I can't quite explain why this is important, but it is. Suffice it to say this restaurant, "The Milk Pail," was where the Gill kids' great-aunts, Chloa and Georgia, took us before we entered the wonderland that was "Santa's Village." Between the Walnut Room at Marshall Field's in downtown Chicago, and "The Milk Pail," my idea of what classy eating out was got shaped by the experience of those two restaurants and "the aunts," cloth napkins and paying at the table and everything else -- those two places still color my view of every non-fast-food dining experience i have.

Starting this year, "Santa's Village" in East Dundee is no more, but "The Milk Pail" goes on -- a bit remodeled and the grounds not so parklike (room for more parking, no doubt), but the green fake leather chairs and the milk pail light fixtures and the veranda room all ring up a huge batch o' memory-to-go: