This was the open­ing week­end for the epony­mous Bằc, the new Asian food place in Tremont. I’d spent most of the day yes­ter­day tramp­ing around Cleve­land in the snow, so it was a wel­come change of pace to spend some time in a warm room with great atmos­phere and cute wait staff. The change in the space from what used to be La Tor­tilla Feliz is remark­able. Gone is the yellow-orange paint, and the stuc­coed walls are now a sooth­ing green. All of the decor was picked by some­body (I’m assum­ing Bằc him­self) who under­stands that classy looks, com­fort, and util­ity do all go together.

When I met Bằc at the Vel­vet Tango Room a few months ago, he said that his goal was to cre­ate a place where you can get an appe­tizer, a drink and a din­ner for around $20. He did a good job. The menu is struc­tured in such a way that you’ve got an array of options that meets this goal, and an equal array for a diner who wants to shell out a bit more. There’s even a cus­tom cock­tail menu (most run around $7), and $2 PBR’s that are $1.50 dur­ing happy hour.

I wanted to get every­thing on the menu, but whit­tled it down to the Banh Mi sand­wich ($8) or the pad thai ($11). The Banh Mi sand­wich sounds deli­cious, so I’ll get that next time I go there. I got the pad thai, “family-hot”, and since Bằc’s fam­ily is in the kitchen mak­ing the food, this was hot. Also, since Bằc’s fam­ily is in the kitchen, the hot­ness was such that it enhanced rather than over­pow­ered the fla­vor of the pad thai. The spring roll appe­tizer ($5) was also amaz­ing. Fried just enough, but not greasy, the inter­nal bits were chopped finely enough that you didn’t pull them all out when you took a bite, and the roll had enough ten­sile strength that it didn’t dis­in­te­grate once one end was bit­ten off.

Look, I can’t empha­size enough that Bằc’s fam­ily is in the kitchen mak­ing the food. So we’re talk­ing generations-old fam­ily recipes here.

Since today is Chi­nese New Year, we were even served com­pli­men­tary coconut jien duy (a sesame seed dumpling) after dinner.

Bằc hits all of the restau­rant sweet spots. Go there.

I have this ridicu­lous idea for a gim­mick restau­rant. This is not the hos­tile takeover of Grumpy’s in which every­thing with “cajun spice” would be removed from the menu (which would allow us to basi­cally write a whole new menu), all wait staff would be forced to wear flo­ral print aprons and the place would be renamed Frumpy’s. No, this idea is even bet­ter.

The place would be called The WTF BBQ. It would serve trompe-l’œil food. Mex­i­can spaghetti made with corn noo­dles, chorizo meat­balls and chipo­tle tomato sauce. Mediter­ranean tacos made with kibbee and fat­toush. The pulled pork is fish. Cheese­burger pizza. You get the idea.

I am a genius.

Ingre­di­ents

• 1# kiel­basa, sliced
• 1 box frozen pierogies
• 1 green pep­per, diced
• 1 red pep­per, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 8 oz. frozen corn
• 2 T. butter

Recipe

1. Put the but­ter in a 13x9 inch casse­role dish and stick it in the oven. Pre­heat the oven to 400°
2. Prep the other ingre­di­ents, and toss them together in a large mix­ing bowl.
3. When the but­ter is melted, remove from the oven and make sure the bot­tom of the dish is fully coated.
4. Put the piero­gies in the dish.
5. Layer the other stuff on top.
6. Cover the casse­role with alu­minum foil and bake for 40–50 minutes.

Over the last few weeks I’ve eaten at a cou­ple of new [to me] Cleveland-area food places. My favorite aspect of Cleve­land is the ease with which one can go to an authen­tic eth­nic restau­rant and never run out of such places to attend. I made it to Sterle’s Sloven­ian County House awhile back and had a great time. The murals on the walls made it seem like I was back in Slove­nia, and the live accor­dian polka accom­pa­ni­ment and old folks danc­ing was awe­some. It is right around the cor­ner from Empress Taytu.

Brown Bag Burg­ers near Great Bore­dom Mall is another tasty lit­tle eatery with a mural on the wall. Although their burg­ers aren’t the Best in Cleve­land, they are the exact per­fect size for eat­ing, leav­ing you full but not stuffed, sati­ated, not beg­ging for more. That’s a hard bal­ance to strike.

Pie Day! Last night, we made pie. A slight alter­ation to my mother’s pecan pie recipe [maple syrup instead of corn syrup] and a new one, an Apple and Tart Cherry pie. Deb­bie made the crust from scratch, impress­ing the hell out of me. It took a few hours, and I was exhausted by the time I pulled the pecan pie out at 11pm. I can’t wait to eat them today, though. Recipe time, oh hell yes. Click on the pic­ture to go to the whole set of pho­tos from the night.

Pecan Pie v. 1.2

Ingre­di­ents:

• 3 eggs
• 1 C. sugar
• ½ t. salt
• 1/3 C. melted butter
• 1 C. fake maple syrup
• 1 C. finely chopped pecans for mix
• whole pecans for top­ping the pie
• 1 t. vanilla extract

Instruc­tions:

Mix every­thing together in a medium mix­ing bowl.
Line a 9″ pie pan with the dough and bake for 5 min­utes at 450°; remove and change oven to 375°.
Pour pie mix­ture into crust.
Cover entire top with whole pecans.
Bake for around 45 minutes.

I found the Apple and Tart Cherry pie recipe on Epi­cu­ri­ous, posted there from Bon Apétit’s Novem­ber 1997 issue. Car­damom was a great and inter­est­ing spice to use, a first time for me. Although it looks like mouse crap when you de-pod it, it smells deli­cious after it has been suf­fi­ciently pes­tled and will be often added to my hot choco­late this winter.

I made this quick and sim­ple pasta with a bit of a kick last week and made it again because it is so quick and deli­cious. I highly rec­om­mend it and it is also good for the heart, blood and immune sys­tem. The meal might not con­tain any of the 8 foods you should eat every day, but it does well enough. I black­ened some wall­eye along with it and had a bit of chardon­nay as well, so the entire meal was about as quick, deli­cious and high­fa­lutin as it is possible.

• 3 C. gnocchi
• 11 oz. broc­coli florets
• 6 T. olive oil
• 3 gar­lic cloves, crushed
• 1 t. chili oil
• 1 12-14oz can arti­choke hearts, drained
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 T. fresh Ital­ian pars­ley, chopped [garnish]
• grated Parme­san to taste

1. Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boil­ing salted water until the gnoc­chi is al dente. Add the broc­coli for the last 3 min­utes, then drain.
2. Mean­while, heat the olive oil and chili oil in a large heavy-based saucepan and sauté the gar­lic for 1 minute.
3. Add the pasta, broc­coli, and arti­choke hearts and cook for 2 min­utes until hot.
4. Sea­son and sprin­kle with pars­ley and Parmesan.
5. Chow down.

1 Cup Organic Cran­berry Juice
3 Bananas
1/2# Straw­ber­ries
7 ice cubes
2 scoops pro­tein powder

Gone in sixty seconds.

I busted out the grill for the first time and cooked some cheapie Spencer steaks on it yes­ter­day. I made a lime and olive oil mari­nade; I stole the idea from Fahren­heit, only I put a lot more lime in mine. Since the steaks were so skinny I made sand­wiches out of them, with just a lit­tle bit of mayo they became amaz­ingly deli­cious. On the side was a chunk of edam, some kala­matas and mixed veggies.

The bike ride down­town was uphill and into the wind both ways, but fun nonethe­less. As long as the weather keeps, I’ll be that jack­ass on a bike in dress clothes. Tremon­ter and Dru­pal are giv­ing me a big headache. It’s a piece of crap pro­gram, but as far as I can tell its the only one out there that sorta does all the things I want it to. Unfor­tu­nately, when­ever they upgrade the ver­sion, it breaks all the third party stuff. Word­press, how I love thee.

I had some folks from the neigh­bor­hood over last night for a win­ter bar­be­cue. I made about ten pounds of pork bar­be­cue and had green beans, corn bread, potato salad, cole slaw, banana pud­ding and pecan pie. And lots of High Life. The pork bar­be­cue turned out really well, I put a BBQ rub on the pic­nic shoul­ders, doused it in a lit­tle liq­uid smoke, wrapped it up in foil and roasted it for about three hours before tak­ing it out of the foil and roast­ing it for another seven or so. The pork shred­ded quite eas­ily and didn’t have an over­whelm­ing BBQ fla­vor, the pork was still very much evi­dent. The BBQ sauce I made wasn’t like Nashville or Kansas City sauce, and was good, but still needs a bit of work. It had a slight spicy tang to it, and some sweet notes, but the main body of fla­vor was still uninteresting.

The big sur­prise of the evening was my banana pud­ding. It was ridi­cu­li­cious. I was brought a petu­nia prim­rose, a home gnome, a jar of Tremont-grade grape jam, a 3-year old bot­tle of caber­net, and choco­late chip muffins. I told peo­ple not to bring any­thing, dammit! Today there is cleanup, but it shouldn’t be too bad, only requir­ing one trip to the recy­cling drop-off.

I have just enough left­over bar­be­cue for a cou­ple of sand­wiches. Man am I look­ing for­ward to that.

Pork Bar­be­cue is one of my favorite things to eat. Good pork bar­be­cue is one of the tough­est things to cook. I gave it my first shot this past week­end, and it turned out bet­ter reheated than freshly cooked. I used a recipe from a sus­pect site, but its sim­plic­ity is what drew me to it. I really like to exper­i­ment, and this recipe leaves much room for that. I think I’m going to have a few friends over for the Super Bowl and sub­ject them to another go at the bar­be­cue. They liked my ribs from ear­lier, so they’ll eat any­thing. More pic­tures start­ing here.

I cel­e­brated Repeal Day at the Vel­vet Tango Room yes­ter­day with a Rusty Nail, a bou­quet of Bour­bon Daisies and some com­pli­men­tary sushi from Ginza.

I made vegan snick­er­doo­dles last night. I used this recipe. Although they didn’t turn out as tasty as clas­sic snick­er­doo­dles, they are still good. The recipe itself could use a lit­tle work. The ingre­di­ents list says bak­ing pow­der, but the direc­tions say bak­ing soda [I used the soda], and it makes about 2 dozen cook­ies, not 2½. It also says use 3T of dough for each cookie, which makes gigan­tic cook­ies, I used about 1½T for each cookie. The first batch I made were too sug­ary, so I cut it down by ¼C in the sec­ond batch. The taste was bet­ter, but the con­sis­tency was a bit too floury. If I make them again, I’ll cut both the sugar and the flour by ¼C.

I’ve never made any vegan chow before, but I’m under the impres­sion that these prob­lems are prob­a­bly pretty com­mon when bak­ing with­out eggs and milk. Corn starch has to take the place of the egg, but it doesn’t behave the same in the mix.

I made ribs for the first time yes­ter­day. They were on sale for $1.99# at Dave’s last month so I picked up a pack and planned on invit­ing some folks over when I finally cooked them. I called up my uncle, the fam­ily grill­mas­ter, and asked for advice. Since I don’t have the hi-tech grill that he does, I was unable to cook them for six hours, but the rest of his advice helped. He told me to mari­nade them in half Ital­ian dress­ing and half vine­gar for about 24 hours to ten­der­ize and suck some of the fat from the meat. This worked very well. I bought the cheap­est BBQ sauce I could find, but sup­ple­mented it with Cajun sea­son­ing and cooked the ribs on my ket­tle grill for about 2.5 hours. I flipped and repainted them with sauce when­ever there was a com­mer­cial break dur­ing the Notre Dame game. They were deli­cious, but I for­got to take a pic­ture of them. It is prob­a­bly going to take 2.5 hours for me to clean my grill today.

I was at Edison’s last night meet­ing with some neigh­bor­hood folks about a pos­si­ble syn­ergy between the lar­val Tremont Civil­ity Project and a pos­si­ble men­tor­ing pro­gram to bring together new res­i­dents, long-time res­i­dents and even longer-time res­i­dents. I also got pretty drunk.

Rogue Brewery’s Dead Guy Ale

This ale was mod­er­ately hoppy with a thick grain and fruity hints, per­fect for a fall after­noon or sum­mer evening.

North Coast Brewing’s Old Rasputin Russ­ian Impe­r­ial Stout

This impe­r­ial stout deserves being named for a man with an eleven inch penis that was wor­shipped as a fer­til­ity charm. A strong rooty front note fades into a hint of anise and some sort of wood fla­vor. The fin­ish is almost too smooth, with­out the lin­ger­ing stout fla­vor I’m used to. This might be because it was bot­tled. 9% by vol­ume. I don’t really know what I’m talk­ing about here if you hadn’t already noticed.

Fly­ing Dog Brewery’s Pale Ale

Now that it is morn­ing and I’m sober, I actu­ally think I’ve had this before. I can’t really review it because I think it acted as a palate cleanser after the Old Rasputin. I remem­ber that it was about as hoppy as Dog­fish Head 60 minute IPA.

Palma Louca

This Brazil­ian Pilsener was the sur­prise of the night. I don’t really like pilsen­ers, but my habit at Edison’s is to always try a beer I’ve never had before. I believe this is now my favorite south of the bor­der beer. It beats out Paci­fico, Dos Equis, and Corona in terms of fla­vor and refresh­ment. And it didn’t even have a lime in it.

I swung on up to Ohio City last night for some sushi from Kimo’s before going to the last night of inter­views for this round of Neigh­bor­hood Con­nec­tions Grant-making. Kimo’s was closed again. The third time in a row this has hap­pened to me. I know he does the sushi for the Indi­ans, and that its a big account for him, but it is a has­sle to get there and find out he is closed. I guess I’ll have to start call­ing first. Maybe he could use a web­site to keep folks informed? Instead I went to Heck’s again. I’d last been there over a year ago with Patrick in our quest for the best burger in Cleve­land. I wasn’t impressed with their burger then, and I wasn’t impressed with the pasta dish I got last night. The food was good enough, but I can and have made bet­ter at home.

The six inter­views we had last night switched back and forth between sports/exercise pro­grams and edu­ca­tional pro­grams. Unfor­tu­nately the same prob­lem we’ve had in the past also came through with sev­eral of these groups. Most or all of the money would go to pay them­selves or their busi­ness. I’m sorry, but if you request $5000 and all of that money is going to pay for mem­ber­ships to the busi­ness you own you aren’t going to get the money. Sim­i­larly, if you request $5000 and all of that money is being split between the work­ers at the busi­ness while claim­ing their hours as in-kind con­tri­bu­tions, you’re not going to get the money. I think that is one of the pos­i­tives hav­ing com­mu­nity activists as the grant-making com­mit­tee. We know all of the tricks peo­ple will use to make a buck. I won­der what it says for the Cleve­land econ­omy that small busi­nesses are so des­per­ate for patron­age or cash that they’ll cre­ate one-off pro­grams and hope the fund­ing source doesn’t look too closely at their application.

I’m in Kingston, Ontario, Canada at the moment and just got back from the Kingston Brew­ing Com­pany Lim­ited where I had a Dragon’s Breath Real Ale, which is an English-style ale, non-carbonated and hand-pumped from the tap. It was thick and grainy like you’d expect from an Eng­lish Ale, and very smooth to drink, espe­cially for me, since I tend to gulp non-carbonated bev­er­ages. I also had far too much sushi today.

I made my first fall pot of veg­etable stew this week­end. I pretty much eat stew all win­ter long.

I made Spaghetti Car­bonara AKA Heart-Attack on a Plate yes­ter­day. Here’s how I made it:

Ingre­di­ents:
5 tea­spoons olive oil
5 gar­lic cloves, finely chopped
7 slices bacon, sliced into juli­enne strips
1 pound spaghetti
3 beaten egg yolks, room tem­per­a­ture
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup freshly grated Parme­san cheese
basil to taste

Prepa­ra­tion:
In a saucepan, heat oil. Saute gar­lic over medium heat until soft. Add bacon and cook for an addi­tional 10 min­utes or until bacon is browned. Place to one side. Cook pasta in boil­ing water until al dente (about 8 min­utes). With a wire whisk, beat egg yolks and cream until smooth. Add Parme­san cheese and basil to egg and cream mix­ture. Drain pasta and return to pot. Pour bacon sauce over pasta. [Drain if you want to] Add egg, cream, and cheese mix­ture to pasta and toss.

It turned out really well, espe­cially with the deli­cious organic heir­loom toma­toes that were at the West Side Mar­ket this week­end. I won’t make it very often though, since it is so ridicu­lously bad for you.

I don’t like vague direc­tions when I’m try­ing out a new recipe. Not vague like Patrick’s black beans, but vague like this: I made mango sor­bet this week­end and the recipe called for reduced sugar water, but the direc­tions sim­ply said bring to a boil then reduce heat and sim­mer for five min­utes. .5C of sugar in 1.25C water. Then you mix it in with some man­gos and orange juice and freeze it [adding whipped egg-white later]. Mine ended up like mango ice or a mango slurpee instead of sor­bet because there was [obvi­ously] too much water in it. In ret­ro­spect, I have deter­mined that the sugar/water was sup­posed to be reduced until it was sim­ple syrup, but I guess the recipe just assumed I’d know that. Which brings me to my conclusion:

I’d like a Stu­pid Chef’s Illus­trated Ency­clo­pe­dia that gives you both meth­ods and pic­tures of cer­tain culi­nary tasks. Like what “stiff peaks” means when whip­ping egg whites, and how to sep­a­rate an egg in the first place [which my mom told me how to do when I asked] and lots of other things that cook­books assume a chef already knows. The Bet­ter Homes and Gar­dens cook­book is good for some of this, but it isn’t com­pre­hen­sive and is more focused on pro­vid­ing recipes than techniques.

A group of folks from all over the coun­try was in town learn­ing about the small grant pro­gram spon­sored by The Cleve­land Foun­da­tion. You know, the one I’m on: Neigh­bor­hood Con­nec­tions. A few of the com­mit­tee mem­bers [and one lucky alter­nate] were asked to go along for a neigh­bor­hood tour yes­ter­day and then share din­ner at Fire in Shaker Square.

Our first stop was at the St. Clair CDC, where we lis­tened to a cou­ple of grantees dis­cuss their projects, one group has cre­ated this excel­lent wel­come bag for all of the renters in their com­mu­nity. Not only does it include coupons and perks for local busi­nesses, but it also pro­vides a local busi­ness phone direc­tory, voter reg­is­tra­tion mate­ri­als, city and coun­cil infor­ma­tion and a wealth of other things to make new peo­ple feel at home. The other group received fund­ing to have a sum­mer fes­ti­val for the chil­dren in the neigh­bor­hood. The area, which the res­i­dents refer to as the ‘40s, is pretty diverse, with old Eastern-European pop­u­la­tions, as well as hefty chunks of Chi­nese and African-American com­mu­ni­ties as well. It seems to be a neigh­bor­hood just get­ting started in its revi­tal­iza­tion [and unavoid­able gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, as some lake­front con­dos are being built]. I was actu­ally rid­ing my bike through this area a few weeks ago, and it is worth exploring.

Then I was asked to speak a lit­tle about my story involv­ing Tremont, and since I can talk about Tremont all day, I tried to hit the major points only. It has become increas­ingly obvi­ous to me within the past few weeks that I moved in to Tremont at exactly the right time, since hous­ing prices have increased enough [due, once again, to gen­tri­fi­ca­tion] that I couldn’t afford to live here now.

After I spoke, a com­mit­tee mem­ber from Glenville told his tale, as we arrived in Glenville. This is an area that used to have pow­er­ful block clubs but had fallen on hard times. His­tor­i­cally, it was a heav­ily Jew­ish neigh­bor­hood but it is mostly African-American now. The hous­ing stock in Glenville is absolutely amaz­ing, and not sur­pris­ingly, lots of peo­ple affil­i­ated with the Cleve­land Clinic and Uni­ver­sity Cir­cle are mov­ing in and tak­ing advan­tage of the low prop­erty val­ues and restor­ing the places. [Read: gen­tri­fi­ca­tion]. Our stop here was at a com­puter lab for seniors and and its com­pan­ion lab which trains the black com­mu­nity into IC³ cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Our next stop was The Pass­port Project in Buck­eye, where we heard from sev­eral grantees on how another project of The Cleve­land Foun­da­tion, Con­nect­ing Cir­cles, had ben­e­fited them. They were the pilot group for this pro­gram, which encour­ages net­work­ing and knowledge-sharing among the groups, with assis­tance from a lady who teaches about non-profit work and com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing at Case. Each group [some which have been in exis­tence for 40 years] was very enthu­si­as­tic and engaged in the Con­nect­ing Cir­cles pro­gram, so it seems to be a suc­cess, espe­cially since the peo­ple said that it had reen­er­gized their own per­sonal projects and had borne fruit already. The pro­gram, for them at least, had already fin­ished but they decided to keep meet­ing nonetheless.

Then we went to Fire and I was told to order what­ever I wanted [Dan­ger! Dan­ger, TCF!]. So we got a bot­tle of Mark West Pinot Noir, I had flat bread with ramp pesto, roasted toma­toes and melted brie, a water­cress and other stuff salad, and filet mignon with onion rings and some other sort of onion/potato fried thing. [Obvi­ously, the only thing I mem­o­rized was the appe­tizer]. The appe­tizer was deli­cious, and is a recipe I shall steal. The Mark West was excel­lent, the salad was deli­cious, and the filet mignon was out of this world. I don’t get steak but once a year, in Canada, so I indulged. I wasn’t a big fan of the onion rings or the onion/potato thinger because they just tasted like fry­ing. For dessert I had creme brulee. Oh how I love creme brulee.

There are so many engaged and involved peo­ple in Cleve­land, doing their neigh­bor­hood activist work to make their com­mu­ni­ties stronger that I’m glad TCF is giv­ing them tac­ti­cal assis­tance to encour­age their growth. Talk­ing with the folks last night from other foun­da­tions gave me some great proof that engaged peo­ple are engaged peo­ple no mat­ter if you’re from Con­necti­cut or from Texas. Oh, the thinks we could think [and do] if more of us were as involved in our own communities.

After my run yes­ter­day I went to Dave’s and made myself a salad and grabbed a Brae­burn apple. It was what my body was crav­ing, so appar­ently I needed some iron [the major­ity of the leafy greens were spinach] and sundry other ruffage. It dis­ap­peared in no time. When I was work­ing over the sum­mer at Notre Dame, I used to take my lunch break and drive over to the Martin’s in Mishawaka with one of the guys on the ND cross coun­try team who lived next door to me in the ath­lete dorm. There was a very lim­ited and some­what costly DH option, but the Martin’s salad bar was a nearly nev­erend­ing source of rel­a­tively cheap and fill­ing health­i­ness. Espe­cially when I didn’t want to make tuna mac in the com­mu­nity kitchen.

Last night I also pur­chased some choco­late morsels, because I real­ized I didn’t have any­thing to bake with. So I antic­i­pate cookie bak­ing in the near future.

The house across the street from my apart­ment is for sale for $50k. The house pay­ment would be cheaper than my rent, but upon look­ing at the inside I esti­mated another $50k would need to be invested just to make it liv­able. I don’t have the time, money or incli­na­tion to do that kind of work on a house. The place does have sig­nif­cant pos­si­bil­ity, but you know it is bad when the most liv­able room in the place is the attic.

I fixed Pesto Chicken and Pancetta and Romano cakes and Banana Pies and had my buddy Steve help me eat it. Actu­ally he pre­pared the dijon glaze for the chicken and was chief baster. It was a rather meh meal in my esti­ma­tion, but “I’ll Eat Any­thing” Gold­berg didn’t mind. The Banana Pies, how­ever were com­pletely ined­i­ble. I swear, for a per­son that likes to bake, I have the hard­est time mak­ing good dough. Always too much flour. Maybe it is because I don’t have a sifter.

I spent my run think­ing about words that I liked, but can only remem­ber “loi­ter” at this point.

I ate a Sokolowski’s with Wasco and man­aged to com­plete my first Lit­er­ary Café Week­end Tri­fecta. I met another local blog­ger and fixed a local resident’s wire­less con­nec­tion, but locked her out of her own work com­puter when try­ing to change its work­group to allow her to have a home net­work. Nev­er­the­less, she still agreed to tango with me this evening.

I was sup­posed to work on a web­site for a local busi­ness owner/resident yes­ter­day, but every 34sp hosted site was down for I don’t know how long. So I’m a day behind and don’t par­tic­u­larly like that.

I received my Birth­mas present to myself last evening. The Sony DSC-N1. You can read some exhaus­tive and excel­lent reviews here: [1 2]. Basi­cally, it is an 8MP point-and-shoot that is the size of a pack of cards [it lit­er­ally fits in my palm] and has a 3″ LCD touch-screen on the back that gives access to all the menu items. It has nice bells and whis­tles [although the paint pro­gram it comes with is stu­pid] but not a bunch of dif­fer­ent knobs and tog­gles to access them. I’ve only taken 4 pic­tures thus­far [my mem­ory stick hasn’t arrived yet] and only used the auto func­tions [which isn’t going to last] but I’m dig­ging its porta­bil­ity, speed of use and adapt­abil­ity. But I’m sup­posed to be review­ing a restau­rant, not a camera.

I vis­ited The Town Fryer because that was where the Decem­ber Cleve­land Weblog­ger Meetup was being held. I chucked a ride on yon­der with Steve “Rookie of the Year” Gold­berg for a bite before the meetup started shindig­ging. The Fryer an unas­sum­ing place, used to be Chung Wah’s Chi­nese and still has the sign on the wall. They got a nice juke­box full of good ole south­ern rock and roll and blues and a decent selec­tion of beer. Lon­es­tar but no Dixie. I had me a Paci­fica, which was okay but noth­ing to write home about. Steve ordered him a mess of fried pick­les which were pretty good, although I don’t reckon I could sus­tain myself through a whole plate of ‘em.

For my din­ner I ordered half a pound of fried cat­fish with green beans and cheesy grits. I was gonna get green beans and john­ny­cake, but decided against the corn bread for rea­sons of gas­troin­testi­nal capac­i­ta­tion. Now I hadn’t had fried cat­fish in a dog’s age, since I was about knee-high to some­thing short and had caught it my own self while fish­ing with my daddy or grand­pappy on Brookville Reser­voir. I was a bit timid at that age, espe­cially about them stingers that the mud­suck­ers use to pro­tect their­selves, so when I caught a chan­nel cat I’d make some­one else unhook it.

After my meal, [which I still haven’t got­ten too, I hope you notice] I started to remem­ber that cat­fish and me have a spe­cial kind of rela­tion­ship. After I eat a cat­fish I usu­ally dream about being a cat­fish and even start think­ing a lit­tle bit like a cat­fish. It really ain’t no sur­prise. If you talk with a cat­fisher I reckon they can all tell you some tales about how unnat­ural and magic they can be. Cat­fish is spe­cial. So after my half pound of deli­cious bat­tered cat­fish, I did in fact dream of being a cat­fish and being nice and com­fort­able in some warm river mud. Here’s one of my favorite poems by Richard Brauti­gan about a catfish.

The meal itself was deli­cious. For $7.95 I got a half pound of farm-raised cat­fish and one side. I got a side of green beans and ordered and extry side of cheesy grits, just to see how they com­pared to my own. The cat­fish is dipped in Cajun-spiced bat­ter, deep-fried and served with a mild and tangy mus­tard sauce. Beer and cat­fish go well together. I was too young to know that last time. The half pound was about two and a half cat­fish. The green beans was cooked with bacon and a bit of molasses and was swim­ming in the juice. Quite tasty, and I would have loved to have more. The cheesy grits weren’t so good. A bit clumpy and not very hot, but still quite edible.

By this time I was pretty darn stuffed, but I couldn’t go home with­out dessert. I could have got­ten me a deep fried Twinkie, some Lemon Squares or some home­made banana pud­ding with Nilla wafers, but I opted for the deep fried Oreos. Nine of ‘em for $5. I asked for a big glass of milk to warsh it all down with, and got it. I ate me 7 of them Oreos and gave two away. They were pretty darn good, the cookie part get­tin’ all soft and hot as a result of the fryin’, and the bat­ter being tasty in and of its own self. I think I pre­fer a deep fried Snick­ers bar, though, truth be told. Other stuff on their menu includes Red Beans and Rice with Andaouille Sausage, Fried Sweet Pota­toes and Fried Mac­a­roni and Cheese.

All this food resulted in me being stuffed like a prize win­nin’ hog, and sweatin’ grease like I was that same hog roastin’ on a spit. I had a hard time with the shut-eye and even woke up extry early because I was so full. I’m still full, now. I’d rec­om­mend the Town Fryer as a good place to go for down­home, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it food and fix­ins. You prob­a­bly don’t wanna go if you’re veg­e­tar­ian though.

2 cans Goya black beans
2 cans Bush’s chili beans in hot sauce
1 7oz can of Goya chipo­tle pep­pers (in adobo sauce)
1 can diced toma­toes
1 C. frozen corn
2 C. diced bell pep­per
#.75 ground sir­loin or .75 C. TVP if you’re veg­gie
1 habanero pep­per
hot sauce
3 T. chili pow­der
1 T. gua­jillo chili pow­der
2 t. cayenne pep­per
2 t. cin­na­mon
shred­ded cheese to serve
fresh cilantro, chopped to serve
fresh lime slices to serve

When brown­ing the sir­loin, mix in a healthy amount of hot sauce. Put all the other ingre­di­ents in a big pot and mix well. Don’t chop up the habanero. Just let it cook in the chili and pluck it out and toss it before you eat. Best accom­pa­nied by peanut but­ter sammiches.

This was the best chili I’ve ever made. It is nice and hot, but not over­pow­er­ing. It is a sweet-hot as well and the heat doesn’t impugn the taste. Def­i­nitely a recipe to keep, and likely tweak a bit. A chili recipe is never perfected.

I was furi­ous after Notre Dame lost to Michi­gan State in over­time. That was the fifth con­sec­u­tive time that MSU has beaten us at home. I imme­di­ately fun­neled my rage into cook­ing a new and sim­ple recipe, Corn Frit­ters and Broiled Toma­toes. You need:

• 1 corn on the cob
• 3/4 C. flour
• 1 egg
• milk
• 2 toma­toes
• olive oil
• 1 clove gar­lic, crushed
• basil, oregano, salt and pep­per to taste

Cut the corn off the cob and chuck it into some boil­ing water until it has boiled for three min­utes, drain and rinse in cold water to cool the corn quickly. Pre­heat the broiler. Cut the toma­toes in half, hor­i­zon­tally, and score the cut parts with a knife a few times. Rub the crushed gar­lic and oregano into the tomato and sea­son with salt and pep­per. Driz­zle a bit of olive oil on ‘em and stick ‘em under the broiler until the tops brown. Make a well in the flour and crack the egg into it. Beat it with a fork and add milk until it is drop dough con­sis­tency, mix in the corn. Mash. [The cook­book didn’t say mash, which is why the frit­ters kinda sucked]. Heat up olive oil in a large flat pan and drop the corn mix­ture into it, heat­ing just long enough to set each side [should look orangey] set on paper towel to drain. Gar­nish with basil and serve with lettuce.

This recipe, though sort of plain, is full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. Cheese can be added to the pancake-like frit­ters, or they could even be eaten in the morn­ing as a refresh­ing break­fast. Per­son­ally, I think they’d be real good reheated in the toaster and with a bowl of cereal. Plus, this recipe was totally easy to make. Less than ten min­utes, if you work like a hyper­ac­tive squirrel.

Link of the Day: Bee­Dogs- Dogs in Bee costumes.

Okay, I stole the title for these from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, but that is beside the point. They were tasty enough and took less time to make than even spaghetti. About 15 min­utes from light­ing the oven to stuff­ing my face.

What I used:

2 really really small pieces of sliced pork loin
1 can of black beans
2 cups of corn
salsa
grated ched­dar cheese

What I did:

I drained and rinsed the beans and poured ‘em in a pot and then sea­soned them with cumin and chili pow­der and cayenne pep­per and a lit­tle bit of cilantro, stirred em up real well and cooked and mashed the devil out of ‘em. Mean­while I had the corn cook­ing as well. I seared my superthin pork loin and then chopped it, tossed it back in, sea­soned it with more chili pow­der and cumin and a tiny bit of cin­na­mon and kept it cook­ing. I had about two min­utes to kill so I grated some cheese. Then I mashed the devil out of the beans some more. I don’t know how to make refried beans, but this looked like it at least. Every­thing was done at this point so I spread it on some tor­tillas, poured a lit­tle salsa on ‘em and dug in. This meal rates quite high on the bach­e­lor scale of home cook­ing. It will prob­a­bly make about four nor­mal sized bur­ri­tos but I only got 2.5 out of mine.

Last evening I made veg­etable mous­saka and straw­berry short­cake for my friends. I’d never made or even had mous­saka before, and I was sur­prised that I liked it as much as I did. I think I’ll like it even bet­ter with spicy sausage or lamb in it, or maybe it just needed to be a bit more dense. It was tasty though, but the herbes de provence over­pow­ered the rest of the fla­vor, in my opin­ion. I’ve never made any­thing where I have to mix eggs and yogurt and pour it over some­thing and then bake it. It sort of souf­fléd itself. The prep time took awhile but I don’t think that both­ers me so much when I can put the actual meal in the oven for bak­ing. It makes the kitchen less hec­tic and gives me time to catch up on dishes.

I had a small din­ner party on Sat­ur­day night. It suc­cess­fully broke in my newly refin­ished table. I served a Lemon, Leek and Mush­room Risotto with Red Onion and Goat Cheese Pas­tries and Baked Apples for dessert. Wines served were Trim­bach Alsa­cian Gewurtz­trameiner, Cay­mus Conun­drum and Wood­bridge Pinot Gri­gio. I really liked the risotto, I’m going to have to make it with fish in the future. The recipes came from this book, which turned out to be an awe­some sur­prise Christ­mas gift from my mom. Recipes past the jump.
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In my ongo­ing quest [pre­vi­ous reviews: Heck’s; Swenson’s] to find the best burger in Cleve­land, I took a trip out to Euclid with Five Dol­lar Beer last night to check out Stevenson’s Ham­burg­ers. We learned about this place from the hon­or­able Food­Goat. This was a damn good ham­burger, def­i­nitely the win­ner from the three burger-centric places I’ve been so far. Damned inex­pen­sive too, which makes this cheap bas­tard quite happy.
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Par­al­lax is one of Tremont’s newest restau­rants. I had the priv­i­lege of eat­ing there this evening. While the prices are up there, the qual­ity of the food is worth every penny. Full review past the jump.
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I had lunch at Swenson’s Drive-In in Seven Hills. It was unlike Kunkel’s Drive-in in Con­nersville, they didn’t have the old boxes to call inside, instead you turn on your lights. The carhops run to and from the vehi­cles, I imag­ine they stay in good shape doing this. One of the carhops looked like she was prob­a­bly a com­pet­i­tive run­ner. I got burg­ers. Part of my quest to find a decent ham­burger in Cleve­land.
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I ate at Johnny Mango’s. In my com­pli­cated inner ratio of quan­tity and taste ver­sus price they score very highly. It also helped that I’d not had much to eat before­hand. I plowed through my plate like those dogs in kib­ble com­mer­cials. Well, maybe not that bad. I got the Mush­room, Tomato, Gar­lic Bur­rito Big Plate and we had fried plan­tains for our appe­tizer. The whole meal was what my friend Macal­is­ter was talk­ing about last week, a quest for the per­fect bite. I’m sure I’ll head back there some­time, most likely on a night not quite so busy.

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There is a vend­ing machine down­stairs, recently installed, that con­tains a vari­ety of dirt cheap refrig­er­ated lunch prod­ucts. They all look com­pletely gross. So, since I’m the kind of guy who eats hot dog fla­vored potato chips just because they’re there, I’ve deter­mined to eat one of each thing in that vend­ing machine. Today I had BIG AZ Bubba Twins chili cheese dogs.
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1/2 C. brown rice
2 C. water
1 C. frozen mixed veg­eta­bles
1 T. bal­samic vine­gar
1/2 T. extra vir­gin olive oil
what­ever spices

1. Cook the rice in an uncov­ered pot. This method works excel­lently. Thank you, Patrick.
2. Cook the veg­eta­bles in another pot, cover and sim­mer once it boils.
3. When every­thing is cooked, com­bine it in a bowl, add the bal­samic vine­gar, olive oil, and spices, cover with another bowl and shake vigorously.

I used to eat this all the time in col­lege, high energy, healthy, light and tasty. I’m start­ing to eat it more often now that I’m run­ning again.

I had din­ner with Five Dol­lar Beer last night. We went to Heck’s Cafe over on Bridge Avenue, because they appar­ently have the best burg­ers in town. The burg­ers were good, but if they are the best burg­ers in town then Cleve­land sorely needs a really good burger joint. Some­thing akin to CJ’s out of South Bend.
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I helped my friend Lau­ren move to Tremont on Sat­ur­day and then fixed a batch of chili for every­one to eat after­ward. It turned out pretty good, and though I was a bit leery of using some­thing as strange as TVP, it didn’t roil me gut like tofu tends to do. Actu­ally it was pretty good. Even bet­ter reheated the next day.
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I made some damn tasty pork chops last night, and if the rice turned out a bit mushy for my taste, I man­aged to hide it a bit behind some but­ter, paprika and basil. The pork chops though, were just peachy. If you try this recipe you will def­i­nitely make­out like a ban­dit.
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My quest to make home­made Lit­tle Deb­bie Star Crunch™ started off yes­ter­day. As far as I can tell, Star Crunch is puffed rice, caramel and a choco­late coat­ing. They are gooey and deli­cious. My own foray turned out to be pretty tasty, but much chewier than gooier. If you’ve ever had a Charleston Chew, then that is the level of chewi­ness we are deal­ing with here. Recipe as fol­lows:
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My mother came up this past week­end and saw the new place. We had Thanks­giv­ing din­ner with my friend from work, Lau­ren and it turned out pretty well. I roasted Cor­nish game hens with red pota­toes and aspara­gus, basted in a lemon-garlic mix­ture, Mom made some scal­loped yams and brought her pump­kin and famous pecan pies; and Lau­ren brought a Hun­gar­ian dish called Mush­room Paprikash, which is hearty and tasty and sort of like a stroganoff.
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I have pur­chased two brands of potato chips from the vend­ing machine. Hoot­ers™ Hot Wing Fla­vored Potato Chips, and Snyder’s of Hanover Hot! Buf­falo Wing Potato Chips. Herein lies a com­par­i­son.
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I went to Jimmy Daddona’s for din­ner some­what dri­ven by this review in the Free Times. It wasn’t very good at all. Now, I’ve gained a lit­tle knowl­edge at the ways of foodie-ness just by hav­ing prox­im­ity to Five Dol­lar Beer, so I am using some of his cri­te­ria in this review [or, what I think he cri­te­ria are].
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I don’t think I’ve ever writ­ten about food. I’m on an eat what I’m hun­gry for diet. This is not diet used in ‘what I eat to lose weight’ instead it is used in the ‘what I eat cause I’m hun­gry’ sense.
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