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What We're Reading: A Woman's Place Is On The Money and Free Tinder Pizza

By DNAinfo Staff | May 12, 2015 2:15pm 

CHICAGO — Since we just love unseasonably cold weather, we're in awesome moods today. Here's what the grumps at DNAinfo are reading.

It's a Car! It's a Boat! When the folks at Disney World wanted to get writers excited about their plans to re-do the "Downtown Disney" portion of the park, they tapped some Chicago food know-how to impress them. It worked. The people behind Chicago's Gibson's Steakhouse will run a new Disney restaurant called The Boathouse and recently fed the scribes filet mignon and macaroni and cheese with shrimp and andouille sausage — "everything was delicious," declared Florida Today writer Suzy Fleming Leonard. But what has senior editor Andrew Herrmann really excited is the Boathouse motif. A collection of boats from the 40s, 50s and 60s are on display and, for $125, visitors can take a tour around a lake on an original Amphicar — restored '60s convertibles that drive on land and in the water. A fun video of them can be seen here. Ahoy!

The amphicar at the Boathouse. [Disney World]

A Woman's Place: President Andrew Jackson is known for (among other, less savory things) his prominent placement on the $20 bill. The nonprofit campaign Women on 20s wants to change that, declaring that "a woman's place is on the money." The Washington Post recently wrote about the campaign's decision to petition to get Harriet Tubman to replace Jackson, after asking supporters to choose between Tubman, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Wilma Mankiller. Reporter Ariel Cheung (who actually played Tubman in a 4th grade living museum project) loves the idea of giving the Underground Railroad conductor the nod.

Will Swipe For Pizza: Chicagoist's Rachel Cromidas tracked down a Lakeview woman who decided to use Tinder as a free pizza delivery service. The 22-year-old woman and her friend apparently were hungry while drinking wine (been there) and decided to use both the Tinder and Grindr dating apps to get men to bring them pizza. The gay men who use Grindr didn't bite, but "Tinderella" was able to convince Tinder users to bring her pizzas and even sushi. She felt guilty once her social media posts on the experiment went viral, but told Cromidas she'd do it again, maybe. "If I did it, I would probably donate the pizzas," she said. We're at Michigan and Wacker, Tinderella.

When Good for You Is Just Plain Bad: Reporter Patty Wetli's favorite meal is a giant bowl of popcorn, chased with a spoonful of Nutella, which is super delicious but also likely to cause scurvy. In the spirit of eating foods that contain actual vitamins and minerals, she clicked on this Daily Mail article which promised to reveal the "most filling 100-calorie snacks." Not surprisingly, a jar of cookie butter didn't make the cut. What did? A half cup salsa plus a cup of sliced jicama. Not salivating yet? Try this tantalizing treat — one cup of broth-based soup plus a squeeze of lemon. Yum! Not. Scurvy it is.

What Chicago Needs Now: Is more transit-orientated development, according to a study from the Metropolitian Planning Council that reporter Heather Cherone is reading about on Curbed Chicago. The study concludes that to stay healthy, Chicago should encourage more developments within walking distance of the CTA. In neighborhoods that have access to public transit, there is an increased demand for housing, which subsequently drives up rents and localized incomes, the study concludes. The study could bolster calls for transit-oriented developments in Jefferson Park, where Ald. John Arena (45th) is working to remake Lawrence Avenue, now dotted with vacant parcels near the transit center.

Vacant pieces of land along Lawrence Avenue in Jefferson Park could be home to a transit-oriented development, which a new study says is the key to keeping Chicago healthy. [DNAinfo/Heather Cherone]

Too Hard To Keep: Chicago photographer Jason Lazarus’ series “Too Hard to Keep” is featured in this recent Vice collection (warning: some of the images are NSFW). Lazarus calls for submissions of photographs that are too painful to hold onto for their owners, and there is no context or even names associated with the photos, making browsing them a great exercise in imagination. Lazarus talks about the series in this 2011 (SFW) profile in the Tribune, and more “Too Hard to Keep” photos on his website, like this one of Wrigley Field.

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