At the Ballymaloe Cookery School midst the verdant, feckin’ fecund rock and rolling countryside of southeast Ireland, in a corner of Co. Cork, peopled by Catholics, Quakers, hipsters, fisher-folk, farmers, potters, great and estimable barmen, true drunks and lechers, boxers, and poteen-makers, said cookery school gave leave to Yanks, Spaniards, Brits, Celts, Scots, the Orange, Japanese, Taiwanese, Republican Irish themselves, and the pretenders to mingle for three months and cook in sylvan bliss.

An Australian woman, distant, solid, had been dispatched to this alien place to learn a trade because the home place no longer afforded her a future. Asked about that place she spoke of her father, a stockman, who was about to retire after prowling and managing the 39,000 hectare station inherited from his father with its 5000 ewes, hundreds of cows and calves, goats (Oh, the goats, she said.) alone with his horse and two dogs. One dog was carried across the pommel while the other dog worked. When the working dog tired, they switched.

The father was retiring at an early age for a stockman in the family business, in his mid-fifties, he’d sold the station, and when asked why he would do so, she replied, “the tyranny of distance.”

I stood gob-struck.

That bloody simple.

When we shipped the iced Fresno crates of fresh-picked watercress lined with yesterday’s SF Chronicle I’d wish I’d saved (that was some writing back then) to the Oakland or San Francisco docks, I’d consider the tyranny of distance fleetingly as the delivery van spun Napa dust and worked its way up the drive and onto the highway beyond, though I didn’t know “its” name at that time.

A decade later our own watercress was shipped from the back of beyond, Coshocton Co., Ohio, to Cleveland two hours distant and we endured the tyranny of distance personally twice weekly. “It” was our demise.

But the tyranny of distance (lovely sibilants, eh?) can have many meanings. Walking the Appalachian Trail barefoot can certainly teach the truth of the phrase but so can the distance from your wheelchair to your bed were you in need of help.

It’s relative.

Run our of fuel in a loaner car at rush-hour at the base of the viaduct on the down side of Northside and you’ll soon be learning the first definition of both tyranny and distance,

With food it can have myriad meanings.

For this farmer, Archie Clare, it meant “…Archie had to do a lot of driving in order to farm. The distance of his farmland from home and the remoteness of the tracts from each other prevented Archie from diversifying. He felt that he couldn’t raise livestock because he didn’t live close enough to give cows, hogs, or chickens the attention they required. Moreover, a lot of time that might have gone into mending fences, experimenting with new crops, or working with produce was lost in commuting to the various farms.” (from Waiting for Rain, Dan Butterworth, 1992)

Archie Clare went out of business, another victim of “It”.

Ask the Ginnochios about the sad scene in East of Eden, in the sere Sierras, the train to the east halted, the cars weeping dying lettuce, avarice rewarded by nature, the scene screaming, “that goddam tyranny of distance—again!

The peak of perfection is just a moment. To deliver that moment consistently is a gift and a responsibility; an achievement. To fail is to fail.

To preserve that moment one must freeze, dry, smoke, cure, ferment, pickle, vout, or eliminate the tyranny of distance.

Ohio Maiden does that by locating the forage preserve in the city, blocks from Slims & Vout , so there is no question about freshness nor transparency. Mello-roonie. Solid.

Reservations recommended.

Farm to Fork to Farm…

“Much of the advice on eating ethically that now exists is far too confident and incomplete in light of the options before us.  It assumes that it is already possible for the world to eat an environmentally responsible diet.  But, as should be clear by now, it’s not.  Over the past decade or so, largely under the guidance of locavores, we have searched for precise guidelines for how to eat.  In undertaking this important mission, we have identified the right goal - sustainable food production - while jumping the gun on how to pursue it.

What we thus often end up doing is swallowing whole a bumper-sticker mantra - eat local, buy organic, support fair trade, damn Frankenfoods - without fully examining the effects of universalizing these impassioned imperatives.  It rarely occurs to us as we contemplate our personal dietary values that the current options might be inadequate, or even counterproductive.  The virtue we currently feel as a result of our green culinary decisions is, I fear, often a false virtue.”

-From James E. McWilliams’  Just Food (2009)

In addition…

The Thursday 3 for $30 promotion has been well received over the past few months. Thank you!  Slims will now extend that menu option to Fridays as well, during the hours of 5:30 to 7:00 pm.  Post 7pm on Fridays as well as Saturday evenings will be the standard $45 pre-fixe menu.  Please remember that our menu changes weekly to keep our cooks and regular customers engaged and inspired.  All menu changes are posted to the website by 3pm on Thursdays.  We hope you will join us again soon.

As a child, Labor Day weekend was not just anti-climactic, but downright tragic. It signaled the end of swimming and a return to long days spent indoors in an ugly uniform breathing the stale air of my classmates and struggling over long division and later quadratic equations. “Surely there was more to life?” I would wonder as I stared out the window as late summer rolled into fall.

Fast forward twenty years later and the end of summer isn’t really heartbreaking at all. Thanks to an extremely affordable membership at the YMCA, I switch to swimming inside around this time, and an absurd fondness for the metric system has made me much more tolerant of certain aspects of mathematics. (Baking by weight instead of volume yields much more consistent results and I feel like its some kind of little secret club…so practical, yet so elegant!). Now my days smell less like the recycled air of institutions and more like the simmering of chicken stock, the baking of pan agua and a faint whiff of pork belly. As the sweetness of late summer tomatoes gives way to the buttery pumpkins of autumn, I now get terribly excited for the possibilities of the comforting flavors and textures that fall cooking entails.

This year at Slims we will transition into the cooler months with a relatively new staff of talented individuals excited to be working on the ever-changing seasonal menu. Thom McKenna, who spent four years in the Slims kitchen, is out traversing the wilds of Alaska as I write this. All those who worked with him will miss his impish sense of fun in the kitchen but we are so proud of his beer making abilities and know he will go far with these endeavors. Stuart Tennison, another long time Slims employee, has recently moved on as well and we wish him and his fiancé Franny best of luck in their new life together!

Although some of the players may have changed, Slims will continue to offer Latin inspired dishes with local, Midwestern flavors and ingredients. Right now, we are having great fun with our house made charcuterie board and Sarah, Lily and I are excited to learn more innovative and sophisticated pastry techniques that will translate into ever-better ways to end the Slims evening. Back at the garden, the greenhouses will soldier on despite the cooler temperatures ensuring that the salads at Slims maintain their high quality. Patrick will prepare the raised beds to winter over in a few months and start packing for a long overdue trip to Puerto Rico.

While we will continue to offer the prix fix menu on Friday and Saturday nights as we always have, we have decided to offer an additional option of “3 for $30,” on Thursday nights as well. The choice of three courses will be an appetizer or salad, an entrée and a dessert. This is a great way to sample the variety of flavors that the Slims kitchen is currently producing but without breaking the bank! Thursdays also tend to be a little slower, so it’s a great night to stop in even if you don’t have a reservation. We’ll keep cooking until the food runs out!

We hope you’ll join us for dinner soon…

Joanne

-Wendell Berry from Life is a Miracle

From 1972 to 1981, but for a year in Ireland, I lived in or near Portland, Oregon.  It was the so-called Renaissance period.  I was a part of the warp and woof of that particular place at that particular time and marveled at its success.  In 2006, I returned to Portland to ask the following questions of my good friend, Bill Bulick:

• Why/how is Portland a great city?  How did it become such a great city?
• When/how did it really begin?
• What were the conditions and factors that enabled it to evolve so productively?
• What were the assets that were present in the early 70’s?  What were the challenges?
• How were the first sparks struck?  What were the initiatives that got things going?
• Was there synergy among various initiatives and factors?
• What was the single most important factor?
• When/how did the broader public become engaged with community building?
• How are conditions for community building different now?  What are the new challenges/critical issues?  Opportunities?
• What advice would you give other cities in terms of both specific directions and process?

Bill arranged for two solid days of meetings with former city council members, a director of the Public Market, environmentalists, a former County Commissioner, the former Portland Director and Head of County Planning, the Director of Portland State University’s School of Urban Studies, prominent architects, historians, a former state legislator and city council member, the former Director of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, a member of the Design Commission, the former Director of the Portland Development Commission, the superintendent of Public Parks and the Director of the Housing Authority.  (Thanks again, Bill!)

It was a heady and exhausting two days that revealed a footprint for a special city’s emergence and success.  I returned to Cincinnati greatly enlightened, energized and full of hope for this burgh.  I approached a former elected official with my information…and was told to sit on it.  I always do what I’m told.  I sat on it ’til now.  My ass hurts.  This city needs direction but, more importantly, an attitude adjustment.  The following is an email sent after I returned by a man I was never able to meet but would certainly like to.  His eloquent explanation I find particularly relevant for this place at this time.

Ed Carpenter, internationally prominent public artist;  former member of Arts Commission, many non-profit boards

For me the single most important Portland quality is access.  Portland has been progressive in the period you’re concerned with because, relative to other major cities, its leaders in a wide variety of fields have been open to discourse with and influence from individuals and groups from all levels of the social/cultural/business spectrum.  In bigger, more prominent cities, leadership is frequently barricaded against aggressive self-interest.  Portland seems to value the common good more than individual advancement, bullying careerism is frowned on, and leadership is able to be more relaxed, open and accessible.  Access leads to inclusion, which leads to embrace of a greater percentage of creative initiatives than in cities where leadership is aloof.  Portland has been just a little insecure, not yet arrogant, still aspiring, rather than smug.  Of course it’s just a short step to complacency, a step we may already have taken in some areas.

In thinking of individuals who typify the attitude I’m describing, I am reminded of the openness of many generous folks who helped me get started–curators, journalists, architects, arts administrators, business people. They enjoyed hearing the ideas of young blood and stirring them into the Portland pot.  They responded to my enthusiasm, drew me onto boards and listened to my ideas and helped me implement them, or they referred me to others who could assist professionally, and they didn’t seem to have so much at stake that they couldn’t take a chance on a half-baked but promising notion.  Many cities are tougher, more suspicious, more hierarchical.  At its best, Portland has a kind of relaxed transparency that contributes to multi-directional access, and a generosity and optimism that encourage initiative.

Beyond Beyond Organic  ::  Urban Ag

In Iowa it’s called the Boulevard.  In Portland it’s the Verge.  West Virginia refers to it as the Devil’s Strip.  We call it the Treelawn.  Either way, we won the skirmish, drew a line in the purslane and were congratulated for our victory.  Victory?  Pyrrhic perhaps.  Purslane is now, by decree, a noxious weed that does not grow over 10 inches tall.  I have one 11 inches.  Oh dear.  

The following is the unabridged written decision in City of Cincinnati vs. Patrick McCafferty, case 101751.

Present at Hearing:  Mr. Patrick McCafferty, Respondant, Mr. Michaes Kearns, his attorney, Mr. Bill Gutjahr, Mr. Larry Falkin, and Officer Jerry Grimes.  

Regarding the Notice of Civil Offense which was served on you charging that on 5/21/2009, you violated CMC 714-37, Owner to Maintain Premises Free of Litter.  

Findings of fact and conclusions of law:  This matter came on for hearing the morning of June 18, 2009.  Mr. McCafferty was represented by legal counsel and a plea denying the charge was entered.  

Officer Jerry Grimes testified that he was patrolling in the Northside area on May 21, 2009, when he observed what he considered a problem at 4141 Chambers.  He said that he took a photograph of what he observed and issued a citation to the owner for weeds and brush, which partially covered the sidewalk.  He offered a copy of the photograph he took at the time of his inspection into evidence.

When asked where the grass was that he found to be over ten inches high, Mr. Grimes indicated that it was between the sidewalk and the curb on the Knowlton Street side of the property, but said that it was farther down the street and did not really show well in his photograph.

Much of the testimony at the hearing, both from the City and the Respondant, dealt with the bundles of brush that were prominent in Officer Grimes’ photograph.  I cannot see how the brush, which had apparently come from a tree or branches that had fallen, have any relevance to the question of whether there had been a failure to maintain the property free of noxious weeds.

The question for me, therefore, seems to be whether there were noxious weeds in the area between the sidewalk and the curb on Knowlton.  

Mr. McCafferty was trained as a Chef in Ireland, and in addition to having several restaurants, here and abroad, worked as a farmer and grew foodstuff for use in his restaurants.

He said the plants growing between the sidewalk and the curb were purslane.  He stated that he did not plant the purslane, but took advantage of its growth and harvested it for use in dishes at his restaurant.  It apparently grows wild in many parts of the City.  

Mr. McCafferty explained that purslane only gets to ten inches in height when it goes to seed and that when he harvests it, is maybe six inches high.  He does not feel that purslane is a weed as it is edible and he considers weeds to be things that are inedible.  

While Mr. McCafferty may use purslane in his cooking, that does not mean that it is not a weed.  The American Heritage Dictionary, while recognizing that purslane is sometimes cooked as a vegetable or also used in salads, defines it as a trailing Asian weed.

I believe that purslane would fall within the definition of a noxious weed if it were more than ten inches high as it is apparently a wild plant if not a weed, and noxious weeds are defined to include grass, wild plants and weeds over ten inches in height.

The evidence that the purslane was over ten inches high is not all that good.  The photograph does not clearly show it and Mr. McCafferty indicated that he had just harvested some and that he did that before it goes to seed.  

I cannot find that the City has met its burden of proof.  I feel that Officer Grimes, in an effort to be nice to Mr. McCafferty and not cite him for litter, gave up his strongest case.  

Knowing that purslane will be considered by me to be a noxious weed, and that he is responsible for maintaining the area between the sidewalk and the curb free of noxious weeds, I assume that Mr. McCafferty will see that the purslane and other weeds are maintained so as not to get ten inches high.

Case dismissed.

Respectfully submitted,

Douglas E. King (Hearing Examiner)

I’m Ohio bred and born, but my character was forged in the West.  There’s the difference.

For 37 years I’ve been a small farmer in search of a fine climate.  The project I’m currently working on in your town started 37 years ago in Portland, Oregon, a city with a fine climate. Over the years, Northern California, Ireland, Spain and East Central Ohio all proved to have fine climates.  The Ohio River valley has perhaps the finest climate of all, yet the political climate here gives me pause.

The City is currently trying to fine me for cultivating purslane on the tree lawn.  I appreciate the absurdity, the Dada nature of the event, and sincerely hope we can use it to a better end.  Yet this is but a small example of a greater malaise.  The City has turned against the Citizenry to prevent them from going where the City professes to want them to go.  Oh, dear.  

Slims is changing.  Again.  Heeeeere’s Joanne.

…In the lemon

knives cut

a small cathedral,

the hidden apse

opened acid windows

to the light

and drops poured out

the topazes,

the altars

the cool architecture.

 So when your hand

grasps the hemisphere

of the cut

lemon above your plate

you spill

a universe of gold,

a goblet yellow

with miracles,

one of the aromatic nipples

of the earth’s breast,

the ray of light that became fruit,

a planet’s miniscule fire.

-from Ode to the Lemon, 1954

As someone who finds it impossible to cook without lemons, I have a special fondness for this poem.  The brightness of a lemon elevates so many different flavors.  In my mind, the lemon is the soul-mate of extra virgin olive oil, and finds its true sophistication when preserved with simple kosher salt and perhaps a touch of honey.  A lemon is not expensive, it is not coveted by foodies who are “in the know.”  Nonetheless, it is a flavor that I cannot imagine cooking without.  For this cook, it IS “the ray of light that became fruit.”

The above stanzas are borrowed from the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.  If a lemon is the flavor I cannot cook without, then Mr. Neruda is most definitely the writer I cannot live without.  Many are familiar with his famous love poems, especially the One Hundred Love Sonnets from 1960.  Less familiar are the Elemental Odes from 1954, which include the above poem.  Other odes include ones to wine, salt, an onion, a tomato and a chestnut.  These odes are as romantic as his love sonnets, but directed towards everyday ingredients that offer common sustenance across class and culture.

When I think of the way we cook at Slims, I think of these poems, which I have loved for years.  We start with beautiful raw ingredients, many of which we take out of the ground a few blocks away in our urban farm.   As cooks, it is our job to treat them with respect.  To me, this includes cleaning them and storing them properly, but also preparing them in such a way that their natural beauty always comes to the forefront. 

Unlike other restaurants, one will notice a conspicuous absence of high priced ingredients such as truffles, foie gras, lobster and the like.  What we do enjoy is curing our own charcuterie products, making pasta from scratch, brewing root beer, composing salads out of a variety of our heirloom lettuces, herbs and flowers, and pickling some of the different varieties of vegetables we just can’t use in time.

Slims is a restaurant that, like Mr. Neruda, would rather pay homage to the humble ingredients.  He regarded “poetry not as an elite pursuit but as a statement of human solidarity addressed to ‘simple people.’”  I feel much the same when it comes to cooking.  Everyone should have access to food that is healthful and raised sustainably.  At Slims, I am thrilled to spend my days working both in the garden and the kitchen with such products.  And as much as I hope that our guests will enjoy the food, I also hope we might just inspire them to try their hand at a little growing too.   

 ”A world in which a sacramental portion of food can be taken in an old way- hunting, fishing, farming and gathering has as much to do with societal sanity as a days work for a days pay.

Thomas McGuane
The Heart of the Game

Six In the City
 
Slims Sixth Birthday 

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Featuring

Tim Bando (Meeting House, Amagansett, N.Y.)

and

His Band O’SwellDames

Joanne Drilling (Slims)

Lily Dean (Slims)

Sarah Brown (Slims)

Lisa Kagen (Melt)

5:00-6:00 Music & hors d’oeuvres

6:00-9:00 a multi-course meal

$40 per person

Reservations Recommended

Slims

681-6500

Also

Visit us at the Cincinnati Flower Show

Symmes Township Park

at

Vout (limited edition) April 18-26

Lunch only 12pm-3pm

Reservations Recommended

681-6500

Hemingway : Fiesta

A literary dinner based on Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and ”A Moveable Feast”

Sunday January 25, 2009

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a reading at

The C&D Taverna 1714 Hanfield 541-9881

(corner of Witler and Hanfield in Northside)

5pm to 6pm

A multi-course dinner with readings

featuring

Joanne Drilling and Slims staff

6pm to 9pm

$45 per person

at

Slims

4046 Hamilton

Cincinnati Ohio, 45223

681-6500

Reservations Recommended