etherfarm

Food Bender 2010: Cincinnati and North Central Kentucky

Just before midnight, Monday, May 03, 2010 • 3 responses

Food Bender 2010 involved some quality time in a part of the country I don’t know very well—the southeastern midwest (or if you prefer, the northwestern South). In 2008, I went to the Woodworking in America Handtools Event in Berea, Kentucky, but other than my brief stay at the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, that trip was primarily about woodworking, not about food.

This year, in addition to a few nights in Cincinnati (a way cool town, it turns out), three friends and I used the Old Ministry House (pictured above) as a base of operations for exploring the area’s culinary and cultural offerings. The bucolic setting and the sporadic mobile phone reception left me about as unplugged as I get—both mentally and electronically. …

(The full entry is also filed in Synapse under Globetrotting)

On To Two O One O

Lunchtime, Thursday, December 31, 2009 • 5 responses

Most of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances found 2009 a harder year than years past. The global economic downturn and its residual effects of course weighed heavily on all of us—some more directly than others. For me, 2009 really wasn’t bad, and I’m going into 2010 with some good momentum.

The Could’ve-Been-Better …

(The full entry is also filed in California, Globetrotting, Personal, Ray, Woodworking, and Work)

Food Bender 2009: Portland, Maine

Evening, Thursday, May 07, 2009 • 5 responses

I just got back from my first official “Food Bender”; a ritual I will repeat annually from now until circumstances dictate otherwise. Contrary to what you might believe, Food Bender 2009 was not, in fact, a convention for vegetable origami. It was a weekend in which friends and I traveled to a destination simply to eat. Some guys go to Vegas. We went to Portland, Maine—my old stomping grounds and in my opinion, one of the best foodie meccas in the country.

(The full entry is also filed in Synapse under Globetrotting)