"TAKE ME OUT TONIGHT"

I went to Giocco last night for AirOne's reception to promote their new direct flights from Chicago and Boston to Milan. This, of course, is fabulous news to those of us inclined towards wanderlust, as they'll be the only airline offering direct flights into Milan. As I peered over their connection schedule last night, their offering of connecting flights to Athens caught me eye nicely, too. That would be a fun trip, to play around Italy a bit, dash over the Greece, a little grappa, a little ouzo, yadda yadda yadda.

I ran into Teresa Carter of The Local Tourist and Paul Banks of The Sports Bank, Tiffany Tate and Sawyer Lahr of The Unscene Chicago, met and talked with Kasia Wyser-Pratte about her fabulous foodie blog, Foodsy, and confessed to her I wish I still did more food writing (this morning, I found her design site---look at that typewriter! You know I love the old typewriters), talked with Eric Rochow of the very cool GardenFork TV about getting one's green on in a simply way, chatted about various points of Italian travel with Marco Rottino from AirOne, a discussion on avoiding tourist-heavy areas with Edelman's Annie Flowers and talked about the Arabic translator I want to help find (for Pilcrow Lit Fest panelist Mahmoud Saeed) with Edelman's Carla Dabis. And the tastes and wine at Gioco were wonderful, which made everything all that much more enjoyable.

I think next time I return to the flattering light and deep-red watercolor-walled Gioco, I will certainly have to have a bit more than the couple of bites of tapenade and artisan cheese I sampled. I think I'll try their Insalata Di Spinaci e Barbietole (spinach, gorgonzola, baby beets, red peppers and honey-mustard balsamic), and perhaps the Gnocchi di Bufalo Ricotta alla Parmigiana (just as the name suggests, Ricotta gnocchi glazed in tomato, butter and parmigiano)!

Ah, and a funny-weird realization of the evening--- on AirOne's flights, the food is overseen by Chicago's Phil Stefani. The same Phil Stefani who has a niece who worked with my mother until about two months ago. Small world, non?