Chicagoans were painting the Chicago river green last week to get ready for St. Patrick’s Day, but at the International Home and Housewares Show it was all about the color purple.
More than 60,000 people from around the world attend this show at  McCormick Place, that features everything for the home.

Le Creuset featured their new color Cassis. Peugeot also had beautiful purple peppermills. Bodum had a huge new line of products with purple being one of the dominant colors.  Lots of other bright colors were in abundance with orange being another big hue.

There were plenty of intelligent, environmentally friendly solutions for packing lunches and lots of containers to store foods.

Cupcakes and decorating tools were still very much in vogue. Particularly little plungers that removed a portion of the cupcake so you can fill the centre. We particularly liked the kit from Cuisipro.

And my favourite dining experience in Chicago, this time around was The Purple Pig on Michigan Ave.  The tapas-style menu features such dishes as sardines on a fennel slaw,  pig’s ears on kale with a poached egg on top and roasted beets. They also feature housemade charcuterie and cheeses. We were impressed with their interesting assortment of beers on tap and an accessible wine list. The ambiance is very casual, but very current.
It was rather appropriate that Food TV celebrity Emeril Lagasse was “in the house”, given his motto  “pork fat rules”.