Life+Style - News, Photos and More on the Windy Citizen

It's the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend and things are getting a little dicey. I get to meet Kris Heitzig, the late addition to the crew. I ask him about whether he's worried about performing the skit they have rehearsed and he tells me that "we're all kinda hams," which I think means that they will do very well. He's the one who is in physical therapy school and was very happy to be a last minute call-up.

Kris says that it has always been David's dream to do this, having made a proposal last year to Flugtag Nashville, an unfortunate failed attempt to bring a flying guitar to the event.

Despite getting really excited about Saturday, David is thinking about wearing a cup. He shows off the wings that he will be hanging on to as the vehicle the team has built, the Moberati, clears the platform. A winged David will, potentially, fly off to Indiana while the rest of the car and crew fall into Lake Michigan. Its obvious that a lot of time has been spent on this and David is a little nervous but very proud of his work.

If you haven’t heard, the Red Bull Flugtag, "flying day" in German, is coming to Chicago this weekend. This one day event, full of nutty people and their amusing creations, takes place at North Avenue Beach this Saturday and will feature teams of, perhaps mentally unsound individuals, dressing up, performing a skit and then jumping off a platform thirty feet in the air into Lake Michigan.  They will be judged based on their flight's distance and on the creativity and showmanship demonstrated in their skit, costume and machine.

The stakes are high.  This Satuday's champion team wins a paid trip to the Red Bull air race in 2009, runners up win a skydiving outing and a Flugtag viewing party (Woo-Hoo!  -Ed.).

Twenty-nine teams will compete in Chicago this weekend, with seven actually hailing from the Windy City.  Participants say they're in it for the small modicum of fame (Infamy? -Ed.) that comes from leaping off a 30-foot platform with a homemade flying machine into the lake.

We follow the Chicago team that call themselves The Perfect Getaway as they prepare for the event

The Chicago Culinary Museum and Chefs Hall of Fame honored one of Chicago's finest Wednesday evening, with the induction of Chef Rick Bayless of Topolobampo and Frontera Grill.

At the end of September, Chicago will celebrate its culinary roots with a gourmet food and wine festival. The two-day event is being produced by the Illinois Restaurant Association and will be held in Millennium Park. In an interview, Sheila O'Grady, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, shares her thoughts on the event-how it got started, what visitors can expect and what challenges they've faced while organizing the culinary showcase.

Q: How did the idea for Chicago Gourmet first come about?

For three days, from July 21 through the 24th, Wrigleyville residents got an unexpected treat, free pizza-about 60 pies worth. The slices were courtesy of Ian's Pizza by the Slice, a new restaurant that just opened on Clark Street south of Addison Avenue. Unfortunately it wasn't exactly what managers Jaime Gamez and Dimitri Syrkin-Nikolau had planned for the restaurant's launch. In fact, giving away pizza was exactly the opposite of what they had wanted to do.