Flowerchild, Columbus, OH

Over the weekend I traveled with Mars to Columbus for the DEAFair. Afterward we visited a quirky vintage shop called Flowerchild. Here are some of my pictures from the store. Check her's out here.

Bloody Marys & Halloween pt 2

The day after Halloween, Mars & I & a couple of friends had brunch at Touch Supper Club in Ohio City. The wait was long and the food was pretty standard BUT they had an awesome make-your-own BLOODY MARY BAR. This was very exciting for me considering my recent bloody mary obsession. Most interestingly, Touch has homemade infused vodkas such as potato bacon, curry, wasabi, etc. I tried the tomato basil vodka (this bloody tasted like pizza) and the mango horseradish soy vodka, which made a very sweet bm that no one liked except for me.

beautiful.

here are some various pictures from the house show/halloween night.

Shivering Timbers myspace

frankenberry & kathleen hanna... in love.

mars from chicken dinner candy bar, as my suave lumberjack boyfriend

Bloody Marys & Halloween

I have entered in to a serious committed relationship with this liquor:

We had a halloween party last night. Shivering Timbers, Marathon, M.T. Kazkit, and Sharon Pritt played. It was fun & no one knew who I was dressed as because I was dressed as this very specific picture of Kathleen Hanna:

I have a different costume ready for tonight! Hopefully post some pictures later.

more words about food.

I suck at blogging.

Anyways, here are two really good food related articles that you should read:

Jonathon Safran Foer - Against Meat (from his upcoming book)

Its a Fruit, Goddamnit!

Ohio grapes

I helped harvest grapes this weekend for the vineyard Janee has been working at all summer. The vineyard is located in Rootstown, OH. There is no winery yet, or even a name, just lots and lots of grapes, ideas and experimenting.

Frontenac and Marquette. 2 years old.

adventures in eating #1: Slovenian Cuisine

I am not much of a writer/reviewer, but I am an eater. I've discovered that Cleveland (and NEOhio) has many ethnic restaurants that I have never even noticed and it has become my mission to try them all.

This all started when I discovered an outdated Ethnic Restaurants in Cleveland 2005 book at the flea market. I figured that for the asking price ($2), the book would be worth it even if most of the places were out of business. I started with Rachel's Caribbean Cuisine (Cleveland Heights, Jamaican cuisine, delicious), Marcelita's (Hudson, Mexican, very unique and upscale), and Corky & Lenny's (Woodmere, Jewish, awesome, casual, mostly meat options), all of which will be undocumented but remembered forever.

Most recently I checked out Frank Sterle's Country House in the heart of Cleveland, right by the lake on E 55 & 90. I had been curious about Hungarian/Slavic/German food and this place caught my eye because I heard they had live music and polka dancing on Friday & Saturday nights.

 

 Sterle's Country House is dark, warm, and inviting despite the fact that my friend & I may have been the only people under 65 & older than 6 that were dining that night. The inside was charming, the waitresses wore awful pseudo-German outfits and the walls were covered with crests and big countryside scenes. We were lucky enough to be given a very romantic seat on the river:

The menu was very meat heavy (okay, I should have known this based on the ethnicity, but I was still surprised) and the options were mostly dishes with veal, different sausages and some chicken and lamb. There was ONE vegetarian option, and that was an omlette with green pepper or mushroom. I was very disappointed with this at first, but I sucked it up because I am not a particularly strict vegetarian, anyways. We started the night with one of the two or three Slavic beers that were offered. My friend ordered one of the "family style" options, which basically means soup, salad, three different meats, two vegetables, and dessert, all in large portions. My meal was also very large and it came with salad and delicious buttery potatoes (which may have been my favorite part of the meal, actually).

Admittedly the food was kind of simple, but very good and we left with enough leftovers to feed another person. All of this was as expected, but I thought the live music and dancing was what would get me. The music was nice, traditional, and slow. Many of the older couples got up to dance but no one appeared to be dancing polka in the way that I know it. (I learned to polka about a year ago- its really fun!) We didn't stay long enough to see if the band picked up the pace later in the night.

 

I would love to go back for some real polka dancing! But at this point, I would be more interested in trying other restaurants and food of that region, especially ones with a slightly less meat-heavy menu. Any suggestions are welcome!

tomato pie, anyone?

So anyways, I'm bringing myself to talk about ground cherries. These fruits are one of my favorite things ever to take home from the produce auction. They are kinda weird, but ground cherries are a sweet & sour cousin of the tomato and a closer relative to the tomatillo (both have husks) but they taste like neither. I ended up with lots and lots of ground cherries this year, thanks to my friend Janee (look! its my pup) and her wonderful CSA. So, like any normal person, I made pies:

If you are intersted, the recipe I used I found here. I also think this recipe would be good, with the crumbly sugar topping.

And if you're reading this and you know anything about ground cherries and/or how to eat/cook them, please let me know!!! I would love to find out more ways to enjoy them next summer.

The Bridge Project

We had another party on Friday. I forgot (aka too stressed out of my mind) to take pictures. It was a hectic night.

BUT ANYWAYS:  NO, Don't! played an awesome, beautiful, intricate and crazy noise set as the opening band, and The Kyle Sowashes followed them up with a fun and energetic pop-punk (and I mean that in the nicest way) set full of songs that if I had known the words to, I would surely have been singing along.

It was fun.

The next day I traveled to Cleveland for The Bridge Project (check it out here and here). I didn't even know there was a tunnel underneath the Detroit-Superior bridge, so it was a real treat to see it and walk through it. The tunnel is about a mile long, and used to be used for street cars. It was dark and damp and creepy but architecture was beautiful and everyone that was out seemed excited.

.

 

Many long tunnels and creepy archways.

Seriously, this bridge should be made into a mile long haunted house.

This was awesome-looking, but honestly all I could think about was mosquitoes and bacteria and parasites breeding in the water(!)... but then I remembered that nothing living can survive in the Cuyahoga River anyways. Phew.

We had accidentally been following this bride & groom around that were taking their wedding photos on the bridge.

Blueberries

I live in a bright blue, slightly run down house in Akron. Its a pretty cool historical house, obviously built 100 years ago because of the beautiful woodworking and because everything is falling apart. My roommate and I decided we wanted to live here because it is basically perfect for house shows.

Last week we had a party. Katie, Krill and Tigerfighter played. It was pretty awesome despite lack of attendance and whatnot. But... we're just happy everyone had fun and no bad shit happened.

 

Katie.

Forgot to take pictures of Krill but they are Awesome.

 

So, if you live in the area and want to see some bands at my house just let me know and I'll tell you where I live. Probably.

Daisy Does Akron

Last week was really eventful. For starters, I got a dog. Her name is Daisy. 

She's a spunky Border Collie/German Shepard rescued from the pound by my friend Janee.

 

She's really sweet.
I have been taking her to work with me, even in the work truck.

I love Ohio.

Last week I drove to Athens, Ohio to visit a friend. Athens is located in one of the poorest counties in Ohio but the architecture of the campus is quite beautiful.
We hung out at a frat house and then went to a metal show that sucked. 

I am considering returning for the Pawpaw festival next weekend. Yum.

No one had cigarettes for the ride home so we just smoked out of the hookah.