Got Goetta?

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Denny

This is Goettafest. Regular readers of this blog know what goetta is. Others maybe not. A trailer at the festival had a definition painted on its side. Almost all descriptions, including the one at Wikipedia, have the name Cincinnati in them somewhere. It is very definitely a regional food.

Note that the banner says “Glier’s Goettafest”. Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on the product in the area which, as already mentioned, has its own near monopoly. Some family cooks and a few restaurants make their own and there are other commercial producers as this 2018 article shows. Glier’s, however, is king. They own the goetta.com domain, and they own this festival.

Glier’s is a Covington, KY, company and the festival is held on Kentucky’s side of the Ohio River in Newport. The venue, appropriately named “Festival Park at the Levee”, essentially fills the area between the Taylor-Southgate Bridge and the pedestrian-only Purple People Bridge. The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge (a.k.a, Big Mac Bridge) can be seen in the background.

The festival grew to eight days this year but it avoids those sluggish mid-week days with a pair of expanded weekends, July 28-31 and August 4-7. It’s also something of a music festival with bands performing full time on stages at both ends. I was there shortly after opening on Thursday when Whiskey Daze was on the west stage and What About Jane was on the east stage.

I had to check the food listing to learn that the name of this stand was Original Corn Roast. Its offerings were many and included some goettaless items. I got my Goetta Mac from there and washed it down with Braxton’s Garage Beer.

Goetta Mac is something I’ve eaten before and will again. The Goetta Balls from Goettahaus were new to me. I won’t take extreme measures to avoid them in the future but they aren’t something I have a strong urge for.

I had wanted to try the goetta pizza but my appetite ran out before my choices did. And there were plenty of other good-looking options beyond that.

I once ate a hamburger between a split donut so maybe I could have handled this but I didn’t even consider it.

Goettafest opens at noon today (Sun 7/31) and is back next Thursday for another four-day run. Get there while the goetta getting is good.

Book Review
Square Photographs
Jim Grey

Posted on July 27, 2022 by Denny

In my unprofessional and biased opinion, this book represents what Jim Grey does best. I believe it is his fifth book. It is the fourth that I’ve reviewed. Although I enjoyed reading the collection of essays entitled “A Place to Start” when I sat down to write a review I just couldn’t figure out what to say. I did review Grey’s most recent offering, “Vinyl Village“, and deemed it a success in accomplishing its mission. That mission was to tell the story of a subdivision in pictures. I noted in that review what I thought was one of the biggest differences between “Vinyl Village” and the two earlier books, “Exceptional Ordinary” and “Textures of Ireland“. Each photograph in the first two books could be appreciated all by itself; few if any in “Vinyl Village” could stand alone. That’s not a bad thing and it’s not an accident. The goal was to tell a story in pictures and it makes sense that all the pictures are required to tell all of the story. It does, however, serve to explain why I like this and the first two books best. I said up front that my opinion is biased.

“Square Photographs” contains forty photographs that are capable of standing alone. All were taken with one of two 1960s Yashica twin-lens-reflex cameras in Grey’s collection. These are medium format cameras using 120 film to produce 60 mm by 60 mm negatives. I’m guessing that I don’t really have to explain where the book gets its name. Cameras that produce square images were once fairly common but are quite rare today. Smartphone cameras, the most common of all, typically record images with a 4:3 ratio.

The book is organized so that all photos are on the right-hand page and of a uniform size that essentially fills the square page. Text that varies from a couple of lines to several paragraphs is on the left. It might describe the picture, share some facts about the subject, or share something personal related to the image. The bottom line of text always identifies the camera and film that produced the image. Putting a squarish subject in the center of a photograph yields a pleasing image with a background balanced both vertically and horizontally. “Square Photographs” contains several such images.

Of course, not every subject is square or even symmetric. Composition techniques different than those used for rectangular photos can come into play. As Grey explains in the brief introduction, the 1:1 ratio is familiar to him from some of the cameras of his youth but for the rest of us, it might seem a little unusual.

The pictures are almost evenly split between color and B&W. The copy I have is printed using the highest quality paper and ink available from Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon) and I think it looks great. However, an even higher quality version is available from MagCloud.

“Vinyl Village” was the first photo-centric book that Jim published through Amazon. I thought the quality more than sufficient for the task. Others, apparently, did not. I certainly appreciate the increased image quality of this printing and don’t doubt that the deluxe edition is worth the additional cost but sure don’t see any reason for what I sense are some feelings of guilt associated with “Vinyl Village”. In this book, where the photos are the product, the additional cost is justified. Not so, in my opinion, for B&W pictures illustrating a story.

I first heard of this project when it was still in the planning stages. In the time between then and its recent completion, I’ve realized that, despite the lack of cameras that produce them, square images aren’t as alien to us as I first thought. One example is Facebook’s profile pictures. Another is Instagram which initially supported only square photos. I understand that other form factors are now allowed but I still square my submissions — when I remember. The reason I started doing that was because some software would blindly chop out a square in the very center if I didn’t and that was rarely the best square to be had. I’m sure there are other examples.

I’m used to squaring rectangular pictures. For this blog, thumbnails are simply automatically created scaled-down replicas of the full-size rectangles but for the journal portion of the website, thumbnails are square. It’s something I’ve never mentioned and something I doubt anyone has noticed. If so, they’ve not mentioned it. For the first journal, I extracted odd portions of photos for thumbnails but that was tedious and not well received. I very quickly moved to 72×72 pixel squares which became 100×100 pixel squares by the fifth documented trip and there it remains. Occasionally I’ve thought of adopting automatically shrunken rectangles but the squares allow me to get more of them in a given screen area and producing them is good mental exercise.

The standard edition of “Square Photographs”, like the one I have, can be obtained through the Amazon link at the bottom of this article. Links to both the standard and deluxe editions as well as some additional information can be found here.

Square Photographs, Jim Grey, Midnight Star Press (June 12, 2022), 8.5 x 8.5 inches, 86 pages, ISBN 979-8835769872
Available through Amazon.

The World’s at My Door

Posted on July 24, 2022 by Denny

It was just Thursday morning that I learned of the international competition about to take place just a few miles from my home. After hearing a brief news article on the radio, I went online to find more information and to secure a ticket to the event’s opening day activities. What little I now know about the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) and the World Ultimate Club Championships (WUCC) I’ve learned in the last two days. One of the first things I learned is that “Ultimate” is the name of the game itself. It is one of the few bits of silliness remaining in a game involving descendants of pans used by a pie company founded in 1871 by a guy named Frisbie.

The opening picture shows the flags of the thirty countries participating in the 2022 WUCC ready to be carried onto the field. The sequence is alphabetical from Argentina through Venezuela. As the host country, the United States comes on last.

After marching past the stands, the flag carriers form a line in the middle of the playing field. Here the USA takes up the appropriate position a few spots from the end. Some speeches follow but they are not overly long. This is the second time the WUCC have been held in the Cincinnati area. The first was in 2018. The 2022 games were originally scheduled to take place in the UK. When problems developed, the success of those 2018 games was remembered and Cincinnati was asked to play host once again.

As the flag bearers left the field, nearby sharp eyes located a plane circling overhead. Before long, three shapes emerged and three parachutes opened. Delivery of the American flag was accompanied by the singing of The Star Spangled Banner.

The day’s only game followed the opening ceremonies and I got to see live Ultimate for the first time. In the short time since making plans to attend, I’d learned enough of the rules for a basic understanding of the on-field action. Ultimate is a contactless sport. The flying disc (a.k.a., Frisbee) is advanced only by throwing. A point is scored by a catch in the endzone.

The Traffic from Canada played the MUD from Japan. The game is played to fifteen points with a halftime break at eight points. The teams essentially alternated scoring during the first half and were only once separated by more than a point. That’s also how the second half began but eventually team MUD pulled away. These pictures show the final point of their 15-10 win.

There are 128 teams competing all week at Mason High School and the Lebanon Sports Complex. I really enjoyed watching my first game and just might get back for more. The final games and closing ceremonies are next Saturday. Daily tickets for Sunday through Friday are $5. Closing day tickets are $20. Get ’em here.

Cincy Burger Week Plus

Posted on July 17, 2022 by Denny

With Ohio Burger Week running Monday through Sunday and this blog being published too early on Sundays for hamburger eating, my 2020 report came up a day short and the 2021 report did even worse as the first two days were lost to travel. But this year I’ve had seven straight days of hamburgers at press time although the first of those days wasn’t in Cincinnati or even in Ohio.

I found myself in Richmond, Indiana, last Sunday and, as is my habit, queried my phone about nearby breweries. It told me of 5 Arch Brewing which would be open by the time I could reach it in nearby Centerville. My plan was to just have a beer until I learned about their food and their hamburgers in particular. I had two choices: I could save myself for the launch of Burger Week the next day or I could get an early start. I obviously opted for the early start and am very happy that I did. The ‘burger (and the fries and the Nut Brown ale) was excellent and I had a beautiful 1893 back bar to look at while I ate.

My first official 2022 Burger Week ‘burger came from Craft Burger Bros. They were operating at Streetside Brewery on Monday but served their “Grippo Cheeseburger” at other locations throughout the week. I thought the Black Cats ale accompanied it nicely. Since I had already involved two businesses in my meal, I saw no harm in involving a third so headed to Aglamesis Brothers for dessert. It’s Pineapple & Pecan, an old flavor that was brought back temporarily for their centennial. It was so popular that it now comes back every summer and it brings me back.

On Tuesday I downed a “Magic Mushroom Burger” at Lori’s American Grill. It was delightfully messy and magically (the mushrooms are hiding under the melted mozzarella) delicious.

5 Arch and Lori’s were totally new to me and so was Burger Bros although Streetside Brewery was not. Wednesday’s ‘burger stop was familiar in a different way. The building that now houses Sinners and Saints, was once home to a place called Brew River where I’d eaten several times. My “Venerable Beast” was topped with a single onion ring rather than the onion straws in the sandwich’s description but I don’t think it made me enjoy it any less. The glass advertises a local brewery but it contains Summer Ale from Sam Adams, an event sponsor.

On Thursday, it was back to something completely new at Revolution Rotisserie. As you might have guessed from the name, their specialty is rotisserie chicken but the menu isn’t limited to just chicken. Their Burger Week offering, “The Amador”, was quite good. That’s Fretboard’s Vlad in the glass.

Friday was a double-dip day, and the only day where the ‘burger was one I’d eaten before. Although it’s more often for a Nueske ham sandwich than a hamburger, I’ve visited The Turf Club many times. I’ve even indulged in the Burgundy wine mushroom sauce in the past but remember that sandwich costing noticeably more than the $7 Burger Week rate. That memory is why I put this ‘burger firmly on this year’s list from the beginning. By sitting at the counter, I could watch Ron cook my Fieri Burger (named for the D, D, & D guy) and then have him personally deliver it. Today I have a Northern Row beer (Hustler) but no Northern Row glass. Those who lament the external stripping of the neon-encased Terry’s Turf Club might be somewhat assuaged by the fact that the inside remains the same.

The second dip of the day was the special Burger Week dessert at the Macaron Bar in Hyde Park. “…chocolaty cheese and lettuce”, oh my!

My string of hamburgers ends as it started, in a brewery in a neighboring state. There are some big differences though, including the fact that it’s close enough to Cincinnati to be included in its Burger Week listing and it is a place I’ve visited before. I counted Bircus Brewery as my 200th and I’ve been here a couple of times since but have never eaten here. Bircus has always been a little different. Its home is a former theater and it has always been part brewery and part circus. The kitchen is a fairly recent addition. Its meat is sourced from the farm it supplies with spent grain making it a brewery-to-farm-to-table restaurant. Pizzas are always available; hamburgers are a Burger Week special. That’s a “Burger Alla Pendleton” in the basket and Lagoon Scotch Ale in the glass.

That’s a wrap. I end my personal ‘burger week on Saturday so I can write it up in my weekly post on Sunday morning. But the official Ohio Burger Week continues through today so you still have time to squeeze some buns and chomp on some patties. Every one of the seven pictured on this page would be worth your time and money and I’ve a hunch that all the others listed on the Burger Week website would be too. Last year was the first time that The Turf Club (nee Terry’s Turf Club) participated in Burger Week and this is the first year I’ve eaten there as part of the Burger Week binge. I’m not going to try ranking or even rating the ‘burgers I tried beyond saying that I retain my belief that in my experience The Turf Club serves the best hamburger in Cincinnati.

Riverside, Northside, Parkside

Posted on July 10, 2022 by Denny

Rereading the seven-year-old post that I reused last week (Broadside, Northside, Riverside Revisited) reminded me of how much I had enjoyed the Fourth of July parade in Northside. After a two-year hiatus for COVID, it returned this year and I was there. But first, there was a Third of July parade to attend.

With Independence Day falling on a Monday, the entire weekend was available for events that might otherwise be crammed into a single day. With sufficient stamina, one could celebrate from Friday evening through the end-of-day Monday. I started Sunday.

I headed to Freedom Fest in New Richmond, Ohio, where I had breakfast at Front Street Cafe, walked to Skipper’s for a drink, checked out the cars (and picked my favorite) at the cruise-in, and looked over the Cardboard Boat Museum. I also snapped a picture of the Showboat Majestic as I walked along the riverfront. The showboat moved to New Richmond in February of 2021 with high hopes that have slowly faded. Last week she was given ninety days to move on. Front Stree Cafe has been using a photo of mine that shows the boat and the cafe as their Facebook cover photo. Guess they’ll be moving on too.

I strolled through vendors lining Front Street until parade time approached then positioned myself near where the parade was forming.

The picture at the top of this article was taken during the parade. It shows one of the parade’s youngest participants making eye contact with a kindred soul who is almost but not quite ready to participate himself. Other pictures from the parade include a local color guard and marching band, some of the fifty or so golf carts and four-wheelers, and Captain America.

On July 4th, I was in Northside for one of the country’s coolest parades. The crowd was bigger than the one in New Richmond and had started arriving earlier. Here I was much closer to the parade’s endpoint than to its beginning.

I know you can’t appreciate the “From the Depths” creatures as much as I did without hearing the island rhythms they are dancing to. That’s much less an issue with the DANCEFIX group since it’s quite obvious these folks are dancing to an upbeat something. Captain America may not have made it to Northside but the parade was not without an attention-grabbing biker.

I’m sure no one was surprised to see the parade take note of the recent SCOTUS decision on abortion. There were small references throughout but it became the complete focus toward the end.

When the last of the parade reached me, I started walking toward the route’s end a few blocks away. My pace was a little faster than the trailing parade elements and I had moved ahead of them when I heard someone on a bullhorn behind me and turned around. A proclamation was being read from a podium encircled by the colorful ladies marching in front of the “Welcome to ‘The Summer of Rage'” banner and others. The only bit of the proclamation that I could make out declared independence for “women and anyone else who could become pregnant”. Valerie Jean Solanas for President of the United States is a play written by Sara Stridsberg. Valerie Solanus (1936-1988) is the author of the SCUM Manifesto and the woman who shot Andy Warhol in 1968. Whether any of that is important in the context of the parade is beyond me.

Kings Island amusement park has fireworks every night during the summer. I live close enough to hear but not see them. The park is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary and has expanded the show which makes it even easier than normal for me to know when 10:00 PM rolls around. I decided to fill out this post by scooting a few miles up the road and grabbing some pictures from a nearby parking lot. The actual fireworks aren’t shabby but neither are they extraordinary. What interested me more were the new-this-year drones. They are what is forming the words “Kings Island” in the photo.

The drones also form Snoopy, his doghouse, and many other images. Sometimes the drones are visible as they morph into something different; at other times they blink out then magically blink on in a new formation. Sometimes the image they are forming moves. That is the case with Evel Knieval’s motorcycle jump. I’m a horrible videographer but I made an attempt to capture it. I, along with my two sons and ex-wife, was actually there in 1975 when Evel made his longest jump, and I’m thinking this is pretty accurate.

Broadside, Northside, Riverside Revisited

Posted on July 3, 2022 by Denny

This past week was a combination of busy and boring that seemed certain to result in a canned post. In the end, however, I decided to reuse an old post rather than posting a new canned one. I may attend a parade or two this year and might watch some fireworks and thus feed an Independence Day post for next week but this week’s post is from 2015. The post originally appeared the day after rather than the day before the holiday. It has parades and fireworks but the highlight for me was viewing a copy of the second printing of the Declaration of Independence. I noted then that we had celebrated the “239th anniversary of that day when men of courage and vision” had stood together to create a new country. I don’t think “men of courage and vision” were all that common then and in the now 246 years since they have sometimes been downright scarce. They’re pretty scarce right now but there are a few. Unlike in 1776, however, many of today’s “men of courage and vision” are women. And that seems like a good thing.

July 5, 2015: There’s something in that display case that is 238 years 11 months and 26 days old. Twelve of America’s thirteen British colonies voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The thirteenth, New York, had not authorized its Continental Congress delegates to vote on the declaration. On the night of the fourth, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap produced at least 200 copies of the document with one of those copies reaching the New York Provincial Congress on July 9. Before the day was over, New York had joined the other colonies in approving the Declaration of Independence and ordered another 500 copies from New York printer John Holt. The Holt Broadside, as the second printing is known, contains the text of the New York resolution along with the full text of the declaration. Some copies were sent to the Continental Congress back in Philadelphia where it seems they somehow helped in getting the official parchment copy of the Declaration prepared. The signing of that official copy commenced on August 2.

A copy of that second printing made it to Cincinnati. One of four copies known to survive, it is in the pictured case. It is believed to have been brought to Cincinnati in 1810 by Richard Fosdick who, in 1815, was a member of Cincinnati’s first town council. The copy has been in the history library’s possession since at least the 1870s but was not recognized for what it is until about five years ago. The Holt Broadside is the centerpiece of the temporary Treasures of Our Military Past exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Yesterday was the 239th anniversary of that day when men of courage and vision agreed to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” in the creation of a new country. The day before was the 239th anniversary of the writing of a letter by John Adams in which he anticipated the happenings of the next day and told his wife that he expected it to be celebrated “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

I tried to do my share. I’ll admit that I didn’t actually go looking for guns and I gave up quickly on finding any bonfires. It’s even possible that the only bells I heard were electronic but I saw plenty of games, sports, and shews. I saw two parades, a fine set of illuminations, and there was pomp everywhere.

There was no shortage of parades in the area. Picking one wasn’t easy but I have absolutely no doubt that I picked the right one. Northside’s first 4th of July parade happened in 1864 when orphans were moved from downtown to a new orphanage by canal boats with members of the Turners, Oddfellows, Butchers Association, Bricklayers Society, and the Catholic Orphans Society marching alongside. The parade developed into a fundraiser that continued until the 1960s when the orphanage again moved. It was restarted in 1970. This year’s Grand Marshall was two-year-old Quincy Kroner who received some national attention after meeting the garbage collectors he admired. The event website is here.

Picking parade pictures from my 200+ was even tougher than picking the parade. I didn’t quite manage to trim them down to a reasonable number so here’s the start of an unreasonable number. I liked the big headed Spirit(s) of ’76 and Ben and Captain America, too. The patriotically attired lady next to me was not at all out of place as a spectator but she was there for a higher purpose. When the local steam punk group came by, she pushed the stroller forward and stepped right in.

When a portion of this cycling group started placing their bikes sideways down the center of the street, I expected some sort of slalom maneuver but noooo.

Someone told me that this same group marched in Cincinnati’s Gay Pride parade last month and much of the crowd simply turned their backs as they passed. It seemed that few did that today and, in my case, by the time I’d read all the signs, there was little point in turning. “I STAND WITH ISRAEL”, JESUS IS YOUR ONLY HOPE”, “…BEHOLD, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION”.

I believe this was my favorite parade entry. Essentially a live performance of Yellow Submarine with a Beatles soundtrack, it seemed to have it all. “Full speed ahead, Mr. Parker, full speed ahead!”

It might not have been quite as thrilling as the folks jumping over each others’ bikes, but these skateboard cowboys still put on a pretty exciting show with their moving ramp.

Lots of people accepted the “Dare to dance” challenge of the parade’s last float. Dance music blared as a street full of happy folks danced and smiled their way to the end point.

The end point was at the Northside Rock n’ Roll Carnival in Hoffner Park with twenty-one bands over three days. That’s “Daniel Wayne and the Silver Linings” on stage. The Stroh’s shirt is a bonus. As a similarly aged friend observed, the parade and carnival do sort of have a ’60s feel. It’s not a “we’re wearing beads and tie-dye” feel but a “we’re having fun and caring about stuff” feel.

I headed to Loveland for some fireworks and was pleasantly surprised to get there in time to catch part of another parade. It’s a little smaller and a bit more traditional than the one in Northside but it was still quite cool in its own way.

On the way to a fireworks viewing spot, I snapped a picture of Cindy’s holiday tree and the festival stage. Entertainment for Loveland’s Firecracker Festival included the Rusty Griswolds.

Loveland is the home of Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks so the city usually has a pretty decent “illumination” above the Little Miami River. This year’s grand finale didn’t seem all the grand but the overall show was quite good. Mr. Adams, I’m happy to report that we appear to still be observing this most important day pretty much the way you envisioned. I’m even happier to report that, at least in Cincinnati’s Northside, a little independent thinking can still be observed on Independence Day.

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