On Milwaukee near Western and the old Congress Theater, in a storefront that once housed a hardware store, balmy April smog filled the air-conditioning-free new home of the Autonomous Zone anarchist collective. Assorted dogs orbited a weathered, dreadlocked white guy nicknamed Diamond as he drank red wine and munched bread on a folding chair in the main room, a dim, generous space with a high ceiling and a long-neglected hardwood floor. Behind him were racks of zines, books, and political pamphlets advocating freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, safer sex through Saran Wrap, and other causes celebres; over his head a hand-lettered sign decreed vaguely: “Please be fair to the other people who want to read this stuff, and the people who worked really hard to make this library a good resource.” Diamond and about a dozen other activists were awaiting an unusually classy dinner at the A-Zone: Dan Bocik, owner and head chef of A Tavola–a spot near Damen and Chicago where Bocik serves fine Italian on the first floor and gives cooking lessons on the second–had been invited to teach them to make vegan gnocchi.
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Most of Diamond’s compadres were college students. They were just as eager to eat as they were reluctant to disclose surnames; a Harold Washington College art student named Josh said he’d been looking forward to the feast for weeks. “A new vegan recipe–oh yeah!” Josh was raised in upstate New York, but his accent owed more to a few semesters of study in California.
He enlisted the students in prep work–milling tomatoes for marinara sauce, peeling hot potatoes for the vegan dumplings–while he browned garlic in olive oil, then set the marinara to reduce. While Rachel A industriously trucked dirty pans back to the dish sink, Bocik milled the potatoes and got out the flour. Then he stopped. “OK, we’re not really going to mix the flour and the potatoes, because first…well, since we’re not using eggs, I guess we should…maybe we should put some water in there…” He shrugged and started to knead and fold.
“Yeah, good idea,” said Bocik, looking up from the dough. “Wine is vegan. Let’s put some crack in it. As long as you don’t have milk in it, crack is OK.”
“Your sauce is ready,” said Rachel A, who had prepped an alternate entree, tofu cacciatore, just in case, and was waiting for the stove.
“That’s what we did all day,” said Bocik.
Rachel #3, asked whether making vegan gnocchi would in any way affect rhetorical fish in a barrel George Bush II, responded that the foodstuff’s deliciousness could ruin the president’s concentration. “He’s always masturbating,” she said, “and when he sees vegan gnocchi he has to drop his penis.”
