Restaurant Widow

This week news

Well, if there's one thing I learned from this embarrassing poll: my work and that of my ilk is clearly unfinished.

http://thisweeknews.com/live/content/food/stories/2009/08/19/readerspollresults.html?sid=104

Other Foodie Resources in Columbus

First up, I've decided to take a month haitus.  I am hoping that after a month of chilling out I will have a clearer picture of where to go next.

Until then, check out these great local food bloggers.  If I have missed anyone, it is not intentional, and please add them in the comments and I will put them on this list.

 Columbus Foodie - of course.  Columbus Foodie has been blogging the food scene in Columbus and beyond for years.  She gets props for actually having a successful garden!  Columbus Foodie gets up at the crack of dawn and hits the markets every week to document them through food and photographs.  Believing she should know everything about what she eats, Ms. Foodie even slaughtered her own chicken last year!  She also cans and preserves in large quantities and is brave enough to attempt online food challenges, such as Daring Bakers.

If you haven't been to Hounds in the Kitchen yet, go now.  Aside from running an online eco-friendly store, Rachel and Alex are true and genuine DIYers.  Alex even purchased a meat CSA this year, despite the fact that Rachel is a vegetarian.  From what I've seen on his Twitter and website, he has bravely cooked just about anything which has come his way (beef kidneys, for example).  The Hounds' website is truly a how-to resource for anyone who wants to spend more time feeding themselves real food and doing things themselves.  They have written great posts on making your own bread, jam, fences, yogurt, snacks, you get the idea.  They bike everywhere and are super cool people to boot.

Itinerant Foodies is written by freelance writer Maya, who lives in Brooklyn, and Jill, who lives here in Columbus.  Jill should be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for being a shining example of how an old fashioned business can engage the online community.  The Itinerant Foodies share great recipes and offer thoughts on local and seasonal eating and living.  Both have a charming writing style and the blog creates interest coming from someone in NYC as well as a local.  

CMH Gourmand - despite being a noted "gourmand," Jim focusses a lot on suchs treats as bbq and hot dogs and, above all, ice cream.  Jim is one of the only people I know who has hosted a hot dog tasting, and even did some consulting for the new Dirty Franks.  Jim has done lots of judging and travels around judging bbq.  He also attends lots of food events and is active in Slow Food.

Hungrywoolf is a British transplant here in Central Ohio, so it's great fun to hang out with her and discuss the different meanings of certain food items between here and Great Britain (I had a great time trying to explain "biscuits and gravy" to another expat, biscuits being the British term for cookie).  Hungrywoolf is very active in Slow Food and is their dedicated blogger.  She gets out to a dizzying number of food events and has a relentless passiong for learning and experiencing new things.

The Kitchn, an offshoot of Apartment Therapy, isn't a local blog, but there is a contributor in Columbus who keeps us on the map.  The photos are lovely and the writing is great.  The site encourages community interaction and always has something to inspire you.  Plus it offers lots of great ideas for your kitchen, of course!

Off Her Cork isn't strictly a food blog, but the author documents everything she eats and her healthy lifestyle.  I just recently discovered her site and it offers lots of tips and inspiration for living healthfully.  

Breakfast with Nick documents, amazingly enough, Columbus' breakfast scene.  Since I get a lot of questions about the best breakfasts, Nick's blog is certainly a needed niche in our fair city.

Charise from More Bread and Cheese Please documents her cooking escapades and takes great pictures of yummy-looking food.

Julie & Julia Drexel Giveaway Update

I must have recently change my settings in Typepad without realizing it, because I haven't been receiving emails notifying me of comments!!  I thought it was really strange that NO ONE entered to win these tickets! I just realized there were lots of comments that I hadn't seen!

I will be going through these and announcing the winners on Friday.

thanks so much to all who entered!!

What You Should Do this Weekend

1. 
   Saturday: Come see yours truly and Bille Yerkes of Bono Pizza share a friendly Iron Chef style competition based upon local ingredients!  Enjoy the whole Farmer's Market day at the Hills Market, including cooking demos by Pam from Little Rosies and Jen from Snowville Creamery.
2. 
   Saturday: Farmers Festival at the North Market, includes jam and heirloom tomato contests.
3. Sunday: Artisan Sunday at the North Market.
4. Sunday: The fine folks from Hounds in the Kitchen and Baying Hound will be talking about preserving the harvest this Sunday at Wild Goose Creative!
5. Available Light Theatre presents Church, beginning this week!

36 Hours in Hocking Hills::The Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls

After our Canopy Tour, Husband and I checked in to the Inn at Cedar Falls with just enough time to get to our couples' massage appointment! Husband had reflexology while I had a nice relaxing massage.  The spa on the grounds are located in a very nice 2 level cabin, and the massage room is on a sun porch area, with windows all around overlooking the woods.  We even saw a young buck roaming through the woods.

We stopped in to our cabin to change for dinner, and found it very charming.  The cabin is cozy, with a king sized bed, nice antiques, hardwood floors, a gas fireplace, and a nice big jacuzzi tub.  There is a porch on the back of the cabin which looked directly in the woods; you couldn't see any other cabins from the back porch, which was equipped with nice rocking chairs and a porch swing. It was very relaxing to sit outside and listen to the frogs and the crickets at night.

After our spa treatments, we met the other blogger + Husband on our trip in the Inn's tavern to chat with Chef Anthony and Innkeepers Ellen and Terry.

We strolled around the grounds, learning the amazing history of the inn and the work the current innkeepers have done.  Terry was a contracter who first came to the Inn when Ellen's mother purchased it; he did work whenever the elder XXX had the money to pay for it.  

Julie & Julia Drexel Giveaway!!

Julie Powell is the godmother of foodblogging. I'm pretty sure every foodblogger has heard of her and then immediately thought "why didn't I think of that?!" For those who are in the dark, Julie Powell was a frustrate 20 something with an uninspiring desk job. Floundering for some sort of purpose, she came across Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and an idea was born.  She would cook through the entire tome in 1 year.  The rest, as they say, is Web 2.0 history.   

At any rate, the very nice people from the Drexel have offered me some tickets to pass along to my readers!  woohoo!  The Drexel is partnering with some other great local businesses to offer giveaways of other Julie & Julia related items, such as goodies from the Cookware Sorcerer featuring $100 worth of products to get you started on mastering the art of French cooking, along with cooking classes at Sur la Table and treats from the Hills Market.  You can enter to win these prizes in the lobby of the Drexel.

But let's talk about this giveaway! Leave a comment telling me the first thing you ever learned to cook; if you have a funny story about it, that's cool too. I will select 2 winners at random.  Each winner will receive 2 passes to see Julie and Julia at the Drexel East.  You have 24 hours; winners will be announced tomorrow at noon, or whenever I get finished with my 10am meeting.

Good luck!

Here's a little more information on the film:

Starts Fri 8/7 the Drexel!

Director: Nora Ephron
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Jane Lynch, Dave Annable, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer-directorNora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme.

Based on two true stories, 'Julie & Julia' intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.
  
   In Julie Powell's book "Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, "  Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.

At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia's stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance. 

For showtimes call (614) 231-9512 or visit www.drexel.net.  The Drexel Theatre is located at 2254 E. Main St. directly across from Capital University and next to Bexley City Hall.  

36 Hours in Hocking Hills::Zip Line!

Husband and I spent 2 days in the Hocking Hills this week, thanks to the very nice people at the Inn at Cedar Falls.  We left Columbus at 11am and made it to Logan in just about 45 minutes, and we started the day flying through the trees on the Hocking Hills Canopy Tour.

We were surprised to learn that the tour would take 3 hours! (don't worry, the time flies - hahahahaha - and you will never be bored, I promise).  

The tour begins with signing a waver, wherein you are warned that you may die or have your feelings hurt (I don't know why I thought that was so funny; a list of risks ranging from hurt feelings to death).  Then you start zip camp.  Our tour guides - a guy and a girl - were funny and informative, and they did a great job of remembering all of our names in the group of 9.  That was very impressive.  We chatted a bit with the girl, who lives close to us on campus, and was very charming.  Both guides were supportive and helpful, dealing very well with children and adults alike.  As a matter of fact, everyone on our tour was pretty cool - including the kids with us, girls from about 9ish - 13.  The only irritating person was the father on the tour, who was constantly coaching his kids over (and sometimes in contradiction to) the tour guides.  They should add a line in the beginning instructing parents to keep their mouths shut and let the tour guides do their jobs. But that has nothing to do with the tour.

There are a number of zip lines of varying heights.  It's nice because the first few lines are shorter and slower, so that you are prepared for the longer, faster, and higher zips.  In addition to the zips are long rope bridges, which your tour guide will kindly jump on for you, making crossing a bit of a challenge.  You end the tour by repelling back down to the earth.  

The scenery is beautiful, of course, and the weather couldn't have been more lovely.  It was a sunny, breezy day; at first it threatened rain, but as you can see if you watch the video, it turned out very lovely.  

The zipline tour is a great activity for pretty much anyone, it seems - our tour guide said he had a group of 80somethings recently!  There is very little exertion involved, so it's a great outdoor activity for those of us who might not be in our best shape every...

Some pictures of the course:

this little kitty just lives in the woods and greets you when the trail is over! a nice surprise!

Here is a video I took of one of the slower zips - although it's decent considering it was dangling from my harness, was taken with my Canon Powershot, and is sideways, I wouldn't necessarily recommend viewing it if you get motion sickness...

info: Hocking Hills Canopy Tour 10714 Jackson St in Rockbridge

Hocking Hills Slide Show

This week the fine folks at the Inn at Cedar Falls invited Husband and I down for a little respite.  I will be writing about it soon, but until I am finished, here is a little slide show. I think too often we forget how beautiful it is in Hocking Hills, and how close it is (45 minutes).