"Michigan Avenue is a wonderful place to spend the holidays. Every store is decorated. It's usually cold, if not snowing, and that's to my liking. … All the stores are brightly lit and there's Christmas music everywhere and people are in an extra-friendly mood. It was quite an adjustment I had to make to being in Los Angeles during the Christmas holidays. It's not the same walking down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Marshall Field's is a mainstay. No Christmas seems to be complete without a box of Frango mints, which you can only get at Marshall Field's. They're little chocolate squares that have a minty filling to them."

Lunch
"It's always great to go to Berghoff's, the historic 1898 beer hall in downtown Chicago. There's a nice selection of beers, hearty sandwiches, sauerkraut and sausages, and good potatoes. It's good German cooking. It's dark wood and very Old World, and loaded with sounds and smells and activities. Pizzeria Uno and Pizzeria Due introduced the now-popular thick-crusted, deep-dish pizzas to Chicago. They're always packed, but once you get in it's worth the wait, because they've got the best pizza going. They're very, very casual places. Afternoons, evenings, anytime, you can just drop in. They don't care what you look like, but you're guaranteed a great meal. I like the deep-dish pizza better than thin crust; it's gooier and greasier. And you can't miss a good Italian beef sandwich at Mr. Beef. It's loaded with gravy and lots of the best beef you can find. Top it off with a nice basket of greasy fries and you've got a good meal. That's Mr. Beef."

Culture