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Underground Dining Scene Finds Home in Rogers Park With 'Pop-up Speakeasy'

By Benjamin Woodard | December 17, 2014 5:43am
 Resident Jen Powell founded The Sidecar to cook food and mix drinks for diners in her home.
Resident Jen Powell founded The Sidecar to cook food and mix drinks for diners in her home.
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DNAinfo/Benjamin Woodard (insets: Jen Powell)

ROGERS PARK — Foodie Jen Powell has brought the often-secretive underground dining scene to Rogers Park with her new venture, The Sidecar: A Pop-up Speakeasy.

Powell, who moved to the neighborhood in 2011, hosted a dozen friends — and friends of friends — at her Jonquil Terrace apartment last week for a four-course meal of quail eggs, duck meatballs, savory bread pudding with hen and cocoa nib ice cream.

But the 43-year-old, who until September was a curator of wine for Whole Foods, plans to host more of the dinners.

"I'm at that place where I just want to cook," said Powell, who although passionate about cooking has never had any formal training.

Her next dinner is planned for Saturday night. The six-course menu includes lobster ceviche, lamb meatballs with aged goat cheese griddle cakes, buffalo sliders, braised short rib ragu — all paired with different wines discovered during her career in the grocery-store industry.

The $70 meal ends with Ginger snap ice cream with salted bourbon caramel sauce.

"I love ice cream, so we'll probably always end in ice cream," she said.

Powell said she grew up in Texas and spent five years in New Orleans, where she ran a wine shop from 2001-2006. But her neighborhood was slammed by hurricane Katrina, forcing her to close.

"It was just a hard go after the storm. ... And there was sadness" in the city, she said.

Now with The Sidecar, she said, she's found a new quest in life.

"It's not so much a job," she said. "It's an adventure and about people who want to take the ride with me."

Follow The Sidecar on Twitter to hear about future dinners. Powell plans to also partner with Rogers Park restaurants, cafes and specialty shops — such as Towbar and Taste Food & Wine — to host events featuring her food and drink pairings.

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