Chicago forecast: cold and ice cream

I was invited to participate in a summit on nutrition in medical education in Chicago, I suspect because of the pair of essays I wrote about my nutrition elective for medical students, which incorporates the history of nutrition.

It's hosted by three of the important regulatory bodies, and we hope to stimulate the creation of (inter)national guidelines for the incorporation of more teaching about food and nutrition for medical students and residents.

Cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian gave the keynote lecture, from which I really liked this slide, which explained that one of the reasons for some of the nutritional problems we have now in the 21st century (obesity, malnutrition, processed foods) is that we are still living with the food system that was created in the 20th century for different problems (war, famine, undernutrition).

A colleague of mine sat on one of the panels, in which she talked about wanting to provide disease-specific dietary guidelines to her co-residents, but she found out they didn't even know how to do a dietary assessment in order to diagnose a nutritional problem.

My contribution to the conversation was a drawing with my group's answer to the question, What is going well in nutrition in medical education? The table's legs are culture, food, community, and health. The dishes are hope, tools and experts, and creativity. There is also a little empty dish to represent the bitterness of the educators who have been working on this topic for years with little purchase. We think the time is finally right for multiple stakeholders to recognize the centrality of nutrition to health and wellness across the lifespan and for both patients and practitioners. The session organizer invited me to stand up and give a little bow for my "Picasso."

For the 2.5 days of the summit, they fed us very well; here's a tropical dried fruit and and nut mix for afternoon snack.

On the left, a view of cool architecture from the conference room.

On the right, the lighthouse visible in Lake Michigan from my hotel room.

Bodéwadmikik ėthë yéyék
You are on Potawatomi land

Banners over the Chicago River, died green with vegetable dye for the St. Patrick's Day celebration this past weekend. It was surprisingly green, when we could see if from the windows beyond the occasionally driving snow.

Other things I saw: Room 9 2/8 in the hotel is Harry Potter themed.

A tiny glass greenhouse open during the week; presumably you could eat lunch there,

or have a team meeting in a different location.

In the evening, I treated myself to a visit at the Museum of Ice Cream [paid promotion follows],

one of several locations in the United States and Asia.

Groups are let in on the half hour. We were encouraged to create a fun nametag for ourselves; I made a play on our old cat's name, "Erasmus," as "Razz" (think: raspberry) with a kitty face. We were herded onto a pink replica of the inside of a bus so the staff person could explain the format, and then she gave each of us a (free) milk chocolate frozen Dove bar.

I chose to sit and eat that in the main dining area, where other ice cream as well as cocktails were available for purchase. This room is for an extra experience that can be bought--indeed, the place is set up for groups of various sizes (e.g. a birthday party). As a single middle-aged woman, I am not their target demographic, except insofar as I fancy myself a social-media influencer. Since I had no one to take my picture, I should have invested in a selfie-stick like some of the other guests.

It's also not a great place to bring very small children, since they won't be able to eat that much ice cream, unless you're planning to help them with it. Hasty visitors could miss the pink touch screens which ask provocative questions, like whether the guest would rather float away in a hot air balloon or some other equally fantastical option.

On the left, "Why ice cream? Ice cream is the ultimate unifier. It's accessible across the world and all cultures." It turns out New Zealand consumes the most ice cream; the United States is second.

On the right, "Did you know? In 1782, the first not air balloon was set to fly with a rooster, a duck, and a sheep in it. These three musketeers were recorded as the first hot air balloon passengers ever."

In the jelly bean room there were a few hands-on activities, but mostly you could eat this pineapple confection with a hard cherry shell. Some people scoffed when I said I was visiting on a day when there were flurries in the forecast, but is there a bad kind of day on which to eat ice cream? 

In the next room I took a selfie with the enormous cherries and searched this image for cherries and strawberries. The whole place was instagramable. I just wish there had been a coat check, as it was tough to juggle the kind of winter coat you need in Chicago with ice cream and a cellphone.

The next room with food had "Superman" (an unidentifiable concoction of red and blue) and raspberry sorbet. I chose the latter and was disappointed by the blandness. Again not a whole lot to do until I got to the next room which had too much stimulation in it. Late in the game, here was a wall with objects from the history of ice cream and hard-to-read labels of red on pink. There was a cute little video about ice cream and the museum foreshadowing the next taster. Two walls of interactive exhibits, not all of which were in very good shape anymore. And a couple things in the center of the room. It seemed late in the game to have so much interactivity in a room that could lead to large crowds, if they even had the patience or interest.

These large scoops of ice creams from around the world taught me that, for instance, "Aukutaq is a frozen treat unique to western Alaska and northern Canada, made by whipping caribou fat together with salmonberries, fish, tundra greens and a dash of seal oil."

In the next room you could play 3 holes of minigolf (I came very close to a hole-in-one, couldn't get the ball to fall into the hole despite a depression, and skipped the last one). It was also the location of a hotdog-flavored ice cream served on a bright pink mini bun with mustard and relish. It was...different. 

 Since I was supposed to be meeting a friend "for dinner," I skipped the last room and sample (chocolate cookie dough and arcade games) in favor of the famous "sprinkle swimming pool," which is a large indentation filled with plastic sprinkles. They are less viscous than your typical ball-pit balls, so everybody floats.

Then it was off to meet my graduate school "work spouse" at the original Billy Goat Tavern for which the "curse" of the Chicago Cubs is named. The burgers are supposedly very good, but I just watched him eat one since I was full of frozen treats.

Maybe it's counterintuitive that the "health nut" thinks it's okay to have ice cream for dinner, or maybe it's all right once in a while to start with dessert and skip the entrée.

Anyway, it was a quick trip to the Windy City for a lot of work and a little bit of play (a different friend had picked me up from the airport on Sunday for a convo and a healthy snack). The Museum of Ice Cream has other locations and is worth an hour or so of time, especially if you're there to take photos while catching up with friends or family.