Years back I was excited—and then crushed—to come across fermented mare and camel milk at Mundelein's great Russian Alef Sausage & Deli. The stuff turned out to be fake, and my dreams of drinking shubat like a proper Kazakh were deferred. But dreams never die, as I learned when Friend of the Food Chain Dr. Peter Engler reported that he'd found raw pastured camel milk for sale on Devon Avenue. That's right. There is a confederation of Amish-run camel dairies squeezing udders across the midwest and bottling it under the banner of Desert Farms, a Santa Monica concern founded by entrepreneur Walid Abdul-Wahab, inspired by a gift of fresh ungulate lactate while visiting Saudi Arabia.
But the people behind Bowser Beer clearly love their dogs more than you love yours because they've actually gone to the trouble to brew canine beer. My dog, Abby, and I first learned about it one day when we were strolling past our local bar, Rogers Park Social, and saw a sign on the sandwich board out front that said something like, "In celebration of the end of the dog flu, we are now serving Bowser Beer!"
My first thought was that the end of dog flu season was more worthy of champagne than mere beer. I read the sign to Abby. She was more interested in sniffing a nearby tree. Still, I was curious.
The great thing about coffee is that people are always tinkering with it, promising new methods that will taste better and make your mind sharper, so there is always something new to drink. Pour overs, cold brews, slow drips: whenever I've had a few extra dollars to spend on a cup of coffee, I've tried them all (though, aside from the cold brew, which I can make at home, I can't afford to commit to any of them). When I heard a few months ago about butter coffee (aka Bulletproof coffee), a wondrous creation that caused its inventor, Dave Asprey, to lose 100 pounds and gain several IQ points, I was intrigued (though not enough to buy Asprey's proprietary beans online), and when I heard last week that it had finally arrived in Chicago, I knew I had to try it.
Quoth Ina: "I garnish it with whipped cream . . . but that's just me, when something is too healthy."