My Logan Square neighborhood has become a Chicago dining destination. It seems that every week brings the announcement of another new restaurant for the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings that have discovered the place we have called home for the past 40 years.
The Sunday Farmers Market across from the Centennial Monument is another foodie destination, drawing visitors from far outside the neighborhood.
I like a good meal. Nothing fancy. Just good food prepared well.
I often mention Lula.
It was the first of the recent wave of Logan Square restaurants and is still turning out good stuff. Anne and I will sometimes head up their early on a Friday evening and sit at the bar, have a drink and split an entrée.
They serve a cookie plate for dessert which more restaurants ought to do.
I was pleased – and a little surprised – to read in the New York Times that fine dining has come to us retirees.
Culinary schools are redesigning curriculums to teach students how to cook for the aging. At many senior living communities and nursing homes, chefs with degrees from Johnson & Wales or the Culinary Institute of America have taken over kitchens.
They sear wild Alaska salmon and offer cooking demonstrations. Residents can drink craft cocktails in the lounge at the Merion in Evanston. At places like Wake Robin senior center in Vermont, chefs use whole pigs from local farms and serve coffee roasted in nearby Burlington. At Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan, sustainable seafood comes directly from the boat.
Wolfgang Puck is on Medicare.
The prolific cookbook author Paula Wolfert, 76, is developing recipes to help fight her recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease and is publicly pushing other chefs to join her.
Mark Ozer, 82, is a retired doctor who in February moved into the Ingleside at Rock Creek senior center in Washington, D.C. This week, he is hosting a Spanish wine dinner featuring paella.
“A very important part of the issue for elderly people of this generation is choice,” he said. “The people here are cultured people. They’ve had experience. They are not about to be treated as a herd.”
This is more bologna than pâté.
This country’s older folks are poor. Very poor.
The average retirement savings account is less than $12,000.
As I read this piece of nonsense in the NY times I was reminded of what Representative Jan Schakowsky told us at our S.O.R.E IEA Retired meeting last week.
She had arrived after spending the morning working Meals on Wheels in Arlington Heights.
“People have no idea what it is like in many of our suburban communities behind those closed doors. Older citizens who simply have no food.”
No Spanish wine dinner featuring paella.
No seared wild Alaskan salmon.
One NY Times reader commented on the article.
Well, if this isn’t a little let them eat cake moment.
95% of the Boomer wave of seniors would be happy just to afford a decent care facility for their final days, which they won’t, because those places are very expensive, and the Boomers have no savings. Certainly not enough in savings to indulge in fine food cooked by trained chefs in very expensive senior homes. No, this is another story about the 1% indulging themselves until the end. Most will be happy clipping coupons and eating, well, anything at all.
And with our public employee pensions and Social Security under attack across the country, including here in Illinois, there will be less older foodies and more older foodless.
Fred Klonsky 
Right on, Fred! You are indeed saying what needs to be said. Most retirees are lucky if they can pay the monthly bills and have enough left over for food. You point to the contradictions existing clearly. You are a chip of the (Old Block(s)
The New York Times article must be referring to the fortunate few, perhaps Nekritz-Biss & Associates, but not most retired teachers and other public retirees.
Many retired teachers still have house payments and student loan payments, as well as health insurance, etc., etc.. Much of the debt originating from going to college and the money not earned during those years.
Many passed up higher paying jobs because they were devoted to teaching. They eat as
they can on a small amount of money. Going out to eat usually means fast food, when the “buy one get one free” specials are going on.
Retirees, watch your back, I keep finding targets stuck on the back of my shirts, I expect politicians to open fire on us after the election.
Some more Data from the Fed and the census
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-tps63.html
An Updated on the State Pension Funds
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-156.html
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/
Summary No fine dining. The Fed shows more wealth than the census because they oversample the wealth and I suspect the rich are more eager to talk to their friends at the Fed Which is more accurate . We know that Publically Traded stocks are about 20 trillion now and the Fed survey hits that and the Census is a few Trillion short. On retirement assets they are close about 11 Trillion Median is lower in the census 34000 v 59000 in the Fed So half of all people how have a retirement account and that is only half of all people -well they have less than a years income Only 14% have a real pension these reports dont value them
There is another Huge variation -the self reported value of private business The feds figure is 13 trillion the census is just 3 trillion but only 11-13% have one and the median are only 8000 in the census and 64000 in the fed. That tells me most small business are struggling and most of the wealth is in giant private business eg Citadel and Rauner. Maybe the fed talked to Rauner and the census got the guy above selling cheap sandwiches
I think it explains the obsession of the top fraction over our pensions. ITS THE ONLY BIG ASSET THEY HAVE YET TO STEAL
Some of the people we retired with have been spending their golden years on food stamps. It could be worse. A friend recently told us about someone who decided to cash out after 25 years of teaching. This individual, who has no social security entitlement, no savings, was angry at the suggestion she should apply for food stamps and Medicaid. Too much red tape, she complained.
There is no hope this retiree could ever get back into the system and buy her time back. She is still counted as part of the multi-billion dollar unfunded pension liability Rahm Emmanuel publicly worries about.
Why did she cash out? No one knows for sure. I think it might have been job stress: One day she snapped, went out the door.
I know one prof who left for a job in PA thinking she had vested and would get something when she was 65 …but she was off by a week…be careful Q and R aint going to help you
BTW as to the latest panic from Moodys Illinois is now close to 50 percent funded
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
The US average is about 75 and for public fund that is fine I have long said give TRS the tollway and the crisis ends . Its worth 20-50 billion