Kasia’s 2101 W. Chicago

KD Young Cocky in cover-art form Lately Chief Keef’s been dropping tracks so frequently it’s like they’re forming a trail of breadcrumbs leading to some long-delayed mixtapes, which, as of last night, come to a grand total of three. In the initial wake of Keef’s new busy season another local pulled me in while kicking out a steady stream of new material: KD Young Cocky. Part of the reason I’m so taken by KD’s version of “Grindin’” is that, unlike Wayne’s complacent performance on the original, KD consistently and audibly gives the track all his effort; it shows in one listen through August’s compilation mixtape, Smoking Right Now: Worst Enemy....

For this year’s Reader Key Ingredient Cook-Off, we asked some of Chicago’s top chefs to create a dish to honor a person who influenced their cooking. The exercise stirred many kitchen memories. Dish: Crab salpicon

Silk Degrees UPDATE: This show is in fact taking place July 25th, but I’m nonetheless dubious that it will make it as a Soundboard write-up. The Reader‘s Soundboard calendar aims to pick some of the best shows in a given week, but the ball was really dropped this week when my colleagues neglected to include Boz Scaggs’s appearance tomorrow night at Horseshoe Casino. Sure, most of the Boz‘s catalogue is full of rush-hour staples like “Lido Shuffle,” one of the most irritating songs ever written....

Sun-Times Media The greatest tribute we can pay to Mayor Jane Byrne (pictured above) is to elect a new mayor. It’s come to my attention that there’s a movement in town to pay tribute to former mayor Jane Byrne with some sort of monument or honorary street name. Truth be told, I’m torn on the issue . . . The standard wisdom is that Bilandic lost only because of his incompetence in dealing with all the snow that blanketed our city that winter....

A heated debate recently erupted on social media about whether reckless driving and reckless biking are morally equivalent. It began, as so many of these wars of words do, with a post on Facebook. Drivers are legally obligated to make sure the coast is clear before making turns. But Ignaczak is correct that, unlike their counterparts in European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where the cycling rate is about 17 times higher, Chicago motorists often neglect to check for bikes before making turns or opening doors, which is why “right-hook” and “left-hook” crashes and doorings are common here....

Does self-serve beer mean the end of bartenders? In the past few years, a version of that rhetorical question has popped up in the headlines of articles about this technology-aided barroom trend. The short answer: No, at least not in the near future. Back in 2009, the now-defunct River North sports bar Bull & Bear installed the first self-serve beer taps in the midwest at five of its tables; its sister bar Public House followed two years later with 12 tables featuring built-in taps....

Dinkel’s 3329 N. Lincoln Runner-Up Mindy’s HotChocolate Bakery

Power Plumbing and Sewer Contractor, Inc. 3840 N. Ashland

Jackie Luxem, @properties The Goldstein Group www.atproperties.com/agents/5509/jackie-luxem Runner-Up Jennifer Johnson, @properties

Sick/Tired On Saturday the Empty Bottle is putting on Winter Frozen Dancing, a free afternoon concert featuring Marnie Stern, Diarrhea Planet, and Heavy Times that’s being held outdoors. It’s tough to imagine spending more than a few moments outside considering how miserable the weather’s been this week, but if Diarrhea Planet’s four guitarists can tear it up outdoors, I can certainly brave the cold to see that happen. Hellfyre Club is an eclectic hip-hop collective based in LA, though, as I note in Soundboard, it has some local connections: Open Mike Eagle is from the south side and Milo moved to Chicago in the fall....

Ogden Elementary School 24 W. Walton 773-534-0866 ogden.cps.edu/elementary-school-k-5.html

Multiple locations veggiediner.com Runner-Up Native Foods Cafe

Robyn Von Swank Neil Hamburger Whatever the hell Neil Hamburger does, he’s been doing it for more than 20 years. The Tony Clifton-esque alter ego of Australian-born musician Gregg Turkington, Hamburger confounds—I hesitate to use the word entertains—audiences with standup sets that are more accurately described as one-man performance art pieces. With his incessant wailing about his ex-wife and elaborate onstage breakdowns, Hamburger subverts the neurotic funnyman persona of Bill Hicks, Marc Maron, and George Carlin by pushing his material into grim and decidedly bizarre territory....

Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin’s demand for a federal probe into Homan Square, which some critics have likened to a CIA “black site” operated by the Chicago Police Department, may become a test of wills of how much authority Cook County government can assert over the city of Chicago. Boykin took flak from fellow commissioners after a December hearing on alleged civil rights abuses against detainees held at Homan Square, a so-called “off the books” detention facility in North Lawndale....

Nic Summers/Sun-Times Media Jenny Behan I’ve just discovered, to my surprise, that stud isn’t a noun whose sexuality is strictly masculine. A broodmare, for instance, is also known as a studmare. And the Urban Dictionary defines stud as “basically, a badass . . . This person can be a male or a female gay or straight. Studs do not discriminate.”

I was under the benign influence of “Gates of the Lord,” the Art Institute’s exhibit of traditional Krishna paintings by Pushtimarg artists, when Wendy Doniger’s high-profile troubles popped into mind. Last year, that cover, and some of the content of her book, put Doniger at the center of an international literary brouhaha sparked by Dinanath Batra—a former teacher who’d successfully campaigned against other books, as well as sex education in Indian schools—and other Hindu fundamentalists who didn’t find Doniger’s book chaste enough....

Len Kendall The first “season” of Cartegram Smartphones have become an incredibly diverse platform for game designers, but most don’t go beyond the screen. The result? Lots of people looking down at their phones rather than out at the world around them. Local game designer and digital strategist Len Kendall wanted to create a new way for smartphone users to incorporate apps like Instagram into a game that would require people to explore their surroundings and to share their discoveries with friends and fellow players....

Q: I’ve been reading your advice column in the Coast in Halifax for a while, and it seems that most solutions to relationship problems revolve around sex. Everyone wants it or needs it, we should fuck before dinner, or we can spice up our sex life in this certain way to be happy. What about someone who doesn’t want to have sex, ever? I’ve asked other people for advice, and the answer is usually “take one for the team,” have sex to keep them happy....

MINI of Chicago 1111 W. Diversey Runner-Up Perillo BMW