He was the owner and executive chef of Bistro Campagne in Lincoln Square.

He also had operated the recently closed Crust Pizza, Chicago’s first certified-organic restaurant and had worked at some of the best-known names in fine dining in the city and suburbs.

He worked for renowned chef Jean Banchet at Le Francais in Wheeling and for Gordon Sinclair at Gordon.

Mr. Altenberg operated Tucci Milan for the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group. He also headed the kitchens at Montparnasse and Cassis before heading out on his own and opening Campagnola in Evanston in 1996 ...

Robert Vorel’s grocery store had a sausage department like the League of Nations, and it drew just about every European ethnicity in the goulash that was Chicago after World War II.

“When customers would come in, we’d ask ‘What are you?’ ” recalled his brother, Joseph. “If he was a German, we’d put the fennel in there, and if he was Bohemian, we’d put the garlic in there.”

“We made Polish sausage that was so good it sold out at Easter, and Italian sausage,” he said. “Contadina Tomato Paste used to buy [the Italian sausage] for their meetings in California.”

The Vorels joked they were “M.D.’s” — Meat Distributors.

Mr. Vorel, who was of Czech extraction, excelled at making what Berwynites call “Bohemian bananas” — jelita, a blood-and-barley sausage, and jaternice, liver sausage.

At one time Chicago’s Bohemian community — now more commonly called Czechs — were especially prominent in the meat, dairy and grocery businesses.

Mr. Vorel co-owned a chain of family groceries, Country Corner shops, making deliveries in the Steak Wagon, a Buick with a big red-and-white wooden steak on the roof.

...

The couple started a little grocery store in Berwyn. Then Mr. Vorel and his brother took over their father’s butter and egg business, Eagle Crest. (“Vorel” translates roughly into “eagle” in Czech.) They expanded with five Country Corner stores in Berwyn, Chicago, Elmhurst and Westchester.

"Even with over 5,000 employees, he still thought it was important to get out and see the people, shake their hands, thank them and tell them how important they were," said Blanchard, whose last job with Dean Foods was as president of its dairy division.

Mr. Dean retired as chairman of the company in 2002, the year after it merged with Dallas-based Suiza Foods Corp. The combined companies retained the Dean Foods name.
...
"He had a good sense of what the consumer would want."

That included the line of small, convenience-oriented Milk Chug products that Dean Foods developed around 2000.
...

Edwards' restaurant was located in nearby Broadwell, along the Illinois stretch of the legendary road across the U.S.

He was best known for the eatery's pork sandwich, which gave the restaurant its peculiar name. The ham was said to come from the tender left hip of the pig. It also had a secret sauce.

Ingrid E. Bergstrom’s Verdandi Club was the epicenter of Swedish-American life in Chicago during the 1960s.

With a huge painting of Stockholm behind the bar and a jukebox that played “Halsa dem da rhemma” and other Swedish songs, the Andersonville restaurant reminded immigrants of their homeland.

...

...

The founder of the Chicago-based Versatones band as well as the independent Bel-Aire Records in Bridgeview, Mr. Blazonczyk won a 1986 Grammy in the polka category for “Another Polka Celebration.” He was a 13-time Grammy nominee.

...

Mr. Blazonczyk worked his entire life to de-stigmatize polka’s novelty image

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Mr. Blazonczyk was a purveyor of “the Chicago Sound,” known in polka circles as the bellow shake. The beat is slower and more deliberate than most polkas. The Chicago Sound is delievered through a small but expressive band (trumpet, concertina, accordion, drums, electric bass). The minimalist style gave Mr. Blazoncyzk room to improvise with musical styles. He played electric bass in the latter-day Versatones. “We’re kind of laid back,” he said in 1994.
...

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Foodies who have never heard of Mr. Felling have probably felt — or tasted — his influence. If they ate at Blackbird, Charlie Trotter’s, The French Laundry, Frontera Grill, Le Francais, Tru or the Peninsula Hotel, the menus likely included some ingredients from his specialty foods company, WA Imports.
...

“He was a gourmet discoverer in terms of bringing products to chefs that they could educate their audience about,” said Santa Fe-based food expert Mark C. Miller. “Whenever he had something he said was wonderful, it really was wonderful.”
...

He’d never rip another purveyor’s products, preferring to let the quality of his imports speak for themselves, said Matthias Merges, who was executive chef at Charlie Trotter’s for 14 years and is now at the restaurant Yusho. “He would be like a kid in a candy store: ‘Whoa, look what I found, you have to taste it.’ ”
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Lezli Roberts could expertly maneuver her Harley on North Carolina’s famed “Tail of the Dragon,” a road with 318 curves in 11 miles. She could step into her closet, and produce an outfit fit for tea with a queen. It didn’t matter if she was wearing biker boots, or a flirty 1930s “Fascinator” hat.

She had style.
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Mrs. Roberts, who worked as a food and photo stylist at the Chicago Sun-Times, where she edited the “Swap Shop” recipe column under her maiden name, Lezli Bitterman, died May 23 at Evanston Hospital after a two-year battle with inflammatory breast cancer. She was 53.

She could make a Sun-Times story on strawberries pop with a mouth watering photo. She’d engage in hours of shopping, eliminating and arranging to get the perfect, blemish-free batch of berries.
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[At her funeral, her husband] expects to see police and firefighters there, because when Mrs. Roberts was done testing recipes, she often dropped off her delicious meals and desserts to police stations and firehouses.
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George C. Evanson owned eight Beef Villa restaurants in the northwest and west suburbs, along with a gas station and carwash in Elgin and a 72-stall boarding stable on his 40-acre property in Elgin.

...

Mr. Evanson opened his first Beef Villa fast-food restaurant on Dundee Avenue in Elgin in January 1970, selling hot dogs and Italian beef. The first day of business proved a bit rough, but Mr. Evanson was unfazed.

"The wind chill factor was 30 degrees below zero, and we lost money the day we opened," his son said. "But the next day we made a profit, and then the next, so we just kept on going."

The business eventually grew to eight restaurants, but over the years, Mr. Evanson and his three children decided to scale back, retaining both their Elgin locations and one in South Elgin.

"Trying to keep up with all the different shops kept us in our cars most of the time," his son said. "So we kept three, sold off five and kept the name Beef Villa for our own stores."

Millions were sold from the commercial’s debut in 1978 into the early 1980s, with audiences mesmerized by images of an exotic-sounding knife that seemed able to cut through anything. The infomercial promised a 50-year guarantee and “much, much more.”

...

Sam Craig, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said Ginsu stands apart from most other infomercial products because it was popular for so long and it had common sales methods that are used to this day.

“They’re taking these things that were done at state fairs and carnivals where it could be demonstrated to a group of maybe 10, now you could demonstrate the same thing to a million people or more at the same time,” Craig said. “And it takes something that’s relatively mundane and makes it appear dramatic.”

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Becher’s funeral was Monday and his family is considering etching in his tombstone one of the catchphrases he helped popularize: “But wait, there’s more.”

As director of retail operations and corporate services, Debra Usinger designed catalogs, dreamed up various gift assortments and gift boxes, oversaw styling of advertising photos of Usinger products and handled customer service. She was also in charge of large corporate clients.

When asked if his sister had a favorite Usinger's sausage, Fritz Usinger laughed and said, "That's like asking 'Who is your favorite child?' "

However, he did say Debra Usinger was fond of saucisschen, a coiled fresh pork sausage on a skewer. It was a tradition in their family for Debra and Fritz to grill saucisschen for breakfast on Christmas mornings.

Daphne Zepos, an internationally known authority on cheese whose expertise encompassed the buying of it, the selling of it, the making of it and above all the almost transcendental experience of eating it, died on Tuesday at her home in San Francisco. She was 52.

... David Tanis, a New York Times Dining section columnist and former Chez Panisse cook, who wrote it about Marion for her 80th birthday. He called it “Marion Cunningham’s Rhyming Wisdom: A Partial Listing.”

1. I don’t mind driving near or far
Long as I’ve got my Jag-u-ar.

2. If you don’t find waking up too awful
Come on over for a waffle

3. It’s simple, really dear, not a chore
I make the batter the night before.

4. My friends like fancy salt from France.
I say, give good old Morton’s a chance

5. As for pie dough, there’s no mystery
Crisco’s earned its place in history

6. If only folks would dare to risk it,
Dinner’s better with a homemade biscuit

7. James Beard always liked my cooking
But he added things when I wasn’t looking

8. My dear this cake is quite a treat …
I do think I’d make it a tad more sweet.

...
Cunningham may have worked as James Beard's assistant and shepherded several cookbooks into print, but she will probably best be remembered for her rewrite of "The Fannie Farmer Cookbook" based on the 1896 "Boston Cooking-School Book." Her attention to detail and her warm coaching made the book a must-read all over again, especially when a recipe was needed for pancakes, a beef stew or pies.

She visited the Tribune's Test Kitchen often over the years, once rethinking a recipe for rice pudding and noting in 1981, "Made correctly, rice pudding is the most perfect of comforting foods -- it does not demand anything of you but enjoyment."

...

Mama Sbarro Is Gone, but Void Is Noticed in Bensonhurst

James Beard always liked my cooking
But he added things when I wasn’t looking

Sylvia Woods, whose namesake Harlem soul-food restaurant was frequented by local and national politicians, international celebrities, tourists, epicures and ordinary neighborhood residents, died on Thursday at her home in Westchester County, N.Y. She was 86.

Mr. Garetto was founder and co-owner of Beggars Pizza Franchise Corp. with his brother Larry. Together, they expanded the pizza business started by their father Angelo in 1976 in Blue Island, and grew it to 20 sites throughout the Southland.

Irving Cohen, who was known as King Cupid of the Catskills for his canny ability to seat just the right nice Jewish boy next to just the right nice Jewish girl during his half-century as the maître d’ of the Concord Hotel, died on Monday at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 95.

Allen Brothers Chairman Robert (Bobby) Hatoff died this past weekend.

Hatoff was a former chairman of the North American Meat Processors Association, a member of the National Meat Association and was on the board of the newly formed North American Meat Association.