findlay market chili cook off this sunday

today i received an email from some findlay market fans asking me to come out to the chili cook off this sunday at 1:30 and blog about it. i'm lazy so i don't think i'm going to blog about it again but here is a link to my post about it last year. you should definitely go, it is really fun and you get lots of free delicious (and some not so delicious) chili.

i did not ask their permission but i am pretty sure the findlay market people are going to be cool with me stealing this image

i will be there again this year so here is your opportunity to stalk me, stalkers (you know who you are). feel free to ogle me from afar and/or come up and say hi, but please refrain from touching me or i will cut you. thanks.

findlay market and the chili cook off

the weekend before last, liberal foodie decided to enter her amazing turkey chili recipe into the findlay market chili cook off so of course i went down to cheer her on. alas, the judges clearly have faulty tastebuds because she did not win even though she had the best chili there. seriously. i am not just saying that because i am her friend either. i really liked hers the best. my runner up was a vegan chili with black beans and chipotle peppers. sooo good and i loved the fake meat.

liberal foodie and the husband with the chili that should have won

liberal foodie will not release her recipe to me. i tried to take a picture of it for my faithful readers and she threatened to kick my ass. i am weak and cannot even pretend that i can compete with a territorial brown girl with a crazy good chili recipe. however, i will tell you this... there is a roasted poblano pepper in it!

meats and cheeses galore at findlay market

note to readers: if you don't hear from me again, please search for my cold, bloated body in the ohio river and hunt down liberal foodie who killed me off for giving away recipe secrets.

tasty fish

we had so much fun at the chili festival and tried all kinds of (sub-par) chilis, including a camel chili which honestly pretty much just tasted like a not as flavorful skyline. still, it was a lot of fun and it gave me a chance to take some good findlay market photos.

fruit and veggies

if you have not been to findlay market, you need to go asap. there is super cheap produce, several really good meat and fish vendors, and a bunch of great specialty stores (wine, spices, an asian market, a mediterranean market, an italian market, a deli, bbq, waffle guy, etc.).

yummy middle eastern and italian speciaty products and spices. the only place i know of in cincinnati to find authentic lawash, pickled turnips, and syrian string cheese.

i would rattle off all the names of the places but honestly i am just too lazy to look them all up right now. if you are interested, just go to the findlay market website (link above... i am even too lazy to recopy/paste it).

yummy italian specialties including fresh pasta and panini

findlay market is open wednesday to saturday from 8 am to 6 pm, and on sunday from 11 am to 4 pm. it's especially fun to go in the spring and summer when there are lots more farms there and flowers and sometimes outdoor performances. plus it is excellent people watching. i think the market is busiest on saturday mornings, but that is also when the most stores and vendors are there.

where the hell else are you going to find camel sausage?

if you love food and you live in this city and you have not been to findlay market, you are living a lie. go. now! run!

CAM and sushi making

my exciting food project for the weekend was to learn to make sushi rolls. i had never made them before and it has been a goal of mine for a while. since i just got a rice cooker recently, and since i am hoping to make some for my book club's holiday party in a few weeks, it seemed like a good time to try.

before i made the sushi though i took a trip to cincinnati asian market (aka CAM) to pick up some supplies. if you have never been to CAM, you need to go. it is by far the best source of asian foods anywhere in cincinnati. much bigger and more selection than the place at findlay market and all the other small places around.

look no further for all your asian food needs

CAM is not just a store, it's a supermarket. they have aisles and aisles of everything you could possibly need for any type of asian cooking. i will show you some pictures so you can get an idea.

CAM offers a variety of brands of chinese sausage but kam yen jan is my favorite

yes, they have an entire aisle of soy sauce and rice vinegar

crazy big bags of rice

CAM is very vegetarian friendly. if i were a vegetarian i would shop here all the time. they have more kinds of gluten, bean curd, and fake meat than i ever knew existed

all that and an amazing tofu selection!

if you like fun drinks then CAM is the place for you. they have all kinds of yummy juices and coffees.

where else in cincinnati can you buy fresh quail eggs?

the sweets aisle. my favorites are pocky, fruit gummies, and ginger candy

CAM also offers a lot of other good stuff not pictured above. they have fresh roast pork and duck. they have all kinds of vegetables and fruits that you can't find anywhere else (chinese broccoli, longan, chayote, rambutan, daikon, etc.). they have a huge fresh fish selection. they also have a huge frozen fish selection. there is an entire aisle of frozen dumplings and buns and other yummy dim sum items. they have a wide variety of rice cookers, steamers, teapots, chopsticks, and other kitchen wares. they have an aisle dedicated solely to pickled vegetables.

after my jaunt to CAM, where i bought necessary sushi supplies (rice, nori, pickled ginger) as well as some completely unnecessary treats (kimchi, pocky, jasmine tea, canned mackerel belly in ginger sauce) i came home and started on the sushi. i was using a recipe that avani's friend had given her, and i was supplementing that with an ina garten recipe i had seen on tv a while ago.

this recipe has seen a lot of use

it may seem odd to use sushi recipes from an indian girl and a white woman from the hamptons, but i tried googling and got overwhelmed so i decided to just stick to what i kind of knew on my first try. so i gathered my supplies together and got started. i decided i would do veggie rolls with some combination of cucumber, carrot, and avocado, and fish rolls. i was too cheap to buy sushi grade fish, so i bought smoked salmon and cream cheese and did philadelphia rolls.

ready, set, sushi!

i ended up making about six rolls with mixed results. first of all, i don't think i was rolling some of them tightly enough. i guess that comes with practice. another problem i had was that my fillings were not staying in the middle. this caused a problem because i think the heat of the rice is what causes the nori to stick to itself. in the places where the cold veggies and fish touched the nori, it wouldn't stick to itself. i remedied that by putting a little hot water on the nori and then squeezing the roll for a while, but i don't think that is the ideal way to do it. my knives are perpetually too dull so that was kind of a problem when cutting.

also, fyi, the recipe above calls for way too much rice vinegar. i used 4 tablespoons for 2 cups of rice, and it was almost too much.

the finished product

my sushi turned out ok but not great. i am very pleased for my first try though. i nibbled on a few pieces that kind of fell apart while i was cutting them. however, at the end of the process, i no longer felt like eating sushi. that happens to me sometimes where i am really craving something kind of complicated, then i go through all the work of making it and then when it is done i don't want it anymore. it's annoying. does that ever happen to you guys?

at any rate after all that sushi making i decided in the end that i wanted mashed potatoes and made that. the sushi is all sitting in my fridge. hopefully i will feel like eating it tomorrow for lunch...