Kate's Queen City Notes

April 29, 2014
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100 Books by 40: THE SECRET GARDEN

Am I the only person who didn’t know that The Secret is based on ideas in The Secret Garden? An internet search is telling me that, no, this isn’t common knowledge. Let me back-up a moment.

I just finished reading The Secret Garden. It seemed like a charming children’s book until the end. The premise of the story is that a spoiled little girl losses her parents to cholera and is shipped to a mysterious mansion to live with a distant relative. The girl gains entry to a locked garden and discovers many other things regarding the mysterious mansion. While on this adventure, she becomes a nicer child and puts off some of her bratty ways. So far so good.

In the third to last chapter, one of the children has a very long “sermon”, the book’s word, not mine. This sermon basically extols the virtues of positive thinking. While I was reading page after page of this, I thought when did this children’s book morph into a self-help title? Further more, I am wondering if Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret) gave any credit to Frances Hodgson Burnett (author of The Secret Garden). My quick and sloppy googling didn’t show any acknowledgement, but I freely admit that I didn’t invest more than 5 minutes on searching.

So, I’m wondering why Burnett added this bit to her book. It would have been a charming story without it. I suppose the character transformation is partially explained by this, but she provides equally plausible explanations such as fresh air, physical activity, and good friendship. I can only think that conveying the power of positive thinking was important to Burnett, given that she shoe-horned it into the story line.

Regardless of this mystery, the book is a pleasant read. In terms of the other children’s books on the list, it doesn’t beat out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But it’s quite short and could easily be read in a week. Oh, and this was my first title that I borrowed from the Hamilton County Library on my Kindle. It was pretty easy. I will gladly do that again.

April 28, 2014
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100 Books by 40: THE SHELL SEEKERS

There are books that go down like cough syrup. I gulp the words down knowing that I will emerge from the experience better. The characters and the words will develop and leave me a better person in indescribable ways. The books that I’ve read recently have been of this nature. I can’t say that the books are bad, nor can I say that I enjoyed reading them.

The Shell Seekers was a beautiful escape; I couldn’t find enough hours in the day to lose myself in its pages. The book is about generational differences and family relationships. The time stretches from early 1900’s until 1980’s in various locations, but primarily England.

As usual, I am going to hold off on discussing major plot points to avoid spoiling it for any other readers. However, one of the ideas conveyed in the book spurred further thought. There’s a tension between loving someone as they are, and maintaining healthy boundaries in relationships. And this tension exists between family, friends, and spouses especially so. What’s the difference between giving out of obligation and giving out of impulse? When is it appropriate to hold some truth back?

Truth-telling has it’s pitfalls. Yes, that dress makes your butt look big. Actually, with those rings under your eyes, you look terrible. Yeah, you totally botched that meeting. There are times were the unvarnished truth just isn’t kind. And in family relationships, the truth without considering the conclusion can be cruel. I’m not advocating for wholesale lying. If you are an adult human and have successful relationships, you occasionally lie, or omit the truth.

This book navigates these topics. It’s sensitive and beautiful. I highly suggest it.

April 23, 2014
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The Black Owls and The Sundresses Rocked my Socks Off

This weekend was full of live music. After Sidewalk Chalk and The Almighty Get Down on Friday, I headed back to Motr for The Black Owls and The Sundresses. I’ve seen both these bands before. They play regularly around Cincinnati given that they are both Ohio bands with The Sundresses based in Cincinnati.

I digress. I’ve been listening to my 2014 Bunbury playlist for the last few weeks. Every time Fall Out Boy comes on (which seems to happen with disproportionate frequency), I am fumbling for the skip button. That very thing just happened. Perhaps it’s time I just purchased some of my favorites to get away from this abusive Spotify relationship with Fall Out Boy. That’s settled. I will make up for missing record store day with a trip to buy a bunch of my favorite bands’ records at Shake It.

Back to the topic at hand, The Black Owls came prepared mic swinging and all. They sounded really great on the new sound system at Motr. I am still marveling at how much better the sound is in there. I could understand most of the lyrics, which is a feat at most live shows let alone ones with so much crunchy guitar sounds. Mic swinging might have caused a bit of a microphone crisis, but all was handled gracefully.

Before their set.

The Black Owls killing it.

While I was writing the caption to this song The Black Owls came on. Coincidence?

Digging the green lights in this shot.

The Sundresses added a drummer a couple of years ago. I feel like this really added some punch to their live shows. The past arrangement was that Jeremy and Brad would alternate on percussion duty. That inevitably meant a bit of a lull between songs. Granted they situated themselves damn fast, but still. The addition of a drummer lets them pound though one song leaving barely time to catch your breath before the next tears out. It’s gratifying.

And gratifying it was. They sounded really great. The only hiccup was with one of the mics delivering at random intervals a shock to Jeremy’s mouth. I don’t know what that would feel like, but by the looks of it, it was quite painful. This situation was tolerated until the end of the show, which is more than what I would have endured had I been getting zapped in the mouth.

I had to include a picture with the drummer in it, now that I blabbed about him in the post.

The Sundresses doing their thing.

Jeremy trying to not get zapped in the kisser.

Brad rocking out.

Cincinnati, you are getting out of control with all the local music. This weekend is looking like more of the same… I can’t wait.

April 20, 2014
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James Brown Would be Proud: The Almight Get Down and Sidewalk Chalk

Spring has arrived. Unlike most other northern cities, Cincinnatians hide away in the winter. The first whispers of spring brings everyone out of their hibernation. People turn up to the places they will be from once again.

This was the context for the show last night. The Almighty Get Down opened for Sidewalk Chalk. I knew what I was in for with Sidewalk Chalk. I saw them at Midpoint Music Festival last year. They got a bit of an unfortunate time slot, at 5pm before many of the festival goers were out and about. They sounded great, so when I saw them slated to return to the Queen City, I made note.

I wasn’t disappointed. They sounded stellar and just as tight as I remembered. I admit that I often don’t like hip hop. The lyrics are lacking, and some producer has just nicked hooks from other musicians and packaged them up in predictable ways. But this. This is something else. It’s melodic and thoughtful. There’s a reference to To Kill a Mocking Bird in this song. In the words of Capital Cities, it’s good shit.

The surprise was The Almighty Get Down. They tore down the house with funk that James Brown would approve of. Really fantastic show. Their stage presence coupled with their tight sound just rolled over the audience in shimmering waves. It’s as though they brought all their energy to bear on this one tiny stage in OTR for just an hour or so. Really, that show was just fantastic to watch.

It was a great night for live music. It was a great night for photography. It was a great night.

The Almighty Get Down packed Motr.

Preach

The stage at Motr is tiny. I don’t know how they packed so many horns on there.

I’m afraid I didn’t get as close to Sidewalk Chalk. But they sounded excellent.

The weather was splendid. Everyone was out. The patio outside was just as packed as this bar room. Even the basement had full tables.

April 13, 2014
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Bunbury 2014: Must See Bands Cults and Holy Ghost!

I’ll admit it. I considered trying to sell my VIP Bunbury passes once the headliners were announced. With Forecastle snagging Beck, Outkast, The Replacements, and Jack White as headliners, that line-up is more appealing as far as headliners go. When I dig a little deeper in the Forecastle line-up there’s other gems like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and Band of Horses. Regarding Bunbury’s headliners, I’m not terribly excited about Empire of the Sun or The Flaming Lips, and I dislike Fall Out Boy and Paramore. Bunbury’s second tier acts are typically my thing, and there are some bright spots there for sure. Kishi Bashi, Wild Cub, Fitz and the Tantrums are all solid. While Young the Giant and Foxy Shazaam aren’t in my wheelhouse my past experiences at their shows prove that their performances will be excellent.

Line-ups aside, there’s the pricing difference. Forecastle VIP passes are about 500 bucks each. Because I bought my Bunbury VIP passes so early, I paid 295 for each of them. The question that I have to ask myself is thus, Do I want to see Beck, The Replacements, Outkast, and Jack White enough to sell my tickets to Bunbury and fork over an additional 400 bucks for a couple of Forecastle VIP passes? I will need to factor in money to stay in Louisville, so that will probably drive the additional cost up to 700 bucks.

This is the context in which I started listening to the second and third tier bands in the Bunbury line-up. I spent a couple of weeks listening to this handy Spotify playlist. And all I can say is wow. The second and third tier stuff is great. In the interests of keeping this post to a manageable length I’m only going to talk about a couple of my finds. But, I’ve found enough good stuff that my Bunbury agenda is already packed. Needless to say, there is no way I am selling my passes. Here’s a couple of my favorites.

What happens when you combine 60’s pop sensibility with Best Coast and a sense of ominous darkness? You get Cults. I know I shouldn’t have been surprised that their video boasts footage of Jim Jones. But I was. It’s such a sunny sounding song against such a dark event. Given that I have a sweet tooth for cathartic art and music, of course I love it. I’ve listened to both of their releases, and I am excited to see them at Bunbury.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my love of 80’s pop in the blog before. Let it be known that when “Africa” by Toto comes on my car stereo I am that lunatic enthusiastically singing along with the harmonies; 80’s pop is my cat nip. This admission will actually explain a number of my Bunbury favs. Given that I lived through the 90’s when indie rock was all guitar and little melody, and NEVER keyboards, I can tell you how happy I am that melody and the love of synth is back in new music. This brings me to Holy Ghost!. Seriously, I will take roughly 10 seconds of this video before my love of this band will be explained. Oh 80’s influence, I welcome you back. And clearly so does Holy Ghost!.

April 10, 2014
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100 Books by 40: GOOD NIGHT, MR TOM

Picking up this book was a delightful break from the tedium that was reading The Count of Monte Cristo. The book is a young adult title about a boy that was evacuated from London during World War II. While the writing wasn’t challenging to read, the novel covered some heavy topics.

The boy, Willie, left an abusive mother and taken in by a man that had cut himself off from others after the death of his wife and young child. The story centers around the transformation of the boy and the man. They are wounded souls who find healing in each other’s company.

My facebook feed brings many things to my attention, but I would say the vast majority highlight the negative power that we have to belittle and harm both those around us and ourselves. It’s refreshing to contemplate the best that we can be versus the worst. On the rare occasion that someone shares something positive or beautiful, I feel relieved, but those things fail to over-power the negative emotions that I am often left with.

I know people have either left their facebook accounts or blocked certain posts from turning up in their feed, and I get that. There’s just some stuff that doesn’t add value to your life and only brings up negative emotions. There are moments were we can be constructively challenged, but social media is rarely the space for it.

I’ve already limited my consumption of certain types of news media for the reason stated above. Twenty-four hours news stations were among the first things to get winnowed out of my information diet. I’m considering that facebook might get a similar treatment. I am going to pare back my facebook browsing for a while, and see how that goes.

Mister Tom is a nice, easy read. The characters are charming. The setting reminds me how little Americans have been touched by war since the Civil War. The towns people in the book all pitch in to help with the war effort. Much like Americans accepted rationing and planted victory gardens to support WWII, people accepted a certain level of shared sacrifice for the greater good. We aren’t so far from that time to make it impossible for our culture to value self sacrifice again. In fact, I am sure that millions of people in their own small way are still doing this today. There’s a big world out there full of people who are doing their best, and social media isn’t a great lens to take a look at it.

April 8, 2014
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100 Books by 40: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

I read the unabridged version of this book. That was a poor choice.

What can I say to adequately express how much I didn’t enjoy reading this book? It’s nearly twelve hundred pages. It was originally written in French. I am convinced that Alexandre Dumas was paid by the word. I wish I would have considered all of these things before I checked out the unabridged version. Umberto Eco probably says it best in the introduction.

The Count of Monte Cristo is of course one of the most gripping novels ever written, and on the other hand on of the most badly written novels of all time and of all literatures.

Dumas’ writing is all over the place. A mass of fillers, shameless in its repetition of the same adjective only one line below, incontinent in its piling on of these same adjectives, quite capable of entering into some sententious digression that can never be got out of because the syntax won’t hold, and huffing and puffing on like that for twenty lines, it is mechanical and clumsy in its descriptions of feelings. Its characters either shudder or turn pale, dry great drops of sweat that run down their brows or, stammering in a voice no longer human, rise frenziedly from ther chairs or fall back into them, with the author always, obsessively, bent on telling us that the chair they had fallen back into was the same one on which they had been sitting a second before. – Umberto Eco

A little repetition or poor writing can be overlooked in a short read. But this? Twelve hundred pages worth of nattering on? No. I liked the plot, but the mechanics of the writing were just too poor for me to ignore. Dumas lays the foreshadowing on too thickly. I understood at the very beginning of the book that the plot resolution would revolve around revenge. It took five months and hours and hours of reading to drive to that.

I did learn one lesson. The lesson is that poor editing and mechanics can ruin the best plot. The other lesson was to consider the abridged version of some of these classics. The fact that they exist might not be solely due to lazy teen readers.

April 2, 2014
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Erbinger’s Blackout Cake and Pressure Canning

So much cooking happened on Sunday. Here’s a list of what we made.

Erbinger’s Blackout Cake
Founder’s Breakfast Stout spicy mustard
Alton Brown’s Best Mustard
Vegetable stock
Canned chai spice pears and apples

Canning season is upon us. This means that many of my free weekend days will be devoted to either picking produce or canning it. In preparation for that, we decided to make a double-batch of broth, and a double-batch of mustard, as we will have no time to make either of these things until late in the fall.

The Cake

As I was planning a whole day in the kitchen, I saw this recipe. I don’t really like cake, but my curiosity was too much to resist. After reviewing the ingredients list, I realized that I had all of them except the cocoa and chocolate. The cocoa and chocolate set me back thirty bucks. That’s right three zero. When I consider what it must have cost to make this in the late 1800’s my brain explodes.

While the blogger in the NPR article complains more than I deem necessary–seriously all cake from scratch is a pain in the ass–I did spend a solid three hours preparing this cake. Given that I am not a cake expert, I was a bit concerned with getting the cakes out of the pan, and subsequently slicing them in half and constructing the layers. To my surprise, that was a cakewalk. Oh puns.

Here’s one of the cake’s just out of the pan. They came out of the pans with no problem.

This is the melted chocolate that was used in the icing.

The cake turned out well. The only thing that might have gone a bit better was how the filling set-up. I think I didn’t allow the filling to boil long enough to make it set-up properly. It was just a bit runny when I spooned it on the cake layers. I invited friends to drop by and sample the cake through out the day. They all seemed pleased with it. I liked the cake despite my general dislike for cake. I thought it would be considerably richer than it was, given the ingredients list. But the cake was a really nice balance of sweet and rich. It didn’t overwhelm, and make me feel a little disgusted after bite three, which is my typical cake experience. I will gladly make this again.

Here’s the cake before we cut it.

Here’s the cake after we cut it. One thing that NPR got completely right is that this cake has almost no self-life. The icing gets really dry if refrigerated. The pudding gets runny if left out.

The Mustards

Homemade mustard is easy to make, keeps well, and tastes light years better than store bought. If you haven’t tried to make mustard, for god’s sake do it. You have zero excuses for not trying one of these recipes. This is a nice standard yellow mustard. If you have an immersion blender, you can make this as smooth or textured as you wish. It has depth of flavor that I didn’t know was possible in mustard. I ate all of our first batch on black bean burgers in about a month. I can’t wait to try it on soy dogs this summer.

And given that I am a beer nut, I wanted to try out a beer mustard. I happened to have a couple of bottles of Founder’s Breakfast Stout on hand. Everything with this recipe worked well, except the resulting mustard was a little too thick for my personal preference. No worries, just add more beer. The mustard turned out so great that I have been searching for things to put it on. I want to buy soft pretzels to dip in this mustard. I want to smuggle my own mustard in to eateries so I don’t have to suffer through French’s.

Here’s the yellow mustard in the little three oz jars. They are adorable. We didn’t can this because the amount is insignificant enough to store in the refrigerator.

Here’s the mustard seeds and the Founder’s Breakfast Stout working their magic.

The yellow mustard just after blending it.

The Stock

This is round three of making this stock. We made a double batch because we ran through the results of our last canning session quite quickly. We’ve used this same recipe as the base on all three efforts. Here’s my last blog on the second go at this. After the first effort, I added a step of browning the veggies and forming a nice fond on the bottom of the pot prior to adding the water and the herbs. This added a nice rich flavor to the stock. I suggest adding this step if you have a good stainless steel dutch oven.

On this attempt, we threw in some dried shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms add a nice solid earthiness. We threw the resulting broth in the pressure canner. All the cans came out as expected. All the jars let out their chorus of pops minutes after being removed from the canner. I will use this both to make cream of mushroom soup next week. I have a special place in my heart for that not so great Campbell’s variety. I am excited to see what cream of mushroom soup is like when made with fresh ingredients.

Here’s the veggies that we cooked down into stock. The last time we made this stock, we didn’t add the mushrooms. Those really added a lot of flavor.

Here’s the veggie broth fresh out of the pressure canner.

The Apples and Pears If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that we canned spiced peaches last summer. You can read about it here. In hindsight, we did some things well but others could use improvement. Adding teas to a few of the jars of peaches, was a stellar idea. Throwing the spices directly into the jars had some unintended consequences, that we would like to avoid. Last year, we threw about a quarter of a vanilla bean, an inch long cinnamon stick, five pepper corns, two cardamom pods, and one star anise in the jars. We pack a few jars with just cinnamon or just vanilla. Here’s what we learned.

Star anise or cardamom in those quantities would completely over-power the vanilla and cinnamon
The cinnamon stick would become a bit astringent, which of course, was only noticeable in the cinnamon only jars as the flavor was over-powered in the mixed spice jars
While we put roughly the same amount of spice in each jar, star anise and cardamom are natural things, so the resulting flavor varied significantly from jar to jar of the mixed spice jars
If the goal was to produce the over-all impression of Chai spices we forgot ginger

Given that we want to pack peaches again, we wanted to try and rectify the issues that I’ve listed above. We decided to make a spiced simple syrup. Approaching the spices in this way should enable us to have consistent flavor from jar to jar. It should also allow us to balance the spices. We decided to get some apples and pears to can as a test run. We produced about 6 pint and a half jars. We made a simple syrup that ended up being one part sugar to three parts water. The spices that went in the syrup was as follows.

Half a star anise
Three cardamom pods (which we decided could be taken back to two)
A whole vanilla bean
1 teaspoon of ground Saigon cinnamon
one inch of sliced ginger root

Being able to adjust the flavors in the syrup is a huge improvement over our past approach to canning spiced peaches. We will be spicing the syrup when we can peaches this summer. I tried the apples and pears the day after we canned. They have a very nice balance of spice, and the sweetness is perfect. The taste of the apples and pears come through and the spices are a subtle addition. BOOM! Problem solved.

Ok, summer. We are ready for you.

Here’s the pressure canner with the pears and apples in it. We just sealed those with a water bath as opposed to pressure, like was necessary with the broth.

Here’s our spiced apples and pears. The pears ended up with a perfect texture. The apples ended up a little soft. The spice levels were outstanding.

March 26, 2014
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100 Books by 40: EMMA

Going from Jane Austen to Thomas Hardy is disorienting. I finished Emma and started Far from the Maddening Crowd yesterday. Austen and Hardy’s works were only separated from each other by about 40 years, but that period introduced considerable changes to British culture. Plus, Austen’s witty dialog is a stark contrast to Hardy’s brooding characters and lush context descriptions. In Austen’s work the transformation engine is love, whereas Hardy’s is suffering. Dropping one book and immediately picking up the other was a challenge.

Concurrently, I have been reading The Count of Monte Cristo for four months. FOUR MONTHS. The things that I don’t appreciate about this book are legion. It was written in French, and like Crime and Punishment, I’m not appreciating all the translation choices. There is quite a bit of repetition. Like many novels from that time period, it was published serially in a periodical; Dumas might have reiterated significant plot points to remind readers. To top it off, the plot feels like a soap opera. Seriously, this book is Guiding Light set in the nineteenth century.

All that challenging reading explains why I was so pleased to pick up Goodnight, Mister Tom. Young Adult Fiction was exactly what my wearied brain needed. Anyone want to place bets that I will finish Goodnight, Mister Tom before I finish The Count of Monte Cristo? Don’t bother. Gambling implies that there is reasonable possibility of either happening. Lets be honest, there isn’t.

I haven’t said anything about Emma. It was pleasant. I found Emma and her father obnoxious. And given that I am on Jane Austen book number 3 in this list, I am chafing a bit at the bright, sunny endings that her books have. Those criticisms aside, her dialog and wit save the day. But I guess in keeping with most romance books, it didn’t tell me anything about life or relationships that I didn’t already know. It was a pleasant diversion and not much else.

I need to wrap this up and get back to The Count of Monte Cristo. I’m on renew number five with the library, and I just can’t bring myself to do another.

I just got a new camera. This means you will all suffer through my learning journey with it.

The wall under the stairs.

This sandstone glitters.

Where does the water go?

This is the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Shadow of life.

This is where the Bengals play.

This area in the foreground is where the banks second wave will be built. Someday this view of the city will be obscured.

Fixing the side walks.

This building has some mega ugly 70’s façade put on it. This is what was underneath.

Front view of the building. I hope they restore the original façade. It’s way more awesome than the 70’s mess that was there before.

Inside Rhinegiest.

Beer.

March 10, 2014
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100 Books by 40: A Christmas Carol

I finished A Christmas Carol a few weeks ago. Most people are familiar with the plot of this book, and I was wondering if I had anything fresh to say about it. I quick internet search has told me that focusing on Want and Ignorance isn’t exactly fresh, but I want to write about it anyway.

I’m not going to structure this post with advanced spoiler alerts, because of how ubiquitous this story is in American culture. Be warned. From this point forward, I will reveal key plot points.

A Christmas Carol is most obviously a story about materialism and happiness as they interact with human connection. This story is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. Consumerism is our religion in America. And while certain aspects of poverty are objectively better today than they were in 17th century England, we are just as inclined to define ourselves by what we own and consume as opposed to what we produce or the relationships we nurture.

All of that feels obvious to me. The wretched children in the robe of Christmas Present have rolled around in my head for weeks since finishing the book. Dickens had to pick the two most potent forces that bend people to the worst of their potential.

Conceptually, what breaks us the most when we are young? What sets us on a path that hobbles our ability to be productive? Given incarceration rates and the prevalence of poverty, we are still struggling.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States)

Dickens thought ignorance and want were the two things preventing children from developing into successful adults. Was he right? The solution to ignorance is to provide education and access to information. The solution to want is to ensure that children, even in the worst poverty, have their physical needs met.

With public education and food stamps, one would think that America has made progress on these issues. According to this (http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/child-hunger-facts.aspx) 15.9 American children lived in food insecure households in 2012. And regardless of a free education, the illiteracy rate hasn’t changed in the last 10 years; it’s been stubborn at %14 of the population.

One can’t say that we aren’t trying. And, the literacy rate was closer to %60 in the early 1800’s, so we have improved. At the dawn of 1900, child labor laws were enacted to enable children to stay in school, but %20 of all children died before reaching 1 year of age. Infant mortality rate in the US is only 5.6 for every 1000 live births.

Regardless, it seems that having 15.9 million kids at risk of going hungry is too much for a rich nation to excuse. Why haven’t we stamped out hunger and illiteracy? One conclusion can be drawn; throwing money at the problems isn’t the only solution. I suspect that a poor home life can unravel any good that public education and food distribution programs can do. If you are unfortunate enough to have a care-giver who fails you in key ways, you can still be hungry and uneducated in America. And, honestly, I don’t know how to mitigate for that. There’s nothing the state will ever do to make up for this loss.

I wonder what Charles Dickens would think of that. Given the events in A Christmas Carol, I suspect he would say that each of us with time and resources should be engaged in our communities on a personal level. He would say that concerned neighbors should be on the look out for neglected children. In that sense, the human connections that he advocates for in A Christmas Carol are still sorely needed.