I'm Celebrating the Return of Communal Dining with Crab Fat Waffle Fries

Last weekend I walked down a patio-lined street in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood on an unseasonably warm night. The restaurants were bustling, masked servers were running plates and there was a buzz in the air. “It’s like 2019 again!” texted a friend hanging out a mile away in the West Loop. On the walk I ran into several friends and stopped to chat. One was moving to Vietnam, another bought a place, another was expecting. Hearing their news and...