Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

The James Beard Awards, one of the food industry's biggest recognitions in America, were announced tonight in a ceremony at Chicago's Lyric Opera house. Chicago is home to two winners.

June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and features the Chicago Pride Parade at the end of the month.

We finally have an airdate for the season 2 premiere of World War II drama World on Fire, plus some first looks at new and returning characters. 

The celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich came to America as a child and found a new home and life. In a new special, she visits, cooks, and eats with immigrants, especially those who have settled in less urban parts of America, as a way of thanking her adopted home country. 

In her new special Lidia Celebrates America: Flavors That Define Us, Lidia Bastianich brings a hearty soup of escarole and white bean stew to a potluck dinner of all-star immigrant Washington, D.C. chefs. Try the recipe. 

Will Sophia and Tom finally find their way back to each other, and then will Sophia accept Tom after all his missteps? Not if Lady Bellaston and Blifil have a say in it, as Tom Jones wraps up. 

“You can understand another person’s perspective when you see their neighborhood and what it’s like to live there,” says Tonika Lewis Johnson, the founder of the Folded Map Project, who is organizing tours in partnership with the city and popular historian Shermann "Dilla" Thomas.

Sophia's wealthy, widowed aunt Lady Bellaston has plans for both Sophia and Tom, and they don't involve letting the two young lovers reunite even though they are both in London. 

Sam Rattanopas and Mina Sudsaard met while children in Thailand, and now co-own NaKorn in Evanston, where they serve upscale Thai food. 

Nick Sheedy spends hundreds of hours digging through records and paper trails to discover the ancestors of guests on Finding Your Roots. “You want to have a feeling that you belong and that there’s a community out there that belongs to you," he said of the interest in genealogy.

A reality cooking competition show might seem like an odd subject for an opera, but it allows for some hijinks and character studies as the contestants express their stories through food while vying to make the best mac 'n' cheese.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the future mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak was born in an area of Austria-Hungary that is now part of the Czech Republic.

As Louis supports the American Revolution and prepares to go to war with Great Britain, Antoinette finds herself enamored by a dashing noble and is abetted in her tryst by Yolande. 

Sophia flees her impending marriage to Blifil, following in the footsteps of Tom, who gets kicked out by Squire Allworthy. More colorful characters are met along the way, and Tom of course gets himself into trouble. 

Almost everything that can go wrong before Matthew and Trixie's wedding does, but they luckily have a caring group of midwives and a supportive community to usher everything through to the end.