Friday Food Fal-de-ral

You probably don't need another reason to love Rocco's Little Chicago, but tuck this one into your back pocket for a rainy day just in case.

Wings. I love wings. But I am maybe the pickiest person on the planet when it comes to chicken skin--in a word or thirteen, it's gotta be fried long enough for me to not notice it's there. Soft, googly non-meat chicken bits that feel wiggly on my tongue are right out and put me right off my feed, no matter how tasty the accompanying sauce might be. I don't often have that problem at Rocco's, but sometimes I'm feeling a little insecure and don't want to risk the heartbreak of wiggly chicken skin bollocksing up my meal, or sometimes reality claws its way into my brain and asks if I really want quite so much fat in one sitting, or, since it's not all about me, maybe you're a vegetarian or dating a vegetarian who won't let lips that have touched chicken touch her. Anywhere.

But fear not! There's a beautiful solution on the menu. Hot sticks! Hot sticks! Hot sticks! Rocco's kitchen guys take the standard pizza dough and wind it into wonderful twisty sticks folded around pockets of their most excellent wing sauce. Ask for Javier to make your batch and they'll be even more sublime, big and puffy and soft with a generous amount of sauce--not so much as to make them soggy, but just enough to give you a nice kick with each bite. $3.79 gets you an order of six, which effectively is a dozen since they're chopped in half before they come to the table (sometimes the illusion of quantity is all it takes). If you can't finish them, they reheat very nicely the next day.

Better yet, if you buy a Rocco's t-shirt (which might seem steep at $20, but look!) and wear it on Tuesdays, you get a free appetizer. Six weeks in, your new wardrobe starts paying for itself. Old Style is still a buck and a half and the service is always friendly. Oh, and if you want the poultry version of the hot sticks, Wednesday wing night gets you the wings for a quarter a pop.

Rocco's. It does an ex-pat Chicagoan's heart good.