hopcat

so matt is like "quit pretending to be surprised about all the good beer here, you're from michigan for crying out loud" but i can't because i am still amazed!  until moving here, i did not realize the state of beer affairs here and i will not get over it for a while.

one of the best new additions to the local beer (and food) scene is hopcat which i hear opened in like august or something.  rumor has it they have a location in grand rapids too, which my sources tell me has better food and also a more expansive menu, but i am pretty happy with what we have here.



i have been there twice now and i can't get over their beer list.  my sources also tell me that even though they have approximately 972 taps, they are regularly running out of things.  oh i'm sorry, you only have 834 beers available to me?  WELL WOE IS ME.  run out of all the beer you want hopcat, i can find something to drink on this list.

the first time i went there was for one of their tap takeover events, which is when they have like pretty much every beer ever created by a brewery.  that one was for atwater so you really could not go wrong.  i tried the macaroni and cheese and it was delicious, although i was slightly disappointed that it appeared to just get slopped in a crock right before serving with some breadcrumbs sprinkled on top rather than being all oozy and baked in the crock.  but the other side of that coin is that the food literally came in like 30 seconds.

tonight i had the amazing experience of their insane happy hour deal, which is a delicious burger (any burger you want!) with delicious fries AND a delicious beer for... wait for it... SIX.  DOLLARS.  yes, you read that right.  oh wait, i only get to pick from one of your top 20 taps for my beer?  and those top 20 taps include atwater vanilla java porter and dragonmead final absolution?  ugh, you guys are so stingy.

i like how the place looks and feels too.  it is really open with two floors of window walls and they got their hands on some of the cool antique lights from the MSU buildings that are slowly getting remodeled and the lighting is good in general (lighting is a thing for me).  service is good and friendly and prompt and attentive.  it can get busy, but it has never felt too crowded when i have been there.  of course granny has only been for dinner so who knows what it is like at like 1 am.

i also hear that they have a great brunch which involves a bloody mary bar so you know i will be spending a lot of quality time here in the future.

ozzy's kabob

much like the insane tap lists here in michigan, i cannot get over the ridiculous number of awesome lebanese restaurants.  i really should not be surprised because a) i am lebanese and b) i know that detroit has the largest middle eastern population outside of the middle east.  but i am in shock in the best way possible, probably because i went so long being deprived of regular access to above mediocre hummus and non smushy falafel.

we had a going away lunch a few days ago at work and went to a place i had never heard of called ozzy's kabob.  although my coworkers laughed at me for taking pictures of my food while regaling me with stories of getting hit on and/or proposed to by clients, i had to.  it was ridiculous!  i knew you guys needed to see this to believe it.

ok so this place takes it a step further than just insanely amazing and comprehensive lebanese food (they had kusa!!!).  they have a $7.99 lunch buffet.  yes.  you read that right.  all you can eat competely off the hook baba ghannouj and shawarma (with garlic sauce!) and cucumber and tomato salad.  i mean come on!

i tried to eat a lot but i could only get through two courses.  i need to go back.  unfortunately they don't have the buffet at dinner but i am sure i can make do.

service was good and the price was clearly right.  go.  now.

zoobie's

i forgot how time consuming blogging is... i have only been here for a month and i already have a list of places that i want to write about and am scrambling to find time to do it.

zoobie's is a great bar that i have already been to three times.  melissa was telling me that i needed to go here before i even moved here so i was really excited about it.

they have an excellent beer list (i know i keep saying this about every place but i'm not over it).  they have delicious craft cocktails which is super exciting for me of course.  and they have truffle oil popcorn!  not much other food, but you can gorge yourself on this shit and die happy as your heart gasps its last artery clogged breaths.

zoobie's is low key without being a hole in the wall.  i am thinking that the people who hang out there are lansing's brand of hipsters, which are a lot less annoying than cincinnati's brand of hipsters.

they also do interesting things like one night when i was there with matt and melissa we ended up in a connect four tournament.  of course i could not figure out how to play even after having it explained to me like five times and i lost in the first round.  but a good time was had by all.  or if i want to avoid the wrath of english teachers everywhere, all had a good time.

there is not much else that needs to be said about this place but it is a great place to hang out and it's always somewhat busy but never too busy (says the person who first went there a week ago).  zoobie's has lots of visits from me to look forward to/try to avoid at all costs.

tavern 109

annette and kevin came to visit today to bring me some furniture and help me attach my tv to the wall with one of those arm thingies so i can pretend i'm a real grown up with a tv over my fireplace.  we wanted to eat before trying to do any manual labor and i thought it would be nice to kill 2 birds with one stone (brunch + cocktails) so i suggested tavern 109 in williamston.

it's one of these new american type places with the whole wood floor/exposed brick/big windows things going on.  i enjoy that kind of a vibe.

 infused liquors

the cocktails were great.  kevin and i got the bacon infused bourbon manhattan and it was good (i did think it was a little strange that it came on the rocks but that's probably for the best at 12 pm anyway).  annette's bloody mary was delicious and had a bunch of nice snacks on a stick (cheese, pepperoni, olives, pickles, celery, etc.).

annette and kevin got the chili and really liked it.  then annette and i got the ham and cheese sandwich which is basically a croque monsieur on white bread and it was delicious.  we also got the macaroni and cheese and it was fine but nothing to write home about.  kevin got the shrimp po boy and he ate the whole thing so i'm assuming he liked it.  worth noting is that kevin made a fuss about not wanting brunch and they let him order off the full menu so that's nice.

(mac + cheese) + (ham + cheese)

service was ok.  the server didn't come by very often and we had to wait a while to get things like cream and sugar for coffee, the bill, etc.  maybe they were understaffed?  we were in the second room so we couldn't really tell how busy it was in the front room.

this is like a NORMAL RESTAURANT TAP LIST here!!!

overall i think this is a decent brunch option although it is a bit far from lansing.  the menu included both whitefish dip and chicken and waffles which made me happy even though i didn't order any of them.  and there was an amazing draft list but that seems to just be the norm around here.

lists of places for me to try

ok lansingites who are reading this (all one of you), i am trying to make some lists of places to try based on my internet research and recommendations from people.  help me out here with suggestions, additions, bitch fests, etc.

places where i think i might be able to get a good brunch (without having to wait for two and a half hours and get treated like they are doing me a favor by letting me even walk in the door):

• fork in the road
• beggar's
• the soup spoon cafe
• dusty's cellar
• heart and soul d & l cafe (holy shit, chinese food and omelets on the same menu?  handmade pork sausage?  bacon pancakes?  hopefully this place still exists)
• hopcat
• tavern 109
• fleetwood diner
• the brunch house (there is actually nothing that exciting on this menu but given the name, i feel like it can't be ignored)
• piazzano's (again, it doesn't appear to be anything special on first glance but any menu featuring a giant cinnamon roll all in its own box deserves my attention)
• zeus's greecian island (no that is not a typo and yes i am serious.  come on, gyro and eggs!  i am a big fan of the classic diner/greasy spoon brunch)
• sunnyside cafe (no website, no menu online, and very few photos but my gut says this has the potential to be a hidden gem)
• everyday restaurant (i'm hoping they still have dim sum although this review is old. any other dim sum recommendations would be very welcome... i don't want to have to accost a random asian grad student)

places where i think i might be able to get a good cocktail:

• zoobie's (i keep hearing about this place and i am going next week and i am super excited)
• red haven (only 4 vodka drinks out of 15, and even those look interesting... and check out the dessert drinks)
• copper
• dusty's cellar (this menu is pretty vodka heavy for me, but i am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as they have a good, if limited, selection of bourbon on their list)
• tavern 109 (actually nothing on this menu appeals to me except then i got to the mid michigan manhattan "109 House Infused Bacon Bourbon & Maple makes this Manhattan a must have" and i was like OH MY GOD I MUST DRINK THAT and it gave me hope that they may be able to make a good cocktail that does not involve absolut)
• gracie's place
• taps 25

sadly, the boom boom room is no longer open but i found it in my research and i am super sad that it is no longer around.  can we please get a tiki bar around here?  or if there is one somebody please tell me about it because i need to drink a fucking mai tai out of a ceramic monkey skull stat.  i really do not understand the demise of the tiki bar, which is like the pinnacle of awesome 50s kitsch culture.

and for people who think i do too much internet research and/or who do not understand the logic behind my sophisticated social and gustatory and community exploration methods (you know who you are), here are things that i am so not worried about finding in lansing that i don't even need to make lists about them:

• dive bars
• good beer
• cheap beer
• pizza
• burgers
• asian food of any kind except maybe vietnamese
• middle eastern food
• whores

and finally, does anybody want to clue me in on the bar with the best bourbon selection?  bueller?

golden harvest

i just moved to lansing, and here i am about to write my very first food blog post in lansing, and i am also about to make myself the most hated person in lansing.  golden harvest is where everyone tells you to eat in lansing if you ask (and even if you don't).  it has 4.5 stars on yelp.  and it is horrible in every way possible.

actually, that's not really fair.  the food is decent, if you are ok with a healthy amount of oil and grease on your plate.  but the flavor is there.

however, the food is the only think that even comes close to being acceptable about this place.  let me count the horrors...

1. the staff.  not nice, ranging on a spectrum from "apathetic" to "mean."  which is strange, because there are signs everywhere saying "be nice or leave."  but the staff doesn't have to be nice apparently?
2. the ambience.  first of all it is loud as fuck.  yes i know i am a grandma but seriously, i don't think even the youngest eaters are that happy about having some ska/punk noise (honestly it was so loud i couldn't even tell what it was even on top of my embarrassing lack of pop culture knowledge) breaking their eardrums before they have even had their coffee.  there were all kinds of "kitschy" (i guess) toys and crap everywhere collecting dust, just like rotted out copies of old ren and stimpy comic books and board games that had been sitting in the sun since 1982 and non-functioning magic 8 balls and shit.  i guess that is to keep you busy for the hours you spend waiting to eat.
3. the hours you have to spend waiting to eat.
4. the obvious health code violations everywhere.  worst was watching a waitress carry toast with her bare hands from the front counter, through the restaurant, into the kitchen.  but less bad than that were many other things including the long hair within inches of food without hair nets, the layers of congealed blackness on the floors behind the counter, and the overall dinginess of the entire restaurant... the whole place looks like it needs a long bath in a vat of oxy-clean.
5. the coffee.  weak.
6. the service.  this is different from the not-nice staff.  first of all we waited AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES from the TIME WE ORDERED before we got our food.  this was AFTER waiting FORTY MINUTES outside in the freezing cold to even sit down.  ok, you have no space inside to wait, i have to wait outside, i get it.  but to have to wait TWO HOURS AND TWENTY FIVE MINUTES from the time of arrival to get food, with most of that time spent AFTER you sat down?  give me a fucking break.  but that is not all that is wrong with the service.  not by a long shot.  examples:
• the waiter asking if we wanted more coffee, and when we said no, he took our coffee mugs away (BEFORE WE EVEN GOT OUR FOOD).  what the fuck?
• ordering an "appetizer" which came with all of the rest of the food... an hour and forty five minutes after we sat down*
• getting chased out of the restaurant after we did not tip (sorry, you forfeited your tip at an hour and a half of waiting for food) and being yelled at in the parking lot by a waitress for not tipping*

i get it.  lansing is not some big booming metropolis like cincinnati (ha), you have to take what you can get in terms of good food.  but i could get this food in my own kitchen without the attitude, the wait, and the likelihood of salmonella.  it is above average for diner food, but if you are someone who knows how to throw in some artichokes and red peppers into your omelet or some mascarpone into your french toast, you too can work this level of kitchen magic.

i look forward to my future meals at other lansing dining establishments and i am sure that whatever is missing in menu creativity will be more than made up for in oh say GETTING MY FOOD IN LESS THAN AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES AFTER SITTING DOWN AT A TABLE.

so hi lansing, i'm liz.  nice to meet you... those of you who will still speak to me after this post anyway.

*these events were recounted to me by my friends as i was actually not present due to the fact that i had to leave at 2:00 p.m., before the food even came, because when i went to breakfast at 12:30 p.m. at a diner in a cold, underpopulated, mid-sized midwestern city i thought that would give me enough time to actually eat.  silly me!

deep thoughts as i leave cincinnati

i have a new job in michigan that i am super excited about.  i'm moving there on monday.  good news for reader(s?): i plan to start blogging again to shake up the sleepy lansing dining scene which appears to have a total lack of food bloggers.  i am also very excited to be back in the land of the spartans and be able to go to msu basketball and football games whenever i want and hang out with all my nut bag loved ones in michigan.

i have been reflecting a lot on my time in cincinnati (seven and a half years).  i will miss it so much, even though i am really looking forward to being back in michigan.  in honor of the transition, here are 20 things i learned while living in cincinnati.  this is by no means an exhaustive list, just things that seemed relevant to me at the moment i was writing this post.

1. the people you think are your friends might not be your friends, and the people you think aren't your friends might be your friends.  the best way to know which is which is to figure out what your objective definition of friendship is and then apply the definition to every friendship in your life and see which ones pass the test.  you will probably be surprised at the results.

2. if a west sider says you are like a west sider, this is the highest compliment they could possibly give you.

3. most people are only in your life for a limited period of time, and most friends do not last forever, and this is a fine and good thing as long as you are continually bringing new people into your life.

3a. (for liz and jenny) you can never have enough friends!

4. there is maybe nothing that says more about a person's character than how they treat the people who are below them on the totem pole in any given situation (ie: assistants, children, secretaries, customer service representatives, wait staff, homeless people, etc.)

5. most lawyers are assholes.  the ones who aren't are truly quality human beings.

6. religion is not that scary after all, although i still don't want it for myself.

7. children are not that scary after all, although i still don't want them for myself.

8. the nonprofit world is just as fucked up as the for profit world, if not more so.

9. having a lot of money, even for just a short period of time, is really fucking fun.

10. the only way to move past rock bottom is to hit rock bottom.

11. the most important thing you can do for yourself as a person is to take full, complete, and total responsibility for your own life and your own happiness.

12. the second most important thing you can do for yourself as a person is to set boundaries and enforce them ruthlessly.

13. who people are is more important than what they believe, which is actually not really that important at all.

14. it is just a lot less stressful to be ok with being wrong than to not be ok with being wrong.  bonus: people will like you more if you are ok with being wrong.

15. performing on a stage in front of an audience is amazing and probably my life calling.

16. nobody, and i mean absolutely nobody, is thinking about anything other than themselves.  i don't mean this in a judgmental way.  i am writing this post and all i am thinking about is myself.  what i mean is that when you think you sound stupid or look ugly or that people are judging you, you are 100% across the board wrong.  everyone else is only thinking about themselves.  they do not give a shit about you.  again, this isn't a bad thing (or a good thing).  it's just a fact, and the sooner you accept it the better your life will be.

17. drugs and therapy is the solution to everything, including world peace.

18. the more things you like, the more fun you will have.  the more things you don't like, the less fun you will have.  so in order to have the most fun, you should try to like as many things as possible and dislike as few things as possible.

19. being nice will get you a hundred times further in life than being an asshole in pretty much any situation.  and in the few situations that it won't, it's probably just not worth it once you do the cost benefit analysis of getting what you want vs. the risk to your mental and emotional health.  this rule does not apply to situations in which your values or civil rights are at risk.  or actually it does, because those are the situations in which the cost to your mental and emotional health would be too great.

20. doing what you think is right is more important than doing what you think will make people like you.  and doing what you think will make people like you will only make people hate you. doing what you think is right will also make people hate you, but at least you will not hate you.

peace out, cinci!  xoxo, mark and liz

those are my final deep thoughts for you, cincinnati.  good luck with the streetcar!

big changes are coming!

hold on to your hats!

still wallowing in your misery over the lack of get in mah belly in your life?

check out my new project, one month a freegan... coming in november

it's my 9 month leg break anniversary... please feel free to send cash and/or prozac

it has been 9 months to the day now since i broke my leg.  i no longer care about blogging about food but apparently i really love wallowing in my disabled misery.  maybe this will get me up to #5 on urbanspoon.  one can only hope...

today i just had a total emotional breakdown over something probably stupid that there is no way i am going to share on this blog.  i cried my eyes out and sank to the depths of depression and sadness.  fortunately my friend heather is in town right now taking care of me and was there to listen to me and give me a hug.  of course heather is leaving tomorrow morning which is yet another source of my stress and depression... i am going to be completely on my own while non-weight bearing for the first time ever starting tomorrow and i am terrified.

aside from the stupid, or not so stupid, who really knows, thing that started my cry fest, i was also depressed because i just feel like my life has been on hold for so long.  i know this is pretty much what i bitched about in my last post but this is my blog and i get to bitch about the same shit over and over again if i want.  i have been unable (physically and/or emotionally and/or financially) to do some of the most important things to me: travel, cook, socialize, and pretty much anything physical (the worst is not running).  for the past three weeks, and for almost three months in the fall, and for at least another month but possibly longer, i have been reliant upon other people to drive me any time i have to go anywhere.

it's not that people are not offering to do things for me or coming to visit me.  they are.  so it's not like i am lacking that.  it's that i just feel like i am not an active and participating member of society right now, and the things that i have to do on a day to day basis are much more time and energy consuming (ie- showering, preparing food, getting dressed, etc.) and so i just don't even feel much like i can make the effort to do other things.  plus normal things that people do can be either dangerous or straight up impossible for me.  examples: i went to the radiohead concert and had a drunk girl fall on my broken leg.  i went to neon's last night and there was no handicapped parking to be seen so i had to crutch a block there and a block back (fyi if you have never been on crutches: this is exhausting).  i enjoy alcohol but fear drinking any right now because i am already very limited in terms of my ability to stay on my feet and be physically stable, and falling or tripping right now would be really bad.  i went to kroger today and the electric grocery cart ran out of batteries in the middle of the store.  then i think about people who have to put up with this shit or worse all day, every day for their whole lives and i feel like i am just a dumb miserable whiner.

a lot of people including myself are depressed for a lot of reasons but i have just been really overwhelmed by how depressing and emotionally taxing it is to be completely unable to live my life the way i want to live it for such a long period of time.  i am not bothered by asking for or accepting help from others, i think we all should help each other and i would definitely help anyone who needed me.  what brings me down is just the feeling that life is happening and i am not a part of it.  and it's impossible to explain this feeling to people who don't get it.  i feel more alone and more lonely than i have ever felt in my whole life, and i am not new to feeling totally fucking alone.  worst of all, being around most people does absolutely nothing to improve this particular brand of loneliness... if anything, it can make it even worse.

it's not like i was living my life that great before i broke my leg.  the very day it happened, lavine and sarah and i were hanging out at my apartment before oktoberfest and i was giving them my same old tired monologue about how i didn't think i should stay in cincinnati much longer and i felt that i didn't really fit in here and i was sick of my job and of living in a place where i had very few truly deep connections with people and of having way too many weekend nights where i was sitting at home by myself and of the feeling of being stuck in a sea of people who all wanted to get married and have babies and be insular until the end of time.  i wasn't doing anything about it, i was just sitting around bitching about it and i was depressed about it.  but doing nothing to change your circumstances because you have absolutely no other choice is just so much more depressing and alienating and lonely than doing nothing because you are a lazy asshole who likes to bitch.

tomorrow i am going to get up and go to work and pretend that i care about things and people are going to tell me that i am doing so great and i am going to smile and pretend like it is no big deal and i am not depressed and it is easy and anybody could just break their leg and have it not heal and go on about their life and be happy and functional and not a total basket case.  but for now i am just going to spew my depression and self pity all over the internet and wallow in it.

welcome to cincinnati, where it's apparently not ok to be crippled

i just read this article in the enquirer and it fucking pissed me off.  in case you are too lazy to click the link, i will sum it up for you.  ally bruener is a 23 year old comedian with muscular dystrophy.  i did not know she existed until five minutes ago and have not watched any of her comedy so have no clue if she is any good or not.  one of her topics is her disability.  at a recent douche fest party in the park, ally and her friend showed up and pushed people's boundaries by getting people (who signed releases) to say, on camera, "i laughed at the crippled girl."

apparently the douche fest party in the park powers that be couldn't handle this and called in the cincinnati police to handle shit.  it's unclear from the article or from ally and her friend's accounts as to what exactly happened, probably because it was so fucked up.  the police refuse to comment.  all we know is that ally's friend has been cited for disorderly conduct for allegedly... distributing promotional materials?  using the word "crippled"?  being associated with a person with a physical disability?

striking fear into the hearts of cincinnatians and target shoppers since 2011

my own physical problems are way smaller than ally's but throughout the past nine months of having various states of broken leg, i have had my eyes opened to how shitty it feels to be completely ignored and/or laughed at TO MY FACE in public and professional settings just because i am in a wheelchair/on a knee scooter/on crutches/whatever.  i am a 31 year old loud mouthed attorney who is not used to being ignored by anyone, other than nut bag "i hate female attorneys"/"i hate younger attorneys"/"i went to elementary school with the magistrate" type opposing counsel, who are all without exception so much stupider than i am that it doesn't even bother me and in fact gives me a distinct advantage to be underestimated by them.

prior to breaking my leg, i was not ignorant to the fact that people with visible physical limitations are treated like raving morons by society.  my dad has MS and has to negotiate life in a scooter with a catheter piss bag taped to his leg, and i have been watching him get ignored or talked down to for my entire life.  but it's a whole other thing to actually experience it yourself.

i feel for ally because seriously, all i ever want to do is talk about my crippled state and my body's failings and the physical and emotional pain and suffering it causes me every single minute of every single day, and all i have is a fucking kind of still broken leg.  i can't even imagine if this was your entire life, and it wasn't just your leg.  she seems to do a lot better a job of not letting her physical limitations and appearance piss her off on a minute to minute basis than i do, which is amazing.  and if she makes people uncomfortable, that is the whole point.

i hope she sues the shit out of everyone involved and ally, if you are going to be doing any more public appearances, sign me up to get wheeled on down to meet up with you to help make closed minded people cringe (as if i needed another forum for that).

my leg got chopped open and more metal got shoved into it and then it got sewed up again and this is how i feel about that and other things

two weeks ago i had another surgery on my right leg from when i broke it back in september (fun fact: that is the second most read post ever on this blog).  here is a video of this surgery for the medically curious.  not pictured: the bone graft or the removal of five screws put in during the previous surgery, featured here.  don't watch that if you're eating or have a weak stomach.  my mom has been here taking care of me but she is leaving tomorrow.  fortunately my friend heather is coming for a week after my mom leaves.  then i will be on my own and i have already described all of my fears about that.

i have been laying around on my ass for two weeks although i did manage to go to radiohead on tuesday, and i have to give a shout out to the staff at riverbend for being totally amazing and bending over backwards for a neurotic anxiety ridden nut case in a wheelchair.

i have watched all of downton abbey and half of dead like me and a bunch of mad men and girls and the new girl and a bunch of movies that i can't really remember right now except walk the line and about a third of citizen kane and i have to say i do not get what is so great about that movie... boring.  one day i will write a story about the time i went to the hearst castle and it will be a lot more interesting than that movie, and the story is actually not even very interesting at all.

i have read some books and a lot of news and blogs and david sedaris and i have eaten very well.  i know that there are at least nine cats wandering around my street and i pretty much know their schedules and habits and who is friends with who and who hates who, at least among the cats.

here is what my ankle looked like yesterday

i was going to try to write a lot but it turns out that you have nothing to write about when you are not doing anything, and despite suggestions that i should try to write while drugged the percocet made my brain slow down so that i really had even less than nothing to write about and absolutely zero incentive to even try.

i have been spending a lot of time thinking about what the hell i am doing with my life and why and have not come up with a lot of good answers.  i'm feeling kind of done with this whole law thing, although i need to do it for another four years in order to get my loans paid off.  maybe i'm just feeling kind of done with my current job.  my office has been bleeding people for years, the best and smartest people are almost all gone and the majority of people left either probably could not function anywhere else or haven't been there long enough to realize they need to get the hell out or want to get the hell out but just haven't been able to yet.  office morale has been consistently falling to new all time lows for years.

i feel dangerously close to getting sucked into the abyss of terminal monotony that seems to engulf people who have been working in my office for too long.  you just handle the same cases over and over and over and they are all depressing and everyone's life is just as shitty at the end of the case as it was at the beginning of the case and the clients are all miserable and the opposing counsel are all assholes and you lose your ambition to actually be creative and dynamic as an attorney because you are buried in the mountain of the same old cases and problems that keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, especially now since there are way too few people to handle the work, and nobody feels appreciated and no one has the time or energy to push themselves professionally or intellectually and everyone is overworked and underpaid and all the people who you liked and respected and trusted, and who liked and respected and trusted you, are gone.

here is what my leg looked like a week ago

aside from work i feel dissatisfied too.  i have been in cincinnati for six years now, way longer than i ever thought i would stay, and while i do have some people here who are important to me, it just doesn't feel like enough.  i've done everything i can possibly think of to make this place feel like home (living in different neighborhoods with different roommates or alone, volunteering for a variety of different causes, joining a running group and a kickball league and a book club, starting and running cincinnati imports, blogging, taking classes in meditation and wine tasting and golf and japanese, and probably other things that i'm not thinking of right now) but none of it really has made it feel like home.

on top of that, i have had what i feel like is a record breaking number of people who were close friends here in cincinnati either move away or else turn out to be completely fucking bat shit crazy.  the few people i feel truly close to here are too busy with all the other things in their lives (spouses, children, family obligations, work, travel, their friends from high school, whatever) to be in my life as much as i need them to be.  most of my closest friends live in other cities and i look at their large fulfilling networks of smart, adventurous, socially conscious friends who they spend time with almost every day of the week without clinginess or cliqueyness or codependency and i feel depressed that i have been living without that for six years now and what the hell am i doing with my life?

being in varying states of immobility for the past nine months has put me in a position where i have been pretty much locked into place physically.  you can't just up and move when you can't even walk, and you can't really seriously try to get a new job when you are going to have to tell a potential future employer that you are going to be needing them to give you a few weeks off for major surgery right after you start, assuming you can even get them to hire you in the first place.

more surprising than the physical effects is how introverted i have become since september, when i first broke my leg.  i just no longer feel like i want to be around very many people, and in fact can hardly stand to be around more than a couple of people at a time.  i had a party at the beginning of april that made me want to swear off hosting parties forever, and at a cincinnati imports event at the end of april i did nothing but sit in the corner and check my watch.  i just don't like very many people that much anymore, and i especially don't like them in groups.  i feel like so many people are silly and ridiculous and superficial and self absorbed and while i always used to try to find out what was interesting in people, now i just want them to leave me alone.  it's hard for me, and others, to understand and accept since for many years i was one of the most social people in any group.

it would be easy to say that this is depression and maybe it is.  i never think i am depressed when i am, and it is never clear to me that that was my problem until much later on, when i am happy again, and i am like "shit, i was depressed."  but i don't feel sad about not wanting to be around people... i just feel relieved.  i still feel lonely though which is the problem and why i am writing about it.  but one thing i am sure of at this point, which i think i never really realized before, is that knowing a lot of people, or meeting a bunch of new people, does not do anything to relieve loneliness.  the key is to know people (even just a few) who for whatever reason make you feel not lonely, and to be able to spend as much time as you want with those people.  and i do not have that particular combination of factors in my life right now.

what i need is to be able to spend my work time doing something that allows me to feel autonomous and creative and challenged and valued and my free time with a group of people with whom i feel a close bond and shared common values.  these things are both missing from my life.  it's the same tune i have been singing since i moved to cincinnati really, and it's depressing to realize that maybe nothing has changed and maybe this just isn't the place for me and never will be no matter how hard i try.  maybe i have given cincinnati my all and it's time to move on... once i can actually move again.

soliciting blogging ideas

i'm going to be stuck sitting on my ass for 2-3 months after my next surgery (may 25) and i'm trying to think of things to do to fill the time besides watching tv.  one thing i want to focus on is some writing projects.  does anybody have any ideas?  i feel bored of writing about food and won't be eating out much obviously.

what i'm thinking of is either some type of series of daily blogs on a theme of some type or else some topics which it would be interesting to write one (or multiple) posts about.  other ideas are welcome too.  please post your thoughts here, if you have any.  thanks.

words or phrases that people say a lot that i totally do not know the real meaning of, and what i think they mean

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the best cincinnati fish fries

i started a fish fry quest 3 years ago and i have been addicted ever since.  cheap, tasty food + cheap beer + pretty much the best people watching ever... that is like my idea of heaven.  here are the best fish fries.  you can thank me in cash... or fish.

Church: Mary Queen of Heaven, 1150 Donaldson Rd., Erlanger, KY 41018
Beer: yes
Why you should go: the cook is the chef from Izzy’s and the food is delicious and there is every sauce imaginable and pickles and there are a shit ton of huge TVs and projectors so you can watch March Madness
Menu: http://www.mqhparish.com/Fish%20Fry/2012%20Fish%20Fry%20Menu%20for%20Web.pdf

Church: St. Paul, 7301 Dixie Highway, Florence, KY 41042
Beer: yes
Why you should go: the chef teaches at Midwest Culinary Institute and they have amazing specials... on March 2 it is whole lobster
Menu: http://www.saint-paul-school.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2-16-12-FISH-FRY-MENU.pdf

Church: St. James White Oak, 3565 Hubble Road, Cincinnati, OH 45247
Beer: yes
Why you should go: the fish is delicious and they have amazing salted rye
Menu: http://www.stjamesfishfry.org/St._James_Fish_Fry/Home_Page.html

Non-church: American Legion Post 484, 1837 Sutton Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45237 (Mt. Washington)
Beer: yes
Why you should go: the atmosphere really more than anything...
Menu: http://www.legion484.org/Bingo.html

fish fries i haven't tried but have heard are good:

• St. Lawrence: the place in Price Hill with the bakery which is supposed to have really good breaded shrimp
• St. Teresa of Avila: also Price Hill and rumored to have good fish
• St. Joseph Academy in Walton, KY: kind of far but rumored to have the absolute best hand dipped fish
• Immaculate Heart of Mary in Burlington, KY: this is a tip from julie of wine me dine me
• Hartzell United Methodist: all you can eat for $9 in Blue Ash

my last 25 non work related google searches

musty towels

can you have a uti and not know it

crohn's disease

mardi gras cincinnati

hawaiian food

zola

ramit sethi networking

osteopathic medicine

bo ssam

facebook cell phone has a name

mental illness

cara cara oranges

sugarlaws

nku community education

el secreto de tus ojos rotten

do not call list complaint

suspect someone of having borderline

suspect someone of having bipolar

what to do if you suspect someone has borderline

borderline vs. bipolar

send flowers

dojo new york

silent treatment

new york times blog policy

highland coffee house

al amir greek salad with grilled chicken

i know i know i just wrote a post about how i wasn't going to write about restaurants anymore and here i am writing about a restaurant.  but if you are eating lunch downtown and you are not eating the greek salad with grilled chicken at al amir, you are doing something wrong.  this is definitely my favorite salad to be eaten for lunch downtown and it is only $6.

look at all that deliciousness.  you get lots of fresh greek salad type veggies in a just-made greek dressing with lots of herbs, yummy freshly grilled (not from a freezer) chicken with a cumin rub, and then they also throw in the tzatziki just in case you are not 100% sold.

i had a gyro there once and it was pretty good, and i have heard the falafel is good, but ever since i found this salad i never order anything else.  the ambience is nothing special but the food is delicious and cheap and service is good so what else do you need?

on writing in general

i got some new cookbooks last week that i am pretty excited about. i have already skimmed ad hoc at home and momofuku and gotten lots of ideas about things i want to cook. this weekend i was inspired by lots of black bananas in my freezer to make mark bittman's banana nut muffins, which were good but i think maybe i left them in the oven a minute or two too long, and by some almost withering grapes and about to turn broccoli to make a variation on this recipe for roasted broccoli/grapes/asparagus and quinoa salad in which i omitted the asparagus and arugula and substituted couscous for the quinoa.  it was tasty.

what i am spending my time reading

i'm not that inspired to write about restaurants anymore.  i think i've said before that i feel like i have said all i have to say about food in cincinnati.  i know i have said before that i am sick of being a food blog in a sea of cincinnati food blogs with (mostly) no real commitment to quality writing and with (mostly) a cutthroat desire to just rate as many places as possible for... i don't even know what purpose. there are exceptions.  just not that many.

i'm not even that inspired to eat at restaurants to be honest.  i do get excited about new places or really good old standbys or hidden gems that i discover.  but i feel like i pretty much know the lay of the land as far as cincinnati restaurant dining goes, and as lori pointed out a few months ago, it's just not that exciting or dynamic (other than hopefully a new place that may or may not be arriving on the scene this summer which i have been sworn to secrecy from talking about on this blog... oops).  plus i don't have a lot of money and don't want to spend my limited eating budget on eating out unless it's either really good or has good bang for the buck.

i do still feel the urge to write, and to be truly satisfying for me, my writing needs an audience.  i popped back up again in your google readers recently because i was needing to get my public writing fix... but as you have seen, there hasn't been much food and there has been a whole hell of a lot of rage, some of it probably misdirected.  the original intent of this blog wasn't just to spew hate, although it's not like i can pretend that wasn't part of it.  it was to write about food.  and i don't think i want to write about food that much anymore.

i'm lazy though and as any blogger knows (especially me with my boring, short lived, and totally unnoticed debt and advice blogs), your audience won't follow you somewhere else.  you're going to lose almost everyone if you go someotherrandomassortmentofletters.blogspot.com.  and i like my readers and my audience (well, some of them anyway. the anonymous assholes and creepy stalkers can, all together now, go fuck themselves).  or at least, i like that you are interested in what i have to say.

when i began writing this blog, and for a long time after that, i felt that i needed at least some level of anonymity.  i've had more than my share of internet and real life stalkers and was scared that putting myself out there on the internet would only attract more.  i'm older now and have developed a more relaxed approach because i have realized over time that the people i've had to tell to go fuck themselves in various situations because something i said or did made them uncomfortable are people that truly, i was better off without.  i also have this desire for authenticity and ownership of my self-expression that i didn't have in the past.  i want to be myself and say what i want and express my experience and put my name on it.

this is all kind of vague and i'm probably not doing the best job of saying what i mean.  what i mean is, i want to say new things on this blog that may or may not be about food, and i don't want to be constrained by my past format to say them with some type of (probably forced and cheesy) food metaphor or allegory, and i also think i want to go deeper in expressing myself and my personal experiences than i have before.

i have been spending a lot of time thinking about this desire/need to write for a public audience but not necessarily wanting to write in the same way or on the same topics as i have before, and wanting to write more personally.  on one hand, i feel constrained by my concerns about people's reactions.  if i'm writing about me and my life, i'm also writing about people i know, as in the post discussed above.  and maybe it is selfish/self absorbed... a common criticism of me by my family members (and the most recent rage filled anonymous commenter on this blog).  but most personal writing is exactly that, and i also feel that by writing about my personal experiences, i may be able to express something that others can connect to emotionally, in the same way that my food writing used to feel as though it connected people with good things to eat in cincinnati.

i don't know what's coming in the future for this blog, but that's what's going on in my head about it.

where to go in cincinnati if you want sashimi

living in new york, home of the $12 chirashi, pretty much puts you (or me at least) off of sushi rolls for good.  i will still get them if i am at like dancing wasabi or whatever place that sells half off rolls all the time or with other people who want to share rolls.  i can eat rolls and enjoy them.  but true sushi bliss for me can only be found in straight up pieces of fresh, buttery, tender raw fish.  here are my favorite to least favorite places to go for sashimi (or chirashi if you luck out and they have it).  this is by no means an exhaustive list, i am sure there are other good sashimi options out there.  my rankings are based on the following factors: freshness + selection + good value.

1. ruthai.  this is your absolute best bet for a generous portion of fresh, varied fish.  the sashimi special is $21 and you get way more than the 12 pieces that they say you are going to get, and there is mackerel (my favorite) and tuna and white tuna and salmon and shrimp and snapper and yellowtail and octopus and the pieces are big.  plus this place is byob.  you can't lose.
2. mr. sushi.  surprisingly high quality (i don't know why i'm surprised, i guess i just figured that anything located directly next door to "bartini" was going to give me food poisoning to go with my alcohol poisoning) and the chirashi is a great deal at $17.  you can also get a sashimi platter for i think $20 but whenever i can go for chirashi i do.
3. mei.  this might be higher up in the list if it wasn't so far and if i had been there recently.  chirashi is $21 and excellent.  they just have great sushi and great everything else japanese and a great atmosphere.
4. ko sho.  i used to fear ko sho when it was in the dilapidated, deserted location downtown (how could that scary place possibly be able to store and prepare decent raw fish?) but now that they are in northside i like it.  the sushi is all really fresh and they give you a great selection, it's just a little pricy.  i think the chirashi is $23 and the sashimi platter is $27.  they do have an excellent selection of other delicious japanese treats too so if you are looking for more than just sushi this is a good choice.
5. green papaya.  this is just ok.  there is no chirashi and the sashimi deluxe is $23, and one of your 12 pieces of fish is a fucking crab stick (seriously???) and the rest is just tuna, salmon, shrimp, and yellowtail... yawn.
6. painted fish.  i have been there twice and see no reason to ever go back.  there are white people making your sushi which scares me right there, sorry to be racist about it but they are proving my stereotype right.  service is slow and one time i was there, all of the sushi (rolls) we got were made with undercooked rice.  it was impossible to enjoy.  the other time i got the chirashi and it took two hours to get it so i don't even remember if it was good or not because i was delusional from hunger.  also i feel like it was expensive but was too lightheaded to be able to remember any prices.

totally unacceptably omitted from this list: ando.  i feel certain that they have amazingly delicious sashimi but i have actually never gotten sushi there any time i have gone... i always go for one of the traditional japanese dinners and last time i was there i got the shabu shabu.  this is just wrong and i strongly urge you to try the sushi if you are there because i am sure based on the freshness of everything else i have had there, and how authentic their menu is, and how good the sushi on other people's plates looks that it is delicious.

yes i have seriously never been to: jo an.  i know.  i know.  i need to go.  but it's far.  someone please take me there.  and buy my dinner.  no stalkers need apply.  thanks.

green dog cafe

the rumors that this place is overpriced are true but it is also delicious, at least from what i tasted.   some yelp reviews claim otherwise but i didn't eat what those people ate so i can't say.  i had one of their daily specials which was carbonara type pasta with grilled shrimp and it was very delicious but at $16.50 when you are ordering at a counter, it just seems pricey.  however they do have a really good deal with the wine where you can get their bottle of the day (they have a red and a white) for $14.  last night the red was a 2008 red diamond shiraz which was surprisingly good for the price and also from washington and i am obsessed with washington wines.

the decor is a bit strange because you are sort of in this color blocky cafeteria-ish feeling place (in particular, the lighting was horrible and uneven and not intimate) but if you can get over that, i think the food is worth it and you can definitely order something cheaper than what i did.  and you will feel fine wandering in here in sweats or pajamas or whatever you want which is always a plus for me since i have a hard time remembering to brush my teeth some days.

other perks: they have a full alcohol selection including mixed drinks, they do brunch, they serve jeni's ice cream, they are very vegetarian friendly, their bread is amazing.