comfortable and approachable wine-buying experience, educating customers and building community at her wine, beer, spirits and beverage shop BottlesUp!, located in the former wineHouse space in Lakeview.

Often equated with the Western Thanksgiving, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the time of year when family members reunite from around the world to celebrate the full moon, give thanks and enjoy each other’s company. It’s primarily celebrated by people of Chinese and Vietnamese heritage and falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar.

Call me basic, but making a pilgrimage to the nearest Starbucks for a once-a-year pumpkin spice latte is one of my favorite rituals to celebrate the start of fall.

Popular Mexican restaurant Quiote and its basement bar Todos Santos closed last week, with owners vaguely citing “personal reasons” for the shutter. Now, details are emerging as to what exactly those reasons were.

Eleven years ago, Danny Fang left his hometown in Guangdong, China, to come to Chicago for school. But after a few months, he dropped out and started working in restaurants in Chinatown. It was during this time and his eight years working as a server at MingHin Cuisine that he realized he wanted to open his own restaurant, one that served contemporary versions of traditional dishes from the Guangdong region.

Andrew Lim and Thomas Oh are opening a Korean restaurant in the former San Soo Gab San space in Fulton River District, but not a traditional one. Perilla, named after the plant often used in Korean cooking, will go in a more contemporary direction, with a laser focus on presentation, explanation and bridging the gap between the Korean dishes from their childhoods and the neighborhood where the restaurant sits.

There isn’t a more beloved dressing in the Midwest than ranch, and as one of the major cities, Chicago is no exception to the devotion.

We don’t just use the creamy white dressing for our vegetables. Oh, no. We use it as a dip for our pizza, wings, chips, cheese curds and egg rolls; as a marinade for meats to throw on the grill; and as a topping for nachos, burgers, wraps, sandwiches and potato skins. The dressing has become the mark of a true Midwesterner, an indicator that residents wear as a badge of honor.

With or without your consent, you’ve probably encountered, in recent weeks, some influencer on social media lauding the merits of celery juice. With their veneer-white smiles and bump-less skin, these men and women claim that the bright green juice is a miracle in a Mason jar, with the ability to help you boost your metabolism and lose weight fast — some even claim that it cures cancer.

Jay Schroeder wants to make it clear that the title of his forthcoming book is a bait-and-switch. “Understanding Mezcal” isn’t meant to be the definitive work on the Mexican spirit, but rather as a guide to starting your journey.

One of my favorite parts of childhood church ski trips was coming in from the freezing, snowy slopes to a Styrofoam cup of hot cocoa. Steaming and sweet, the comforting chocolate was stirred up by the ladies in our Bible study to warm and replenish our tiny bodies. White and blue packets of Swiss Miss were rationed out, one per wiggling child. And with the marshmallow variety in short supply, we all fought over who would be the lucky ones to get a cup with the tiny white confections.

You may have heard of omakase sushi, where chefs create a dazzling array of dishes to tantalize your palate, highlight rare ingredients and demonstrate their prowess. Well, Julia Momose is taking the idea of omakase to cocktailing with Kumiko, her bar in the West Loop officially open Dec. 31 (though it’s been “soft-open” since Wednesday).

When you walk into The Swill Inn, a sense of familiarity washes over you, the kind that you get when you see an friend or walk into an old-school Chicago bar. And in many ways, that’s what it aims to be — a place where regulars stop in for a couple of beers and a burger before heading home. But what makes it different is the team of industry veterans behind it, most of them tired of “concepts” and more interested in simplicity done right.

My mother has always used food in two ways: one, to express love and appreciation, and two, as a means of currency in her community.

When mom, Ling Ling Zheng (affectionately called Momma Wong by my friends), moved from Shanghai to Chicago in the ’90s, beef noodle soup was one of the recipes she brought with her, a comforting dish to ward off the bitter winter and a sense of loneliness from leaving her family and homeland. But she remembers being intimidated by American grocery stores, with their seemingly endless rows of cereal and canned food — it was all terribly foreign and strange.

Cheese tea is an Asian drink phenomenon that I’ve been religiously following on Instagram, yearning for the day when I, too, could post the viral sensation on my social media feed. After years of coveting it, I was finally able to realize my dreams when Bingo Tea opened in Chinatown over the summer.

When Pacific Standard Time opened in April, it was one of the city’s buzziest openings, but to actually eat there was almost deafening.

“I was able to step back and say this is the biggest issue with the restaurant,” said partner Joshua Tilden. “It wasn’t the food, it wasn’t the service, (but) I thought this problem was easily rectifiable.”

I didn’t know brain sandwiches were a Midwestern delicacy until I began researching regional specialties. Because I’m a fan of off-cuts of meat, brain sandwiches caught my eye almost immediately.

Whether it’s driving through a McDonald’s on an extended road trip or meeting up with suburban friends at a Wendy’s, fast food is an integral part of our lives as Americans.

Fashion! Intrigue! Cross-cultural, generational spite! “Crazy Rich Asians,” based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel, has been making waves since debuting last week, as much for its all-Asian cast as for its confectionery rom-com plot. One of the biggest characters in the movie? The food.

As reported previously, you can now see the health inspection scores of restaurants on Yelp.

The national rollout of the Local Inspector Value Entry Specification (LIVES) program uses independent company HDScores to glean data from records violations, doling out demerits to restaurants depending on the results of the inspections.

When Mike Melazzo was growing up in Glen Ellyn and Wheaton, the two cities weren’t exactly alcohol-friendly. With Wheaton College’s dry campus and the large traditional Christian community, alcohol consumption was generally discouraged.

“I hate and love talking about suicide,” Laura Green admitted to a group of food and beverage professionals Monday night. “It’s a horrible thing to talk about; it’s an important thing to talk about. It’s a scary thing for me to talk about because I want it represented in a way that’s appropriate.”

I’ll admit that when I was first introduced to a whiskey highball, I was confused as to why fancy characters on TV made it a big deal. I mean, it’s just a whiskey soda right?

But as I learned more about the drink, I found out that the Japanese have made a ritual out of crafting this simple cocktail, executing each step with nearly scientific care and precision. The quality of the ice matters, the whisky matters (the Japanese spelling of “whisky” is the same as the Scottish spelling, not the American “whiskey”), the technique matters, the temperature matters.

Since becoming a chef, Jennifer Kim has always wanted to cook Korean food. It's what has made her feel the most safe and the most at home, but she wondered for a long time if she was "Korean enough" to cook and serve it.

For some of us, lunch during the always-too-busy workweek consists of a quick grab-and-go at a nearby fast food spot or last night's leftovers in a Tupperware container. It makes us wonder: Is there something better? Are others winning at the lunch game?

Jake's Pub is under fire after racially charged comments were made on Facebook by people connected to the bar. As of this writing, the incident has sparked 508 one-star Facebook reviews, 55 one-star Yelp reviews, a Reddit thread with hundreds of commentsand even a planned sit-in protest at the bar.

Walking into an Asian grocery store for the first time can be a daunting experience. Many of the labels aren’t in English, or the English is misspelled or indecipherable. You’re left with reading tiny type on the back or trying to mime to someone who may not speak English fluently.

At the start of the new year, you probably promised yourself that you were going to eat healthy and exercise more. Your Pinterest board was filled with Buddha bowl recipes, and that pair of gym shoes was getting more action than it used to. But as January marches toward its end, you find yourself taking fewer Mason jar salads to work, and you can't even remember the last time you went to the gym.

On a busy stretch of Taylor Street where fast-casual restaurants dominate, Chez Joel sits at a corner with twinkling lights and French doors. Inside, a massive chandelier hangs over the dining room, its walls adorned by French posters. But the charming decor sets up expectations of a meal that ultimately doesn’t match.

Despite an automated phone message saying that Honey’s was closed for renovation and remodeling, a former employee said Wednesday that the entire staff was actually let go last week and that the restaurant, and attached bar concept, The Hive, are closed.

Julia Momose has always dreamed of opening a bar, and now she’s getting her shot: The renowned mixologist’s latest project, Kumiko, is in the works.

Momose, named one of the America's best mixologists by Food & Wine magazine and formerly of GreenRiver and The Office at Aviary, has partnered with Noah Sandoval, chef at Oriole, and Cara Sandoval, general manager of Oriole to bring the omakase experience to cocktailing. Momose has been creating cocktails and “spiritfree” drinks at Oriole since departing GreenRiver, so the partnership is a natural progression.

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8 questions about edible cannabis, compassion with Mindy Segal | Oct. 10, 2017

Mindy Segal, a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef, announced in December 2015 that she would be venturing into cannabis-infused edible products for medical marijuana patients. The acclaimed chef and owner of Mindy's HotChocolate recently spoke at Taste Talks about her line, Mindy's Artisanal Edibles, created in partnership with Cresco Labs and available at licensed dispensaries across the state.

We caught up with Segal to talk about the cannabis industry, chocolate and what it means to be a compassionate person.

Conducting scientific research is often tedious and time-consuming, but someone had to do it.

Now, though, as many scientists have seen grant funding and resources shrink, they're exploring new ways of approaching their work, increasingly with the help of everyday amateurs and enthusiasts through what's known as citizen science.

Federal authorities have arrested and charged a 28-year-old man with kidnapping Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois who disappeared three weeks ago and now is presumed dead.

Nortasha Stingley doesn't remember a lot about the weeks after her 19-year-old daughter was shot and killed nearly four years ago. All she could do was cry. All she wanted to do was scream.

Tucked away behind rows of brightly colored comic books and board games, more than a dozen people gathered Saturday afternoon in the back room of G-Mart Comics in Logan Square, scribbling messages onto the backs of postcards with iconic images from the Women's March.

All were addressed to President Donald Trump.

Darvece Monson, 36, sat in her hairdresser's chair Tuesday, still in shock from hearing that her half sister's niece Takiya Holmes had died that morning, days after the 11-year-old was struck by a stray bullet.

Nearly one-sixth of Cook County gunshot victims suffering serious injuries were not treated at trauma centers, according to a study but the University of Illinois at Chicago. But some local emergency medical services directors say the study is misleading.

U.S. authorities took more than a dozen travelers into custody Saturday at O'Hare International Airport in response to President Donald Trump's immigration order - but lawyers who came to their aid said all were set free after a federal judge temporarily barred deportations.

The Chicago Park District plans to complete the last of four boathouses this fall, a five-year project aimed at increasing community access to the Chicago River and its tributaries.

But at the three finished boathouses in Chinatown, Ravenswood and Lakeview, residents say more needs to be done to make the facilities usable.

It has been 15 years since Tionda and Diamond Bradley disappeared form their South Side home.

Fifteen years of interviews, forensic lab work and hunting down leads that went nowhere.

The Felices' three children were conceived at the same time, but they're not triplets.

Faith, 6, and Matthew and Michael, both 4, belong to Jamie and Dan Felice, a couple who struggled to have children before being matched with a donor through a group that collects unused frozen embryos. They received six embryos. Two pregnancies later, their family is complete.

Two-year-old Dashawn Wright teetered alone on a West Side sidewalk, his wide curious eyes gazing at dozens of kids and adults who came here to mourn is mother's death.

His aunt steadied him, helped him take the cap off a blue marker and held him in front of a poster board taped to a black iron fence.

A 9-year-old boy was shot to death just doors form his grandmother's house in the Gresham neighborhood Monday, and police said they could not rule out that he was targeted.

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