Chicago, Disney Style

I spent the past week in Chicago for the IFT (Institute of Food Technologists) annual meeting and food expo. This is the third year in a row that I have been able to attend the annual meeting, but this year I went for a different reason than in the past. I attended as the IFTSA student director of the Disney-IFTSA Nutritious Foods for Kids Competition. It was such a fun and very busy week that it will be hard to summarize it all here. Luckily a picture is worth a thousand words and I took over a hundred pictures, feel free to do the math to figure out how much I could potentially say...

My friend Michelle, also one of my professors, flew to Chicago with me Friday morning. 

Once we arrived in Chicago, we split up. Michelle stayed with some friends for a few days and I took the L to our hotel. The first thing that was obvious was that the hotel room was much smaller than any I had been in before.

The bathroom was even smaller, to prevent hitting your knees on the sink you had to sit sideways on the toilet.

To start the trip I journeyed on the bus to the Lincoln Park Zoo where I met up with my good friends Philip and Brooke Sadler. I arrived so late in the day that I didn't see too many of the animals, but we stopped into the conservatory there and there were a lot of really neat plants.

After the zoo and conservatory we went to one of the beaches and played Frisbee in the water and then on the shore after we started to cool off a little too much. This day was so full that when I finally got back to my hotel that night I realized that I was starving but I didn't want to eat until I cleaned off the sweat and sand. Once I was showered and clean it was starting to get dark. Although I wasn't in a bad part of Chicago, I still didn't want to go wandering around Chicago in the dark by myself. Luckily I found an Italian place that was half a block from my hotel that gave the option of carry out.

The next morning I left the hotel bright and early to walk to the IFT Cares service project I had signed up to participate in. As I headed down Michigan Avenue, I realized that it was closed and I had to pick an alternate route. Transformer's 3 was being filmed on Michigan Avenue and as I walked past I got to see some of the cars under covers and some of the filming action.

Look closely, do you see anything interesting on the bridge? I noticed something, so I zoomed in.

The IFT Cares activity was really neat. We spent the afternoon sorting and packaging bread into boxes at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. In three hours our group packed over 4,000 pounds of bread to be distributed to food banks throughout the Chicago area.

Later that evening a bunch of the rest of the BYU crew arrived in Chicago and we all went out to eat at the Weber Grill.

To start the meal they brought out pretzel rolls with butter and cheese butter. The rolls were so good and everyone was so hungry that by the time I had my camera out most of the rolls had already been devoured.

I ordered the Wisconsin Cheese Burger with Applewood smoked bacon and the house salad. It was so yummy!

Sunday morning we attended Sacrament meeting at the Logan Square Ward and then headed back downtown for the day's events. I had to attend a couple meetings during the early afternoon. In the late afternoon we had the tasting session for the Disney-IFTSA Nutritious Foods for Kids competition. The teams all did such a great job presenting their products, the judges were amazing, and Rebecca Skolmutch from Disney Consumer Products is just wonderful.

After the tasting session we made our way to the reception that Rebecca and Disney put on for the participants and judges. All I can say is, WOW! The room looked amazing and it was almost as if I walked into Andy's room from Toy Story.

Dr. Dunn was one of the judges for the competition and after the reception we made sure to stand next to the sponsoring characters.

Monday dawned bright and early as I was running in the IFTSA Fun Run. I have not run a 5K timed since I was on my high school's cross country team. Well, 9 or so years later my time has definitely gotten longer (about 9 minutes longer) not shorter, but since 29:37 is under 30 minutes I felt I did just fine.

After the 5K I quickly showered and got ready so that I could attend a meeting I need to go to and then find the booth where the oral presentations for the Disney competition would be held.

We cleaned up the booth from the previous event and by the time Rebecca was done it looked very Disney-fied. The entrance attracted people to stop in and listen and we ended up with quite a crowd that stayed for the entire event.

After the event successfully concluded, Rebecca and I slowed down long enough to take a picture together.

Monday evening Brandon Jahner (a BYU student doing an internship with Mars), Michelle, and I sat through the College Bowl competition together.

After the competition I had to attend a reception for the winners of the various competitions in the presidential suite of the Hilton Hotel. So I snuck Michelle and Brandon with me since we were sharing a cab back to our hotel together. This is what the city of Chicago looks like at night if you can afford $2500.00/night!

I really wished that I had been hungry while at the reception because I wanted to try all these works of art. Alas it was hard to even nibble one small pastry, so I gave up before I made myself miserable.

One of the exciting things about IFT is seeing old friends. Helen Melito went to graduate school with Michelle and was an intern with me at General Mills last summer. She is super super super smart and has hair that is so long she can sit on it! In addition to these qualities I like to be with her because she does not drink and basically would have no problem living the BYU honor code. She believes very strongly in her religion and lives by the precepts she has been taught. Such a refreshing person to have as a friend!

Tuesday was a series of meetings but at night Michelle, Brandon, and I went out for Chicago style deep dish pizza. It was good, but I think that I prefer New York style pizza. It must be a function of where I grew up. With Brandon around it felt safe to walk around Chicago a bit at night. So we went to Millenium Park to see the 2 million dollar, giant, mirrored, jelly bean statue along with some of the other sculptures.

The GIANT bean,

Wednesday, Michelle and I decided to take a stroll down to Navy Pier before we caught the L back to O'Hare for our flight to Utah.

It was a beautiful day and just perfect for watching the boats that were on the Lake.

California Gulls were out in force, this one decided to take a rest right by me. I was glad he chose this way to relieve himself...

Chicago has a lot of statues and other forms of artwork all over the city. Sometimes it is good to take a break to enjoy it... either by looking at it or relaxing on it.

Some of the animals preferred being art to resting on it. This squirrel was eating some cookie I put out for it and the birds. After eating several pieces on the bench across the way from us, he went and hung UPSIDE DOWN from a tree to finish an especially large piece.

We made it to the airport and found out our flight had been canceled. We were given the option of waiting around and attempting to board a flight scheduled for later in the day, or to be put up for the night and leaving early Thursday morning. As I had no desire to spend that much time in O'Hare my mind was easily made up. So Michelle and I stayed in the Hilton attached to O'Hare. The room was huge compared to the one we had been in all week.

The bathroom was so large that I couldn't get the whole thing in one shot. Despite being large the door brushed against the toilet when you would open it all the way.

For dinner we went to the hotel restaurant and ordered side dishes, as neither of us felt like paying the prices for the regular meals. It turned out to be the perfect meal as they brought us rolls and butter to start with.

A business man from Japan was sitting at the table next to us and when he observed me photographing my bowl of rolls he asked if I had never seen a roll before. I felt slightly embarrassed, but as he left before the rest of my meal arrived I proceeded to photograph it as well.

The portion of these side dishes was perfect to fill me up to the point of satiety, but not to stuff me. I may have to order from the side menu more often.

Considering there is a halo around my head, you had better believe that my pasta twirling is perfection in action!