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Dining: The Purple Pig and others

My friend Margaret rates restaurants the same way I do: foremost, delicious food that’s authentic or inventive. After that, a memorable dining experience comes from setting, tables, chairs, spacing, service, plating, pacing, linens and silverware, noise, lighting, crowd, attitude, cost. Grub to gourmet, there’s more to dining than food.

When Margaret declared The Purple Pig “perfect,” I knew I was in for a treat. (500 N. Michigan Ave.)

Apple cake, Chez Dent

It is perfect.

Inside is tiled and looks like a Spanish tapas bar: warm, lively, colorful. Outside, tables line a wide catwalk. Yesterday we were inside-outside, under a heated tent.

Grab a seat at one of the communal tables; they’re an unlikely combination of very intimate and very public. Food is meant to be shared here, and it’s fun to have people sit down and ooh and aah and ask about your choices.

During lunch, the crowd is business people who work in the neighborhood, mostly men.

The seasonal menu is pork every which way, a thoughtful variety of cheeses, and Mediterranean small plates. I had a jones for charred summer vegetables with farro, but in mid-October it was roast butternut squash with crispy sage. I don’t even like squash, and I couldn’t get enough. Shaved brussel sprouts, grilled octopus, fingerling potatoes, string beans. A shmear of whipped feta topped with cubed cucumbers. For two: $31.

Earlier in the summer a friend and I had those memorable roast vegetables, a platter of three cheeses and panini filled with salami and figs. Again, our bill was about $30, plus tip.

Spanish, Italian, French, Greek: this is pan-European small plate dining at is best. Service is fluid and friendly. I already want to go back.

Another perfect place: Floriole Bakery & Cafe (1220 W. Webster St.) Credit the sun that warms the sidewalk tables and pours into this double-decker space. Clean, shiny, warm, chic. Tartines, quiche, salads, soups, sandwiches, pastries, coffee, teas. Locally sourced, reasonably priced, tasty.

Jam (937 N. Damen St.) has hipster charm, a shaded garden, attentive servers. Salads, paninis, roast vegetables, yes. Egg dishes, no.

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The sky is grey, the ground is white, there’s a warming fire in the living room fireplace. Sure, I like a brisk winter walk, to ice skate, to ski. In Chicago, there are many days too cold to go outside for long. So we turn to books. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace:

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With two weekend trips that involved air travel and a week in bed with a respiratory flu, I read a lot. Here goes: Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air is a seamless memoir of a young neurosurgeon’s last year. Woven into his dire situation is the story of his life: a happy, active Arizona childhood,

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Books: Big Reads, Best Reads

My friend Jennifer Miller and I share a love of deep reading. Big long books that we read closely, over a week, so intimate they become part of us. Think Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, Jonathan Franzen’s Purity, most Tom Wolfe, any Dickens’. We both loved Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, which was nominated for the

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