My five favorites

I am tagging myself on a meme from Hot Coffee Girl.

My Five Favorite Places to Eat Locally - the Cleveland Version...

Nate's Deli (1923 W. 25th St.) We usually go to Nate's at least once a week. Their rolled pita sandwiches are great and they have THE BEST hummus I've ever eaten. What' s nice is if you take someone there who's afraid to eat anything "new". They can order a good deli sandwich and all are happy!

Siam Cafe (3951 St. Clair Ave.) Open till midnight daily. Order the pad thai, vegetable curry, scallops, spring rolls, I could go on and on.

Superior Pho (3030 Superior Ave.) Great weekend lunch spot! The soup comes with a whole plate of stuff that you can add to you liking. Vietnamese sandwiches, cabbage salad and summer rolls are also hard to pass up.

Lolita (900 Literary Rd.) - I went there for my birthday and the meat slicer made me swoon. I must say it was very difficult to make a dinner choice - everything looked good!

Tastebuds (1400 East 30th St.) - Another great lunch spot. My favorites are the roasted, toasted and grilled salad or the hot chicken sandwiches. It's always super busy and really loud - I find it to be a very fun environment to break up my work day.

A few places I would like to try...

Parallax (2179 W. 11th St.)
Lola (2058 E. 4th St.)
Korea House (3700 Superior Ave.)
Chez Francois (Vermillion)
Bubba Q's (Avon)

A post about food

My friend and I are going to split a family share from the Covered Bridge Gardens CSA this summer. Another option, set up by the Lakewood Earth and Food Community (LEAF), is City Fresh. I had a hard time choosing which one to join and now I'm thinking I should have gone with City Fresh. Mainly because they're going to have a "fresh stop" at Art House, which is only minutes from my house. Oh, well. We're still highly anticipating our fresh veggies.

Tri-C is offering Community Cooking Classes this summer. So far I've signed up for the Regional Country Side Dishes. The menu is: Mussels with fennel; Coq au Vin; Mousse au chocolate crème brulee. To balance this I'm also taking a kick-boxing class!

A new Retro Recipe Challenge has been announced. It's called From Retro with Love. Directions: Whip up dish a with international flare, using a recipe first published before 1985. Anyone have a suggestion? Entries are due Sunday, June 3 at 11:59pm

weekends

Last weekend was spent in Charleston, SC where we attended a beautiful wedding, visited with friends, sat by the pool and enjoyed the sun for a few days.

What am I going to try to do this weekend?

Friday - Twilight Hike in the “Natural Flats” or help someone work on their nursery.

Saturday - art show at Bela Dubby and then the Art Extravaganza!

Sunday - the LAST school open house at my (and my mom's!) gradeschool - they're closing at the end of this year.

the good

I always remember college as being fun. Yes, I worked a lot and missed my boyfriend but generally I thought it was a great time in my life. After reading an old journal that I kept as an undergrad (unfortunately, I believe it's the only journal I ever kept) I realized that's where I vented a lot of my frustrations. Apparently, I either forgot how hard it was or I was a drama queen with a pen. I know that writing helped me at the time but I was disappointed that I didn't document the positive things that were going on in my life.

The quote below is taken from one of my favorite blogs, Greek Tragedy. It's part of an entry where Stephanie writes about what she would say to her younger self today. I thought it was good advice and wanted to pass it on...

"Try to write about something other than the opposite sex or the fights you have with friends. I wish I knew, when I was younger, to write about the good in my friendships and family, to document the loving moments. Write about your relationship with your cousins, with your grandfather, with your parents. "

kitty food

I would love to eat this cat food on my next flight!

Hungry

Chicago (a little late)

I met up with my friend Tricia in Chicago a few weeks ago - she is currently in Florida but moving to Chicago this summer! We had a really great weekend that included lots of fun stuff - massages, French food (escargot & rabbit), sangria, more drinks, a bit of history & some groovy pictures of Cloud Gate. One toddler was so mesmerized by his reflection in the bean that he ran his head right into it. Poor little guy!

As for my Megabus trip - it was pretty good for $40. We arrived in Chicago an hour late but were only 15 minutes late getting back to Cleveland. I had 2 seats to myself both ways and managed to avoid the bus restroom. The heat wasn't working on the way to Chicago so my feet were freezing. I think it really would have been terrible if you had to share a seat with a stranger for 7 + hours.

Monster by Mail

I just ordered a "hungry" mail monster.

one month later....

My new niece, Addison Mary, was born Feb 23rd!

The Cleveland International Film Fest started - so far I've seen 4 movies. A Map for Saturday was really great - it's playing two more times this weekend.

St. Patrick's Day was fun. We went to a movie in the morning, the parade, Otto Moser's, Lincoln Park Pub and then came home for a nap. Later we went to dinner (for Mexican!) with some other friends.

I just got back late last night from Chicago. Will write more about my trip tomorrow.

Holly Golightly is playing at the Beachland tonight. I'm heading there straight after work. Tomorrow You Am I will be there - you can read about the Australian band's connection to Cleveland at the Beachland's website.

Quickly fading from the kitchen

Retro Recipe Challenge #6 One-Egg Cake

Cupid at Home in the Kitchen, Michigan Stove Company, ca. 1910s, 32 p.

I found a really interesting project at the Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. It's called the Emergence of Advertising in America 1850-1920. It's basically a database of over 9,000 rare & historic advertising images. One part of the collection is called the Nicole Di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks. This portion alone contains 1360+ images from 82 cookbooks published between 1878 - 1929. As technology advanced and women were cooking with things other than what they grew or made themselves cookbooks became huge forms of advertisements. You can read more about the history of advertising cookbooks here.

Since this is a Retro Valentine's challenge I chose a recipe from a book called Cupid in the Kitchen. It's an advertising cookbook put out by the Michigan Stove Company in the 1910's. The first few pages present a story of how Mrs. Potter (aka Cupid) uses her matchmaking skills with the lovely single Rose Bud and bachelor George Garland!

I made the recipe for a One-Egg Cake (click here for recipe). I chose this recipe for 2 reasons. If I were going to make a Valentine's Day cake I would want something special and a 2 layered cake just says "I took that extra step and used 2 pans to make this so I must really like you". Also I thought it would be fun to try out a recipe that has no directions. I used my best judgement and set the oven at 350 degrees, creamed the sugar and butter together and then alternately added the wet and dry ingredients. The only thing I didn't realize was that even though the recipe said that the cake "makes a good two layer cake" the batter was only enough for one layer. So I ended up with only one layer - but I still really like you! Being it was left in the oven a too long, the bottom and sides turned a dark crispy golden brown. The cake was very dense and almost gummy - it had a huge moist crumb and I thought it was too sweet. It was almost rustic - heavy like corn bread. I wonder if this is what a standard cake tasted like in the 1910s. Not bad, but far from what people expect a cake to taste like today. Check out the RRC #6 round up!

Cookbook images from:

Nicole Di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks

Emergence of Advertising On-Line Project

John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History

Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/

This weekend

I have a lot of things planned for this weekend. Probably too many to actually get done, but we shall see.

Tonight : I'm going to see Matthew Barney : No Restraint at CMA. Some of my friends declined my invitation after reading the synopsis. Personally, I don't know how you could not be interested in seeing what Barney actually does with Bjork and 45,000 pounds of petroleum jelly. I viewed most of The Cremaster Cycle a few years back at the Cinematheque - they're movies that I still think about all the time and I'm sure this film will be something to remember as well.

Saturday: Work. Make my entry for the Retro Recipe Challenge #6 and head over the see the Dirty Bottom Boys play at the Beachaland Ballroom.

Sunday: IKEA ROAD TRIP!!! Looking for nightstand lamps and a short bookcase.

Also working on gathering materials for a little plant project. Mighty Girl has posted a set of photos and instructions here. I purchased one large glass jar from Target and don't know if I want to get 3 matching jars or go with an assortment. The idea is to place them on the window seat in our dining room - preventing me from using it as a catch all. Here's one of the photos from her flickr set...

Megabus

I made reservations on the Megabus to visit Chicago in March. If you've been on the bus I would love to hear about your experience.

My husband (then boyfriend) lived in Detroit for a year. Since my car was unreliable and I was in love I took the Dog every other weekend to visit him. For as bad as it was, I did come away with some interesting stories.

Braised Short Ribs

The Amateur Gourmet made these and posted the recipe with tons of photos (he attributes it to the Babbo Cookbook). I followed his lead and used a Chianti but made the full recipe that calls for 4 ribs. The only issue for me was the cooking time. After 2 hours in the oven the ribs were done, but they were not all falling off the bone. This may have been because the ribs were not all the same size - 2 were bigger and 2 were smaller. The first night I served the ribs with tomato gnocchi from Ohio City Pasta. The second night I skimmed off a lot of fat and used the leftovers (meat pulled off of the bones and added to pot) as a pasta sauce served over whole wheat bow ties.

flattered?

This past week I got emails from both of my blittle brothers, A & K, telling me they're going to be at the Beachland Ballroom tonight to see Uncle Scratch's Gospel Revival. K just called me to ask if we were going to be at the show. I found the communication very odd...my brothers don't really talk to me unless we happen to be at my parents' house at the same time. I sometimes think A took a vow of silence and K just has more interesting things to do than hang out with his weird sister...or so I thought!

I was not planning on going tonight but was interested to find out why they were extending the invitation.

h: Who else is going?
K: Me, A, a few other friends. A girl I'm supposedly seeing.
h: What!?! You have a new girlfriend?
K: Yeah, I guess. I'm sure you'll get along real well. You two are cut from the same cloth.
h: What the heck is that supposed to mean? That you're madley in love with her!!! lol

Retro Recipes

Laura Rebecca has her own blog full of recipes and in addition she hosts a Retro Recipe Challenge every month. This is the month for me to take on the challenge!

I like you, I love Crab Cakes and I can't stop staring at my new dutch oven!

My husband took our friends and I out to a fabulous dinner at Lolita for a birthday last Saturday night (my real b-day was the 22nd). We had oysters with "love" sauce and boards of seafood, cheese and meat for appetizers. A warm spinach salad with a fried egg on top also arrived. Honestly, I had a very difficult time choosing my entree because they all looked so delicious. I happily ended up ordering short ribs with roasted red peppers and polenta. My friend's gnocchi was outstanding....pasta covered in a pulled pork and veal sauce. Creme brulee and a candle ended the feast. I can not rave enough about Lolita's food, staff and service. It's really fantastic.

I was also treated to dinner, cake and ice cream Sunday night at my in-law's house. My mother-in-law made a very interesting salad out of mushrooms, spinach, quinoa and feta. That will be on my list of things to make soon but first I must make use of my birthday presents - a few cook book and this beauty....

it's january?

I see it's been almost a month since I posted anything. The time just flew by. My vacation became an enjoyable break away from computers and work. I still managed to read some blogs over the past few weeks, but there are still many unread posts left on my blog roll.
I was afraid it would be difficult to start posting again. Should I try to do a recap of the last month? Post some pictures from Christmas? Nah, that sounds boring. So what I would like to write is that I spent most of the time going places, lunching, shopping, reading (books!), visiting with friends and family, watching t.v and I even made it to the movies yesterday! It was a blast! But today (sadly) I am at work and and trying to get back into the routine of things. For a while at least.

Columbus Girls' Weekend

I had a really great time in Columbus. We stayed up past 2am talking both nights. By the time we rolled out of bed, (couch or air mattress), got dressed and drank coffee it was almost 3pm - it was great to be able to relax and do nothing. Most of the weekend we spent visiting but we did venture out to the North Market for Indian buffet and scoops of Jeni's, Easton, North Star Cafe, Adriatico's & La Bamba.

Our computer is "kinda" fixed. Not sure if I'm going to be able to get my pictures back. I still need to re-install my camera software and itunes.

short week

It's already Friday and I didn't get to post anything about last weekend in NJ or my Christmas tree and now I will be leaving tonight for Columbus! One reason for no posts is that the home computer has gone all wacky - like those technical terms? I'm hoping that the computer issues will be resolved by the time I get home on Sunday and all my photos will have been safely retrieved off of the hard drive. No, I didn't back any of them up like a responsible girl does because our cd drive died a long time ago :(

Another reason for not posting is that I have been spending a majority of my time at work and when I'm not at work I'm in my car driving to work or at home getting ready to go to work. It's a vicious, vicious cycle. But I am so happy that Christmas vacation is almost here and I have just about 4 weeks off of work. So I will stop complaining now and start thinking about what to do over break!

Oh, we made our Christmas Keilbasa last Tuesday night! I think we used some version of the last year's recipe but added more garlic.