Boy howdy did it get exciting ’round these parts last week! Our Public Newsroom with City Bureau kicked off last Thursday with a toast in our new Bronzeville office—which then led to some of the smartest discussions I’ve had in this city about how we can hold public office-seekers publicly accountable. I don’t mean “we” the press, the royal/generic we that might allow me to pass off platitudes about what should be done, in general, without ever really doing them....

Chandler West/Sun-Times Media One wonders just how far Mayor Rahm will go with his ISAT investigations. For the past few days I’ve been talking to teachers from Drummond and Saucedo schools about the ongoing central-office ISATgate investigation. For teachers, here’s the choice: if you want to save your hide, throw a colleague to the wolves. Looks like these investigators learned a trick or two from Senator Joe McCarthy. Weingarten rights come from a U....

McKay found he preferred the mace in savory preparations: for the Berkshire pork, he first rubbed it with ground mace and seared it, braised it, and then used the braising liquid to make a mace-infused aspic in which he set the spinach-mushroom roulade he made with the tenderloin. He also finished the boiled potatoes with curry, shallots, and blade mace, and used mace in the pickling liquid for the cucumbers....

Back in 2011 the Reader ran a feature titled “Grit & Glitter,” about Chicago’s underground ballroom scene: a gay, black subculture populated by “male-identified men, drag queens, transgender folks, and born women (whom ballroom participants call ‘allies’).” Though its social life revolves around late-night vogueing competitions, the scene’s real foundation is a network of “houses” (as in fashion houses) led by older members of the community, who are expected to mentor their younger peers....

Norm Van Lier is the second-greatest Bulls guard of all time, a player who gave maximum energy on both ends of the court. And while there are plenty of like-minded players from this year’s team—Joakim Noah, Jimmy Butler, Kirk Hinrich—I’m singling out Taj Gibson for his stifling defense, thunderous dunks, surprisingly good midrange jumper, and all-out hustle. (Not too bad for the 26th pick in the 2009 draft.) After Derrick Rose went down with another knee injury, fans and sportswriters expected the team to fall apart....

Yes, I know—you thought it was the mirror (and as a matter of fact, I am talking to you). But for the price of a drink you can do better than that: Club Lago, a great little Italian place at Superior and Orleans, was the location for the best scene in John McNaughton’s Mad Dog and Glory (1993), starring De Niro as a glum, introverted crime-scene investigator, Uma Thurman as the woman he falls in love with, and Bill Murray as the gangster who has her under his thumb....

Yes, Charlie Trotter’s legacy hangs over Chicago. But even if his restaurant were still around today, you might not want to spend that kind of scratch to find out what exactly that legacy is. The comparable places these days (Alinea, Grace) have transcended what Trotter set out to accomplish, and his proteges all seem to want out from under his high-end influence (see: Belly Q, Yusho). So where can you get a meal that explains that moment in dining when Chicago became important?...

Sleep The 36th annual Chicago Jazz Festival kicks off at noon, which means you still have time to read our guide to the free four-day fest. If you’re looking to check out some other performances throughout the weekend, you’ve got plenty of options. “In 1992 this San Jose band helped light a fire under the infant genre of stoner rock with their second LP, Sleep’s Holy Mountain, slowing their blues-based riffs to a muddy crawl and blasting them through a wall of planet-shaking amps—it sounds like Master of Reality creeping through a thick cloud of cannabis smoke,” writes Luca Cimarusti....

It’s hardly one of the city’s big events, but precisely because it’s modest and homey it’s one of my favorite celebrations of the changing of the seasons in Chicago—and if I don’t go, it at least inspires me to do a little bit of it at home. It’s Osteria Via Stato’s annual heirloom tomato dinner, at which Chef David DiGregorio prepares a whole feast around the summer fruit in its final moments of peak freshness....

Maria Larkin is trying to nail this bunny hop. Not the easy kind, where you pull your whole bike off the ground in one swift jump. Larkin, an elite racer who came up through Chicago’s bike scene, mastered that one long ago. On a recent Wednesday night in Humboldt Park, Larkin was aiming for the harder kind, the kind that allows you to jump over even bigger hurdles. The bike-obsessed Belgians invented the sport to give them something to do during the harsh winter off-season; cyclocross racers are like mailmen, competing in rain, snow, sleet, and hail....

Can design by Phineas X. Jones On Saturday, October 4, at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, a panel of 222 judges from ten countries bestowed 268 medals on a record-breaking field of roughly 5,700 entries from more than 1,300 breweries. (That’s a lot of breweries, but it’s not even half the current U.S. total—and thousands more are in the planning stages.) Chicago institution Half Acre took home its first GABF hardware, winning silver with its Heyoka IPA—and Heyoka’s category, “American-Style India Pale Ale,” was by far the most hotly contested at the fest, with 279 entries....

buddyguy.net Runner-Up Joanna Connor

Rev. Billy’s Chop Shop 4314 N. Lincoln Runner-Up Goldplaited – A Finishing Salon

chanceraps.com Runner-Up Psalm One

Femmes Room at berlin 954 W. Belmont

500 E. 61st, 773-904-9800, sunshinegospel.org/what-we-do/sunshine-enterprises A three-block stretch of 61st Street, from King Drive to Champlain Avenue, is like many on the south side: once a thriving commercial corridor, it now consists largely of vacant lots and boarded storefronts. Sunshine Enterprises, a nonprofit with an office on that strip, seeks to help entrepreneurs launch small businesses, partly in the hope that some will eventually move in on 61st and make the strip vibrant again....

CarmelleSafdie It’s the time of year when there are nonstop shows to see, and the beginning of this week is a perfect example of that. The week starts off with garage-rock party-animal King Khan and his band the Shrines playing at Empty Bottle on Monday night. Reggie’s is the place to be on Tuesday, with Black Flag’s once-again retooled lineup playing two shows in the Rock Club (an early all-ages “kids show” and a regular full-blast one later on) and Robby Krieger of the legendary Doors playing in the Music Joint....

Michael Fry, one of Columbia College Chicago’s most celebrated faculty members and a tenured associate professor, resigned January 20, citing discrimination and racial insensitivity in the television department, where he’s been a full-time faculty member since 2007. He began teaching at Columbia as an adjunct in 1997. “They will use me as advertising, but they will not treat me with dignity,” Fry told the Chronicle, which also reported that “after a negative post-tenure review last year, Fry said he had reached his limit....