Our whole family assembles in Chicago at Christmas and usually in Aspen in the summer.

Coming from Chicago I like a white Christmas.

This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno he's Frank and in Chicago he's Ernest.

I came from a family where I felt great pressure to be financially successful and I felt that staying in Chicago and doing theater I was in all likelihood not going to find financial success.

Chicago's neighborhoods have always been this city's greatest strength.

I'm a huge fan of Chicago sports and Chicago food and I love going home and my family is still there. I guess it's pretty easy to have a normal life in Chicago.

I was a huge theater geek growing up and that was not the easiest thing in the world especially growing up in Chicago where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony which would have been an extremely sad loss.

In most places in the country voting is looked upon as a right and a duty but in Chicago it's a sport.

Since I was a kid I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties Chicago blues of the Fifties West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

Politics gets me out of bed in the morning It's what really interests me. I'm a competitor but I also feel like I'm contributing whether it's working on health-care policy in the White House or out here in Chicago.

It's nice to be able to work I'd love to be able to do another TV show I could do in Chicago so I could live and work in the same place. It's hard being a parent and being in a good marriage and it all takes a lot of work but if you're not there you can't do any of it.

Currently I am overseeing the construction of the new Trump Tower in Chicago. I am involved in meeting with the construction crews architects and sales teams. I am learning a lot and working with some of the best in the business.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection I have never been surprised by his leadership dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.

However I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

And I come here as a daughter raised on the South Side of Chicago - by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.