Added 5.29.18. Milt sits down with three Chicago restaurant industry denizens to discuss the ins and outs of the business. They are GianCarlo Nardini, co-owner of Club Lago; Michael Taus, then chef-owner of Zealous; and Liz Van Leeuwen, then front of the house manager at Avec, a Mediterranean dining establishment. They dine out on a broad menu of topics including how to read – and sometimes – console your customers; handling difficult diners; the glories of communal seating, octopus and eel; and where to get the best steak dinner in Chicago.

Added 5.22.18. From not-so-distant decades when aldermen and committeemen had the Real Juice, to the present day where power is more concentrated in the Mayor’s Office, novelist Mark M. Quinn in this 2009 conversation with Milt explores the fascinating and dismaying ins and outs of Chicago political corruption. It’s a somewhat fluid and nuanced thing, and will likely remain so. Quinn had just authored a roman-a-clef titled, “The Chairman – A Novel Of Big City Politics.”

Added 5.22.18. In this 2012 episode, Milt talks with two experts about man’s similarities and differences with primates. Is our own free will to some extent an illusion, because we’re hard wired to act in certain ways in certain situations? Discussants probe the tension between our biological programming and our higher nature, which stems from a more acute consciousness, ethics and the physical ability to produce nuanced linguistic expression. Guests are Paul Reber, Northwestern University psychologist and head there of the Brain, Behavior and Cognition program; and Dario Maestripieri, author of “Games Primates Play: An Undercover Investigation Of The Evolution And Economics Of Human Relationships.”

Added 5.22.18. Never one to shy away from the classics, Milt in this 2012 episode delves into what comprises the canon of classic American fiction. His guests are Professors of English Priscilla Perkins of Roosevelt University and Kenneth Warren of the University of Chicago. Together they delve into questions such as “what makes Nathaniel Hawthorne great?

Added 5.15.18. Milt in 1982 goes mano a mano with Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko, in this rare and revealing interview. The author of penetrating current-events, cultural and political essays – in the Chicago Daily News and later the Sun-Times and Tribune – under Milt’s questioning delves into his remarkable rib-cooking prowess, the politics of Chicago snow, the growing fiscal and political weakness of large U.S. cites, and of course, Chicago politics, its Machine and mayors. Royko also discusses how he does what he does; proffers an argument for greater handgun control laws; and argues for getting out the vote – over boycotts and protests.