Chicago Pizza – Present & Future with
Steve Dolinsky

Thursday, January 9 | 7 PM

Famed Food Guy reporter at NBC 5 (Chicago), Steve Dolinksy has won 13 James Beard Awards for his TV, radio and podcast work. Steve is also the producer and host of Pizza City, a bi-monthly podcast featuring some of the nation’s greatest pizza makers. In 2022, he launched Pizza City Fest in Chicago. Now in four cities, the events bring together 40 of the region’s best pizzerias baking live on electric and wood-fired ovens. Steve is also the author of two pizza books. Join him to dish on The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide: A History of Squares & Slices in the Windy City, his comprehensive guide to the styles, locales and people that make the Windy City a prime destination for slices and pies.

Steve grew up in a kosher home in St. Cloud, Minnesota and it wasn’t until he was a teenager that he began to fall in love with food. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, and moving to Chicago to work as a reporter for CLTV, Steve caught his big break in 1995 when the station launched Good Eating, a weekly program that mirrored the Tribune’s food section. After eight years, Steve moved to ABC 7, Chicago’s #1 news station, where he produced two original reports every week under the moniker, The Hungry Hound.

Since 2014, Steve has hosted The Feed Podcast with Chicago chef/restaurateur Rick Bayless, a podcast covering the world of food from their professional perspectives. He is also a judge on Iron Chef America and has served as one of the 27 Regional Academy Chairs for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants for the past 13 years. Steve lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

Love and Laughs with
Michelle Buteau

Thursday, January 23 | 7 PM

Join comedian, actress, and producer Michelle Buteau in conversation with Greta Johnsen. Michelle is the creator/writer/star of the Netflix series Survival of the Thickest, inspired by her autobiographical book of essays of the same name. She is also the host of two popular reality competition shows – The Circle and Barbecue Showdown, and hosts the popular podcast, Adulting. In 2024, she starred in Babes alongside fellow comedian/actress Ilana Glazer.

Born in New Jersey to Caribbean parents, Michelle brings her unique perspective and big personality to stage and screen. Her one-hour comedy special, Welcome to Buteaupia, won the Critics Choice Award for Best Comedy Special. Her new special, A Buteau-ful Mind, drops on Netflix December 31.

Greta Johnsen is an interviewer, podcast host, and book person. She is loved as co-host of HBO’s Official Game of Thrones Podcast and hosted WBEZ’s Nerdette podcast for eleven years. She can also be heard on podcasts like Pop Culture Happy Hour and City Cast. 

An Evening with James McBride 

Tue, February 4th @ 7PM

Illinois Libraries Present James McBride, an award-winning author, musician, and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, was published in 1996 and is considered an American classic, read in schools and universities across the United States. His 2013 novel, The Good Lord Bird, won the National Book Award for Fiction and was adapted by Ethan Hawke and Jason Blum into a Showtime series bearing the same name. His latest, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, was named one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2023.

In 2016, President Obama awarded McBride the National Humanities Medal “for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family.” In 2024 he became the latest recipient of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. A native New Yorker, McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Heather Marie-Montlilla of PBS Books will join McBride in conversation.