This past Friday night I headed to the Taft Theatre to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals for the fifth time since 2006. I can still remember my first show of theirs at the Wakarusa Music Festival that was so full of energy especially for a hot evening in Kansas. The second time I saw Grace and her band perform was at another music festival, Mile High in 2008. It wasn’t until 2011 that I finally saw a headlining show. However it never seemed to matter if it was a headlining show or not, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals were always ready to deliver a high energy rock and roll show.

Landhorne Slim & the Law

Opening the show this time around was Landhorne Slim and the Law. We arrived after they had already taken the stage for the 45 minute set, but I heard enough of their sound to say though I enjoyed it somewhat, I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again. That’s not to say that they aren’t entertaining and accomplished musicians, because it seems that they are, but the alternative country style of music is not really what I’m most interested in.

Grace Potter on Keys

Though Grace Potter now plays a lot more guitar than she used to, she started off the night on the keys before launching into the opening track of the night the title track of her latest album The Lion The Beast The Beat. I’m not very familiar with this latest release but it is pretty clear to me that it is much more rock and roll than the previous release that was a little more on the pop side of things. I particularly liked the track “Runaway” from the latest offering, as well as an easy highlight for me, the always rocking “Ah, Mary” a track off This Is Somewhere, released in 2007.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Other highlights in the main set included a short cover of Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands” as well as Neil Young’s “Down by the River.” I also enjoyed hearing a quieter old track in “Ragged Company,” which was re-released with Willie Nelson as a bonus track. The set closing “Stop the Bus” had the sold out crowd singing along and wanting more.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

The encore started with the power ballad and chilling “Apologies” with soaring vocals from Grace. Up next was a solo performance on the guitar of Nothing But the Water (I) which went right into one of my all time favorite songs by the group, “Nothing But the Water (II).” Sure it is an always predictable combination, but there is no way one could be played without the other. This was followed up with their biggest hit from their self titled album from 2010, “Paris (Ooh La La)” which had nearly everyone up on their feet and dancing along. After the final song of the five song encore, “Medicine”, the band had played another 40 minutes on stage after an already lengthy set. What a night!

For Christmas my wife and I received a gift certificate to the very recently opened M Wood Fired Oven in East Hyde Park. Having concert tickets for Friday night we decided to give M a try before hand. I made a reservation on OpenTable for 6pm and upon our arrival found an approximately half filled restaurant. The inside of the space is decorated in a rustic style and was much larger than I was expecting it to be.

We were immediately seated at a table adjacent to the front door. Fortunately the weather was unseasonably warm during our visit, as the front door was constantly opening throughout our visit, which would be an issue in colder weather. Plus the door doesn’t seem to close on its own, which is something that should be fixed right away. Many of the people entering the restaurant didn’t have a reservation and must have been given a lengthy wait time as I didn’t see many of them stick around and wait for a table.

Anyway, our server appeared at our table within a minute or two of sitting down to take our drink orders. The draft beer list was not on the menu, but our server was able to quickly run through the options even with a very brief description of each. After dropping off our drinks a handful of minutes later, she ran through the menu with us explaining that nearly everything is meant for sharing.

We ordered one item from each of the flora, gratin, and pizza sections, skipping the small plates and primal section that is filled with four different chef’s choice cuts of meat that vary each evening. We had requested that the salad come out first, followed by the gratin and pizza. After ten minutes or so our pizza and gratin were dropped off at our table before our salad. It seems that our salad order got lost and when we alerted the food runner a salad was quickly located and dropped off to our table as well. Our server and the manager were both very quick to arrive at our table and offered to remake the pizza and gratin so that it would be ready after we ate our salad. We decline the offer and decided to snack on all the plates together.

Chef’s Fruit Salad

Our salad selection was not on the menu but was described as a pear and walnut salad by our server. All salads are $8 and though they were described as enough to share, we found the serving size to be fairly small.

Local Greens Salad

Fortunately for us, through the mix-up with our order another salad was prepared for us and dropped off again by the very kind manager. This was the local greens salad with field greens, romaine, cherries, feta, toasted almonds, and creamy balsamic ($8). Again the portion was not really large enough for the high price. The greens were fresh in both salads, but the flavor combinations of both left a little to be desired. I’ve had similarly topped salads at other restaurants with way more flavor than what was served at M.

Pizza #3

All pizzas are $12 and are plate sized, with enough to share as long as side dishes are ordered. The price of the pizza seems a little more fair than the skimpy salads. Our selection for the night was #3 with Parmesan custard, pickled chili, red onions, pistachios, and rosemary. This was a very unique pizza and the flavor combination was interesting and pretty good. There are five other pizzas on the menu, some of which have equally interesting combinations such as onion soubise, Brussels sprouts, raisins, and shallots.

Cauliflower Gratin

The highlight of my meal was easily the cauliflower gratin with Brussels sprouts, pine nut crust, cream, and spinach ($8). This creamy dish of fresh veggies was delicious and the pine nuts added the right amount of crunch to the tender pieces of cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. They also offer eggplant, mushroom, and potato gratins but I would find it hard to skip out on the cauliflower.

Pear Pie With Jalapeno Gelato

For dessert I was really considering ordering their bourbon spiced apple pie with cheddar gelato, but our server suggested the pear pie with jalapeño gelato instead. I had never had pear pie before, but it was so similar to apple pie that I hardly could tell a difference. The jalapeño gelato had a nice amount of heat to it that really did compliment the spices in the pie. My only complaint was that the pie was cold, and I would have rather it been warmed up.

S’more Cookie With Marshmallow Gelato

My wife went with the s’more cookie, which was served warmed. The middle of the cookie was soft and the chocolate nearly oozed out of the center, but the edges of the cookie were very crisp and impossible to eat with a spoon. I was expecting this to be a knockout desert but I actually enjoyed the pie better.

Despite the hiccups with our order, the service we received at M was efficient and accommodating. The prices are a little high on some of the items based on serving size. From my experience I would skip the salads in the future and focus on the pizza and gratins.

For Christmas Kim and I received a slow cooker from her parents so we are now finally able to prepare these simple meals that seem to be all the rage recently. Monday was our first attempt with it following this recipe for chicken and dumplings. Kim put everything in the pot before leaving for work and set it on low to cook for eight hours. We were using mostly frozen chicken and read that this was the preferred heating method.

Before Dumplings

After work I returned home to find the chicken was cooked and the slow cooker had dropped down to the warm setting. Using a spoon I shredded the chicken to make sure it was done and I thought it would make it easier to eat. I then turned the heat back on to high, as the directions indicated and threw in the 2 cans of refrigerated biscuit dough.

With Dumplings

Unfortunately we would soon realize that it was going to take much longer than the advertised half hour to cook the dough into dumplings. I think our problem was that the slow cooker had been on the warm setting for hours and it took a considerable amount of time to get it back to the high setting to adequately cook the dumplings.

Dinner Is Served

Once it was finished I served it in bowls with a little fresh ground pepper. I was really impressed with how much I liked this meal. Unfortunately it doesn’t really meet the set it and forget it requirement that we typically need, so I’m not sure we will be making this particular recipe again. Unless I decide to do it on a day I’m working from home and can add the biscuits in a couple of hours before serving time.

This past Friday evening I finally found my way over to Fatty Patty’s Pizza to use an expiring Groupon. Along for the ride were my wife and soon to be two-year old son. Fatty Patty’s occupies a corner of the Main and 7th Street intersection on the southern edge of Covington’s Mainstrasse Village.

Fatty Patty’s Sign

We arrived at 6PM and upon entering the front door found an empty room with a bar counter and no employees in sight. We walked through a hallway to the back room that serves as the dining room and found just one other table occupied in the small space with less than a dozen tables. As we were getting ready to walk back to the front to ask about seating, we ran into an employee who told us to choose whatever table we liked.

Inside Fatty Patty’s

The employee that we ran into ended up being our server. He greeted us (again) quickly after we took our seats and ran through a list of available drinks, at which time I realized that no alcohol is served. It seems that it would be beneficial for the restaurant to seek out a liquor license and make better use of the front room.

Cheesy Flat Bread

We started our meal with an order of their cheesy flat bread with a side of pizza sauce ($5.99). This was served to us steaming hot! After letting it cool, I dug right into the cheesy goodness. The flat bread was just their pizza dough, so this gave us a good idea of what we were in for with their pizza too. The crust was thick and fluffy and the sauce was good, if not just a tad under-seasoned.

House Salad

Our Groupon included a house salad, normally $5.99. The salad is plenty big enough for sharing, but I’m afraid it was little more than a mix of lettuce, onion, and tomatoes with a dusting of powdered cheese. The croutons seemed to be house-made but tasted only of oil. I would definitely skip the salad.

Supreme Pizza

We choose the medium 14″ supreme pizza for dinner ($14.99). The included toppings were pepperoni, Italian sausage, green peppers, mushrooms, black olives and red onion. The crust around the edges was just like our appetizer, thick and fluffy. However the crust on the rest of the pizza was really thin and hard to separate. The pizza was cooked well and tasted good. Again the sauce didn’t stand out very much, even though it was supposed to be a chunky red sauce.

Our service for the entire stay was outstanding. I really wanted to love the food too, but overall it was just an alright pizza. I wouldn’t go out-of-the-way for it again.

After loaning my kegerator to my parents months ago, I finally have it back at my house and full of my latest batch of homebrew, the Hop Head Double IPA from Midwest Supplies.

Ingredients

Hops, Hops, Hops

Brew day for this batch was back on December 8 and everything went as expected for the most part. As I normally do, I started off with as much water in my kettle as I could leaving just enough space to avoid a boil-over. Unfortunately there was so much malt extract to add that I actually had to split the wort into another pot.

Brewing

The beer sat in the primary fermenter until December 15, at which time it was racked into a secondary and 2 ounces of cascade leaf hops were added for a dry hop finish.

Dry Hop

Out Of Primary

Into Secondary

The beer was in secondary until I kegged it on December 26. Now that the beer is fully carbonated I must admit that this has to be my best homebrew yet. Of course my love for this style of beer doesn’t hurt.

Yum!

I attended my second Cincinnati Cyclones game of the season over the weekend and just like the first time it was dollar beer night. Typically dollar beer night only happens during their “Wet Wednesday” promotions, but Saturday’s “Throwback Night” was a special occasion with $8 Tickets, $1 hot dogs, pizza, soda, and beer. This brought out a regular season record crowd of 12,228 people! Unfortunately the large crowd left us in a large traffic jam trying to get a parking spot and we missed the Cyclones first goal and the ensuing “Teddy Bear Toss” when stuffed animals to be collected for charity were thrown out onto the ice.

Missing the toss was a disappointment, even though we caught the tail end of it with a police cruiser on the ice, but fortunately we had tickets in a private suite compliments of my wife’s cousin whose husband works as a chiropractor for Beacon orthopedics and sports medicine. This was my first time in the suite seats, and though they are way up in the rafters of US Bank Arena, the view is pretty cool. It can be hard to tell how high an airborne puck truly is, but that was my biggest complaint of the night.

Suite Seats

The Cyclones were sporting throwback jerseys that matched closely to one that I actually had as a kid. Plus the Inflatamaniacs were there to provide between period entertainment, which had my brother and I cracking up. The game itself was close throughout, but unfortunately the Fort Wayne Komets squeaked out a 5-4 win.

For lunch over the weekend my wife and I along with our soon to be two-year old son headed to El Jinete, a Mexican restaurant in a strip-mall on Red Bank Rd. Since moving back to Cincinnati we’ve been searching for a nearby and cheap (often strip-mall based) Mexican restaurant to call home. After a couple of tries at El Toro, it is definitely not the place for us. So how does El Jinete compare?

Outside El Jinete

The inside of El Jinete is decked out in southwestern style but still has multiple TV’s in sight from nearly every seat. Near our table was an elaborate fountain, but it was not working on our visit. There is plenty of seating available and we encountered no wait upon our 12:30 arrival. We were immediately seated at a spacious booth, chips and salsa dropped off within seconds, and our server was ready to take our drink order within a minute. Things were looking good so far.

Inside El Jinete

We enjoyed the chips and salsa while looking over the menu. The chips were warm and thick but fairly standard overall. The salsa tasted freshly prepared and full of flavor. Our visit was continuing to look positive for El Jinete.

Chips & Salsa

I ordered the lunch fajitas with chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions. This comes served with guacamole, lettuce, sour cream, pico de gallo, rice, beans, and flour tortillas ($7.25). The chicken mix came out sizzling hot and the side plate was hot to the touch as well. The portion size was excellent for the price and everything tasted great! I really liked the addition of mushrooms and tomatoes into the mix. My only complaint was that the tortillas didn’t seem as fresh as the rest of the food. I had a hard time splitting them apart once I took them out of the foil wrapper.

Lunch Fajitas

My wife created her own lunch combo with a chile relleno and a chicken chimichanga served with rice and refried beans ($6.25). At first we weren’t sure that she was given a chimichanga, as it wasn’t served fried like we are used to. Turns out they offer both fried and soft chimichangas, and it seems that she was given a soft one by default. Even though it probably would have been better fried (what isn’t?), she was happy with the selection and loved the cheese sauce on top. The chicken that was served inside the chimichanga was not dry at all and was well flavored. The chile relleno was also very good and was smothered in a delicious red sauce.

Lunch Combo

They also offer kids plates for $3.99 which is a choice of taco, enchilada, burrito, cheeseburger, pizza, hotdog, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, or quesadilla. Each comes with either rice, beans, or fries. We selected a cheese quesadilla with fries for our son, and he seemed very happy with the choice.

Bathroom Mural

Overall we were very happy with the food at El Jinete, the service was great, and the price was just right. The menu is very large, so we will definitely be back to sample more in the near future. We often get coupons in the mail, so make sure to look in yours for even more savings!

With so many holiday parties over the last month or so, I was struggling to come up with a different appetizer recipe to bring to a party on Christmas Eve. At a prior party I spotted cocktail rye bread slices that were used to make hanky panky and immediately thought the same loaf of bread could be used to make mini Reuben sandwiches. I didn’t really need a recipe but found this one to use as a guideline.

Ready For Baking

Rather than making them all with corned beef, I used a pound of smoked turkey and a half pound of corned beef to make roughly 32 to 40 servings. I also split the two teaspoons of thousand island dressing into two layers, the first teaspoon was placed directly on the bread slices, while the second (smaller than full teaspoon) was put on top of the 1/2 tablespoon of sauerkraut that I used for each. So it goes slice of bread, teaspoon of dressing, 1/2 slice of meat, 1/2 tablespoon of sauerkraut, 1/2 teaspoon of dressing, 1/4 slice of cheese, heat and serve.

Turkey Complete

These were such a hit at the first party that I took them to that I decided to make them again for two more parties this past weekend. They are a little time-consuming to put together, but so far it has been worth it.

Happy New Year! Below is the list of cities that I visited in 2012 with at least one night spent in each place.

• Cincinnati, Ohio *
• Dayton, Ohio
• Denver, Colorado
• Steamboat, Colorado
• Frenchburg, Kentucky
• Miamisburg, Ohio
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Negril, Jamaica
• Jonesboro, Georgia
• Loveland, Ohio *
• Coraopolis, Pennsylvania
• Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Williamstown, Kentucky *
• Palo Alto, California
• San Francisco, California
• Louisville, Kentucky

Those cities marked with an asterisk were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

See also: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006