• Food,  Fun in Chicago,  Review

    Vienna Beef = Hot Dog Heaven

    I really don’t even know where to start. I was invited to the Vienna Beef Headquarters and Factory Store to be in the small (miniscule, actually: there were about eight of us!) blogger audience for a broadcasting of Chicagonista Live, with my Social RevUp partner MJ Tam, BBRadio hostess Beth Rosen, and the other two CL ladies, Nancy Loo (Big Tiny) and Duong Sheehan. The experience was set up to be really fun: we would meet some of the folks from Vienna Beef while enjoying some Chicago hot dogs (THE Chicago hot dogs, actually: Vienna Beef hot dogs were first introduced at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, otherwise known as…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Food,  Fun in Chicago,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Where’s The Beef?

    Excuse the 80’s reminder about an entirely different brand altogether, but here it is. I visited the Mothership today. It’s late, though. I’ll be posting about this tomorrow. The only problem is, if you just show up here by clicking the home page, you won’t see it because although it’s not a review, it’ll be listed on my review page because it’s a “brand interaction” post. That being said, if you subscribe to my feed, like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter the post will be delivered to you hot, fresh, and full of a variety of great ingredients, much like a Chicago hot dog. Get some rest.…

  • Fun in Chicago,  Review

    Glade® Expressions™ Collection: It’s All About Being #Happiair!

    I have a sensitive nose. This is a blessing and a curse. While I can smell a field of beautiful, purple lavender from a mile away, I can also tell when our kitchen trash needs to be taken out immediately because something in it is thisclose to spoiling and making an icky, bad smell waft through my house like a fast-moving thunderstorm. Trash cans aside, I love when my–or any–space smells nice. I am the person your realtor warned you about, the one who will look more kindly upon your newly-listed house if you bake cookies just before my walk-through. The smell of a new car makes me smile. I…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Food,  Fun in Chicago

    Just Because You Really Need To See This.

    I don’t do this too often because I don’t want my subscribers (ahem, do you subscribe to Suburban Scrawl? No? Click here to either add me to your feed reader or get me delivered to your inbox) to be annoyed with an extra, feeder post, but now and then I really want EVERYBODY who reads Suburban Scrawl to see a post that is considered a review because it includes brand information (and is, because of that, posted on an ad-free page that you “home page clickers” don’t see just by visiting. See why you should SUBSCRIBE???), but really rocks out as a post in general. Today is one of those…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Food,  Fun in Chicago,  Review

    Melisa And The Girl And The Goat

    Warning: LONG POST AHEAD. (Sorry. It’s worth it: I promise!) One of my favorite things about being a blogger is that I have been afforded experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to enjoy. My non-blogger friends are often flabbergasted at my stories of, say, driving a car for a week just for the purpose of reviewing it or getting a preview copy of a television show before the general public gets to watch it. Some of these unique experiences involve meeting people who I wouldn’t normally run across on the streets of Chicago (or the western burbs for that matter). Monday night was one of those nights, and…