Kate's Queen City Notes

November 30, 2014
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Secret Cincinnati – Yum Yum

Old buildings tell me stories. Businesses that appear to have their golden years behind them bring me a narrative of dreams ramming into cold reality. That’s how I noticed Yum Yum.

Yum Yum, on the inside.

When I moved to Cincinnati in 1994, Vine street was still one-way through Over The Rhine (OTR). The route to downtown from Clifton was typically down Vine until McMicken, where Vine turned one way, and then over to Race for the remainder of the trip. OTR was considerably more grimy then. Plus, I was considerably more green. I was fresh from my very white childhood, very white, affluent suburbs, and very conservative rearing. My first drive down Race left me gaping and frantically trying to process the prostitute that flashed us in the cross-walk at 12th and Race.

That’s how I first met Yum Yum. In the 900 block of Race, Yum Yum was two blocks too far North from respectable people’s boundary, seventh street. Beyond Seventh Street only hobos and criminals dared to tread. To drive that block even deeper into my imagination Yum Yum was flanked on either side by sexual deviance. The Pink Pyramid, a gay porn shop, lay to the south, while Shooter’s, a gay bar, lay to the North. At eighteen and still closeted, I was enthralled.

Our tea warmer.

Over the years, many things changed. I came out. I came to value diversity. I lived in OTR and Prospect Hill. I grew to understand the dynamics in OTR and loved it for all its grime. I had a front row seat to the changes in the last decade. I lived in OTR when 3CDC started purchasing their first collection of buildings on Vine.

Somehow, the 900 block of Race Street has changed little across the years. Because the exterior of Yum Yum has shown no changes aside from the steady decay of time, I assumed for many years that the business had long been closed. Then I heard rumors.

I heard stories of friends of friends who had been there … recently. Details started to emerge. They only take cash. It’s run by an old Asian couple. The business is only open on select evenings. With rumors swirling, I scrutinized the shop with more determination.

After closing down a bar in Covington, I found myself ordering goetta and eggs at The Anchor Grille at 2am. One of the patrons casually mentioned that he had worked at The Pink Pyramid. Serendipity. I struggled to contain my enthusiasm, when I asked if he had ever eaten at Yum Yum.

“Oh, yeah, it’s great. They are such nice people.”
“Do you know when it’s open?”
“Seems like, they open when they feel like it. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are the best bet.”
“Only the evenings?”
“Yeah. Oh, they only take cash. And sometimes, you will need to knock on the door, if it’s locked.”

Cincinnati secrets! I was determined to go. It happened that my canning partner was also obsessed with this place. We set at date for Saturday night.

As I approached on my bike, I thought we would be disappointed. She was standing outside. As I locked up, she said it appeared to be closed.

“I think this might be them.”
“You mean the ancient Asian couple struggling to get the Kroger bags out of the back of that late-model BMW?”
“Yes. They were giving me the stink-eye when they pulled up for loitering outside the door.”
“Great, let’s wait for this to play out.”

As they approached, the gentleman ejaculated, “We’re late today!” We helped them in the door and said we were happy to wait while they set-up. When we hit the door, I struggled to maintain a conversation while I stared at the interior of Yum Yum. It was a mash-up of Barney Miller’s set, a 50’s diner complete with stools and a counter, and Chong Inc,. (Chong Inc. is in the 700 block of Race. It is weird and wonderful. Go before it gets turned into an expensive hotel.)

After I stared at the strange menagerie of 80’s tech products in the dusty glass display case to the left of the door and Ali and I struggled to maintain conversation that neither of us were actually engaging in, the old man asked to take us to our table. As we walked toward the back of the building we passed through a hall papered with Yum Yum diners taken in the late 70’s. The polyester suits, and excessive side-burns whispered from a past Cincinnati.

It dawned on me, we had stepped into a live time capsule from the 70’s as we hit the dining rooms. The dining room was crammed with flotsam and jetsam that appeared to have accumulated from 1970-1980. The drop ceilings were complete with recessed fluorescent lights filtered through colored, patterned plastic. The wood paneling, brought me back to the split-level and ranch style homes that provided the setting for most of my childhood memories.

The recessed lighting was off in favor of some strategically placed lamps. The food was unexceptional except for a few things. The duck sauce was delicious and clearly made there; Ali said she would bathe in it. The egg rolls, wantons, and sweet and sour soup were hand-made there and outstanding. The entrees were unremarkable.

The food could have been bad, and considerably more expensive, and I would still suggest it just for the thrill of getting inside the building. Seriously, I felt like I was 8 years old again. It’s worth a visit for the time capsule experience alone.

Because we had the suspicion that the health department hasn’t visited Yum Yum since 1978, we decided that we best follow that meal with some booze. I’ve noticed a bar at the south corner of the 900 block of Race. Because this place doesn’t have a sign, I was fascinated with it. This seemed like the most appropriate place to finished our experience with Yum Yum. Two things became abundantly clear when we walked into The Brittany Annex, gay men frequent the bar, and hence how the establishment survives with no sign.

The patrons and the bartender were very friendly. They all greeted us when we walked in. The prices were moderate. We enjoyed a few Beams while supporting a running commentary of the poor choices of current music video directors. We had great conversations while simultaneously using alcohol to inoculate our digestive tracts from Yum Yum.

The Brittany Annex was a perfect finish to our Yum Yum experience. We survived Yum Yum with no poor digestive tract outcomes. We will go back to Yum Yum just to experience the time capsule. Secret Cincinnati and Yum Yum will go away. The internet coupled with downtown’s revival will ensure that neither of these things survive for much longer. I will enjoy them for the moments we have them.

Oh so creepy Christmas decorations at Yum Yum.

November 29, 2014
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

A Tale of Two Dinners

I have avoided Jeff Ruby’s steak houses in my 20 years in Cincinnati. I have my reasons. He only hires attractive, young, slim women. He is personally cantankerous. He has taken a number of political positions that I don’t agree with. And I was personally too broke to drop one hundred bucks on a meal until the last several years.

On the other hand, I am a foodie. This omnivore skews to the vegetarian side. I consume beef rarely; however, I love to have a spectacular steak once or twice a year.It was only time that stood between my ethical concerns and the siren’s steak call.

My date with Jeff Ruby was set at The Precinct for Sunday night. Incidentally, I found myself at Crave at The Banks on the Saturday night prior for a friend’s birthday. This is where my dining contrast starts.

I should disclose my feelings about The Banks. If you aren’t from Cincinnati, The Banks are an urban equivalent of a strip mall. In a city that is over-flowing with history, architecture, and unique local business, they are architecturally non-descript, uninspired chain bars and restaurants that are trolled by unsavory downtown interlopers-read suburbanites who view downtown solely as their personal party spot. The interlopers stick to Applebee’s and McDonalds when they pull off the highway on a road trip. They are comforted by Olive Garden on Times Square. These are the people that enjoy The Banks. They buy many over-priced, poorly-mixed shots, and puke them up outside the Reds stadium and go home satisfied with their “downtown” experience.

Due to The Banks proximity to Great American Ballpark (home of The Cincinnati Reds), I have occasionally patroned The Banks. The overpriced Bud Lights at The Banks are palatable when one considers how much more that exact product will be inside the stadium gates. However for my preferences, this is the only acceptable reason to visit The Banks. There is nothing wrong with craving comfort. But that scene just isn’t for me.

Ironically, I live within easy walking distance of The Banks. At 4 blocks away, it’s a more geographically logical destination than Over The Rhine is at 12 blocks away. And yet, I am in OTR (Over The Rhine) all the time. Just this morning, I bundled up and biked up to Coffee Emporium in OTR, carefully avoiding the icy spots left from our early morning snow.

Circumstances have conspired to put me at Crave at least four times. Typically, a friend has suggested it, and I have declined to suggest otherwise. I don’t want to be that butthole friend who pedantically insists on controlling where the group goes. The beer selection, service, and food quality was solidly mediocre; at dinner prices ranging from fifteen to thirty-five bucks a plate I expect better than mediocre.

I found myself at Crave with a party of 15. As an ex-server, I confess that we did many things that prove difficult for wait staff. Our party trickled in over the course of 60 minutes as opposed to being present at the reservation time. This is a problem for wait staff, because timely diners understandably start to feel uncomfortable by hour 2 in their chair. This discomfort often leads them to blame the server for slow service, when in reality, their late comers drove their meal to be served more than 90 minutes after their arrival. However, this also presents an opportunity for a savvy server. It’s an excellent time to get your table liquored up.

Our server missed this opportunity. She took a very long time getting drinks. Because I couldn’t see the bar from my vantage point, I don’t know if this was due to the server’s or the bar’s slow service.

Once the party was finally assembled, our food order took an exceptionally long time. I ordered a thirty-five dollar ribeye with a side of pureed potatoes and caramelized Brussels sprouts. I knew this was a poor choice when I made it, but that’s what I felt like eating. The food took about an hour to come out, and when it did, several of our orders were wrong. I ordered a medium rare steak, but the shoe leather they brought was medium well if not well. The cherry on top, was that most of our meals weren’t warm. The potatoes and Brussels were at room temperature and had unexceptional flavor.

I don’t send food back. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did it. I sent this steak back. After another 30 minutes, the waitress returned to tell me that they ran out of potatoes and ribeye. When she asked if I wanted to order something else, most of the table was finishing their meals. It was nearly 11, and I was antsy to change scenery.

I didn’t have to pay for anything at Crave. I was satisfied to walk around the corner to Jimmy John’s and grab a sandwich. But as an ex-server, I felt bad for the server. It made for an uncomfortable four hours.

This is the context for my visit to The Precinct. I turned up a bit early. When I hit the door, the hostesses did the following three things within seconds. They made eye contract, smiled, and greeted me. This will be a different customer service experience.

After they confirmed my reservation, they asked if I would like to relax with a drink while they got my table ready. At my assent, they gave me directions to the bar and said that they would direct my guest to the bar as well.

The bartender displayed ample knowledge of the wine list. She was happy to provide input on the three wines that caught my interest. At her suggestion, I ordered a Meritage. And it was delicious. When our table was ready, one of the hosts asked us to come to the host stand when we were ready to be seated. She saved us that awkward moment when you’re trying to pay out the bar as quickly as possible so the person waiting to seat you is standing there staring at you for the least amount of time possible.

Our table was roomy, and adequately set. Our server came to us within seconds of us settling in to check on our drinks and introduce himself. The service went as expected, but there was something strange happening at the table next to us. The cougars to our left were interested in something off the menu. Judging by how they interacted with the young men that attended to them and the little amount of food they actually consumed, I concluded that they were there specifically for the flirting, and food was incidental. It’s unusual to see the power dynamics that women are most often subjected to reversed. The men appeared to enjoy the attention, but as I recall from my service industry days, it’s in their professional interests to do so.

The menu was overwhelming, and I think I made my decision quickly simply to avoid decision fatigue. I got a medium rare 14oz NY Strip with lump crab meat, béarnaise, and mushroom reduction sauce. The steak came with a potato, but the spud was beside the point. All the food that I had was delicious, but the steak had the starring role in my meal. Every morsel of the steak was perfectly cooked. Because steaks are unsymmetrical hunks of flesh, they often don’t cook evenly, leaving some bites over-cooked and others under-cooked. The crab and béarnaise combined with the salty rub that encrusted the steak to make each bite a cascade of salty, tangy, sweet, and rich. It was outstanding.

The moral of the story? Friends don’t let friends go to The Banks. And Jeff Ruby is still a jerk, but wow does he run great eateries.

November 24, 2014
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

100 Books by 40: And Ode to The Hamilton County Library

Reading 100 books in 2 years, made me grow. Setting that goal with a deadline gave me the motivation that I needed to make reading a bigger part of my life. I have striving to honor my commitments, and this is ss good an exercise as any. I’ve enjoyed the process so much that I am signing up for another list, more on that topic in future posts.

There has been two critical keys to my success. First, my Kindle has enabled me to read while keeping my fitness regimen. I am not naturally a gym enthusiast, but I find regular physical activity keeps my anxiety and depression in check.

Second the Hamilton County Library has granted me access to books without draining my wallet. I have borrowed nearly half of the books on the list from the library. They’ve probably saved me a minimum of $250 bucks. And they couldn’t make it easier for me to get titles. I just browse their catalog with their app on my phone. I put in requests for what I need. When the books are ready, they send me an email letting me know I can come to my local library branch and pick it up.

Hamilton County Library, thanks for the critical part that you’ve played in helping me achieve my goal. Rest assured, I will remember your helping hand when it’s time to vote up your next tax levy. And when I am ready to participate in National Novel Writing Month, I will gladly go to you for encouragement and help.

November 19, 2014
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Bright Light Social Hour and San Fermin

I checked out Bright Light Social Hour at Motr a few weeks ago. They put up a good show at Bunbury 2013. The close atmosphere of Motr suits this band. They tore through their set. When they returned for an encore, they dropped their made for radio, pop influenced rock and rolled into a blues inspired jam session. The energy shifted in the room, while the band morphed into their most true selves.

A couple of weeks later I saw San Fermin at The Woodward Theater. The venue just opened in early November. I was excited to see my first show there. The venue is significantly larger than Motr, with more stage and floor space as well as a wrap-around balcony. The space reminds me of the old Southgate House ballroom, but deeper and more narrow.

The venue is spacious and painfully clean. The stage is raised enough that at the back of the crowd, people on stage are visible. The balcony provides excellent vantage points, while still feeling intimate. I will gladly return.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with San Fermin. I caught 5 minutes of their packed MPMF 2013 show. There was barely room to move in The Know Theater. At the time, there were about 8 people in the band, complete with a bari saxophone player and a trumpet player.

But technically, San Fermin is a composer, and it isn’t clear if he tours with the same musicians. He could turn up with a drummer and a vocalist or with a full band. I didn’t see any horns on the stage at The Woodward; my anxiety grew.

When they hit the stage, I was delighted to see the full band. The stage was set with mic stands topped with retro light bulbs. The bulbs fluctuated in intensity with the music. When they would hit creshendos the stage was awash in light that contrasted beautifully with the band’s dark attire. The lighting was a simple but delightful addition to the show.

Ah, and the sound. They sounded excellent. The acoustic sound of the drums was a little promenant from my balcony position. I hope The Woodward suspends the speaker stacks in the near future. I think that would solve the problem, as the sound from the floor was balanced.

The Woodward Theater is a stellar addition to Cincinnati music venues. San Fermin performed with excellence. Bright Light Social Hour is a jam band dressed up like pop. Cincinnati has a great music scene. The end.

November 18, 2014
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 2 Comments

100 Books by 40: MATILDA

Book: Matilda
Author: Roald Dahl
Published: 1988

Adults have numerous opportunities to tyrannize children. Teachers, coaches, church elders, parents have ample opportunity to be cruel. Their reasons aside, it’s a wonder that so many of us grow into kind adults.

This book tells the story of some very cruel adults and a few kind adults, and how they influence the children in their lives. I was the kind of kid that took cruelty personally. When and adult humiliated or shamed me, my natural assumption was that they were right and I was wrong. This served me well in that I was open to correction, but it was damaging when emotionally stunted adults would cross my path. I could have used a little Roald Dahl in my life.

November 9, 2014
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Last Day A Brewing Virgin

Jenn and I have wanted to brew beer for years. I have extensive baking and canning experience. Jenn loves to drink beer. How can this be anything but perfect?

Here’s how. We have a small galley kitchen, and a small downtown apartment with little to no storage space. We also don’t have easy access to an outdoor space to brew in.

While we really like living downtown, we also want to brew beer. One of our brewer friends turned me on to Brooklyn Brewing’s one gallon brew kits. This volume would be manageable in our small apartment space. In addition, screwing up a few gallons of beer sounds considerably more reasonable than screwing up several five gallon batches of beer.

I picked up a Chocolate Maple Porter Brooklyn Brewing kit from Park + Vine. They were selling off their inventory, so I got it for half price. BONUS! I was missing a fine mesh strainer. The morning of the brew I went to Bed Bath and Beyond in search of one. Their selection was limited considering the mammoth size of those stores. The strainer with the finest mesh also looked too small. I didn’t have time to shop around, so in my cart the strainer went.

The beer kit. Chocolate Maple Porter it is.

I learned four things from our first brewing adventure. First, that strainer isn’t close to being big enough. Second, we don’t have enough large pots. Third, the process takes considerably longer than what was estimated based on the directions. Fourth, this will make a stunning mess of your kitchen.

The basic process is that you cook grains and pour water over them to extract most of the sugars in the grains. Then you add yeast to that sugary liquid, and allow time for the yeast to ferment the beverage into beer. I have left out some considerations with sanitation and the fermentation process, but you get the point.

This is like making oatmeal. Only it will be boozy and probably not appropriate for breakfast.

The boil. Had I read the directions more carefully, I wouldn’t have sweat any sanitation concerns until after this step. Sixty minutes of boiling kills everything.

The process wasn’t difficult. It was just time consuming. Once I order a larger strainer, and we reconfigure how we deploy our pots this should be much easier on our second attempt. The beer appears to be going through the fermentation process as expected. It’s hanging out in the closet, to keep it away from light. It will come out in two weeks, and we will bottle it. From what I know about bacteria, the next possible place things can go wrong is in the bottling step. More to come once we bottle in a couple of weeks.

Here’s the hops. The first 3/4 of the packet went into the wort when it strated the boil. The remaining 1/4 went in after 45 minutes of the boil had elapsed.

Tiny yeast packet. These weird little organisms are going to eat the sugar in the wort and release alcohol and CO2 as by products.

Here’s the wort once it’s been strained over of the cooked grains.

This the jug that the beer ferments in.

Strainer = not big enough.

November 8, 2014
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Vegan Custard? I Have Doubts.

The cushaw pie right out of the oven.

The cushaw pie set-up pretty well. But I let the pie cool completely before cutting it. I think that’s crucial to avoiding a sloppy mess.

I have been trying out vegan recipes. I am curious about how you replace stuff like eggs in baked goods. Rather than screw around with a garden variety brownie, I went straight for the dairy holy mother of desserts. Custard. I opted for pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie filling is basically custard… with pumpkin in it.

Technically, I made a cushaw pie. I happened to have pureed and drained cushaw; cushaw is also a winter squash. It doesn’t exactly taste like pumpkin, but it has a flavor that plants it clearly in the gourd family. It’s flavor is more mild than pumpkin or butternut squash. It’s most defining taste is that of creaminess.

I used this vegan recipe, except I used cushaw puree spiced with nutmeg and allspice. Basically the recipe replaces the eggs and evaporated milk or cream with cashew cream. The cashew cream was easy to make, and whipping up this pie filling was really simple. The batter was considerably thicker than pumpkin pie filling.

The pie came out of the oven looking good. My partner said it tasted better than the cushaw pie that I made with dairy. The filling set-up well. The spices and flavors were good. But something was missing.

Relevant detail. I LOVE CUSTARD. There is no greater blaspheme than putting harsh vanilla extract in vanilla custard or crème brulee. When I order crème brulee, while I am rarely disappointed, I often think I could have made better. At the root of my devotion to custard, is pumpkin pie. I didn’t understand why pumpkin pie was my favorite type of pie until I understood it as a pumpkin custard.

The context has been established; I am a custard nut. If I had ethical or dietary constraints around avoiding dairy this pie would be a fine substitute. It’s good. But as a custard nut, I found it lacking. First, the texture of the pie was considerably more dense than its eggy counterpart. In addition, it was missing the subtle richness that only egg yolk can impart. Do you love a vegan? Make them this pie. Do you have no ethical or dietary issues preventing you from consuming eggs? Use the eggs and make custard with all it’s egg and whipping cream goodness.

November 6, 2014
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Pumpkin Misadventures

Why do I do this to myself? That was my thought while I was putting the last batch of pumpkin in the pressure canner at 3am. The first two batches leeched out so much liquid that most of the jars were suited to the trash. I had little hope for this last batch.

See that liquid level? Not ok. Any food that isn’t submerged in liquid has a good chance of rotting. A can that looks like this shouldn’t be put up.

Pumpkin doesn’t have the acidity of tomatoes, nor the sugar of jams, nor the salt of pickles; that makes it an attractive home to botulism, or any bacteria for that matter. Technically, this was my third time working with the pressure canner. My current pumpkin crisis wasn’t a huge surprise. Fluid has leeched out of everything that we’ve pressure canned in the past. It’s just that the prior two sessions resulted in minor amounts of liquid lost to leeching.

When I finally crawled into bed at 5am, I put off dealing with the worthless jars of pumpkin. Because I am morphing into an 80 year-old, sunlight was piercing my skull at 9am and additional sleep was not happening. After some coffee I biked up to Findlay Market for Pho Lang (mega-yummy Vietnamese place) and whined about my less than pleasant experience to my canning partner.

She was just coming off misadventures with pumpkin gnocchi. And this brings me to a point that people don’t often acknowledge. Anyone who spends time in a kitchen will tell you that failure is frequent. I screwed up caramelizing sugar the first four times that I tried. I screwed up strawberry jam, twice, two years in a row. Let’s not talk about the vast number of things that I’ve burned. I can’t manage to make a calzone that doesn’t explode while baking.

She talked me down from throwing all the jars in the trash. She pointed out that I already did the hard work of gutting and skinning the pumpkin. And, indeed, that was no fun. We set about processing them a second time. We opened the jars and added more boiled water. The first batch we pulled pumpkin out so that we left a mix of one inch and two inches of head room. I wasn’t convinced that head room was my problem, but we figured it was worth a shot.

nine pumpkins of the pressure canner apocalypse.

So much pumpkin innards. So much. Skinning and gutting these took about an hour.

We put the jars back in the canner with extra head room. They came out with little to no leeching. We reprocessed the remaining batches without adding more headroom and just topping off the missing liquid with boiling water. These jars too came out of the canner with little to no leeching.

In the interests of helping others avoid my mistakes, I will tell you what I suspect was happening. I suspect that the jars were a little too hot, ergo too pressurized. On my first round of canning, the contents of the jar boiled on the counter for about 30 minutes after I pulled them out of the canner. On our second session, the contents of the jars only boiled for a few minutes.

All the food is below the liquid level. This can is in good shape.

Why do you mock me?

What am I going to do differently next time? I will be more careful about checking in on the pressure release valve. It’s only supposed to rattle a couple times a minute. It’s totally plausible that the longer the canner is on the element the more heat builds up in the canner. Will that fix my problem? Who knows, but I know that I will keep trying.

November 5, 2014
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Calabaza Pura Pie, Anyone?

A very pedantic gentleman next to me at the bar at The Senate a few weeks ago stated that commercially canned pumpkin isn’t actually pumpkin. My bullshit meter gave a mild blip, mostly due to what I know about food labeling laws. I asked how they could still label it pumpkin, when the can did not, in fact, contain pumpkin. He didn’t respond to my question, which made my bullshit meter whoop wildly. I dropped the topic.

This prompted me to dig through my cabinets for commercially canned pumpkin. This turned up. It’s 100% Calabaza pura. But what is Calabaza? It’s what’s going into your pumpkin pies this Thanksgiving. It is a gourd, but it is decidedly not pumpkin. This might explain why my home canned pumpkin is significantly different in color and taste from commercially canned pumpkin.

What is in the can? Not pumpkin.

Even on this Wikipedia page it states that most commercially canned pumpkin isn’t actually, pumpkin, but a mix of winter squashes. So, what gives with this labeling? Why is it acceptable to label this as pumpkin? I suppose the food processors are banking on people failing to notice the difference. What I don’t understand is how they are getting around the labeling laws.

November 4, 2014
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100 Books by 40: Perfume

Book: Perfume
Author: Patrick Suskind
Published: 1985 (Originally published in German)

I was riding the elevator at the office when I was transported to my twelve year-old self feeling the Formica of the table under neither my finger tips. I can hear the lite hits of the 70’s coming across the AM radio station; I smell the cornmeal mush that my dad is frying and the dry metallic pervasive scent of hot forced air coming from the belly of the furnace. I can taste the salty, crispy mush slick with butter and sweetened with Karo syrup. This journey was due to the gentleman stepping on the elevator wearing the aftershave that my dad wore most of my adolescent years.

Smells unlock rooms of memories that I didn’t know existed in my mind. Perfume is two hundred and fifty pages of smell. It’s set in Medieval France. The decadent language used to bring scents to life is vibrant. I’m stunned to learn that this book was originally written in German. The language is so lush, I had no sense that the thoughts were originally conceived in a different language.

The plot is unremarkable aside from the surprise ending, but does not detract from the delicious descriptions of sensory information. I have focused on smells since starting the book. I have remembered my favorite smells and why I have fond associations with them. I loved this book, not because the plot was revealing but because it opened a part of my daily sensory experience that I had lost touch with.

Be warned, the ending of this book is surprising. It neatly closes up the plot, so it’s satisfying in that way. But it does leave you feeling uneasy with scent, and how it can effect our emotions.