Bloody Mary Club is in Session

When the weekend rolls around, I hear the siren call of the Bloody Mary. Trouble is, I can never actually finish one. Everything about a Bloody Mary sounds good – savory munchables on a skewer, infused vodkas – but when it comes down to it, I get halfway through and it’s too much. The consistency gets to me or something, I can’t even describe what happens. My throat starts to close up and the thought of taking another drink induces nausea. Then I hand it off to someone else to finish while I order a beer.

The strange thing is, I kept craving them. I became convinced that I just hadn’t had the right Bloody Mary. My younger sister, endowed with an unequaled passion for Bloody Mary consumption, volunteered to help me on my quest. The Bloody Mary Club was formed and we decided to convene at the Pub at Rookwood Commons.

Ala the Pub’s Mary menu options, we chose our vodka, hot stuff, tomato base, and most importantly, what we wanted on our skewers. You pick up to eight items, limit of two shrimp. It makes your drink a complete meal, so ordering from the lunch menu becomes optional. We added some curry pub chips to cover all of our food groups.

Our Marys arrived, and then a few minutes later the skewers came out once our shrimps were fully cooked. We were each supplied with a beer chaser to cut the spiciness of the Nicholson’s mix.

Like I said, I’m new to Bloody Marys, so I don’t have a lot to compare it against. But the Pub did something right, because I downed the whole thing. I feel empowered, and I may venture so far as to try making one myself. Julie over at wine me, dine me posted a tempting recipe for a Bloody Caesar, a drink that is foreign but delicious-sounding to me. I also keep re-visiting an article I bookmarked on the NY Times about Micheladas. And then there's the temptation to create my own drink and give it a name based on the church across the street from my soon-to-be new home – a Bloody Old Saint Mary. I’ll have to work on that one.

Thank goodness I have a supportive group like the Bloody Mary Club - okay, my sister - to help me out. We're small, but we're open to new members.

Going All In at Fork Heart Knife

As you might suspect, I’m the kind of person to agonize over what I pick from a restaurant’s menu. I’ll find a menu online ahead of time so I can start agonizing before I ever get inside of the restaurant. If you’re afflicted by the same problem, then I’ve found a solution: go to Fork Heart Knife and order everything. Everything. Done.

Fork Heart Knife inhabits a cozy space on Main street in Over-the-Rhine. Lots of natural light floods in through the windows at the front and long wooden benches line each side of the dining room. They’re not open regularly through the week right now, but the past few weeks they’ve been doing dinner on Thursday and brunch on Sunday. They put their set menu for the night up on butcher paper by the counter.

On the Thursday night Alex and I visited, we sat down with a couple glasses of water to confer about what to order. We decided to split one of each course right down to the strawberry shortcake for a light dinner. First course: a bright, light salad with oranges and goat cheese. Citrusy, springy, and a wonderful starter.

Next came the little empanadas. The crusts were perfect – flakey, tender, all that.

After that our “Portabello Pizza” arrived. It’s a big mushroom cap loaded with pizza toppings. Ours had pesto, some kind of tomato spread, cheese and some roasted vegetables. The cap was juicy and even though the whole thing is pretty small, it is packed with flavor.

We finished everything off with the strawberry shortcake, a buttermilk biscuit topped with cream and strawberries.

There’s something really charming about Fork Heart Knife. They love what they’re doing and that comes across in the food and the décor. We sort of forgot we were at a restaurant because it feels so friendly and intimate. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store for this place. And I’m not worried at all about what to pick from their menu next time I go.

Check their blog or twitter to find out when they'll be open. And FHK is BYOB!

Taco Rehab

I've heard an addiction defined as something that interferes with your day-to-day life. When you have to go out of your way for that extra-hot double tall cappuccino, even if it means being late for the meeting, then you've crossed the line from casual user into addict.

I fessed up to my pumpkin habit last fall, and now I'm ready to admit to my taco addiction. I'm blaming Taqueria Mercado for fueling my illness. It started on Cinco de Mayo, innocently, with a few tacos at the new downtown location. They were simple, flavorful, and I was hooked immediately.

My addiction reared its ugly head later that week when I emailed my Dad around lunchtime, suggesting we hit TM sometime, knowing full well he'd probably be up for it that same day. He was. I dropped everything and drove downtown to get a second hit of tacos.

But the addict's cravings are never really fulfilled, just pacified before they return in force. I found myself browsing cooking blogs and websites for pork taco recipes. I settled on a slow cooker recipe from Food52. The ingredient list is short and the photos are enticing.

And if I'm going to go ahead and make my own pork tacos, why not go all in and make the pickled red onions while I'm at it? I found a pretty straightforward recipe at Chow.com.

The red onions are sliced and blanched then added to an acidic mixture of fresh lime and orange juice, salt, sugar, and jalapeno slices. Done. Onto the pork. On the bottom of the slow cooker I added more orange juice and zest from two oranges. I cut the pork shoulder into chunks as the cat circled the kitchen like a shark, drunk from the smell of raw animal fat.

Next, the pork shoulder got a packet of this seasoning:

It is really, really orange. Pork chunks were browned on the stovetop with a little olive oil and then they got in the slow cooker too. Last, some garlic and chipotle peppers with accompanying adobe sauce went on top. I set the slow cooker on low and spent the rest of the day trying not to think about pork tacos.

Walking into my apartment building after work, I got a little thrill when I realized the good food smell in the hall was coming from MY apartment. I secretly hoped my neighbors were jealous.

When it was at long last taco time, I loaded up double layers of corn tortillas (Alex picked those up for me in exchange for tacos - a fair trade) with the pork, pickled onions and chopped cilantro with a wedge of lime on the side. It looked like a dream. And the taste? Well... it wasn't quite what I'd hoped for.

In hindsight, choosing a very orange-y pork recipe for the orange-marinated red onions may have been orange overkill. In fact, the pork on its own had almost a candy sweetness. That was followed quickly by heat from the chipotles. A LOT of heat. Either too much adobo sauce snuck into the cooker alongside the chipotles, or three chipotles is just too many for my tastebuds. Both recipes are fine on their own, but the combination and the intensity of the flavors didn't quite work.

They weren't the perfectly seasoned tacos I'd imagined in my day dreams. It's only a minor setback, though. Next time I'll try something a little more simple with a little less citrus. What kind of addict would I be if I let this setback derail my hunt for the next taco high?

Vout: What Slims is During the Week

Food lovers and Northsiders are well acquainted with Slims. The sunny restaurant on Hamilton avenue pulls in a lot of street cred for its fresh ingredients and excellent pork belly.

I'd never eaten at Slims until last night (and technically, I guess I still haven't). The cost of the prix fixe menu was too much for a weeknight meal out, and whenever a special occasion rolled around, for some reason Slims was forgotten. When Slims announced its new Tues-Thurs concept, Vout, I knew I was out of excuses. Vout serves a considerably less expensive ala carte Cuban and Puerto Rican menu. Orders are placed at the counter, water is self-serve, and as always, it's BYOB.

On the Tuesday night that we went, most tables were occupied with an order number and a bottle of wine. The restaurant staff directed us to pick any table we liked and help ourselves to a pitcher of water.

"We'll help you to take care of your own needs."

Sounds good to me. We ordered dinner, sat back with a couple of bottles of beer, and waited. Next to us, a table was celebrating someone's birthday. Light streamed in through the shades covering the front windows. Baskets of fresh produce lined the window sill. The atmosphere was relaxing, and waiting for our food felt like no time at all.

Alex ordered the special, chicken on a biscuit, a rich gooey dish punctuated with green peas and peppery bacon on top. Mine was the vegetarian entree, enchiladas mole, consisting of a large tortilla drowned in a thick smokey-spicy sauce, mushrooms, beans, and topped off with a sweet relish of mangos. We ordered a pair of sides, a corn pudding that we were warned was sweet, and the Fufu, a mixture of smokey potatoes and mashed plantains.

The food was good, but that's not what was amazing to me. I was expecting good food. What was really wonderful was that the whole thing cost less than $20. I'm sure I've spent more than that at a meal at TGI Fridays (I know, I'm cringing at the comparison too). And what took us so long to try out Vout? The more we ate and drank, the more ridiculous it seemed. Why haven't we been here before?

I'll admit that I liked Alex's dinner better than mine. His biscuit was spiked with lemon, making the whole thing ridiculously mouth-watering. My enchilada mole was good, but I wanted a little more sweetness to play off the spice and chocolatey richness of the mole. Extra sauce is offered on the menu for a dollar - I think I'd order more of the black bean and mango salsa next time. Our sides were good, and the corn pudding was as sweet as promised.

I still want to come back on the weekend for the full Slims treatment. My Tuesday night dinner has instilled in me even more faith in Slims. Until then, I plan on returning often for a weeknight meal at Vout.

The Great Midwestern Road Trip and the Maid-Rite

It was Alton Brown who introduced me to the words "Maid Rite," though was already acquainted with the loose-meat sandwich from my childhood. As I've mentioned many times, I was born in a Great Plains state and brought up eating any number of meals that start with a square of shrink-wrapped ground beef browning in a non-stick pan. The meat cooks, and then you're ready to turn it into tacos, chili, or sloppy joes. On rarer occasions, we would have something that was a close cousin to the sloppy joe - a peppery loose meat sandwich on a bun with the condiments you would put on a burger. Not exactly a Maid-Rite, but close.

I think it goes hand-in-hand living in the Midwest that you inevitably take a long car trip with your family. Long, by definition, is anything over five hours. It had been years since we'd been on one of these trips when we all piled into a rental car over the weekend for a trip to Missouri for a cousin's wedding.

Dad, in an Alton Brown-esque move, took us out of Cincinnati on Highway 50. A more direct route, he assured us, and more colorful route than the interstate. He was right. And what should we find halfway through Illinois? A Maid-Rite, paired up with a Godfather's Pizza no less, Taco-Bell-Pizza-Hut style. Who could dream up these things?

We'd already made a stop for lunch about a couple of hours earlier, but we doubled back anyway and ordered two sandwiches to split among four of us and a round of chocolate malts.

Maid-Rites restaurants, as AB tells it, sprung up across the Midwest after the first store opened in the 1920s. They had kind of a mom-and-pop flair before they became a national chain. The Maid-Rite we found in Lebanon, IL had all the polish and blandness of a newly-remodeled McDonald's. Styled after a 1950s diner, it appeared to be run by bored sixteen-year-olds. One of them dropped off our order at our table.

We cut the sandwiches into four slices and ate, meat falling from all sides of the bun, littering the the table top. It was glorious, even if the "seasoned meat" wasn't seasoned so well, even if it was a little dry. It was a Maid-Rite. It was slathered in mustard, onions and pickle.

With four hours behind us and four more to go, we took what was left of our malts back to the car. Back on to 50, we gradually merged back onto the interstate and hit rush hour in St. Louis before the light outside dimmed and died. It was well past dinner time when we got to Kansas City, but we weren't particularly hungry. We picked at a couple of appetizers in the hotel bar, still thinking longingly of our sandwiches and malts.

On our trip home, we tried unsuccessfully to find another Maid-Rite on our route. I did find out that a Maid-Rite store has opened in the town of my alma mater, Oxford. Somehow, this slipped past my attention. Has anyone tried it?

It's reassuring to know that the next time I crave a road trip and a greasy sandwich, it's just a forty minute drive away.

The Acapulco Margarita: A Step-by-Step How-To Guide

In the midst of the authentic South American eateries on Route 4, you'll find the thoroughly mediocre, staunchly average Acapulco. They won't be getting any attention for their culinary achievements, so they seem resigned to make their most noteworthy menu feature an alcoholic one - the massive Acapulco Margarita. It's served in a glass that's a kind of half-goldfish bowl on a giant stem. It's filled to the top, salt lining the rim if you so choose. The glasses are so large that two regular sized straws look like oversized drink-stirrers. A wedge of lime on the glass's edge is comically miniaturized.

So how do you go about getting such a great volume of liquid into your belly? Starting off, you'll want to avoid moving the drink if at all possible. This includes picking the glass up to drink from it, so you'll have to use the straw for the first twenty minutes or so. It's not pretty, but you won't wind up with spilled margarita in your lap either.

Once you've taken the liquid down to a manageable level, you may need to do some light stretching before you lift the glass. When you're feeling limber, grasp the bowl with both hands, tilt it toward you ever so slightly, and slurp from the edge of the glass. Hopefully, you'll get a mouthful of salt too. Repeat as often as necessary to finish the margarita.

Now that you're tanked up on tequila and sugar, head downstairs to the Mexican supermarket. Marvel at the pinatas, the fruit juice drinks, the... double fiber bread... If you happen to be a certain bacon blogger, you might even consider a spontaneous chorizo purchase.


You're still too buzzed to get in your car, so head next door to Arcade Legends where you can pay a flat rate of $12 to play all of your childhood arcade favorites like Galaga and Tron. Sweaty thirteen year olds, the hovering aroma of McDonald's french fries - it's like Junior High all over again.

Thankfully, in this version of Junior High you can leave whenever you want. You walk out of the dark arcade $12 poorer, but a champion of video games you never thought you'd finally beat. A winning night, in all, and you didn't even have to go to Mexico to have that much fun.

Mary Queen of Heaven Fish Fry

I was raised Catholic in various Midwestern suburbs. As a kid, I dutifully gave up drinking soda or chewing gum during Lent every year. I didn't eat meat on Fridays. I didn't think much about it, just that it was something that had to be done and once Easter came around, we were rewarded with chocolate and a long, boring mass. Then we'd forget about it and do it all again next year.

I'm not a practicing Catholic now, I'm not a practicing anything unless Target has a religious sect I could join. Every year during Lent though, I'm reminded of the religion I grew up with as fish frys spring up all over the city.

When I was actually Catholic, I don't think I went to a single fish fry. I guess they weren't as big of a deal in Minnesota, or my family was just content getting a Filet o Fish and calling it a night. Cincinnati, however, has a much deeper, richer, and louder tradition of fish frys than I ever remember encountering as a child.

A couple of weeks into Lent, Alex and I became convinced that we should go to one of these fish frys. But which one? We started off with the most convenient - St. Cecilia in Oakley. Not bad, but not really inspired. And they didn't serve beer. Next week, we agreed, we'd find a better one.

I stumbled across a conversation on Facebook proclaiming Mary Queen of Heaven as having the best fish fry in the area. A quick glance at the menu and I was convinced that we should head to Erlanger for our next fry.

While not exactly a long drive from Cincinnati, I still felt as we headed past the 275 belt that we were going pretty far for some dinner in a Catholic school gymnasium. Why did I drag us out of the city, away from many potentially excellent fish dinners, to go to Mary Queen of Heaven?

I doubted. I was weak. But my faith was restored when we pulled up to the parking lot and a man in a vest with a fishing rod waved us in. Then we saw it - the Codfather. We were in the right place.

We parked, made our way through the entrance and past the girl scouts selling cookies, and got into line. Before long, a man selling cold bottled beer passed by. Not much longer after that, we picked up a tray and selected a dessert before we placed our dinner order.

If Mary Queen of Heaven isn't the best fish fry in Cincinnati, then it has to be the best organized. They take credit cards. Once your order is placed, you're given a number to place on your table. And, of course, they had basketball projected onto a huge screen in the gym. We armed ourselves with condiments, found a table, and right on cue a strapping young Catholic child found us and delivered our food.

Mine: Fish sandwich platter on white. Fries and coleslaw. Flavorful and not greasy. The fish was not at all tough. Pretty much everything I wanted.

Alex's: Shrimp platter. Same deal. Delicious.

The Codfather himself was there, circulating through the room. A kid dressed in a gold fish costume waddled around peering out of a gaping fish mouth. Each volunteer wore a shirt calling theirs the "Best Fish This Side of Heaven." Everyone, at every table, seemed content. We finished our dinners, split a piece of chocolate cake, and headed back toward the parking lot. The line had grown even longer while we'd been eating, but nobody seemed rushed or impatient.

As we headed back out toward the highway, Alex and I waved to the faux fisherman. In a way, it's a nice reminder of what was good about belonging to a church. The people at Mary Queen of Heaven didn't know I was a kind of ex-Catholic with no plans of attending mass again, but they welcomed me anyway with cold bottled beer and fried fish. They treated us with warmth, fed us, and we went on our way. I was always under the impression that that's what church should really be all about. Mary Queen of Heaven does that, and they do it well.

There's one more Friday left on the Lent calendar. If you're looking for a fish fry, I suggest heading down to Erlanger. You'll know you're there when the man with the fishing pole guides you into the parking lot. Religious or not, it's an experience worth driving out of the city for.

Some recommended reading: Liz posted an excellent article last year about her experiences with religion and going to a Cincinnati fish fry for the first time.