Unique Dining Experiences in Columbus

The Columbus food scene is on fire and it’s not just with new restaurants opening. There is an unprecedented number of dinners and events happening this month and we wanted to share all the ones we have spotted in our inbox and on the socials.

Sunday Specials in Columbus Traditionally the least popular dining out night of the weekend, Sundays in Columbus have a new lease on life. Increasingly restaurants are offering special menus of exceptional value and creativity that bring the evening new excitement. We’ve compiled a list of 8 restaurants with enticing offers to lure you out on […]

Thanksgiving 2021 Food Ideas Thanksgiving is a little more normal this year and one silver lining of the pandemic is that there are some great at home dining options. If you’re trying to figure out where to go for dinner, want to outsource dessert, or just aren’t up for cooking the whole feast from scratch, […]

Columbus Easter Food Guide 2021 This blog post was compiled and written by our friends Tania and Sam. You can also reference our 2020 Easter Guide for other ideas as some businesses have not yet posted their Easter offerings. Dine-in and Take Out Meals The Sassafras Bakery Easter menu includes a variety of sweet and […]

Mardi Gras in Columbus 2021 This is a guest post by our friend and former tour guide Tania Sherry @taniaexplorescolumbus. In addition to all of the delicious offerings that Tania has compiled, we have a special Carnival themed Trust Fall on Tuesday night. I don’t expect that Columbus will have its usual raucous Mardi Gras […]

An A-Z of Central Ohio Restaurants. Inspired by a post on the Support Central Ohio Restaurant Group on Facebook we decided to try making an A-Z list of Central Ohio restaurants. We managed to complete all 26 letters and thought we’d share our list in case it inspires you to try somewhere new, or if […]

New Year’s Eve and Day Dinners in Columbus 2020 Continuing with our lists of local restaurants providing ways to commemorate the holidays in style at home, our friends Tania and Sam have curated a selection of New Year’s Eve dinners available for carryout. Service Bar 2020 may have put a dent in your travel plans, […]

Trust Fall 2020 Restaurants We’re taking a 2 week hiatus from Trust Fall over the weeks of Christmas and New Years, but rest assured that we’ll return in January with more great restaurants, a few new weekend brunches, and an additional surprise or two down the line. Since Trust Fall began in April 2020 it […]

Holiday Dinners in Columbus 2020 If you’re looking for a low stress holiday dinner at home, our Friends Tania and Sam have complied a great list of at-home dining options ranging from traditional to alternative and including dinner for two or meals for the whole family. Together & Company, Sweet Carrot, and Kittie’s Cakes This […]

Holiday Cookie Boxes in Columbus Cookie lovers rejoice, there are a wealth of holiday cookie options available in Columbus this year, both from established bakeries and new home based bakeries that have popped up in 2020. Here are a dozen bakeries offering seasonal cookie boxes or collections. Short North Piece of Cake Short North Piece […]

Charcuterie Boards for Carry Out and Delivery Charcuterie boards, noshing boards, grazing boards — whatever you call them, bountiful boards piled with cheeses, meats and accoutrements are as well suited to a cozy Netflix night at home as they ever were to a happy hour out with friends. There have never been more options available […]

Birria is trending in Columbus. What is it and where can you find it?

Thanksgiving 2020 Food Ideas, Columbus Thanksgiving is going to be a somewhat different holiday for most of us this year, and Central Ohio’s restaurants and bakeries are poised to meet the needs of these unique circumstances. If you’re trying to figure out what to do for dinner, want to outsource dessert, or just aren’t up […]

Fun dining experiences to enjoy at home from fried chicken to Filipino feasts.

Mother’s Day in Columbus 2020

Trust Fall from Columbus Food Adventures. A mystery meal delivered to your door.

Easter carry out food and ingredients Columbus 2020

If you joined us on a tour over that last five years, there is a 50% or greater chance your launch point with us was at Columbus Brewing Company Restaurant, later CBC Restaurant. Since September of 2013, we ran over 350 tours originating from this craft beer destination. Most of the tours were our Downtown […]

We visit Barleys most Saturdays on our Downtown Brewery Tour and we drop in doing private tours and coordinating special events as well. After over 200 visits since we started in 2013 we still find there is something to learn and something new going on. Some of our guests are a bit dismissive when they […]

Running a tour company featuring craft breweries in Central Ohio involves a lot more than drinking beer. To understand and engage the community, we look for ways to become part of it. That means between tours, we are spending a lot of time at breweries asking questions, finding out what is new, etc., and sometimes […]

10 ways to make your Columbus, Ohio Thanksgiving preparations easier from pies to wine pairings.

It finally feels like fall and, and fall means Ohio apples. There are over 50 varieties of heirloom and traditional apples to discover at local pick-your-own farms and farmers markets, from Melrose to Rome Beauty. We’re not the only ones enjoying apples this season, though; Columbus chefs, bakers, and mixologists are having plenty of fun […]

Four Septembers ago Wolf’s Ridge Brewing opened this doors to their restaurant and brewery and we ran our first public tour. In the following months we made a lot of trips to Wolf’s Ridge and watched a weekly evolution of the business and their approach to the craft of beer. No one at Wolf’s Ridge […]

Lots of exciting new restaurants opening in Columbus this Fall.

We have a lot of history with Wolf’s Ridge Brewing. We both launched in the same month and year (September 2013) to a soon to explode craft beer scene in Columbus. In our early days, we ran nearly weekly tours there. In 2015, we created a new tour with a goal of focusing on some […]

Since the inception of Columbus Brew Adventures, we wanted to find more ways to facilitate fans experiencing new craft beer festivals, events and destinations in Central Ohio. We decided to set our bar high for our first foray as a non tour trip to offer an event shuttle to the 3rd Annual Wing Wars at […]

One of the fun aspects of touring breweries on a regular basis is seeing the evolution of these businesses and their ideas over time. We heard rumors of a special lager Four String was working on months ago. The debut of Hilltop Heritage Lager is the realization of a beer to fill a void. It […]

Seventh Son Brewing has some stealthy advertising that many are just starting to notice. As a brewery commonly featured on our Downtown Brewery Tour, we just had our first group of guests notice this billboard sign across the street from the brewery without pointing it out to them this week. The sign first appeared in […]

There is a lot brewing north of I 270 and we are taking you to explore all of it. Most of these spots have been open less than 2 years but their brews are already getting a lot of attention. August 20th will be our inaugural run for this season. Our first stop is the […]

After the heartwarmingly positive reception to last year’s special event tour, Columbus Food Adventures is once again pleased to partner with Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) on a unique fundraiser featuring restaurant favorites of the local immigrant and refugee communities. Last year, we raised over $1,800 for the CRIS, and hope exceed that this year. On […]

Over the course of the past year Columbus Brew Adventures has passed out almost 2000 Ale Trail books to people on our tours. I’ve spoken with over 100 people using the books as I have crossed paths with them at breweries all over Central Ohio. The consistent message is: This is great! I can’t say […]

Would you like to be part of our team? Columbus Food Adventures is looking for outgoing and passionate tour guides to lead 3-4 hour guided walking food tours and van based food tours. The tours combines history and culture with stops at multiple restaurants, giving guests the flavor of a neighborhood and its native cuisines. […]

All of WOSU’s Columbus Neighborhoods documentaries have been very good, but the final installment – ‘New Americans’, which focuses on our city’s refugee and immigrant communities – was truly exceptional. We attended the preview showing last night, and came away stunned – it was honest, compassionate, impressively comprehensive, moving, well structured, and just smart, smart, […]

For the last four years, October has been a big month for Four String Brewing’s Dan Cochran. In October 2011, after months rehabbing an old machine shop, Four String was born just ahead of the Columbus Craft Beer Boom 2.0. In 2012, the space was taking shape with some retail customers including the BW-3 (Buffalo […]

One of the best things about Columbus Brew Adventures is the diversity of people I get to work with and learn from. Several months ago I met Peter Moon, one of the owners of Mad Moon Cider at a tasting. After trying his products and hearing a bit of his story, I knew I had […]

Help Columbus Food Adventures celebrate our fifth anniversary by donating money to a good cause and entering to win an omakase dinner for two with Andy and Bethia.

Columbus Food Adventures is pleased to partner with Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) on a unique fundraiser tour featuring restaurant favorites of the local immigrant and refugee communities.

After guiding several tours, guides start to develop a sixth sense for when someone is about to break the collective train of thought with a laugh (maybe even a snort) from out of the blue. While new to us guides, this is something that our brewing pals have known for years. To the outside world, […]

Columbus Brew Adventures offered our first tour to the public on September 7th 2013. You can see scenes from that tour in this -> video by the very talented Mike Beaumont from Spacejunk Media. We have sold out the downtown tour almost every Saturday since then. It was exciting to have people passionate about joining […]

We are huge fans of Jeni’s Ice Creams and visit their scoop shops on two of our tours. We enjoy following Jeni’s career, trying every new seasonal flavor and celebrating her many successes. The latest reason to celebrate is the launch of her new book  Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts which focuses on using ice cream […]

It will come as no surprise that we like movies that are about food, especially when they have a great cast and positive reviews. We are excited that Chef is opening in Columbus on Friday and will be showing at the Gateway Film Center for two weeks. We have two movie tickets to give away […]

There have been a whirlwind of developments at Four String Brewing Company in the last 6 months. The most recent is the canning and release of their signature beer, Brass Knuckle Pale Ale, to the public. The microbrewery is too small to have a regular canning line or storage for 10,000 plus cans so instead of delaying growth of their brand, they partnered with Buckeye Canning to bring the canning line to the brewery.

Inside the various subcultures in Columbus, there are two groups that stand out for working together within their industries and partnering with others to promote the best of our city. Well, we are obviously biased, but we are more than casual observers of how the craft beer community of Columbus continually pulls together to help and promote each other. We also see this in the world of mobile food. And for these two groups, we are happy that their worlds have collided.

We’ve run over two six packs of private tours since launching last September. If you are planning a group event this year, contact us and we will put together a special tour for you.

Tis the season…..to get stumped on what to get people for the holidays. But we have a few suggestions that will warm the hearts of the craft beverage aficionados in your life while allowing you to shop local.

With a name like House Wine, you might not naturally expect an establishment with a strong beer offering. House Wine has served Old Worthington since 2007, when owner Donnie Austin made a splash by opening the first wine shop in Ohio to employ the clever and practical Enomatic (automatic, swipe-card driven) wine dispensers. While House Wine […]

This year the North Market’s Columbus Microbrew Festival (September 13th-15th) promises to be bigger and better than ever. If you haven’t been for a couple of years the event has now moved outside and Spruce Street is closed to allow room for 20 microbreweries, a stage and a beer garden. The North Market hosted Columbus’ […]

We’ve been asked many times over the last few years whether we’ve thought about adding a brewery tour. The answer is yes! In fact, we’re not just adding a beer tour, but debuting a whole new venture that focuses on the growing craft beer and spirits scene in Columbus. Our new company – Columbus Brew Adventures – will start […]

We’ve had a fun summer doing research for our new beer tours and we’re excited to bring you some fantastic itineraries. The aim of these tours isn’t to get drunk but to learn more about the truly inspiring artisan producers that we have in our community and in Ohio. We want you to meet the […]

If you’ve ever talked to us about dining in Cleveland, you’ll know that we’re big fans of the The Greenhouse Tavern. Our enthusiasm goes beyond their fantastic food and innovative menu, and extends to an appreciation of their Slow Food-friendly philosophy towards sourcing. We’ve had the pleasure of showing their Chef, Jonathan Sawyer, around Columbus […]

Anyone who has been on one of our Taco Truck Tours knows that there is great Mexican food to be found on the West Side. But, increasingly, the West Side has been accumulating a roster of great food options well beyond south-of-the-border mobile fare. When you head out west, don’t gamble with what’s for dinner – […]

The Hills Market Downtown – Grand Opening! About a month ago, during a Dessert Tour, I was talking with Pistacia Vera‘s co-owner Spencer Budros when he veered off into a passionate soliloquy on the buzz he senses in the city – he noted the throngs of people out and about downtown, the constant construction, the […]

We love taking our tour guests to Jeni’s Ice Creams, and I’m sure that our enthusiasm both for the ice creams and the business is apparent. We’re constantly inspired by their involvement in the community, their energy, the support they give to other small businesses and the partnerships they form with like-minded, socially responsible endeavors. […]

Dine Originals has become such a Columbus institution that it’s hard to believe that the organization is only ten years old. The Dine Originals group of 49 independent restaurants is pulling out all of the stops for this milestone occasion by introducing Dine Originals 10:  ten days of fantastic food events and special menus. There […]

As we look forward to a few days off with family and friends, we’d like to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons and only the best in the year to come. We’d also like to thank all of you who have participated in our tours and have given us the means to continue to […]

Fans of local liquor will already be familiar with Middle West Spirits and Watershed, but another Ohio spirits producer has quietly entered the market. Dancing Tree is a new micro-distillery in Meigs County, near Athens, set on a 200 acre farm with a beautiful 1850s farmhouse which is currently being restored to house both a tasting […]

Dine Originals Week starts on Monday and runs until Sunday November 18th. Dine Originals is a group of 50 Columbus locally and independently owned and operated restaurants and the biannual Dine Originals Weeks are always a great excuse to try new restaurants or revisit old favorites. I enjoyed this note from Scott Heimlich, owner of […]

15 E. Winter St., Delaware OH (740) 417-4074 Open Tues.- Sat., 5pm – 12am Veritas – as in ‘truth’ – is a cheeky name for a restaurant whose dishes are so cleverly designed to deceive. For example, consider our order of their shrimp cocktail. In lieu of the expected, what arrives at the table looks […]

During the summer it seems like every weekend in Columbus is packed full of events, but none more so than this coming weekend. There’s a feast of opportunities for food lovers. On Saturday (1-3pm) the North Market will be filled with the beloved smell of all things bacon. It’s the third annual Wild Goose Creative […]

Our ears perk up when we’re told of good food in out-of-the-way locations. It’s not that being ‘off the beaten path’ is a virtue in and of itself, but more that these unconventional setups have a greater than average chance of being ‘food forward’… which is to say, focused on putting out a quality meal. […]

It’s almost that time of year again! August 11th marks the 4th year of Local Matters’ Local Foods Week, and we are once again thrilled to be a part of it. To do our part in celebrating all that is tasty and local, Columbus Food Adventures is again offering a special Local Foods Week Tour. […]

We have enjoyed taking our Short North Tour groups to Eleni Christina for the last two years. While it’s been fun having this small artisan bakery as ‘our-little-secret’ up to now, we are excited to announce that they are opening to the public as a baked goods retailer. Eleni Christina was opened in 1994 by Kent and […]

Things move quickly in the local food scene, and we’re amazed by how much great stuff has been hitting so quickly. Without further ado, here’s a quick rundown of the best of what’s new and what we’re loving: 1) Freshstreet & Double Happiness. We’ve long been fans, perhaps some might say groupies, of Kenny and […]

We haven’t done a Quickbites for some time, but with so many great food-related events coming up we felt compelled to give you the scoop! This weekend, July 20th-22nd, is the 33rd annual Jazz & Rib Fest presented by the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department. It will once again be held at the Arena District […]

This weekend, Columbus’ amateur chefs will have the chance to win great prizes and culinary glory at the Columbus Smoke Experiment, sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. The winner of the local competition, held July 15th, will fly to Brooklyn in December to compete in the Food Experiment’s national championship, competing against the winners from 15 other cities. Each […]

Rodizio isn’t exactly the type of restaurant we tend to write about here, but we’ve found it hard to ignore given its singular novelty. You see, Rodizio Grill is a, well, a rodizio – a Brazilian-style fixed price restaurant that parades out a never ending stream of skewered and grilled meat to the dining room and […]

Beer lovers in Central Ohio have almost assuredly tasted some of the fine brews from Rockmill Brewery or, at minimum, read a feature or two about them. With the opening of  Rockmill’s new tasting room and bar you can now visit the picturesque facilities where the beer is made and admire the beautiful farm. This great new amenity is […]

Sometimes you just happen to be at the right place at the right time. While helping to show around some travel writers, we were making idle time chit chat with an accompanying publicist and mentioned that we were planning to go to Canton to check out a new food tour business there. The publicist mentioned […]

‘Trompo’ is the name for the vertical rotating spit of al pastor meat from which Los Guachos shaves glistening ribbons of pork off into their tacos. One of our favorite moments, out of all of our tours, is seeing people’s faces when they first spot the trompo at Los Guachos. It’s not hard to see why it catches […]

It’s been a while since we’ve posted a ‘quick bites’ style blog entry, but next month’s bounty of opportunities makes for a great excuse to pick it back up! Kicking off the month is The Market to Market Bicycle Adventure on May 5th – a bike ride between the North Market and Hills Market (in […]

Before there was Till, there was Dragonfly. Dragonfly was among the most widely acknowledged and awarded restaurant in Columbus. It’s chef, Magdiale Wolmark, was twice a Beard award nominee and inarguably recognized as a true innovator in the preparation of vegan cuisine. It would’ve been easy to assume that a national reputation for haute vegan […]

The spring Dine Originals week kicks off tomorrow and, as usual, there are plenty of great dining options for value seekers and thrill seekers alike. Dine Originals Columbus has 47 members and with many of them are offering two or three distinct menus at different price points, reading through all of the options can be […]

When we started Columbus Food Adventures, it was a given that we’d do an alt.eats based tour – in no small part because we absolutely love to show off the surprising diversity of ethnic foods on offer in Columbus. That said, one tour can only show off so much (for now, anyway…), and we very […]

Chat to someone in line at Thurn’s, and odds are you’ll find they’ve been visiting the store since they were a kid. Thurn’s has plenty of third generation customers and quite possibly the most fiercely loyal following of any food purveyor in the city. Owner, Albert Thurn, is of the forth generation of the family who […]

Purchase tickets and see full menu for this event here! This is a screaming deal, if we do say so ourselves, on an exciting event we’ve managed to pull together last-minute. Here’s the deal: Fresh Street is putting on a ‘pop-up restaurant’ evening that’ll be hosted by Iron Chef competitor Jonathan Sawyer at his newest […]

I’ll admit to a bit of discomfort with 10-best lists, and never more so than when restaurants are the subject. After all, what makes for a great restaurant? Is it the meticulous service, impeccable culinary technique, tremendous wine list and exceptional ambience found at places like The Refectory? Or, is it the straightforward pleasure of biting […]

Thanks to your support, the dinners that we organized in September to raise money for the famine in the Horn of Africa were very successful. We were able to send $2400 to the American Refugee Committee who are working on the ground in Somalia, we also introduced some new people to Somali food, connected with […]

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the annual re-opening of the Bierberg Bakery. Ever since we started our German Village Walking tour in May, we’ve been walking past their location (at 729 South Fifth Street) every Saturday afternoon and stopping to talk to our tour guests about the history of this quirky little business that only opens […]

Dine Originals week starts today! This is a great opportunity to support locally owned and operated restaurants, celebrate the independent restaurant scene in Columbus or to try somewhere that’s been on your ‘keep meaning to try’ list. By participating you’ll also be supporting Local Matters and their education programs. If you picked up a copy […]

You may have seen Kokoborrego cheeses popping up in markets and restaurants around Columbus. They first caught my attention early this spring when I heard (via twitter) that they were the first commercial sheep’s milk cheese producer in Ohio. Kokoborrego make sheep’s milk cheeses from their own flock of East Friesan crossbreeds and, because the […]

Glenlaurel Inn is a cosy Scottish-themed country inn in the Hocking Hills, about an hour drive from Columbus. We made our first visit there earlier this month for dinner as guests of the Inn. Glenlaurel is the perfect place for an anniversary or intimate dinner for two and with a range of accommodations, including crofts […]

A morning without a good cup of coffee is, to me, a grim proposition. Caffeine is, of course, the primary necessity, but I’ve grown accustomed to the luxury of choosing from a variety of interesting, flavorful single-origin arabica beans and have steadily built up the better part of a kitchen counter full of equipment (burr […]

When I had breakfast with Josh Ozersky earlier this month, he said that one of the food trends that excites him most is the increase in house-made condiments. This may strike some as being a slightly quirky focal point, but we have to admit that it’s one we share with him. At minimum, house-made condiments […]

I hear a lot about The Chef’s Garden when I talk to chefs, I see photos of their beautiful produce on twitter, and last year I was lucky enough to attend their annual fundraiser for Veggie U. When the opportunity arose to visit the farm and see what they do first hand, I jumped at […]

Columbus Food Adventures is excited to announce the roster for this year’s Local Foods Week tour. And, due to the overwhelming response to last year’s tour, we’re going to be conducting three tours this year! To purchase tickets, click here. For those who may be unfamiliar with Local Foods Week, there are two main points […]

Josh Ozersky is a meat man. Not meat and potatoes, just meat. The kind of guy that ‘meat lovers’ pizzas were invented for. But pizza isn’t Josh’s thing. Burgers are. He’s the author of The Hamburger: a History  and he was in town for a burger demo at the Best of Fall home show. I […]

Columbus has many wonderful food events, but the annual Taste the Future at Columbus State Community College is one that I have particular affection for.  2011 marks the 23rd anniversary of this event, and with over 50 of central Ohio’s premier chefs showing off their talents this year it looks to be another great one! […]

We’ve come to feel a strong sense of admiration for the large (as in second largest concentration in the US) Somali community in Columbus. Through our experiences with the always-smiling owners and patrons of Somali restaurants, as well as our discussions with documentary filmmaker Abdi Roble and friends, we’ve been amazed by the energy, good […]

Have you picked up a copy of the new Columbus Crave yet? The second issue not only looks great but includes the must read Dispatch group’s list of the top ten restaurants in Columbus. We’re very proud that two of our partners, Rigsby’s Kitchen (Short North Tour) and G. Michael’s (German Village Tour), are in first and second […]

Pizza in Columbus: it’s thin-crust, it’s ‘tavern cut’ (sliced into squares), and it meets dull heat via the crawl of a conveyor belt. It’s Donato’s, it’s Plank’s, it’s… well, just about every pizza place in town. It’s as much a part of Columbus as OSU athletics, but it’s about as inspiring as Tressel ball. Tressel’s […]

Ramadan started on August 1st and marked the start of a month of fasting and prayer for Muslims all over the world. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, and at sunset they gather to share in a fast breaking meal called Iftar in arabic or Afur in Somali. You will find that Muslim-owned restaurants and […]

We’re pleased to announce another gluten free dessert tour. Our first gluten free tour was in May and it was a sell out success. We will start our gluten free dessert tour at Pistacia Vera in German Village where their famous macarons, confections flourless tortes and pate de fruits are all gluten free. You’ll have […]

Columbus Food Adventures is pleased to announce the celebration of our 1st anniversary! During the past 12 months we’ve conducted over 200 tours, added two new itineraries, and organized some exciting private tours, progressive dinners, and special events. The challenges of starting a new business are considerable, but we’ve enjoyed every moment of it. And, we’re gratified beyond […]

This post is brought to you by the 100º+ heat index and 90% humidity. When it’s this hot outside, we begin to think about food differently; often our appetites diminish somewhat, and we look towards ‘lighter’ bites with a cooling effect. Here’s what we’ve been seeking out to help beat the heat: Cold soups – Barcelona is […]

There are so many  new restaurant openings and updates in Columbus this summer that it’s been hard just to keep track ! (deep breath, here we go): Vienna Ice Cafe, run by the owners of Mozart’s, recently debuted in Clintonville. T. Murray’s (opened Monday), Winan’s Chocolates and Coffee (opens tomorrow) and Harvest Pizzeria (opening Friday […]

What goes better with dessert than a great cup of coffee? We’re proud to announce that we’ve added Cafe Brioso as a mid-point stop on our All Dessert tour – a pleasant pause to refresh the palate and explore some of the finest artisan-roasted brew in the city. Cafe Brioso focuses on providing high-quality gourmet […]

To people just passing through, Ohio can seem like little more than flat farmland and miles of cornfields. Clearly, they haven’t been to the Hocking Hills – an area of amazing natural beauty just over an hour drive south east of Columbus. The area has towering black sandstone cliffs, gorges, caves and waterfalls, with landmarks such […]

Last night was the opening night of Available Light Theatre‘s new production The Food Play. We were honored to be part of the opening performance. Each show includes an interview with someone involved in local food. You may have missed our five minutes of fame, but you have plenty more opportunities to see the show […]

Memorial Day weekend is a busy time for food lovers in Columbus, with 3 great events vying for our attention: You can feed all of your senses at Columbus’ 17th annual Asian Festival at Franklin Park. The festival, on Saturday and Sunday, features all sorts of performances, activities, exhibits and an interesting selection of Asian […]

If you’ve read our recent Quick bites feature you’ll know that it’s almost time for the annual North Market apron gala. And, if you know much about the many North Market events that occur throughout the year, you’ll know that this is a big one. So, with that said, we’re excited to announce that we […]

There’s still time to buy a ticket for the Taste of Dine Originals this week (Thursday, May 12 from 6 to 9 pm), at the Audubon Center on the Whittier Peninsula. As always, this is one of the biggest food events of the year and is a fantastic fundraiser for the Buckeye Ranch. This year, […]

We all know that there are few businesses tougher than the restaurant business; over 60% of all independent restaurants close within 3 years, and reaching the 10 year mark is considered a tremendous achievement. Did you know that Columbus has a number of restaurants that had already hit the 10 year mark when Neil Armstrong […]

A stone’s throw away from the new Market District in Upper Arlington is the far more modest and human-scaled Tremont Center. Founded in 1954 and built of sturdy limestone, The Tremont Center is home to some of the historic gems of Upper Arlington. When my friend, fellow Slow Food Board Member and Upper Arlington native, Molly, […]

There are some great new bakeries popping up in Columbus. So far, 2011 has seen the arrival of Cherbourg bakery in Bexley and the Angry Baker in Olde Towne East. Cherbourg is a dedicated gluten and nut free bakery famous for their luscious lemon slices. We will be visiting them during our gluten free dessert […]

I was a guest on All Sides Weekend on WOSU this past Friday, and one of the topics of discussion related to where to go for Easter brunch. Having never been out for Easter brunch in Columbus, I did as much research as I could, searching online, visiting and calling restaurants. The number one thing […]

We’re pleased to announce our first gluten free dessert tour. We have had quite a few suggestions and inquiries about gluten free tours and with encouragement and advice from Wendy Gregory Kaho of Celiac’s in the House and Judee DeJaco of Gluten Free You and Me we decided to plan a special dessert tour. We […]

With so many noteworthy things happening in the Columbus food scene, it’s easy to overlook some of the incremental changes and other, somewhat quieter news. It’s also inevitable that some of the bigger news to the back of the queue. With this new occasional series, Quick Bites, we intend to address those problems by providing […]

There are a multitude of places that you can get a cheap happy hour martini or discounted draft beer, but perhaps even more interesting are the restaurants that offer great deals on quality happy hour dining in addition to the drink deals. We’ve spent a few weeks looking into these, and here are some of […]

Pi Day (3.14) seems like an appropriate day to write a post I’ve been thinking about for some time, a post about pies. Food trend predictions pointed to 2011 being the year of the pie with pies, both sweet and savory, being purported to be the new cupcake. When I started thinking about pies in […]

Last summer I read an article in the Dispatch called ‘Not in plain sight‘ about businesses in difficult or strange locations. It caught my attention because one of my favorite Pizza places (Bono Pizza) was featured. The other food business in the article was the Lobstah Shack. Of course I wanted to check it out, […]

Last week was a busy week of food events and fundraisers and I want to give you a little taste of each of them. Saturday night was the third annual Oscar dinner at the Hills Market. The food and wine choices are all inspired by the movies nominated for best picture. I love the effort […]

I’m excited to have been invited to speak at the Grandview Heights public library on Tuesday, March 8th at 7:00pm-8:30pm. The talk will cover a wide range of topics including the various food blogs that I founded and contribute to, taco trucks and street food in Columbus, and the founding of Columbus’ first food tour […]

Columbus has a wealth of restaurant weeks and lucky for us because there are so many wonderful restaurants to try. Dine Originals is a group of fifty plus independently owned local restaurants and their two annual restaurant weeks offer a wonderful opportunity to sample their wares. Spread over the fifty plus menus for Dine Originals […]

We’ve blogged previously about our brush with tornado weather, and now we’re back to report on our encounter with a hurricane – hurricane Molly. A veritable whirlwind of charm, enthusiasm, curiosity, energy, intellect and good cheer, Molly O’Neill – food writer extraordinaire and Columbus native made good – blew us away with her insatiable interest […]

Each winter, the Ohio Department of Tourism invites a group of people in the tourism industry to join them in New York City and pitch Ohio-related story ideas to national newspapers, magazines and travel guides. This year they invited me (and I happily accepted) to represent Columbus Food Adventures and, more broadly, Columbus’ culinary scene. […]

Fairy Goodmothers will hold their first annual Sparkles & Spurs Cocktails and Tasting event this Sunday, February 20 from 5:30-8:30pm at the Park Street Saloon. The event features one-of-a-kind dishes from some of Central Ohio’s most popular restaurants and chefs, a silent auction, and live entertainment from Alex White & Friends. Tickets are $25 per […]

Faith Durand, Columbus based managing editor of the popular website The Kitchn has written a great new cookbook. Not Your Mother’s Casseroles is a new look at the one-dish baked meal and as well as easy dinners it also contains a lot of tempting breakfast casseroles. There are lots of new takes on traditional casseroles, […]

If you think that our dessert tour is for people with a sweet tooth, then this is going to blow your mind. Luckily we have two free tickets to give away! The Hills Market is offering a chance to taste 17 of the best desserts Ohio has to offer paired with some of their favorite […]

Saturday January 29th is the 2011 Columbus Young Professionals ‘A Date to Remember‘. As a sponsor of the event we have been given two VIP tickets to give away to our readers. Last year A Date to Remember raised over $35,000 for charity and this year they are raising money for A Kid Again and […]

We have two free tickets to give away to the Copper Skillet Competition this Thursday January 6th at 5pm. It’s an Iron Chef like competition run by the International Association of Conference Centers and The Conference Center at NorthPointe was chosen to host this year’s 8th annual competition. If you would like to enter please leave a comment. The winner will be chosen at noon on Tuesday January 4th and notified by email.

Shabu shabu is the Japanese name for a type of ‘hot pot’, an Asian dish cooked and eaten at the table. It’s a shared dish, not unlike fondue, in which you dip meat (traditionally beef) and vegetables into hot broth to cook them. Shabu shabu translates as ‘swish swish’, and describes the sound of your […]

A strip mall is usually the last place I want to be on Christmas Eve, but I’d heard enough good things about Meadowlark to want to try it. I had a list of food places that I had been wanting to try in Dayton and so with some willing accomplices we embarked on a little food tour of Dayton.

If, like me, you are still looking for last minute gift ideas, here are some ideas for the food lovers in your life. These suggestions are Columbus based but might give inspiration to those of you living elsewhere. Gift Certificates Gift certificates are available for many Columbus restaurants. If you don’t want to pick a […]

Columbus has many annual food events. This week saw a fantastic new event that I hope will become an annual tradition. Splendid Holiday was held in the North Market’s Dispatch kitchen and was masterminded by Jeni’s Ice Creams.  As well as being a benefit for local non-profit Local Matters it was an opportunity to try […]

‘Tis the season of good cheer, and parties and sparkles, so what better time to indulge in a cocktail or two? Columbus has seen a resurgence of interest in classic cocktails this year and that, combined with some creative and talented mixologists, means that there is no shortage of interesting places to imbibe. This list is by no means exhaustive but includes some of my favorite places to sip on a mixed drink.

A respected friend of ours joined a friend of his on a tour of the best restaurants in Ohio. Upon return, we couldn’t resist asking him which was their favorite. Fully expecting the sort of discussion, debate, and equivocating that might reasonably meet such an overly simplistic question, we instead got this response: “Revolver.” Huh? […]

I have been familiar with the work of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank for sometime, but it was only recently that I discovered that we have a food pantry in our neighborhood. NNEMAP is short for Near Northside Emergency Material Assistance Program. It was founded in 1969 in the days before the neighborhood was known as […]

Congratulations to our friends Ryan and Brady at Middle West Spirits. Their OYO vodka just won a gold medal in the Beverage Testing Institute’s 2010 international competition. OYO vodka scored 92 points and placed 7th in the unflavored vodka category out of 128 entrants. This fantastic local product is made at their micro-distillery in the […]

Next week (November 8th-14th) is Dine Originals Week in Columbus. That means fantastic deals at 53 restaurants in Columbus, and with set menus priced at $10, $20 and $30 there’s something for every budget. This is a wonderful opportunity to try some new restaurants or to revisit an old favorite. We are proud that many […]

Regular Hungrywoolf readers and the beady eyed among you may have noticed a change this week. The Hungrywoolf blog is now redirecting to our Columbus Food Adventures blog. We have also transferred the entire Hungrywoolf archive over to Columbus Food Adventures. We decided that five blogs was one too many, and while taco trucks Columbus, […]

The Manhattan Project – a guest post by Bear A few of us have recently been inspired by the CMH Gourmand to turn a recreational evening or two into a quest for quality cocktails.  The Gourmand’s evening of Mojito Madness, while fun, got very confusing in the face of countless variations, so we decided to […]

The Italian Festival got me thinking about Italian food in Columbus and musing on ideas for a tour. While Columbus doesn’t have a Little Italy we do have some great Italian restaurants and food purveyors scattered around the city. Our tour would start, appropriately in Italian Village with an espresso or a cappuccino at Cafe […]

If you missed the event at the Ohio Historical Event last night, don’t worry you still have another opportunity to sample a range of Columbus’ street food. Sunday from 4-7pm at the old Wonder bread factory in Italian Village. My advice – get there early, be prepared to wait in line and make sure you […]

Tomorrow is the Ohio Historical Society Food Truck-a-Palooza from 4-7PM!  Admission to the event is FREE, and admission to the Historical Center is FREE!  The event will take place on the plaza level, so stop by on your way home to pick up dinner or have your friends and family meet you here!  They have […]

It’s really exciting how much buzz there is about local food in Columbus at the moment: farmer’s markets, Edible Columbus, new restaurants committed to local sourcing like Skillet and Knead, field to table dinners and the cow to cone marketing at Jeni’s. We are lucky to live in an agricultural state and have so much […]

Columbus Underground, our city’s premier online forum for discussion of all things Columbus, has lately been abuzz about the growing mobile food vending scene. Never one to miss a trend, Walker Evans, the site’s owner and operator, took a poll asking the CU brain trust to share their favorite food carts and/or trucks. The results […]

Our tours have, up until recently, been as close to seamless as we could have possibly hoped for. Weather – certainly a big variable on the taco truck tour – has been almost invariably wonderful, our guests have been almost unfailingly engaged and appreciative, and our restaurant partners have gone above and beyond in providing […]

Kings of Pastry is showing until October 7th at the Gateway Film Center. I highly recommend seeing it while you can. It is a quirky, touching, funny and overall captivating documentary about 16 chefs competing in the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France MOF) competition. This is the Olympics of French patisserie, a three day competition […]

You may have noticed that there are a lot of ‘Taste of…’ events in September, including some pricy fundraiser events, like ‘Taste the Future’. Following close on their footsteps next weekend is the far more accessible Taste of Grandview Heights on Sunday October 3rd from 2-7pm at McKinley Park, 1661 Goodale Boulevard. Unlike the others, […]

If you are an avid twitterer in Ohio you have probably come across @roguebakery. Rogue Bakery is not a conventional bakery with a store front and they don’t advertise. It is more of a secret cookie club spreading by word of mouth on social media, and knowing the secret is part of the fun. Like Columbus […]

Local ice-cream legend (and valued Columbus Food Adventures partner) Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams is opening their newest location in Clintonville on October 1st! And, it’s not just any Jeni’s – in addition to everything that makes any Jeni’s store an instant neighborhood hotspot, this location also includes the additions of freshly brewed Stauf’s coffee and –  oooh […]

While I was out of work the library was a wonderful place. I could borrow books and movies without worrying about spending money I didn’t have. I could test out new cookbooks, escape in some fiction or research career options. Here’s a post I wrote about my library love last year. Now the library is […]

Our first special event tour, a collaboration with Slow Food Columbus, was a great success. Our sell out tour was a full day of Ohio eating and drinking, with just the right amount of education. We toured, and tasted wine at four Ohio River wineries- Kinkead Ridge, Meranda Nixon, La Vigna and Valley Vineyards. Some […]

Have you ever tasted a pawpaw? If the answer is no, then you should make plans to head to the Ohio pawpaw festival next weekend. Pawpaws are the largest native fruit in the United States and the official native fruit of Ohio. They are also an Ark of Taste fruit.  They grow on trees in […]

Here’s a different sort of adventure – tour the food of Columbus’ best restaurants while staying in the same place. We have two tickets to giveaway to Taste the Future, a wonderful event, which helps to fund scholarships and other special programs at Columbus State Community College. To whet your appetite here are more photos […]

We are pleased to be partner with Local Matters for a special benefit tour during Local Foods Week 2010 (October 2nd-8th). Our tour will highlight some of the talented chefs in Columbus who emphasize local sourcing. Our four stops will be Skillet, Latitude 41, Clever Crow (at Circus) and Knead and will also feature CBC beer […]

The pools are closing, the kids are back in school and yesterday I saw pumpkins and apple cider at the farmers’ market. It’s officially the end of summer. For me it seems to have gone by in a flash – I’ve been going full throttle all summer on our new business start up – Columbus […]

Toad in the hole is a very traditional English dish. A quick explanation if you haven’t come across it before – it is sausages baked into Yorkshire pudding batter and yes, I know it’s confusing that it’s called pudding. Yorkshire pudding is a baked batter that’s similar to popovers. It is often served with gravy. […]

*Purchase tickets here!* We are excited to announce that we will be partnering with Slow Food Columbus to offer an exclusive, full-day tour of the wineries of the Ohio River Valley.  We will see where and how some of the best Ohio wines are made, learn about the history of Ohio wine, and taste a wide […]

Many people, myself included fell in love with the yellow squash mustard pickles from last weekend’s Flying J dinner.  Zach and Mary Briggs are Slow Food Columbus members who lovingly made and generously donated the pickles for the event even though they weren’t able to attend the dinner themselves. They gave me permission to share […]

Slow Food Columbus’ third annual open air dinner was held at the Flying J Farm near Johnstown Ohio. Our run of good luck with the weather had come to an end, but such is the risk of any outdoor event and we ploughed on regardless. Contingency plans were put into action and our smiling host […]

Our apologies for not keeping the blog as updated as we’d hoped to – the last month has been a whirlwind, and we’re still trying to catch our breath! The tours, overall, have been going very well.  There was a bit of a learning curve to working out and refining the logistics of each tour, […]

Last Sunday’s Grown in Ohio potluck for the Goodale Park Music Series was a big success. Three tables were packed with food showcasing the bounty of the Ohio harvest. From colorful beets to delicious peach desserts it was a tempting spread. Hungrywoolf was the host blog and I wanted to focus on fruits and vegetables […]

The Goodale Park Music Series is one of my favorite things about summer in Columbus. It’s a recipe for relaxing Sunday: great music, friends, running into people you know, sitting under a shady tree, people watching and enjoying a picnic lunch. This summer the Goodale Park Music Series also features a community potluck. Each week […]

This week marked hungrywoolf’s second anniversary and  as with the first anniversary, it seems an appropriate point for some reflection and thank yous. The most common reaction of people that I mentioned this milestone to was ‘really, it’s only been two years?’ and while it does seem like a lot has happened in the last […]

It was no secret, among many around town, that Anthony Bourdain came to Columbus last November, and it was no secret that he brought his camera crew with him.  Thanks to the efforts of a several local foodies with connections, Bourdain and crew were directed towards Kihachi and Clever Crow pizza.  From November on, we […]

Columbus made a brief appearance in Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations ‘Heartland’ episode this evening. The fly-by visit was great exposure for two of our local talents but caused much consternation in the twitter-facebook-CU sphere, mostly due to Michael Ruhlman’s comments about Applebee’s and his apparent surprise that good food was to be found in Columbus. […]

I haven’t been posting as much on Hungrywoolf in recent weeks as I would like, but I think I have a good reason. I’ve been working towards the launch of a new venture, my new business – Columbus Food Adventures. Starting July 27th I will be offering small group food tours of Columbus. We are […]

I had been kicking around the idea of starting a food tour business in Columbus for quite some time – over a year, really – but it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that the true viability of the idea gelled for me.

What was the catalyst? Oddly enough, it stemmed from work we were doing with CMH Magazine. They had asked us (the alt.eats team) if we might be interested in doing an article based upon some aspect of our blog, and since there were so many alt.eats picks on Cleveland Ave., we suggested basing the article upon the theme of all of the great ethnic restaurants that nobody had heard about on that strip.

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One of the reasons that I signed up for the Wayward Seed Farm fruit CSA this year was the lure of Eschleman Fruit Farm apricots. Wayward Seed partner with Eschelman’s for the fruit CSA and so far we have had strawberries, apricots, cherries and blueberries. I love fresh apricots, both visually and to eat. The […]

It is often asserted that Columbus is the ice cream capital of the world, and while the city has a very good case,  including the rest of Central Ohio does make a stronger argument for ice cream dominance. Weldon’s have been producing ice cream in the same location for 80 years and their Millersport store, […]

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Columbus is in the midst of mobile food mania. Following the lead of cities like New York, LA and Portland, the trend of gourmet food trucks is hitting the streets of Columbus. Last year when we started the website tacotruckscolumbus.com, we thought that we might find up to ten taco trucks – we grossly underestimated. […]

When I was a child I spent many summer afternoons picking fruit with my parents. We were lucky to have some wonderful pick-your-own farms within reach and would come home with baskets full of strawberries and raspberries as well as loganberries, tayberries and redcurrants. The best strawberries I have ever had were eaten crouched in […]

This hybrid dish is part gremolata (garlic, parsley, lemon zest), part pesto (basil, olive oil) and part skordalia (garlic, almonds, olive oil), green and vibrant, garlicky but with a freshness added by the lemon. It has a multitude of uses. The full list of ingredients was: garlic scapes toasted sliced almonds parsley basil olive oil […]

Spanakopita is a Greek phyllo dough pastry traditionally filled with spinach and feta cheese. It can either be made as a large pie or, as I prefer, triangles. I started with a recipe from the Food Network, but over the course of several batches refined both my technique and the recipe. 1 package frozen phyllo […]

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the morning with Jim Rockwell, from Toby Run Growers, at the North Market Farmers’ Market. I was preparing samples of Jim’s shitake and oyster mushrooms for the shoppers who braved both the disruption of Park Street festival and the rain. For those of you who didn’t see these […]

Wild Goose have put on some fantastic food events over the last year. As well as their monthly ‘too many cooks’ series and regular cooking classes they hosted the phenoms of bacon camp and beer camp, even organizing a parade for the latter. Asparafest may have been the most enjoyable yet: a celebration of local, […]

I had so many food recommendations for Chicago, I could have eaten non-stop for several months. Unfortunately, my visit was only two days and therefore merely served to whet my appetite. This was my first visit to Chicago and so, of course, I had to start with some of the basics: deep dish pizza and […]

Today I went back in time, back to an age when fast food and drive-ins were a novelty. I had this taste of vintage Americana in Greenville, Ohio, a small town better known as the home of the Kitchen-Aid mixer. For the uninitiated (and that will include most people who don’t hail from Iowa), a […]

As the only working chef in the US who is also a Master Sommelier, Steve Geddes is an anomaly. Achieving the honor of Master Sommelier is impressive enough as there are fewer than 200 of them worldwide, but Steve decided that where he really wanted to be was in the kitchen. He moved to Cincinnati […]

Wine isn’t the first agricultural product that comes to mind when you think of Ohio, so you would probably be surprised by how many wineries there are in the state, and the quality of many of the wines that are produced. June is Ohio wine month and it is a great time to explore or […]

Last time we visited Luc’s Asian Market we couldn’t resist buying a case of mangoes. We wanted to make more mango sorbet after a successful trial run last week. The recipe (from Epicurious) couldn’t be simpler. 4 large ripe mangoes or 6 smaller champagne mangoes (about 3.5 lbs total) 1 cup simple syrup 3 tablespoons […]

When I volunteered for the North Market Apron Gala Mary told me that I would be assigned the role of ‘Apron Fairy’. She assured me that it would be fun. All I had to do , she informed me, was hand out stickers to the best aprons, oh, and wear a set of wings. Dressing up […]

I will admit that I have a big soft-spot for John Dornback, the talented chef and owner of Basi Italia. Johnny was the chef for our last two Slow Food open air dinners and as well as cooking up delicious food in far from ideal circumstances (a folding table in a windy field), his enthusiasm […]

My normal Saturday morning routine involves a trip to the North Market Farmer’s Market. The convenience and familiarity make this routine comfortable, but every so often I break out of my usual pattern, tempted to explore other farmers markets. Last year I visited Granville and Athens farmers markets, some of the smaller weekday markets and […]

Carlos, the owner of the two Las Delicias trucks told us that he relocates his newer truck to Rhodes Park on Sundays. When he mentioned that there were other food vendors there, we were curious and we’ve been waiting for a sunny Sunday afternoon to check it out. The vendors are here to to feed […]

A recipe born from the contents of the fridge, my drive to use up leftovers and some added inspiration from my mother. Ingredients: Frozen phyllo dough (defrosted 6 hours) 1 stick melted butter 3/4 tub of ricotta cheese – leftover from ravioli experiments 1/2 piece of potent and over ripe blue cheese 1 small onion […]

We just wrote a post on about Luc”s on alteats but I am so enamored with this new find that I wanted to post something on hungrywoolf as well. It seems that a lot of the best ethnic food in Columbus is hidden in the back of grocery stores (Arirang, Mecca, Salam) and this is […]

It’s been a long time since I made a quiche, and I’m not sure what first inspired this one, but it seemed to be a good use for the various spring vegetables that have been collecting in the fridge. I did some searching through cookbooks and online to check on the proportions of cream to […]

We had been asked by Johnny di Loretto to suggest a good venue for a Cinco de Mayo spot on Fox 28’s Good Day Columbus. We did a show with him in the fall about taco trucks and had a lot of fun. We suggested the colorful bakery Otro Rollo on Sullivant Avenue, one of […]

I have to admit a weakness for food that is cooked or finished at the table. Whether it be a dipping bread into a steaming pot of melted cheese, wedge shaped raclette creations or just assemble-it-yourself crispy duck pancakes, I love the conviviality of sharing food with friends and the freedom to play with your food. Do-it-yourself […]

I love a good mole, but they are hard to find because they are so labor intensive to make. Mole Negro takes many hours to made from scratch and the list of ingredients is daunting. There are four types of chilis as well as various nuts and seeds. There is also an art to toasting […]

This dish from Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm is one of those simple recipes that really showcases great ingredients. I knew that it was what I wanted to make with this week’s pound of local farmer’s market asparagus. The asparagus was from Steve Anderson via the North Market farmers market. The eggs were […]

If you ever have the chance to go to Alana’s for a happy hour, you should go.  Alana’s has one of the best cocktail menu’s in town: creative and seasonal, just what you would expect from Alana. This one was a CD101 happy hour, part of a partnership with Dine Originals and each month they […]

Truckload of Tacos is the headline of G.A. Benton’s taco truck feature in this week’s Alive! We had a lot of fun showing G.A and the rest of the Alive crew around some of our favorite trucks and were really pleased with their fantastic seven page(!) feature – as well as the plug for our […]

This was the first in what we hope will be a series of dinners featuring unusual dishes and ingredients. Restaurants often shape their menus around the safe choices of what sells well. We hope to give chefs an opportunity to prepare dishes that they would not normally feature, either because they include less popular or […]

I first read about risotto style pasta in Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Column in the New York Times last November. Since then we have fallen in love with this method of cooking pasta and made it in many variations. I have been meaning to write a post about it for months. Slowly adding stock to […]

Last week I saw a tweet from the Greener Grocer saying that they had ‘mama and baby artichokes’. I have a hard time resisting baby vegetables, but I have never cooked artichokes before, and have to admit that I was intimidated. A couple of days later Heidi Robb’s post on roasted artichokes appeared in my […]

The real work of Earth Day was done last weekend with a massive volunteer effort throughout Central Ohio. Almost 4,000 volunteers picked up trash, planted trees and worked in community gardens. Events like Thursday’s Earth Day celebration at Franklin Park are a forum for inspiration and education. The event gives non-profits and eco-friendly businesses an opportunity […]

When I was in London last month, I fulfilled one of my wishes. I have been wanting to visit Books for Cooks for years. This Notting Hill shop has a worldwide reputation. As well as an amazing selection of cookbooks, they also have a test kitchen/ cafe with a daily changing lunch menu, and offer […]

I’ve been a bit neglectful in not writing a full post about Captain Cream Cheese – I’ve been a big fan of this little neighborhood gem since it opened back in January. Captain Cream Cheese operates out of the same tiny parking lot hut that houses Mikey’s Late Night Slice, next to Bodega on High […]

We had an interesting evening at Middle West Spirits open house, a new micro-distillery that has opened in the Short North. Sadly they are not allowed to sell any of their product yet, but they hope it will be available in May, and we will be eagerly awaiting it. This is the first micro-distillery in […]

This week I had the pleasure of assisting at a North Market Chef Series cooking class. This week’s chef, Paul Yow has an amazing Columbus restaurant pedigree having worked at The Refectory and Rigsby’s and he is now the Executive Chef of Barcelona Restaurant and Bar in German Village. Paul set out to teach us […]

Ramps, also known as wild leeks and more properly known as allium tricoccum are a native plant found widely in wooded areas of Ohio and other states from South Carolina up into Canada. They are especially popular in West Virginia. I first tasted them at Details (RIP) last year, mixed into a spoon bread by […]

One of the most fun meals I had while I was at home in England was a raclette dinner with my god-daughter and her family. I have had lots of fondue dinners, but this was a new experience for me. Raclette is both the name of a Swiss cheese and a table-top grill where you […]

When I first saw these little downy pods in a box at Salam Market and Bakery (in Columbus Square) I had to ask what they were. They looked like over grown pussy willows. I was told that they were green almonds and that I was welcome to try one. In the spring, when they are green […]

The hot weather today made me crave something light, fresh and green. Here’s what I came up with from the nearly empty fridge. It was a surprising hit and was deemed ‘blog-able’. A few handfuls of gorgeous local kale from 1 Fuji apple, thinly sliced a handful of natural sliced almonds some shavings of parmesan […]

Apologies for the lack of new posts. I have been in England for the last couple of weeks and in between all trains, friends, reunions and babies there wasn’t time to sit down at a computer for anything more than keeping my email under control. Of course, I fit in a trip to Wagamama, branched […]

(A guest post by the mysterious AD) Unctuous.  Almost everything you need to know about the method of preparing bone marrow we touch on below can be found at Michael Ruhlman’s blog (here)… except for the definition of unctuous (though the word is used).  Here goes: 1 a : fatty, oily b : smooth and greasy […]

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted about many restaurants on hungrywoolf recently. This is because almost all of my eating-out time has been directed towards our new project and we are finally ready to share it with the world! The idea for alt.eats.columbus came about during the research for our taco truck project. We […]

I have written about a couple of the North Market cooking classes I attended in February but so far I have not mentioned the two Dine Originals Chef Series classes. I was privileged to attend classes taught by James Beard Award nominee Kent Rigsby of Rigsby’s Kitchen and one of my favorite chef’s in the […]

“I could eat this salad every day” said one of our dinner guests last night, “It’s creamy, sweet, salty, spicy, cool and crunchy all at the same time”. The salad from David Chang’s Momofuku cookbook is called fuji apple salad, kimchi, smoked jowl and maple labne.We discovered this salad back in November and have been […]

On May 1st I will be teaching a Mother’s Day kids cooking class at the North Market’s Dispatch Kitchen. We will be making vegetable robots, homemade pasta and ravioli, butter and chocolate truffles as a gift for Mother’s Day. I am really looking forward to it. Last month I assisted at Sheri Lisak’s kids Valentine’s […]

It’s nice when someone thinks that you have had a good idea, but even better when they have the means and motivation to turn your good idea into reality. At some point last year I suggested to Robin Davis that a class on how to make your own bacon would be interesting. I think this […]

I had such a good time at last year’s Hills Oscar Dinner that as soon as the 2010 dinner was announced I knew I wanted to attend. Jill (Marketing Director and Event Planner Extraordinaire) and Constance (Wine Director) are so creative with their wine and food pairings and it is fun to interact with the […]

It’s been a long gray winter in Central Ohio, but after a few days of glorious sunshine spring seems to be on the horizon. Time to stop hiding under blankets and get out and about. If the promise of spring makes you want to get out of the house and try something new, there are […]

The Fiery Foods Festival is a fun North Market event with competitions for chefs, amateur cooks and crazy people who want to see how many hot peppers they can eat. Appropriately held in one of the coldest months of the year, the Fiery Foods Festival is definitely a winter warmer. Many of the vendors get […]

A guest post from Bear – because it was cool, and delicious and he was the one that did it. Cheryl at Bluescreek Farm Meats in the North Market was looking at me as though I’d finally lost my mind.  And I could kind of understand why.  I wasn’t quite sure, myself. I’d asked her […]

I make no apology for posting about Kihachi again. I started writing this blog to record and share food experiences that excited me and every time I go to Kihachi I experience something new and wonderful. The food is so beautiful that I can’t resist taking photos and blogging allows me to remember and relive […]

One of the friends we have made in the course of our taco trucking endeavors called us up to ask if we were free for dinner. As she was responsible for introducing us to Los Guachos it was unlikely that we would say no. She said that she wanted to try a restaurant called Los […]

I recently finished reading Robb Walsh’s book Sex, Death and Oysters and am now obsessed with oysters on the half shell. If I could, I would be on my way down to Galveston Bay. I have always enjoyed oysters but have never eaten them with great frequency or in large quantities. Now, I want to […]

Cauliflower cheese is a very British comfort food. When I get a craving for a cheesy sauce it is to cauliflower and not macaroni that I turn. My most recent incarnation of the dish uses smoked bacon and smoked 5 year old cheddar from Thurn’s. I made it for lunch last week and it was […]

This dip was inspired by one of the appetizers on Sage‘s restaurant week menu. I saw truffled white bean dip and thought – I could try making that at home. You may remember from the popcorn post that I live with a truffle fiend so I knew it would be an easy sell. White bean […]

Popular history has it that the Garibaldi biscuit was invented by Peek Freans in 1861 and was named after the Italian revolutionary of the same name. Why they thought that this particular biscuit, otherwise known as a squashed fly biscuit, was an appropriate tribute is not reported. The Garibaldi, a cookie to my American friends, […]

One of the other dishes that we made for Burn’s Night was Scotch eggs. I’m not sure how they got the name Scotch eggs because everything I found online says that they were invented at Fortnum & Mason, a very up market grocery/department store in London in 1738. Scotch eggs are a popular picnic or […]

Making your own haggis in the US is quite an endeavor. Traditional haggis recipes call for a sheep’s stomach and a sheep’s pluck (heart, lungs, windpipe and liver). Unfortunately it is impossible to buy sheep’s stomach and lungs. Blues Creek were happy to supply me with the liver and heart but that was all. I did a lot of research, comparing recipes, looking for substitutions and seasonings. Alton Brown used a tongue instead of the lungs, others used lamb shoulder. I decided to use a mixture of lamb trimmings and beef tripe, which seemed like it might be the closest in texture and not too strongly flavored. I was able to get tripe from La Plaza Tapatia (a large Mexican grocery store) where they had three different types on display.

It seems that almost every day is designated a ‘national food day‘. Some dates have multiple honors, today is National Cheese Lovers day, National Granola bar day and National Buttercrunch day. Tomorrow is national New England Clam Chowder day and so it goes on. Yesterday I read on twitter that it was national popcorn day. […]

I wanted to draw your attention to the latest Columbus Foodcast. In this episode we interviewed two local chefs and explored the term ‘Ingredient Driven’. When Skillet Rustic Urban Food opened last fall their menu proclaimed that they were ingredient driven. That made us curious and we wanted to find out more. It seems that […]

Just as Australians and Brits argue over marmite versus vegemite, so the Australians and Kiwis argue over who invented the pavlova. It is a speciality of both countries but despite a lot of research by food historians, its still hard to pin point who first used the name. Legend is that the dessert was named after […]

Yesterday I wrote about returning to an old favorite cookbook. Today I want to write about a new one. I was given ‘Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes From An Organic Farm‘ for Christmas and it has become an instant favorite. It is a cookbook with beautiful photographs and enticing recipes but it is also a […]

I tend to go through phases with cookbooks and it had been a while since I had last dallied with Veganomicon. As anyone who read the pig’s head post knows, I am far from being a vegan but this cookbook has some great recipes and I love their quinoa salad, stir fried greens, cauliflower hummus […]

Inspired by Robin Davis and by being able to see the back of the cupboard for the first time in years, I have been on a mission to use-up, reduce and turn over. Targets include bags of rice and grains that have been in the cupboard for 6 months or more, jars that have been open too long, anything with freezer burn and all the things I bought thinking that I would use, and haven’t. I made a list of all of the meals or dishes we could make based on what we had in the freezer and cupboard and was astounded at how long it was.

I have to admit that I was drawn to this book as soon as I heard the title. Robb Walsh’s collection of articles and essays was published in 2003 and although some of the stories date back to the early nineties, it remains fresh, interesting and entertaining. I learned numerous obscure and fascinating facts ranging […]

When AD asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said that I wanted to eat cheese fondue and drink French 75s. This was with our visit to the Velvet Tango Room in Cleveland still fresh in my mind. When I found a beautiful Bodum fondue set under the Christmas tree I knew plans were promising.

When life gives you lemons make lemonade, when life gives you leftover eggnog and Christmas pudding make trifle. This decadent concoction of Christmas leftovers was inspired by my mother when I mentioned that we had a lot of leftover Christmas pudding. Not much was eaten on Christmas Day because everyone was too full to eat […]

While we were waiting for our simmering pigs heads, we decided to attempt one of David Chang’s more straightforward recipes: pork buns. I say it is simple, because we took the short cut and bought the buns. This meant that all we had to do was roast some pork belly, make some quick salt cucumber […]

Most reviews of the Momofuku cookbook will tell you that the recipes are challenging, complicated and intimidating. While there are some simple gems, many of the recipes are indeed not to be undertaken lightly. Perhaps none more so than the pig’s head torchon, a recipe that is five pages long, takes many hours and is accompanied by a photo that looks like the trailer for a horror movie.

I haven’t baked any Christmas cookies but I have been playing around with some sugar confections for the holidays. First were marshmallows. I have been wanting to make marshmallows since I read Molly Wizenburg’s ‘A homemade life‘. She describes coming home and finding her then boyfriend making marshmallows, and that being the decisive moment that […]

Mince pies are an English Christmas tradition and if you visit anyone in England over Christmas, chances are you will be offered a mince pie. Often they are store bought, sometimes the pastry is homemade but the filling has been purchased. This year was the first time I have made my own mincemeat filling. I […]

If you have leftover eggnog from a holiday party, here’s an idea for using it up and creating a decadent dessert. It may also help you to use up some stale bread. I used some panettone that I bought at Presti’s bakery in Cleveland last month. Alternatively you can keep the eggnog and see how […]

It is amazing what a wonderful series of meals you can have from one simple chicken. The bird in question was a 5lb pastured chicken from Speckled Hen Farm, via North Market Poultry and Game. Unfortunately my enthusiastic carver set to work before I remembered to take a photo, but it was a fine looking […]

his was organized by Wing’s owner Ken Yee in conjunction with Jeffrey Topping from Wild Scotsman Whisky, with guest of honor John McDougall.

John McDougall is the only man alive to be both a master distiller and a master blender. One of his other claims to fame is that he has produced whisky in all five scottish whisky regions. He has had an esteemed career spanning almost 50 years and is now a freelance consultant and mentor. John McDougall is a spirited raconteur (excuse the pun) and he shared anecdotes as well as knowledge.

This post is prompted both by my need to finish my christmas shopping and also by the bombardment of emails I have received with gift ideas from local businesses. These suggestions are therefore central-Ohio centric but could be adapted depending on where you live. Jeni’s Ice Creams now do mail order and by the power […]

My friends Margaux and Tim very kindly offered to share some of their excess Thanksgiving CSA produce. Tim arrived on the doorstep with a huge bag of kale and a napa cabbage as big as a newborn baby. This bag of greens took up a whole shelf in the fridge and we spent over a […]

As far as I know the Restaurante Savladoreno (or Cafeteria Salvadorian) is the only Salvadoran restaurant in Columbus. It is located near the Port of Columbus airport on the same street (3208 Allegheny Drive) as El Tacorriendo. Located in an otherwise deserted strip mall it is the only beacon of light in a very dark […]

Poong Mei Asian Bistro is the restaurant also/ formerly known as Spring of China. The owners realized that the name was misleading as their offerings span Chinese, Korean and Japanese but the transition to a new name seems to be very gradual. We were told that Poong Mei means successful in Chinese, tasty in Korean […]

Inspired by my hoard of braeburns and winesaps and by a Rowley Leigh recipe clipped from the FT that my mother brought me I decided to make an apple tart. It is not the sort of baking that I do on a regular basis but well worth the effort and it turned out perfectly. The recipe was a russet tart with pinenuts with a layer on almond cream under the apples.

f you would like to expand your own cookie repertoire here is your chance. The Inn at Cedar Falls is hosting a holiday cooking baking class. The cosy Inn is a perfect venue for such an event. After the success of our competition this summer Ellen asked if I would like to host another competition for them.

My parents just left after a lovely week long visit. I am sad to see them leave but luckily they left lots of treats behind including three jars of marmite (2 special editions) which will help to console me. As well as marmite, chocolate and christmas crackers I also have a pile of new books […]

I have followed in Anthony Bourdain’s footsteps before but never as closely as I did last night. This time it was unintended. When I planned an omakase dinner at Kihachi for my parents visit from England, I had no idea that we would be visiting the restaurant on the same day as Mr Bourdain would be there filming for his travel food show No Reservations. You would never guess from Chef Mike Kimura and this staff that this was a special day. It was all calm efficiency as usual. We learned about it initially from our neighbors at the bar. Of course we couldn’t resist asking Chef Mike what he had prepared for his special guest and what his impressions had been.

This month for Taste and Create I was paired with the blog Seduce your taste buds written by Indian blogger Padmajha Sureshbabu. I chose her recipe for Potato n peas. It was hard to chose a recipe but I had a bag of besan (gram flour) left from last month’s Taste and Create and I […]

A trip to the Fabulous Food Show was the perfect excuse to spend the rest of the weekend exploring Cleveland. Our last visit following in the steps of Anthony Bourdain was a lot of fun, but only scratched the surface so I was excited to see and taste more. We were lucky with both trips: […]

Overall I found the Fabulous Food Show a little depressing. Part of it was the casino-like environment of the IX Center itself and part of it was the range of offerings on display within. There were a lot of demonstrations and tastings but walking around the main floor of the IX center, I couldn’t shake […]

I had an intriguing comment on a recent post, from a reader who offered to share a spreadsheet of  Asian restaurants in Columbus. I love lists and I love Asian food so I didn’t hesitate to respond. We started comparing notes via email and decided to meet to try a restaurant new to both of […]

One of the sad truths about blogging is that usually when you have a lot to write about, you struggle to find time to sit down and write about it. At the moment I would like to tell you about my first visit to Indochine for Vietnamese and Laotian food, a fun trip with old […]

One of the great things about living in Columbus is the public library system. I filled in a library feedback survey today and was reminded of how many services the library offers to the community: literacy, meeting spaces, computer access, job workshops and community events. I mostly use the library for borrowing books and DVDs […]

  I grew a kohlrabi in the garden this summer (yeah, just the one!) and have been fascinated by them ever since. They have a firm texture and the flavor is a cross between a broccoli stem and cabbage. I bought a couple from Wayward Seed Farm at the farmers market this weekend along with […]

Yesterday I was going to make a Leek cheese and bacon tart from the October issue of BBC Good Food magazine. I thought it would be a perfect use for my Wayward Seed Farm leeks and some Heini’s lacey baby Swiss cheese that AD’s mom gave us on Sunday. Unfortunately poor planning (or more accurately procrastination) […]

I’m usually a purist about scones. My British upbringing is deeply ingrained and we learned how to make scones in our home economics class in school. I like English style scones – pronounced to rhyme with gone – and not too sweet. The only acceptable versions are plain or sultana (golden raisin), ideally served with […]

Skillet‘s motto is rustic urban food. Their mission is ingredient driven comfort food – with an edge and they do it well. The food is familiar but with a creative twist. I was smitten immediately. What could be more comforting than warm vanilla and mascarpone breakfast risotto with pan-roasted peaches brûlée with bourbon molasses red […]

When Jill Moorhead, the Marketing Director for The Hills Market suggested holding an Ark of Taste tasting event at the store, I don’t think she had any idea what she was letting herself in for. The US Ark of Taste is a catalogue of over 200 foods in danger of extinction, and not surprisingly things in danger of extinction aren’t easy to track down.

Reputed to be one of the best places for fried chicken in the state of Ohio, Clark’s is a 91 year old institution, but if you want a taste of their traditional comfort food, you only have four days left. Clark’s will close their doors for the last time on Sunday evening, November 1st. If you are a fan of fried chicken, have been meaning to visit Clark’s, or if you want a taste of nostalgia put it to the top of your to-do list now.

2009 has been the year of the cupcake in Columbus and while the cupcake bubble may have burst nationally, Columbus is bucking the trend. The Dispatch first reported the growing Columbus cupcake trend in 2007 but this year has seen two Cupcake Camps and sales of cupcakes booming. 2009 has also seen the opening of […]

One of the great things about the Hills Market is that you can get Jeni’s ice cream, Pistacia Vera and Pattycake Bakery goodies all under one roof. Add that they are licensed to sell liquor and that they have a great cheese selection and you don’t need any more reasons to go. This event was […]

I read about Taste & Create last month on Columbus Foodie’s blog and thought that it sounded like a fun idea. Bloggers are paired up and have to make a recipe they choose from the other’s blog. I was excited to be paired with Bombay Foodie as I love Indian food but rarely cook it at home. Reading through the archives of Bombay Foodie make me nostalgic for the three months I spent in Northern India in 2000. I didn’t go to Bombay, but the diwali sweets, paranthas and pakoras brought back happy memories.

Last year the ‘Shake the Hand That Feeds you Dinner’ at the Flying J Farm was my first Slow Food event. It was a magical evening, eating al fresco by candle light with convivial company, food from the farm and a master chef working the grill. I secretly feared that the encore could not live up to my memories. I was wrong. Sitting at a candle-lit table overlooking the vineyard at sunset, it was as if we had been magically transported to the Napa valley.

Columbus is often thought of as a white bread town, territory of generic chains and home of the fast food giants White Castle and Wendy’s. Dig around though, and between the Olive Garden’s and Applebees you can find some fantastic independent restaurants and (the point of this post), some ethnic gems. Last week in two […]

As I child I loved gingerbread. I eagerly helped my mother roll the gingerbread dough, cut out snowmen and reindeer shapes, and when she wasn’t looking I would nibble the scraps of dough. I loved the aromatic mix of exotic spices and the magic of gingerbread houses. In recent years my taste has been soured […]

Last Sunday I was a volunteer helper at a Dispatch Kitchen cooking class taught by Robin Davis, food editor of the Columbus Dispatch and a James Beard award winner. It was instantly clear that Robin is an experienced teacher and demonstrator. Everything was perfectly organized with ingredients for each course on separate labeled trays, every ingredient prepped and every plate piled up. This made volunteering a pleasure and I was able to sit at the back and for the most part learn with the rest of the students.

Why in Columbus do the suburbs have the best sushi? One of the reasons that it took me so long to try it, is that if I am going to drive (all the way) out to Dublin, and spend a good chunk of change, I want a guaranteed good experience. It is therefore tempting to stick with the tried and true, Kihachi and Kikyo. Now I can add Sushi Bistro Masa.

There is a lot of chat about where to find the best sushi on Columbus Underground and Kihachi is often mentioned. I rate Kihachi as one of my overall favorite restaurants in Columbus, but they are not a dedicated sushi restaurant so their daily offering of sushi, whilst excellent is limited. Sushi Bistro Masa (as the name suggests) has a much wider range of sushi, and sashimi, and I would nominate them as a strong, if not top, contender for the best sushi in town.

I can safely say that I had never (knowingly) eaten camel. Ridden on one yes, but considered eating one? No. It sounds like a contender for Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods, not something you would find in Ohio. So how did it come about that I sat down to a dinner of camel sausages?

I attended some wonderful events during the week including the Market to Market Bike Ride, North Market Harvest Festival, A benefit dinner at Alana’s and A Cow to Cone tour at Jeni’s Ice Cream. Coincidentally our Slow Food Locavore Dinner at Otter Creek was also held during local foods week, so it really was a localicious week.
As soon as I heard about the tour of Jeni’s I called to book a spot and I am so glad that I did. This rare behind the scenes tour guided by Jeni was limited to twenty people (the reason became obvious as we squeezed into the kitchen and completely disrupted production) and had a wait-list of 50 plus.

I am  a big fan of Pistacia Vera and I was excited to see that Spencer Budros, the head chef and co-owner was teaching a class in the Dispatch Kitchen. Anyone who knows anything about Pistacia Vera’s macarons could have guessed that we would not be learning how to make them in a 2 hour […]

DeepWood hosted ‘The Pig Who Went to Market’ dinner on Monday night. To be precise there were two prime Ohio hogs involved in the preparation of this 7 course porcine feast and DeepWood is a restaurant. But otherwise the name was fitting, this dinner was truly a celebration of all parts pig. A true snout […]

With its combination of end-of-the-summer sweet corn and cosy warmth, corn chowder is the perfect comfort food for windy fall day. It makes you want to curl up on the couch with a blanket and a good novel. I had had the idea of making corn chowder for a few days but I can’t remember who […]

At the end of March we attended a mushroom log workshop hosted by Janell Baran at Blue Owl Hollow Tree Farm near Newark. Janell told us that it would probably take a year before we saw any mushrooms appear. Imagine our surprise and delight when we ventured outside between rainstorms last week and found our […]

Yes, its a sequel, but we think this is one time that the sequel will be even better than the first. This time we will have the movie showing of The 3 Amigos and we have refined the route and learned a few lessons and have a few improvements from the first Night of 1000 […]

I first heard about Cafe Bella when I went to the WCBE Coffee Klatch on locavorism in July. I have biked and driven past its North High Street location many times but never really noticed its unprepossessing exterior. What intrigued me were the stories of a patio garden filled with plants being grown for a […]

This post is also posted on tacotruckscolumbus.com Before an event I always worry about how it will turn out. I worry about whether enough people will come, or too many people and I worry about the weather and traffic and toilets. I am usually told that things will work out fine, and in the case […]

Last year when I tried my first pawpaw, I had no idea that a year later I would be judging the best pawpaw competition at the Ohio pawpaw festival. Although this was my first experience food judging I did feel somewhat qualified. I have watched CMH Gourmand in judging action many times and as well […]

As well as being packed with food events, this has been a technology intensive week. I have been playing with google reader (why didn’t I do this before?), my iphone, which isn’t new but I have some great new apps (love the new flickr and skype apps) and twitter (I could only resist for so […]

September has been a month jam packed with food events and it shows no sign of abating. I don’t want you to think that I am complaining, I’m not, I’ve been having a great time and lots of wonderful experiences. The title is a homage to the first event I want to mention, a panel […]

Following the success of our Cleveland road trip, we decided that it was time for a food filled excursion to Cincinnati. This time we weren’t following in the footsteps of Anthony Bourdain, but we did have some great suggestions via comments on the Cleveland post. Thanks to the readers who were so forthcoming with ideas. […]

The winner is Kate B. Congratulations. I hope that you have a wonderful dinner at Basi Italia. The photo was taken on the Patio at Basi Italia last Halloween, so there is still plenty of patio time left. I think our last patio dinner there last year was in November wrapped in blankets and surrounded […]

This week is the second Dine Originals Restaurant Week and lucky for you, I have been given a $25 gift voucher to giveaway on Hungrywoolf. Dine Originals is a group of 40 Independently owned restaurants, varying from casual to fine dining. They are mainly in Columbus but include some out of town restaurants such as […]

Please note the change of date to September 18th and that there is no longer a screening of The 3 Amigos on this date. Check back for details of more taco events in October. Click here for full size (printable) version of flyer Taco Trucks Columbus and Columbus Rides invite you to join us for a […]

I was lucky enough to be a guinea pig and accomplice in Project Octopus. Octopi are something I haven’t given much thought to as a foodstuff. My experience with them has been mainly through sushi where I find them to be overly chewy and not worth the effort. But Bear had been eager to try […]

Lancaster is to me synonymous with Pennsylvania Dutch food and a trip to Lancaster is always a great excuse to indulge in some of my favorite Amish delicacies. Although Ohio has a large Amish population and you often see Amish butter, cheese or vegetables I haven’t found anything quite like Lebanon Bologna, my all time favorite […]

I was staggered by how many entries I received for the competition and I loved the additional the comments and observations that people added to their entries. There were so many touching responses and reasons why people wanted to visit the Inn that I am sorry that I only have one prize. I hope that […]

Regular readers will know what a fan I am of farmers markets and Union Square market was a real treat. It therefore warranted its own post separate from my NYC round-up. There was an astonishing array of specialty foods and produce available. We were there fairly early on a scorching August saturday and it was […]

It had been a few years since I had been to NYC and I was excited to revisit the Union Square Green Market (separate post to follow), see the High Line (really cool) and explore some different neighborhoods. I was very lucky to have a native New Yorker and fellow food lover as my guide and […]

I stopped in Pittsburgh to meet a friend for lunch. She asked what I wanted to eat and when I said ‘something Pittsburgh-y’ it seemed that there was no option other than to go to Primanti Brothers. Primanti Brothers have been making sandwiches since 1933 and are Pittsburgh’s most famous sandwiches. Having seen them featured […]

Hi All – TacoDrew here from Tacotruckscolumbus.com.  Hungrywoolf is away on vacation and has graciously handed over the keys to her blog (and asked me to make myself at home). Hope I don’t make too much of a mess. Anyhow, Hungrywoolf has significantly updated her ‘Best of…’ page (link at the top).  She’d like to […]

Innkeepers Ellen Grinsfelder and Terry Lingo have very kindly offered the prize for my first Hungry Woolf competition – A five course dinner for two at The Inn at Cedar Falls in the Hocking Hills. I was lucky enough to be invited to the Inn for a wonderful bloggers getaway weekend and now you have a […]

I received this email last week: My manager just watched Food, Inc the other day and now wants to eat grass fed beef and antibiotic free chickens and all that slow foodie stuff. I can’t think of many resources off the top of my head, do you have a list of information for our area (like the slow […]

Last week we watched the episode of Anthony Bourdain No Reservations where he visits his friend Michael Ruhlman in Cleveland. The episode was filmed in 2007 and is part of season 3. Yeah, we’re a little behind. After watching the show we were inspired to go and check out some of the places that they […]

Roland has very kindly allowed me to share his recipe for the Bacon Loaded Pierogies that won both the judges and peoples choice prizes at Bacon Camp Columbus last weekend.  Roland was featured in The Other Paper in an article entitled ‘Pirogi Chef wins Bacon Title’. Awesome. His Pierogies were unbelievably good and although you […]

Although I have now lived in Ohio for 3 years, this year was my first experience of the State Fair. The fair is a huge, 11 day event that celebrates Ohio Agriculture and Ohioans’ love for festivals and junk food. There is deep fried everything from twinkies and candy bars to buckeyes and fries. There […]

Hills Market host a lot of great food events, salmon and hog roasts, cheese tasting, dinners. This summer they are holding a series of crab boils. Sitting out on the patio on a hot summer evening eating crabs, you can almost forget you are in the landlubbery state of Ohio. If you have never eaten […]

I mentioned in my anniversary post that I was entered in a bacon cook-off. Well, sometimes you have to know when to cede to greatness, and when I tasted Roland’s bacon pierogies last week I knew that he should take my place. I was happy to be a guinea pig and to help in perfecting […]

Today was a perfect morning for a walk to the North Market Farmers Market. Beautiful early morning sunlight, dew on the grass and cool in the shadows. The air was clear, the sky was blue and the park is full of flowers. I love August already. The farmers market was also full of flowers and […]

The Short North has great options for eating and drinking at all times of the day and night. Here are some highlights and some of my personal favorites: Rigsby’s Kitchen is somewhere to go for lunch when you want to be able to hear your lunch companion and have excellent food and service. It would […]

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of this blog and it seemed fitting to mark the occasion in some way. This is also my 150th post. The blog started ostensibly as a means of sharing my food experiences. I think of it as a food diary inspired by writers such as Nigel Slater. I have always […]

Last summer Bono Pizza gained a cult following among Slow Food Columbus members who couldn’t get enough of their artisanal pizza. So much so that two of the SFC members ended the summer with pizzas named after them. Bono is run by husband and wife Bill and Peggy Yerkes and last summer they shared space […]

Bakewell and Treacle Tarts I think I have finally caught up from our trip to England and France, more than a month after we got back.  There are a few final things I wanted to mention. We spent a fun weekend in Tunbridge Wells in Kent with some of my best friends and unsurprisingly food […]

One restaurant I wanted to write about is Incanto. It is joyously across the street from my parents house in Harrow on the Hill and we had dinner there on our last night. Had I remembered how good it was, I might have asked to go more than once. Incanto has a deli and coffee […]

A friend of mine gave me this book some time ago with the words ‘I think this is more your sort of thing than mine’. I felt a little slighted, as it looked like mindless-chick-lit-fluff but I added it to the tower of ‘books-to-read’. In my mind I relegated it to summer pool-side reading. I […]

Langmans is a small restaurant in the Cornish town of Callington, run by husband and wife team Anton and Gail Buttery. Langmans is open three nights a week offering a six course tasting menu based on local and seasonal ingredients. Anton does all of the cooking, including breads and petit fours and Gail presides over […]

We spent a couple of beautiful days in the area of Looe and Liskeard in Cornwall. It is easy to see why so many people visit Cornwall every year, especially on a sunny day walking on the coastal path with the scent of honeysuckle and elderflower. The pride that the Cornish take in their food […]

I love corn on the cob. It was one of the pleasures of childhood summers spent in New Jersey with my grandparents. My grandfather grew his own corn, usually Silver Queen and when I was young I would go out on the tractor to help him pick it. He liked to bring it straight from the […]

This post would have been more timely in May or June, when garlic scapes were abundant in the farmers market. Garlic scapes are the flower stem of hard neck garlic and by chopping them off you help to promote growth of the bulb (or so I am told). Chopping them off also means that you […]

I used to buy cookbooks on impulse. Now I  like to borrow them from the library. This allows me to try out some recipes and decide whether it was just fun to leaf through, or something that I would refer to again and again. Was it just the beautiful photography that drew me in or […]

We visited friends who are house sitting in the Tarn region of France. This area is known as the Pays de Cocagne (the land of plenty) and you can see why. It is a rich agriculture region with vineyards and fields of wheat, corn, sunflowers and potatoes, an abundance of farmers markets and all sorts […]

My friend forwarded me a post from the Accidental Hedonist blog asking whether any other food/ drink bloggers wanted to review her new book. I like whiskey, I like to read and I like both food and travel books, so I did not hesitate to ask for a review copy. 99 Drams of Whisky is part […]

It seems that most cities these days have a restaurant week. Restaurant weeks are designed to get new customers into restaurants, and allow people to feel that they are getting good value, while boosting both revenue and exposure for the restaurants. You may recall that we had a restaurant week in March. You are correct, […]

The North Market’s Food and Ohio Wine Festival is held right on our door step and I proposed the idea that we should have a Slow Food table to raise awareness of the Slow Food movement and recruit some new members. Unfortunately by the time I had this idea it was too late for us […]

Goats at Integration Acres On a beautiful June weekend Slow Food Columbus took its second trip to Athens. The first trip at the beginning of November was a day trip highlighting the Village Bakery, Green Edge Gardens and Jackie O’s Pub and was documented by CMH Gourmand. We seem to have very good luck with the […]

I cooked two new things for lunch today: Kasha and Chard. The chard was a gift from my friend Jane and it was beautiful. I believe it came from the Clintonville Farmer’s Market but I’m not sure which farm. I used to avoid leafy greens because my mother is allergic to spinach and for that reason […]

Our holiday weekend turned into three days of food, fun and feasting. Friday night was an al fresco dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday with delicious treats from Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, spicy capicola from Thurn’s, foie gras pate from France, smoked oat cakes from Ireland, local tomatoes with basil and Blue Jacket Dairy […]

I haven’t been posting on Hungrywoolf as much as I would like to and I still have a lot of posts to catch up on from my trip to England and France as well as a Slow Food weekend in Athens (Ohio) and some other random bits and pieces. One of the reasons that I […]

A lot of restaurants are reacting to the recession with prix-fixe menus, bistro style offerings or early bird specials. There are some great deals around if you are able to eat early and don’t mind having a limited choice. G Michael’s has a Monday night special that looks like good value A special occasion and […]

Some superlative meals are the subject of much anticipation and others you just stumble upon. While anticipation can be extremely enjoyable, it can also lead to disappointment when the dreamed of dishes do not quite compare to what was conjured up in your imagination. The meal of happenstance comes without the baggage of expectation and […]

  I had been wanting to tour the Krema Nut Company for sometime. Although it is only a mile and a half from my house it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You can only visit on weekdays, during office hours and you have to have a group of twenty or more people. Finally I […]

I’m playing catch up again, so another month of highlights. It’s hard to know where to start, there have been so many this month. Probably most memorable was my first trip to Yellow Springs. I had heard so much about Yellow Springs but it lived up to the hype, helped by perfect weather over Mother’s […]

May marks the return of the farmers markets and I am so glad to have them back. Last year I was a North Market devotee and while it is still my nearest and dearest, this year I have decided to branch out and explore some of the other farmers markets that Columbus and Ohio have […]

  Some of you remember the pawpaw liqueur from last fall’s Shake the hand that feeds you dinner, created by the folks at Highland Estates.  These people are not ones to do things by half. Having sampled a chili infused Vodka at the Surly Girl Saloon, they were inspired to attempt some chili infusions at home. They […]

In September I went to the OEFFA Local Harvest Dinner and bid for and won a mushroom log workshop. At the time I really didn’t know what this would entail, but I love mushrooms and it sounded intriguing. The workshop was hosted by Janelle Baron of Blue Owl Hollow Tree Farm in Newark Ohio. As […]

In my last post I said that April was  a month packed with wonderful food experiences. It ended on a high note too, with an omakase dinner at Kihachi. It is always nice to have an excuse for dinner at Kihachi, arguably the best Japanese restaurant in Columbus and  one of the best restaurants in town […]

What a month…. More visits to the Mi Li Cafe and I have almost worked my way through the menu. On our last visit the owner told us ‘you are so brave, you will eat anything’. This was after a bowl of Bo Kho, a delicious beef stew with brisket and beef tendon and a […]

Bacon is one of the most popular topics on Columbus Underground and as CMH Gourmand observes ‘in Columbus, Bacon is the new Black’. It is therefore of no surprise that sooner or later a bacon explosion would appear. Well, actually two bacon explosions, we are not ones to do things by half. The bacon explosion […]

The Columbus Underground meet up at Details tonight reminded me that I still haven’t posted about the Details Experience I had earlier this month. Details has been a go to place this year with its enticing combination of classic and innovative cocktails, excellent ‘bar’ food and the opportunity to chat to the engaging Chef Drew Garms. […]

Thank you so much to everyone who came on the taco truck tour and to Jim and Andy for helping to make it such a fun event. I have to admit to being apprehensive about how it would go but the everyone seemed to have a great time and the response has been wonderful. Over 80 people […]

I have had many variations of huevos rancheros in restaurants. It is one of my favorite breakfast things to order out. It can be risky though, especially if you are somewhere new. Variations range from amazing to awful, with some pretty indifferent versions in between. One of my favorites from Sylvester’s in Northampton MA, was served with […]

I love sushi, but eating good sushi out can be expensive and supermarket sushi is usually disappointing. My friends Margaux and Tim got me started on making sushi at home and I was surprised by how good it was. While I am certainly no expert, it isn’t as daunting as I thought and we have had […]

There are certain times of the year that I miss England more than usual – Easter is one of those times. I miss big hollow foil wrapped and commercially themed Easter eggs that only seem to exist in such abundance in England, the conversations about how many Cadbury’s creme eggs so-and-so can eat in one […]

This is cross posted from tacotruckscolumbus.com We’ve encountered gargantuan Tlayudas, succulent Pollo Al Carbon, and the delicious and unique flavors of parts of animals we never knew existed. Cincinnati looks upon these offerings with envy, while Cleveland says, “yeah, we’ll take some of that.” and Japan – well, we have no idea what they actually think of it […]

Branching out from the Columbus restaurant scene, I recently had a wonderful dinner at Rue Dumaine in Dayton. By sheer coincidence my friend Andrew was there on the same night and posted a review that echoed most of my sentiments, before I could even say ‘I’m a lapsed blogger’. Opened at the end of 2007, Rue Dumaine is the […]

The last month (can it really be that long?) has flown by and I am now faced with a pile of photos, notes, menus and cards and am scratching my head wondering where to start and what I can remember. I’ll start with the new places I have been. Some of these are really new […]

I believe that Saturday marked the sixth of our taco truckin’ excursions and it was one of the most intriguing. Having launched the taco truck blog we were following up on some of the new suggestions that had been posted. You can read more about our adventures here. As well as finding some new taco trucks […]

Marmite is the one British food that I can’t live without and I always bring some back with me. It is probably the one foodstuff that I eat most frequently and the one that I never grow tired of.  I could buy some here, in a tiny jar, but it is ridiculously expensive and for some […]

This recipe is a hybrid, inspired by my mother’s pumpkin savory recipe, Peter Berley’s Tomato Goat Cheese Strata and a few random ingredients in my fridge. Berley’s recipe  from Fresh Food Fast uses day-old artisanal bread, which I didn’t have, but I did have a butternut squash and I was really pleased with the result. […]

I went to two events at Hills Market this weekend. Saturday was Market Day and a chance to meet some of their local suppliers. These were mostly from Ohio although I did notice a few from neighboring states. Quite a few of my favorite local food producers were there including Blue Jacket Dairy, Snowville Creamery […]

I still have a few goodies left in the freezer from last summer. It is somewhat of a random collection and judging by some of the freezer burn should have used them up by now. I think in part I was waiting for inspiration but maybe there was an element of nostalgia in retaining relics […]

Last week was the inaugural Restaurant Week in Columbus, organized by Dine Originals, a group of (currently 42) independent restaurants in the city. This could (perhaps should) have been an opportunity to try somewhere new, but for me restaurant week gave the impetus to revisit some old favorites. Each establishment presented either a $15 or […]

As mentioned previously, CMH Gourmand and I have been working on a joint project: Mapping and sampling all of the taco trucks in Columbus. Geography and food – a perfect hungrywoolf endeavor. Here is a map of the taco trucks we have located and eaten at so far. View Larger Map Our timing wasn’t ideal and […]

This post is duplicated from the Slow Food Columbus Blog.  Slow Food Columbus has had a thrilling first year with a burgeoning membership and some spectacular events, most notably theShake the Hand that Feeds you Dinner at the Flying J Farm in September. The anniversary dinner was an opportunity to celebrate the convivium and fittingly, the Italian […]

The food highlight of the week was probably fish tacos – partly because it’s a nice treat to come home and find someone cooking you dinner, but also because they lived up to their ‘yummy’ description.  Trust me, I am becoming something of a taco aficionado. We used tilapia instead of the suggested halibut and […]

One of my favorite English customs is pancake day. This is celebrated on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Lent starts) and traditionally it was then you used up the fat and sugar before Lent began. Obviously it is a similar idea to Fat Tuesday.  When I was at school we used to make and sell […]

Another drop in the temperature was all the excuse I needed to make Astrid’s lamb Abruzzi. This is a dish that my friends Helen and Ed served at a New Year’s dinner a couple of years ago and I loved it. I believe that they got this wonderful winter recipe from one of their neighbors […]

Another wonderful food event at Hills Market. The premise of the dinner, was to provide courses inspired by each of the five 2008 Oscar Nominees for Best Picture. Jill Moorhead (Hills Market Marketing Director), who had patiently watched each movie looking for food references, admitted how hard it had been as none of this years nominations really […]

The love affair with Details continues….. especially now they have $5 (for 3) tuna tar tar tacos on tuesdays and $3 wings on wednesdays! My current favorite is the Old Fashioned sandwich, made with smoked pastrami beef brisket, sauerkraut, rye toast and dijonaise sauce. As you can see I am still working through the menu.   […]

I have been a fan of Pistacia Vera since I first visited their German Village shop last summer and I was excited when Hills Market announced that they were having a Pistacia Vera wine pairing event. As well as being a wonderful local/ gourmet grocery store, Hills Market has a lot of food events, including […]

This is my 100th post and I planned do something ‘special’ but really this is just a long overdue round up. I’m going to start with an apology for having had an unplanned hiatus and proceed with a synopsis of the last few weeks. I do have some exciting news – my blog is being […]

Peter Berley’s is still my go-to chef. I have been pleased with everything I have made from his books Fresh Food Fast, and The Flexitarian Table. I made a couple of his red cabbage recipes recently, fortuitously each called for half a head of red cabbage. I think red cabbage is often overlooked and seems relegated to […]

I had a busy week and didn’t have any time to blog. As I think back over the week, it amazes me how many delicious things I ate. Obviously, eating was one of the things that kept me busy! Here are some of the highlights:  Discovering the blue plate lunch special and cichetti menu (Venetian […]

Another Veganomicon recipe and still one of my favorites. Very simple, and it works with all sorts of Asian greens. Tender greens, ginger, toasted sesame seeds and crispy shallots.  This time I made it with baby bok choi from the Greener Grocer. Over the summer I used a variety of different greens from Toad Hill […]

I got the idea for cauliflower hummus from Veganomicon. I made it over the summer following their recipe (which also includes parsley and scallions) but I thought it would be better with less cauliflower – they use about 2 pounds. I think the revised version worked really well and none of my guinea pigs guessed […]

One of the things that I am really appreciating about Columbus at the moment is the fact that I can buy local Ohio foods even in January. It is easy in the summer to buy local foods when there is abundant local produce but in the winter it is much more harder to find local […]

This is the third of Lisa’s monthly dinners I have been to and I always have a wonderful time. Good food, wine and company, what better way to spend a Sunday evening. It is always a fun and relaxed atmosphere. This time the dinner was held at a new venue: the Wild Goose Creative. It […]

This is the second year that I have been to the Burns Supper at Barley’s Smokehouse, where the Burns Supper is a well established and obviously much loved tradition. This was the 10th dinner that they have held and it is one of my favorite food events. There is such a wonderfully warm and fun atmosphere […]

I have a new favorite flavor combination from Jeni’s: Gravel Road (a perennial favorite, which is salty caramel with smoked almonds) and the new smoky chocolate made with lapsang souchong tea and homemade marshmallows. So good it is enticing even when the temperature is well below freezing. If you are in Columbus, try it. If not, […]

It seems that there are lots of people in search of the perfect meal. I just listened to an NPR feature about Andy Hayler, who has eaten in all of the 3 star Michelin restaurants and blogs about his experiences. I recently read two books by food writers in pursuit of culinary perfection: Jay Rayner’s […]

During my protracted trip back to Columbus something caught my eye in the British Airways magazine:  Ice lettuce Invented in Ohio, ice lettuce is the next fêted leaf. It’s exposed to freezing  temperatures to concentrate its sugar content and amplify its juiciness.  Watch out for chefs such as Raymond Blanc using it in their menus. The article, […]

I first started going to Wagamama in 1992. In those days there was only one branch in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury near the British Museum and close to the intersection of Oxford St and Tottenham Court Road. I had just graduated from high school, was working in London and earning money for the first time. Wagamama […]

It seems inconceivable that the new year starts and we are still eating up left over turkey. Slightly depressing when everything is about new year’s resolutions, fresh starts and all that, but I guess it goes along with the irony that most people start the new year with a hang over. Eating leftovers however, do […]

In November I made a cold brussels sprout salad with cheese and walnuts. Soon after I went to Alana’s and had a similar dish, but served hot and if I recall correctly with blue cheese and a walnut oil dressing. On boxing day I made a warm brussels sprout salad with some lemon Wensleydale, lemon juice, […]

English bacon. Definitely one of the things I miss. 

My parents have a house in North Nottinghamshire, near the market town of Retford (pop 21,000). This is Robin Hood country, with what remains of Sherwood Forest nearby (not much!) and it is also the area that the Pilgrim fathers originally hailed from. There are a couple of coal mines in the area (a lot […]

I was away from home last year for Christmas so it is even more enjoyable spending christmas at home this year with my parents. I arrived home on the 23rd and dinner was oxtail stew with mashed potato and swede (rutabaga) and spring cabbage. I haven’t had oxtail for a long time. It was banned […]

Fondue is social, delicious  and perfect for cold winter evenings. Here is a simple to follow classic cheese fondue recipe. There are a lot of options to choose from online and different methods. The methods vary  (such as when and how to add the corn starch) but the ingredients are fairly consistent. Next year, I […]

One of the books I brought on my my trip was ‘How I learned to Cook: Culinary educations from the world’s greatest chefs’. The book came out in 2006 and you can hear an NPR feature about it here. It is a follow up to a previous collection ‘Don’t try this at home’ . I […]

I am in Miami Beach for 10 days on a winter rowing trip. This is an annual trip and we usually frequent the local grocery store (Publix) and the restaurants close to the hotel, with an occasional trip to South Beach. This year I decided to try and find some Slow Food friendly places and […]

Christmas parties in England are accompanied with foods such as mince pies, satsumas, sausage rolls, mulled wine and boxes of quality street. Mince pies are certainly the most ubiquitous pre-christmas food, either shop bought of home-made in all sorts of sizes and varieties, and it seems hard to go anywhere in December without being offered […]

I first used chipotle peppers in adobo sauce last weekend for Heidi Swanson’s baby lima bean soup. I think they are wonderful and can’t get enough of their smoky heat. I am planning to make the soup again tomorrow with just chick peas but in the meantime I was on the look out for other recipes and […]

It is hard to believe that it is December. November has flown by and in its passing I realize that there are lots of things that I could and should have posted about. In no particular order here is a quick wrap up of some of the places and foods I have enjoyed in the […]

I had amazing gnocchi at Lisa’s October dinner, made by Chef Seth Warren. Since then I have ordered gnocchi at several restaurants in the hope of being similarly enraptured. Sadly, each time I have been disappointed and the gnocchi were not sufficiently different to the supermarket variety. Leafing through Simon Hopkinson’s ‘Second Helpings of Roast […]

One of my thanksgiving highlights was picking arugula from my garden on November 27th for a delicious lunchtime salad of arugula, baby white turnips and radishes. We had a non-traditional pot-luck thanksgiving dinner. Not a turkey in sight, but a feast nonetheless. Here is the menu.  Beet, goat cheese, pecan and mixed green salad made […]

I am not sure why, but for the last month or so I have had an obsession with Baked Alaska. I was tempted to try making it around election night (seemed appropriately Palin-esque, but I didn’t have time). I think I might have had Baked Alaska once as a child, but I can’t remember if […]

I was very lucky to be treated to a biscotti master class yesterday. My friend Suzanna makes amazing biscotti and came over to teach me her secrets. It is hard to believe that her biscotti are home-made, they are that good, but she claimed it was easy. She was right, the recipe is surprisingly simple […]

Bobotie is a South African dish, a little like moussaka or Shepherd’s pie. A savory mince with a subtle curry flavor, topped with a savory custard. It is something we used to eat at home but I haven’t made it for years. I remember using the recipe for a home economics class when I was […]

There were only four stall holders braving the cold at the market yesterday. The Thomas’s selling apples and cider, Toad Hill, Wayward Seed and Elizabeth Telling. With temperatures in the twenties, they really deserved some support. With the cold weather and a noon football game the market was as quiet as I have seen it. […]

I made pumpkin soup again, this time with my red kabocha squash. It is definitely soup weather now, with the temperature was in the 20s today (Fahrenheit – brrrrr). This time I made Nigel Slater’s spiced pumpkin soup with bacon. It is online on the Guardian website with some of his other recipes. There are a few […]

I thought it would be more helpful to post a couple of thanksgiving ideas now, rather than post holiday. I say thanksgiving, but these are Christmas recipes chez Woolf – so I guess turkey dinner ideas is most accurate.  Margaux and Tim invited me round for a trial run thanksgiving on saturday and I was […]

Following on from my previous post about comfort food, last night was the Slow Food pot luck. I made a Nigel Slater recipe Baked Onions with parmesan and cream, which he kindly has online. I used smaller onions because I knew there would be lots of food and people would just want small tastes. I […]

A wet wintry day at the market and only a few stalls. The sort of day that makes you want to make soup. Stalwarts the Thomas’s were there with a huge array of apples. I bought Braeburns this week. Also Tim from Toad Hill with arugula, red mustard greens and spinach. I bought a buttercup […]

  This recipe is from my Mom who originally found it in Cookies Galore (Post Cereals). She made these a lot when I was little and they fit quite a few of the criteria for comfort food. As you can see they are really easy, delicious and have an interesting knobbly texture. They are kind […]

I have been very remiss about posting about our Slow Food day trip to Athens, Ohio. Luckily, CMH Gourmand beat me to it and shamed me into action. He wrote a great account of the day and there seems little point in duplicating all the details. I did take a lot of photos though and […]

There is a Slow Food pot luck dinner this weekend themed ‘comfort food’ and I have been trying to work out what to cook. It has prompted me to think a lot about what defines comfort food, and what my comfort foods are. It is also timely because I am also starting to think about […]

Today was my first trip to Dosa Corner, a South Indian Vegetarian restaurant at Kenny and Old Henderson. I have been meaning to go there for ages and took advantage of the Veterans’ Day holiday and having a willing accomplice to treat myself to a longer than average lunch break. My previous experience of South Indian food […]

It went from being in the seventies last week, to getting down into the 20s tonight. Brrr. It is a wierd mix of autumn and winter at the moment depending on the day, or even the time of day, but the weather seems to have heralded winter foods and lots of tea drinking.  I didn’t […]

I had a tub of dates that I needed to use up and was looking for ideas. Colleen suggested (more accurately requested) date bars and after a bit of google research, this is what I came up with. It is a mix of a few different recipes, dictated by what I had in the cupboard.  ‘Date […]

We had what can only be described as a feast at Bear and Colleen’s last night. A truly epic meal that contained a wish-list-esque menu. We ate outside surrounded by candles and mini-kiwis (which incredibly, are edible). It was an amazingly mild evening and the only downside was being able to hear the terrible music […]

It was hard to believe that it was November 1st when I was napping in my hammock this afternoon in a t-shirt. It was 70 degrees this afternoon, and I am still picking arugula and tomatoes from the garden.  I couldn’t make it to the market today but one of my friends kindly said that […]

Basi is a great italian restaurant, a great neighbourhood restaurant and only a block from my house. I don’t go there enough. I have been meaning to eat there since the Flying J dinner and was reminded anew when I saw John and his wife at Lisa’s dinner last week.  I thought halloween would be […]

Nida, owner of Nida’s sushi in the North Market is opening a new Thai restaurant in the Short North called Nida’s Thai on High. It will be a couple of doors south of Zen Cha, so couldn’t be more convenient for me. The opening is imminent, so some helpers were enlisted to help to create […]

I love it when you realize that you have all the ingredients that you need for a recipe. In this case it was another Peter Berley recipe from Fresh Food Fast. I am a big fan of brussels sprouts and usually just eat them plain with some butter, salt and pepper. I don’t generally feel […]

You may remember the last dinner of Lisa’s that I went to in August. Sadly the September dinner was cancelled due to the windstorm. The venue and format were the same but this time Lisa was joined in the kitchen by Seth Warren who was chef Rosendale’s commis in the recent Bocuse d’Or competition.  What […]

I didn’t make it to the market until lunch time and it was definitely slim pickings apart from the various apple sellers. I bought two types of apples granny smith and northern spy and some apple cider for sunday brunch. Most of this week’s purchases were for brunch – eggs, milk, bacon and sausage. I […]

People often have fantastic(al) ideas when they are drunk. It is less often that these ideas seem so good the cold light of day and even rarer that they actually come to fruition.  Two such ideas became reality this week… the white castle pizza and the three meat martini.  The white castle pizza is detailed […]

I love pumpkins and squashes. As well as being so evocative of fall they are so amazingly versatile. Anything that can be made into into curries, desserts, ice cream and so many other wonderful foods is easy to love. The Circleville pumpkin show is a true pumpkin pageant paying homage to all things pumpkin. This […]

I was excited to realize that between the market and my garden I had all of the ingredients for Peter Berley’s shaved spring vegetable and apple salad. I was a little surprised, because it certainly isn’t spring – but all the ingredients were freshly grown.  I bought the book ‘The Flexitarian Table’ because I heard […]

Still beautifully sunny in Columbus but we had our first frost this weekend and this was the last week for some of the North Market farmers including the Rhoads’. I will be sad not to see them each week. Brent said that they had picked everything off the vines they could before the frost. They […]

Inspired by the donation of real silverware by one of my colleagues (I believe it was previously ‘acquired’ from a local eating establishment) I have been getting more ambitious (or deconstructed) with my packed lunches. Hmm, actually today it was just a lack of leftovers. Today – a sweet potato from wayward farms cooked in the microwave down […]

The pot luck on sunday may have fallen short of the Guinness world record but there was a staggering amount of food. The final total was just under 400 dishes and it shows what a feat it would be to actually break the record (Currently 601). It is definitely do-able with a wider base of […]

Another contender for the best sandwich competition.  When I go to Cafe Corner I usually order the same thing. I love their beet and boursin sandwich so much that it is normally the reason that I am there. I was invited for lunch there on sunday and was in the mood for something more savory… […]

No one in Columbus this weekend could possibly deny the existence of global warming. It was over 80 degrees today and it was beautiful all weekend. Amazing. Perfect weather for hammocks, picnics and generally being outdoors.  Newly in season this week at the North Market was broccoli which I bought from Wishwell farms. I usually […]

I was enticed out of my downtown comfort zone and into the burbs last night with the lure of tapas. I say burbs, but Powell, home of the Maca Cafe is actually a city in its own right and has apparently been voted (2005) one of the top 20 places to live in America. This […]

Today I was invited to a fundraising event for Simply Living, with a group from Green Drinks.  I had heard of Simply Living and have seen their website in the past, but I did not know about the full range of programs that they are involved in. I had not realized that they are the parent […]

I finally made the Veganomicon butternut squash and pumpkin seed rice paper rolls that I have been thinking about for the last two months. My last (and first) attempt at summer rolls were back at the beginning of August. I am a huge butternut squash fan, so I had a strong predilection for these ones, but I tested them on two friends and they were both equally sold. They take a little while to assemble, but are fun to make, keep for a couple of days if you wrap them in wet paper towels and make a great packed lunch.

Saturday was harvest festival at the North Market and there were pumpkins and squashes galore. Lots of oranges and yellows with dried corn, pumpkins and sunflowers. There were arts and crafts for children, face painting and hoards of people. Sadly I had to work earlier in morning, so I missed the fun of the apple […]

The end of the peaches and raspberries with homemade applesauce, usually on cereal or yoghurt, but in this case on the end of the apple cake.  I was thinking about doing something with the paw paws, but I keep just eating them as they are. They taste different every time depending on how ripe they […]

Stauf’s is a Columbus based coffee company that has a small chain of coffee shops and restaurants in the city, mostly under the name Cup o’ Joe. They have one coffee shop under the Stauf’s name in Grandview and some combined coffee shop-bars called Moe Joe Lounges (big plus, they serve Jeni’s ice creams too). […]

A 30th birthday celebration seemed a like a good excuse for dinner at Alana’s. I have been waxing lyrical since my last visit and apparently my enthusiasm was enticing. What we did not know was that it was also Alana’s birthday, and whilst many people would be tempted to take a night off for such an […]

If a whisky connoiseur finds themselves in Columbus they might be surprised to find that a Chinese restaurant is the best place to go for the widest local collection of aged and obscure single malts. But, Ken Yee, owner of Wings restaurant in Bexley keeps a list of over 140 whiskies.  Wings has been a […]

When people want to frame a dinner menu (and it’s not their wedding dinner), you know that it was a truly special event. I feel extremely fortunate that I was able to attend the shake the hand that feeds you locavore dinner at the Flying J Farm in Johnstown, Ohio. The evening was both the […]

I briefly mentioned that I went to the OEFFA dinner  but I haven’t given it the write up it deserves. OEFFA is the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association and it is a coalition of growers, gardeners and other interested people who “see ecological farming as a profitable and common-sense approach to ensuring a sustainable, permanent, […]

A beautiful morning at the North Market and as usual there were new things – daffodil bulbs; a variety of pak choi at Toad Hill; amber raspberries at Rhoads and chiogga beets at Wayward farm. I bought eggs, zucchini, jonathan apples, plums, haricot verts, radishes, cilantro, jalapeños, corn and carrots. There were also lots of […]

I bought some beautiful swiss chard from Elizabeth Telling last weekend. I have never cooked it myself before. I discovered a Peter Berley risotto recipe in Fresh Food Fast, that made me drool and included several of my favorite ingredients, beets, ginger and barley. I told my neighbor all about the recipe. I made a trip to […]

Last night I went to my first Columbus Underground event, a clambake and shrimp boil at the newly opened (and long awaited) second Banana Bean Cafe location. I am a big fan of the Banana Bean Cafe but I don’t make it there very often because German village always seems further away than it really […]

I went to the market later than usual this week – now that season has started I have to work on saturday mornings. This week I bought tomatoes (yellow amana and aunt ruby’s german green heirloom tomatoes), swiss chard (because I couldn’t resist Sandy Sterrett’s description of all the ways you can cook it); long […]

  I am so behind and have so much to write about that I have no idea where to start. What a week. On Sunday afternoon we were hit by the tail end of hurricane Ike. This manifested itself as a windstorm with gusts up to 78 mph. So many trees and electricity poles came […]

Except that we have no idea when Ozzy’s birthday really is, Ozzy being a rescue dog of uncertain pedigree. The date was spuriously chosen as the birthday for his facebook profile (yes he does have one!) and coincidentally coincided with the date chosen for the long heralded thank you dinner for the dog sitters (myself […]

Vegetables, I bought were cucumber, beets, brussels sprouts (making their first appearance this week), cherry tomatoes, corn and peppers. Fruits were ground cherries, raspberries, plums, jonathan apples (hard and crisp), and my favorite reliance grapes. I was excited to find the first batch of dried heirloom tomatoes from Quiver Full family farm, where I also […]

I have been wanting to go to Alana’s for a long time, having read rave reviews of it on many of the Columbus food blogs and knowing that it is a favorite of several food lovers whose opinions I rate.  Alana’s did not disappoint. It was everything I hoped it would be and more, and […]

Firstly a three bean salad made with the three types of beans I bought from the farmers market last weekend; christmas lima beans, edamame and green beans. I added some lemon zest, an idea I poached from a Heidi Swanson recipe (more about that later). The lemon zest gave it a real lift. I also […]

Yesterday was a very happy food day and not simply because I had two different types of home-made ice cream.  I started with one of my favorite habitual breakfasts (apart from marmite on toast). Plain yoghurt with fresh fruit (in this case raspberries), pumpkin seeds, almonds and a touch of honey or maple syrup.  After […]

    Two ‘novelty’ items I found were the first of the white carrots at Wayward seed farm and lamb’s quarters (fat hen) at Toad Hill. Poor Tim was lamenting that it has been so dry that even the weeds aren’t doing well.  I had a warm greetings from the Rhoads’s and an interesting lesson […]

I had to collect the Rogue beers I had ordered at the Beer tasting dinner and that seemed like a good excuse to revisit Deepwood. This was in fact their idea not mine, having lured me with a $10 voucher for use the same evening and Gallery Hop seemed like good timing. I hoped that […]

While the other Columbus foodies were living it up at the Columbus Food and Wine affair, I was enjoying free beer and deep fried food at the Hot Times festival (Comfest volunteers thank you party). For hot times, read sitting under a big tent in the rain watching some indescribable dance moves. As I said, […]

This week as well as local fruit and vegetables from the market I have been enjoying some of my purchases from Thurn’s.   Smoked trout with arugula, steamed green beans and left-over baked tomatoes which were really good cold. and the finished product: Beets baked with baby onions, garlic and rosemary. Beet greens braised with […]

My experience of creole cooking has mostly limited to listening to NPR food programs and day dreaming of trips to bayou country, so I was very pleased to be invited to a cookery demonstration by Chef Henry Butcher Senior owner of the Creole Kitchen (1052 Mount Vernon Avenue, Columbus). The demonstration was entitled ‘an evening […]

One of my friends kindly dropped off a huge bag of herbs from his mother’s prolific herb garden last night. When I say huge I mean it – It filled over 8 gallon ziplock bags. I feel some kind of wierd herb dealer. The fridge is full of green bags.  I can identify mint, tarragon, […]

Hard to believe that it is September. The farmers market still seems to be in full summer mode but the fallen leaves you see on the way there, give away the secret that fall is around the corner (that and the fact that football season started). The North market was a riot of color this […]

I had a friend visiting this weekend, so I took Friday off to show her some of my favorite places in Columbus and use the excuse to go somewhere new. It is fun to show someone around your city, especially an enthusiastic adventurer who has similar tastes and interests. The itinerary had a distinct culinary […]

   The arrival of Bono TOGO has been one of things that made staying in Columbus this summer fun and I have been almost weekly since I discovered this new neighbourhood gem. Bono is on West Russell, a small one-way street off High street, in the Short North and is run by husband and wife […]

    I love patty pan squash and I am glad to know that I am not the only one as tigers and strawberries just published a great patty pan recipe. They are so adorable that I can’t resist buying them. They are firm textured and grill well. This time I cut them transversely to […]

  First a rant and then some recipes. I had a great trip but was still excited to come home and get back in my own kitchen. I got back on Wednesday evening (sadly not in time for the Upper Arlington farmers market) and decided to go to Wholefoods on the way home to get […]

There were some wonderful, varied and unusual flavors. The quail (not pictured because mine wasn’t that photogenic) was very sweet and tender and went well with the two beers it was served with, including one called smoke ale that was very reminiscent of lapsang souchon. I couldn’t really taste the yellow gingered beets (they were […]

I loved Montréal. I could wax lyrical for pages. I spent much of my car journey back to Ohio creating convoluted plans of how I could live there. It really has everything I aspire for in a city – pedestrian and bike friendly, a preponderance of independent shops and restaurants. Quirky neighborhoods, foreignness, European influences, […]

I have just had one of the best meals I have had in Columbus, and probably the best meal since my birthday treat at the Watermark in Sydney.  I went to a monthly dinner hosted by Lisa (the waitress) who writes the blog restaurant widow. It was held at the North Market which is, luckily for me, […]

  Cape Vincent is a village on the St Lawrence river in upstate new york on the corner of Lake Ontario. It is across from Wolfe Island and from CV you can get a ferry to Wolfe Island and thence to Kingston Ontario. When I moved from Toronto to Massachusetts in 2004, I took the […]

I am on a cooking hiatus – on vacation on a 2000 mile road trip to Up-state New York, Canada and New England. This weekend was mostly spent driving to and from St Catharine’s living on Tim Horton’s and avoiding Henley Island hot dogs, but this evening, staying with a friend in Ithaca New York, […]

I made a sort of crostini today – or I guess you could call it cheese on toast for a summer day – or odds and ends from the fridge.  I had some sun dried tomatoes that I bought from Trader Joe’s. The kind that come in a bag and then you put them in […]

Saturday is the easiest day for me to wake up. The prospect of seeing what is new at the farmers’ market has me jumping out of bed much more easily than I drag myself out on a workday. I made it early and was rewarded with some late season raspberries.  This week there was a […]

  I have been wanting to make summer rolls since I helped Joe make a batch at his house. I was planning to try the veganomicon recipe that used roasted butternut squash, but I couldn’t face turning the oven on. Doing some google research on friday afternoon I found an excellent post on tigersandstrawberries with a […]

June was horchata month and I hadn’t made it for a few weeks, but I decided it would go well with the zucchini bread. Horchata is a latin american rice based drink. There are a huge number of variations from different countries and regions and the ingredients vary. Some use actual milk. Joe first introduced […]