Keeping food at the 28th annual Taste of Chicago fresh and safe is Frances Guichard's primary concern this week. But, then again, it's her primary concern the other 355 days of the year. As the Food Protection Program Director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, Guichard, along with the rest of the department staff, works hard to educate and inform Chicagoans about food safety in and out of the home.

This weekend finally felt like summer, and it wasn't because of the heat or the constant hangover.  It was because when I took the el from Evanston to Roscoe Village, I didn't just run into a few people headed my way.  I ran into what appeared to be the entire city of Chicago drunk off their asses.  

"The thing about Chicago," a friend said to me as we passed groups of Sox and Cubs fans staggering onto the train at Addison, "is that it packs all of it's shit into two months when the weather doesn't suck."