2CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 9,2005 | SECTION TWO

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His Cover’s Blown A Chicago cop’s prizewinning essay puts him in a league with Nobel and Pulitzer types. By Deanna Isaacs out,” he says. “But when the pain got worse, I decided it was appendicitis. I went to Saint Francis Hospital in the middle of the night and woke up ten days later.” It turned out that Calandra had a rare intestinal infection, complicated by blood clots—“The same thing Alan Alda had,” he says. “By my third sur- gery my chances for survival had shrunk to 10 percent.” Doctors removed 60 percent of his small intes- tine, which had atrophied, and he spent six weeks at Saint Francis, then two more weeks at Northwestern University’s Rehabilitation Institute. During that time members of the Chicago theater community and other friends rallied to his side, raising enough money to keep him going for six months without having to worry about finances. “Everybody put their hand on my back and helped push me up the mountain to get well again,” he says. “That white-light energy sur- rounded me, and I slowly started coming back.” By the following

TIZ February, when the touring company

. OR of Hairspray held Chicago auditions, Dale Calandra as Edna in Hairspray

OS J Calandra was healthy enough to try

CARL out. He joined the company in August Miscellany Martin Preib 2004, and “the rest is history,” he says. “I went from laying in a hospital bed You can’t get no Respect at the istrict 24 cop Martin Preib small-town newspaper near Detroit, Reincarnated as to—a year later—singing and dancing Chicago Center for the Performing says he’d rather his writing life a college English and classics major, across the country in a big red dress.” Arts anymore, but no one’s saying D stayed out of the spotlight. “I and, for nearly a decade, a hotel a Woman Calandra is in Chicago this week why. Word is that Respect: A Musical like to keep my two worlds separate,” doorman and reformer in the Chicago actor and director Dale as the standby for Edna in Hairspray Journey of Women, devised by (and he explains. “I don’t talk much about Hotel Employees and Restaurant Calandra was at a turning point in his at the Cadillac Palace Theater. He’s originally starring) Vanderbilt the writing on the job, even though Employees International Union. life when his stomach started to hurt visited 30 cities with the show, and University business school adjunct being a police officer keeps me in (You might have seen him outside the two years ago. He’d recently resigned just signed on for another six months faculty member Dorothy Marcic, was touch with the city in a way I really Allerton, or the Hyatt on Printers as head of Oak Park Festival Theatre. of touring. As one of only about ten doing OK at the box office when its like. I just want to write in the morn- Row.) No matter what paid the bills, A part-time teacher at Columbia actors in the world who’ve played Chicago run, which began last spring, ings, work in the evenings, and die in however, he’s always been a writer: he College, Calandra had been an Edna, he expects a good run with it; was abruptly canceled Thanksgiving my sleep.” But his low profile’s going estimates that he’s written “thousands ensemble member at Wisdom Bridge Hairspray is getting a permanent week. CCPA is offering refunds or to be a little harder to maintain: and thousands of pages,” mostly and a founding member of Center company in Las Vegas, and when the tickets to Bark!, currently playing in last week the venerable Virginia essays and mostly unpublished. He Theater, where he’d run the Training regional rights are released there’ll its studio theater, and hopes to have Quarterly Review, which publishes says he gave up on publishing a few Center for Young Actors, Directors, be additional opportunities. He likes a main stage replacement by the end Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel lau- years ago after spending three years and Playwrights, and mounted a the challenge: “I’m an actor playing a of January. ...Lookingglass Theatre reates, announced that Preib’s essay on a piece about Walt Whitman and futuristic Lysistrata that some still character—it’s not a drag role,” he Company recently landed a hard-to- “The Wagon” is cowinner of the William Kennedy that editors praised regard as one of Chicago’s most mem- says. “We’re not camping it up.” He come-by unrestricted grant: Staige D. Blackford Prize for the best but wouldn’t purchase (though it did orable productions. Audiences saw eats five small a day and says $150,000 over five years from the work of nonfiction published in the inspire the Boston Book Review to him as Allen Ginsberg in Remains he’s healthier than ever. His worst MacArthur foundation. Looking- Review this year. “The Wagon” is a hire him to do a Kennedy interview). Theatre’s The Chicago Conspiracy pain these days comes with plucking glass’s annual budget is now $2.7 harrowing and resonant take on “I just quit sending stuff around,” he Trial and as Fezziwig in the and shaving the spots where Edna million; attendance in its cool but Preib’s body-transport duties with says, adding that it’s an accident that Goodman’s annual A Christmas wouldn’t be caught dead with big nearly invisible Water Tower Water the Chicago Police Department—a this piece even appeared in print: it Carol. But by May 2003, most of that hair: eyebrows, chest, armpits. He’ll Works quarters was 31,000 the first gorgeous piece of writing. was passed by a friend of a friend to was behind him; he was trying to fig- be appearing as the divine mom in year and fell to 25,000 the second. Preib, a Chicago native, has been an editor at the VQR. Visit vqron ure out “what next?” when his tem- the 7:30 PM performance December Artistic director David Catlin says on the force three and a half years. line.org to see what stopped that perature started to rise. “I thought it 13 and the 2 PM performance they hope to climb back to 30,000 Prior to that he was a reporter for a editor in his tracks. was the flu; I was going to tough it December 14. this season. v CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 9,2005 | SECTION TWO 3

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Counter Culture The Ambassador of Jollof

woman from the neighborhood walks past the empty tables and up to the counter at , A Chicago’s only Senegalese restaurant. Raising her voice against the laughing and shouting of the cooks in the , she orders exactly what owner Madieye Gueye hoped she wouldn’t: chicken. It’s an item from the Caribbean side of Yassa’s menu, along with oxtails, jerk chicken, patties, and fried plantains—all dishes Gueye put on the menu to draw in locals who frequent the south side’s ubiquitous jerk huts. “We named ourselves Yassa African Caribbean From to Restaurant and knew people would come in for jerk chicken, but then we would change their habits, open Mafongo them up to the dishes of ,” Gueye says. African and Caribbean But foot traffic to the eight-month-old restaurant has been slow, some days nonexistent, and Gueye has Bolat decided that if he’s going to throw out every 3346 N. Clark | 773-665-1100 night it should at least be food he wanted to make in the first place. F 7.4| S 5.6| A 5.3 | $ (9 REPORTS) The woman who wants curry chicken raises an AFRICAN | , DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | OPEN eyebrow as Gueye leans in to explain that he’s taking LATE: MONDAY-SATURDAY TILL MIDNIGHT the Caribbean stuff off the menu. He suggests she try This Nigerian-Ghanaian restaurant is deco- thiebu djen, a complicated dish of grouper stuffed rated simply, with African artifacts, wicker with cilantro and parsley and served on jollof, rice chairs, and glass-topped tables. The menu broken by soaking and pounding and cooked in is loaded with interesting soups, , and tomato paste, with a tamarind-scented of egg- dishes full of unusual ingredients. Aya plant, cassava, carrot, bell pepper, cabbage, and mashe is a delicately spiced green pepper onion. “The Senegalese !” he beams. “So soup, while eforiro is spinach stewed in a there’s no curry chicken?” the woman asks. “No curry tomato-based . Meat dishes include chicken,” Gueye says. The woman leaves. tongue and oxtail as well as curried goat In the kitchen Awa, Gueye’s wife, his cousin Fatou, and jerk chicken. Laura Levy Shatkin and his business partner, Tidiane Soumare, are chop- ping onions for the chicken yassa. Whole chickens BQ Afro Root Cuisine have been marinating overnight in 4802 N. Clark | 773-878-7489 Yassa lemon juice, black pepper, vinegar, African mustard powder, and Maggi sea- $ Caribbean soning salt, which Awa says is lib- AFRICAN | LUNCH, DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | BYO | Restaurant erally used in Senegalese cuisine. SMOKE FREE 716 E. 79th The chicken is grilled and served Husband-and-wife team Briggs and Queen ON

773-488-9630 over white rice with a lemony, KS

Imarhiagbe serve their native Nigerian cui- AC

oniony stew in a bowl on the side. J

sine at this simple room overlooking Saint A. This is Soumare’s favorite dish because it’s easy to Madieye Gueye, his cousin Fatou in the kitchen, and a big pot of mafe at Yassa, Chicago’s only Senegalese restaurant Boniface Cemetery; they gladly explain the explain. “Everywhere you go they have something like menu and suggest dishes. The staple starch it,” he says. in is fufu, a baseball-size A pot of mafe—a sauce of ground , lamb, French that Gueye buys from a nearby market him.) They get angry if Mori doesn’t bring their round of steamed yam, cassava, or corn tomato, and habanero pepper with large chunks of and sells for $2.50 a loaf. The dining room has some orders along and ask him why Gueye doesn’t have a flour, served here with any three of a num- potato, carrot, and okra—thickens on the stove. It’s nice touches that suggest Awa’s hand—silk flowers on proper delivery service. “All day, everywhere I go, they ber of meats—fried beef, chicken, cow leg, also ladled over white rice. Gueye says that mafe and the African-print tablecloth, pink lightbulbs in the say, ‘I want thiebu djen!’ ‘I want yassa!’ ‘I want jollof intestine, goat, tripe, “skin,” or fish, all pre- thiebu djen are specific to his people; he and Awa ceiling fans, cheery fabric over the otherwise bare- rice!’ Man, I don’t sell rice!” Mori gripes. pared in a spicy tomato sauce. Just pinch off are Wolof, the largest ethnic group in Senegal. bones countertop. (Awa also runs a boutique next “This is our problem,” Gueye sighs. “I’m not afraid a piece of the dumpling and dip it into the Soumare is Sarakole. “This means he speaks my lan- door.) The bread buyers don’t seem to notice; they to say it—people on the north side, the west side, stew, either with your fingers or with uten- guages, Wolof and French, but I don’t speak his lan- stick a loaf under each arm and march out. On the they are more open to this food. The African people sils. On the side there are wonderful “dry guage, Sarakole,” Gueye says. Once in a while they slowest of slow days Gueye still sells around 50 loaves there, they don’t have places like this around them soups” of stewed collard and mustard serve a distinctively Sarakole dish called caldou, a of the bread, sometimes close to 70. and they are feeling nostalgic, and so many white greens: ofe onugbu, eforiro, or egusi with whole fish, usually porgy or tilapia, in an okra, Around one o’clock the restaurant is quiet again; people want to try a taste of Senegal. But around , all seasoned slightly differently. lemon, and spinach broth. Soumare has been sent to the market to pick up garlic here we haven’t gotten the response.” With high gas The asaro, or yam , consists of Also on the grill are debe, small lamb chops coated and spinach, and Awa and Fatou have no one to bick- prices, small deliveries north of 50th Street don’t large chunks of steamed white yam in a with black pepper, cumin, and cloves. These are often er with, so the kitchen is calm. Suddenly a small, seem practical to Gueye. He’s considered relocating sauce that, like the meat stews, gets a lot served over de mil, a superfine cous- angry man bursts in the door. “Too many complaints, from Chatham to the north side, but the rent is of its flavor from tomatoes and chile pow- cous almost sandlike in texture and slightly tart in sir, too many complaints!” he shouts. Gueye sits back, daunting. More than that, though, Gueye doesn’t der. Only soda and juice are served, out of taste. Couscous de mil is always steamed over broth— smiling somewhat, while the man rants in Wolof and want to relocate because he believes that in time a tall cooler at the back of the restaurant. “never boiled,” Gueye says. “Never, never boil cous- French, hands flying to emphasize his frustration. business in the neighborhood will pick up. Laura Levy Shatkin cous.” There are also pitchers of sweet, fresh gingem- When the man finishes, Gueye explains. Mori is a “Just the other night we had all these tables bre, a cooling juice of fresh root, and bissap, a friend of his who delivers hair to braiding salons all full, all these guys came in. American guys, black Cafe Trinidad drink made with hibiscus flower similar to the over the north and west side. Knowing that he’s Americans,” he says proudly. “And they didn’t 557 E. 75th | 773-846-8081 Mexican jimaica, which stands in the cooler next to acquainted with Gueye, his customers give him want jerk chicken. They ate poisson grille, grilled bottled Kola Champagne. orders for food to bring when he passes their way. fish, Senegal style, with onion salad.” He nods, his $$ Around noon a bunch of kids start to come in, (“Everybody knows everybody, come on,” Gueye says eyes closed with pleasure at the thought. CARIBBEAN | LUNCH, DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | sent by their mothers to pick up pain francais, when asked how people across the city have heard of —Tasneem Paghdiwala RESERVATIONS NOT ACCEPTED | BYO | SMOKE FREE The reassuring whir of a blender periodi- friendly family-run enterprise trafficking in caramelized sugar base—and rich, spicy flatbread that can withstand a consider- claws bathed in curry atop flat sheets of cally sounds through the wide kitchen win- the flavors of Trinidad, which have been dress slow-cooked meats like jerk able portion bulked up with a mild potato- starch that perfectly absorbed the sauce. dow at this Chatham storefront, testifying influenced over the centuries by African, chicken, goat, beef, and oxtails and are and-chickpea curry. My last order con- Those two crustaceans bode well for the to the personal attention given to the East Indian, Creole, Syrian, Lebanese, accompanied by rice and pigeon . tained fat, snappy shrimp that popped other , marinated perch or island cuisine that follows. Gayle Evans and Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese cooks. Alternatively, most of these can be con- under the tooth. Curry crab and dumplings red snapper and curry salmon. These are Claudia Hicks do the at this super- “Brown down” stews—begun with a tained by a fresh fried roti, a circle of soft were similarly fresh; giant, sweet, yielding all accompanied by a choice of filling