Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

A second season of The Great American Recipe brings home cooks from across the country to share recipes and stories before expert judges. We spoke to Ted Pappas, a contestant from the suburbs of Chicago, about why he wanted to be on the show and his experience.

Ted Pappas, a Chicago area contestant on the second season of PBS's The Great American Recipe, shared his recipe for "Greek kebabs," a weeknight staple in his house, along with his mother's recipe for tzatziki.

Honey Butter Fried Chicken celebrates its tenth anniversary in a challenging business this year. From almost the beginning, it has offered benefits to its employees, unusually for the time, and has recently supported their own businesses and pop-ups.

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood, the creator of Death in Paradise, is being adapted into a mystery for PBS with some actresses you might recognize.

The Olympic Tavern may be in Rockford, but it serves up a Chicago Dog and Italian Beef pizza. “We found out that the weirder the pizza special that we run, the better,” says Zak Rotello, the third generation of his family to run the restaurant, which opened in 1945.

Mavis Staples began performing with her family band, The Staple Singers, when she was eleven. She's still singing at 83, as in a concert recorded earlier this year at Chicago's Symphony Center that WTTW is broadcasting. 

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.