Liz Lemon Break

Liz Lemon: I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.

Jack Donaghy: How surprising that your world view is food-based.





That is all.

Pro-Portional Designs Meets the Thurman Burger

Fridays dinner attempt left me still craving something more. Something better. Something good to eat.

Our mission was to find something reasonably affordable, new, and nommy. Since we had already visited one of the local eatery's featured on the recently re-aired Columbus edition of Man VS. Food. Why not another?

The chosen spot? The Thurman Cafe, where some of you who have seen the show, may remember Adam Richman taking on the Thurman burger. The Thurman burger is 3/4 pound burger "overloaded" with ham, mozzarella and American cheese, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, sautéed onions, pickle, peppers and mayo with kettle chips and a pickle spear. Some of you may have noticed I'm completely cray-cray for burgers so this wasn't a hard choice to make. Hubby and I got ourselves ready at home, grabbed a buddy of ours and headed to German Village.

Street parking is rarely anyone's favourite option but it really wasn't too hard to find a spot. We parked on the same block and could see our car from the benches in front of the resto. However, on these benches we saw quite a few people waiting. I sent hubby in ahead to give them our names for the wait that was obviously ahead and grabbed a bench with our pal.

We waited about an hour to an hour and half before being seated. Our wait didn't end up being as agonizing as it could have been because before out name was called they called about four others that were parties that bailed.

The inside of Thurmans is pretty tiny, more like a bar than a resto. and it seems to be have a light coating of dollar bills that have been decorated everywhere. Behind the bar, dollars hang like drying meat.

Service was relatively speedy about taking our order. Chicken cor don bleu balls and chicken strips were our chosen appetizers. Two Thurman burgers and a bacon burger were the entrees.

In the beginning the drinks came on pace with when we needed more, but by the third drink our first bartender took an order and then went AWOL. Thankfully, another lovely bartender questioned where the drinks we told her we had ordered were, and made sure we got them right away.

My first bite of chicken cor don bleu balls wasn't a total disappointment but I did manage to burn my finger when some totally unexpected hotness dripped out onto my finger. The chicken strips tasted like chicken strips, not particularly moist, not too dry, and not of any degree of crunchiness that set them apart. On the plate with the "bleu balls" (as the staff seems to enjoy saying to you) Thurmans chosen sauce is honey mustard, it wasn't a terrible combo. The sauce on the plate for the chicken strips was another story. I'm not certain what it was supposed to be but after tasting it I realized it was cocktail sauce.

Finally our burgers arrive and the Thurman is not quite as daunting as it may have come across on television. However, our friend was turned off by what he felt was a sickening and unnecessary, thick layer of ham. Before sinking my teeth in I did remember the waitress from Man VS Food who mentioned she liked to see how people chose to eat it. I chose to eat it like I would any other burger and our friend chose to eat it with knife and fork. Choosing to pick up this burger and eat it like any other did prove to be just as messy as our friend feared but it didn't bother me in the least.



The flavours of the burger did not always meld together. There were times where a bite would taste more like ham, mushroom, or onion (instead of burger.) Autonomously these tastes were fine. The mushrooms were very pleasantly buttery. But together you barely noticed they were there and the burger patty was not one to write home about.

Keep in mind, I had a few of the appetizers before taking on the Thurman. I managed to eat all but three bites of my burger and really wanted to finish it, but something told me that to do so would be . . . unwise. We were unable to have the waitstaff take our payment as quickly as we were able to get our bill; and then needed to hail them one last time to get a box for the remainder of the Thurman and the bleu balls. The final total of our meal was not a price I would recommend to any poor college students. Each burger at the Thurman cafe averages a nine dollar price tag.

I finished the last three bites of the Thurman only about an hour and a half later and decided I liked the cold leftovers (much) better than I had the hot burger while still at Thurmans.

My own star rating for this resto. would come in at three stars. I really enjoyed the "blue balls", all of the waitstaff was pleasant and friendly, and the menu was one I could consider coming back to try once more.

All photos of our adventure can be found here in the Om Nom Nom Studios Flickr stream.

The Ohio Deli Home of The Dagwood & Its Challenge

For any fans of the Travel Channel show Man VS Food, you may have seen the Columbus (Ohio) episode, and hearing about the Ohio Deli and it's famous Dagwood sandwich.

Named for Dagwood Bumstead, from the comic strip Blondie, this 2 1/2 pound sandwich contains ham, turkey, roast beef, lettuce, tomato, onion, both American and Swiss cheese served on a giant bun with a coating of garlic mayo. The Ohio Deli has what is known as "the Dagwood Challenge" where you need to eat this behemoth of a sandwich, the fries, and your pickle spear in thirty minutes or less. The current record is 3 minutes and 12 seconds. What do you get if you win? Your picture on the wall and a shirt stating that you defeated the Dagwood. If you lose you always have the option of to get the "The Dagwood Kicked My *%#@" shirt. The urge to try this sandwich (not the challenge) was incredible.

Before heading out for the evening I did some light internet snooping about the restaurant and the sandwich itself. Reviews I saw here made me wonder exactly what I would end up with. What stood out the most were the remarks about the slow service and someone referring to it as "the dirty deli."


The restaurant itself definitely falls under the category of "hole in the wall" (and I don't mean this as any sort of slur), had I not been looking for it I may not have paid much attention and even then, had I seen it I may not have given it a second look.

The inside is fairly small but I was happy with that, I'd been worried that it being a Friday night I may have a problem with seating or a wait. The wait was very short to be seated and once seated I made sure to see if my table was sticky as one reviewer said theirs was (it wasn't.)

We were given three menus a lunch, a dinner, and a special menu. I was really there for a good sandwich so the dinner menu wasn't really what I wanted and nothing of the special menu jumped out at me except the all-you-can-eat fried fish.

I ended up choosing not to order the Dagwood with the intention of coming back with my father when next he visits and splitting it with him.

Three sections of the menu (the perfect match, 11 reasons you cannot forget us, and deli originals) all seemed so tasty that I couldn't decide what to order if the Dagwood was not to be. Finally I chose the Manhattan (hot pastrami, corned beef, Swiss cheese, served on deli rye with lettuce & tomato) and my husband chose a hot open faced sandwich (the countryside: hot veal cutlet served open face on white bread & covered with beef gravy.)
To drink we ordered from the section called "Ohio Deli Bottled Soda", I ordered the "Sour Apple Soda" and my husband ordered the "Blue Raspberry Soda." As you can see when they came it turns out it should probably say "Wild Apple Soda." The drinks were fine, his tasted like a blue freeze-e pop and mine was more sweet than sour.

The service was indeed slow (but still polite) so it took a moment until we learned they were out of veal - so my husband had the roast beef open faced sandwich instead.

Here is a photo of me right after receiving my sammich - little did I know this face would be how I felt in a short while. The sandwich was on the lower scale of okay, it was definitely nothing I would feel a craving for that warranted an immediate trip to the Ohio Deli. I was only able to eat one of the flakey fries, after that I had no desire to try another.

Mediocre food or not I was enjoying spending time with my husband. Then from behind me the little girl (I believe is visible in the picture) saw a black man walking up to come in and said "look daddy, n*****s!" I stopped. I half-turned. I answered my husbands question when he saw the look on my face. And lost my appetite. I put down what remained of my Manhattan. We paid. And left.

Now I realize this was not the restaurants fault but that of the parent and grandparents who were there with her said nothing and kept on eating.

If I had to give this restaurant a star rating I'd give it 2 to 2 1/2 stars, meaning I've had much better but I've had much worse.

For the rest of the pictures from dinner you can see them here in the Om Nom Nom Studios Flickr stream.

If you're interested in a home-made Dagwood of your own there is a recipe here. And if you just want to look as some food porn of someone's home-made Dagwood you can see one here on Scanwiches.

Om Nom Nom Studios Eight-Layer Heart-Attack Pizzagna

My dear sweet hubbycakes has had a few bad days in a row. What almost always cheers me up is a good meal. On tonight's menu we have stuffed pizza.

Now let's take a look what went into this particular stuffed pizza.

For one thing I started it around 10:30AM and he would not be home until after 4PM. Why on earth would I start this early? Dough. This was an impromptu idea, usually I let most dough's sit for no less than twenty-four hours. Doughs can be like wines. They have personalities and are capable of having complex flavours but need time to develop those flavours. But in all honesty your pizza won't be a total wash if you don't let the dough sit for a day or two. I let mine sit until about 2PM.

This particular dough was made with two types of flour and also has butter, Parmesan cheese, and garlic inside of it.

2PM was my chosen assembly time and it took me about an hour to do so.


Thin "coating" of pizza dough. Gotta be sure to bring it up the sides to insure that all the filling has something to hold it in.

An uninterrupted layer of sausage. This was put down in one solid sheet and THEN added to where I felt it was needed.

A layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of pepperoni.

Another layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of sauce.

A layer of black olives.

Yet another layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of bacon.

Another layer of dough that was topped off with more sauce. This was all put into the oven at 350 degrees for no less than forty-five minutes (honestly I wasn't really timing but I knew I wasn't taking it out sooner than that.)

Nothing about my end result was neat.


While I assembled this I really couldn't help but think about that episode of Sit Down, Shut Up called "Tackin';" where after a teacher has a heart attack and describes it as a blissful experience the students of the school begin fattening up and attempting to induce heart attacks to get high.

The Birthday Cake I Have Been Dreaming Of

My birthday is just a little under a month away and I must admit - I am a birthday person, and not just my own. I tend to get pretty excited when birthdays are near.

During the year I drop random hints to my hubby about things I would find birthdayliscious (for my own personal day.) On my computer I keep a fun little archive of cute foods I would like to one day see become a reality. And by this I mean a reality that I can take a bite out of.

Things to Do With Your Life When You're Unable to Knit

Still out of commission but I have high hopes that I am on the mend.

Today was one of those days where I woke up smiling so I treated myself to a little Duran Duran via YouTube first thing.



Then I headed out to play some early morning basketball with my hubby. The weather was looking better than it has recently so I suggested if we left right then we could go canoeing.

The scenic twelve-mile river ride was worth the two hour drive to get there. Last time we went Perfect flipped the canoe at least twice so we didn't bring a camera out with us.

Since we started out so super early in the day we hadn't eaten yet. We chose to go through a Long John Silvers/KFC drive-thru. I ended up not getting the double down (say whaaaaaaaaaaaat?) and instead went for the KFC boneless fillet or what I have been personally calling, "hand chicken."

On the way home hubby felt incredibly compelled to buy a wiffle ball and bat for family fun when we head out to his grandma's house. I came thisclose to buying a Shake Weight but my mother managed to talk me out of it via phone, saying that she heard those don't work. BUMMER!

To lift my spirits I hoofed it over to World Market while hubby bought the wiffle balls and bat to look for something fruity nom to drink.

While I looked around I saw some other nommies and snapped a few pics and sent them to my waiting hubby outside in the car. There was an interesting looking Dandelion & Burdock drink, chipotle chilli dark chocolate bars (I was actually looking for the bacon and dark chocolate bars but they didn't have them today), and chilli and lime dark chocolate bars.


I nearly got this yard of twizzler container.


Here is what I came away with. So far I have only cracked into the sparkling pear and it's just wonderful. It doesn't really taste like any pear drink I have had before. My first impression was a bit like cream soda meets pear. All I can say is that it's sweet, smooth, light, and just the right bit of tart.

In the center is a key lime pie cream soda. There was only one left and my parents are huge key lime pie fans. I may drink it, I may bring it home, I may search for more so everyone can try it all at once - I just don't know yet. All I knew was, with one left I had to buy it.

And here is my impulse purchase, a Big Bite Gummy Bear (blue raspberry flavoured) - but I don't know if I will be able to bring myself to eat it.

I'd Prefer A Cold Turkey Sammich . . .

For the last week I haven't been knitting. Not because I've chosen to abstain for some unfathomable reason but because I woke up one morning with minor wrist pain (which happens to me from time to time) and instead of just not knitting for a day like I usually would; I didn't knit for something silly like two hours. Then once I picked my sticks back up I didn't just continue working on my sweater (which would have required very little brain power it's so simple right now), I chose to begin a fair isle beret (and not a particularly simple one).

Here is an example of what could be considered a simple fair isle pattern.

This is the "first fair isle anything(cowl/headband)" by Irene Ramalho. Shown here is Irene's (I have made one of these but do not have a decent picture of it).

Here is the pattern I chose to work on right now.

The beret shown here is not my own. I Googled you up a decent picture so you could see what we're dealing with here and all credit for the work that went into this should go to blogger, Lauren Wood of Lauren's Crafts.

Here is how far I got into my own hat before it happened.

One of the tips of my fingers has gone numb and I have been unable to feel it since. The wrist pain did not increase to an unbearable level until later that night.

Since I have been forced into cold-turkeydom I have been camped out on my lappie.

Right after posting about my attempt at dreamsicle cupcakes, Darling Misty B. pointed out she was unable to post a comment. I went back into bloggers comment settings and made sure everything looked good to go and it did.

However, today when I was snooping around the intarwebs I ran across Chinamommy, who was kind enough to stop by here as well. ChinaMommy ended up sending me a mail through my Etsy shop letting me know she had the same issue.

Comments should now be properly enabled. When you go to comment you should be lead to a page to do just that. I chose not to use the pop-up option because so many of us have pop-ups blocked these days.

And thanks again to ChinaMommy and Darling Misty B. for the heads-up.

Happy Belated Mother's Day

Happy belated mothers day to any of you who are fortunate enough to have little (or even possible now grown) people.

This mothers day was a two-in-one sort of holiday for my family here in OH. It was also my husbands grandmother's birthday. Which, admittedly we may not have known if not for months of hints dropped by the birthday-ma.

Columbus is fortunate enough to have a local ice-creamery that is so good I've considered never leaving the city. I have lived here for about three or four years now and it was only a few months ago that I tried out Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. The day of our first visit the boy and I noticed a flavour that seemed just up his grandmother's alley.

You see, among the things we know her to love are nuts. Yeah I'll say it, she's nuts about nuts. When we saw "Black Walnut Divinity" we decided right then and there that this was what we wanted for her for her birthday.

Neither the boy, or myself are from particularly small families. Most holidays here warrant a trip to grandma's house where a decent amount of us will congregate all day long. To insure that grandma would not have to share her birthday treat we decided to bring her to the ice cream rather than the other way around. We made a date with her for today around 1:30 to go out and get ice cream.

The Black Walnut Divinity is out of season right now so the only way for us to get it would have been to buy a pint. So grandma tried the many flavours and picked two out for herself. The boy and I tried a few of the new seasonal flavours and chose to go with a bowl with three half-scoops.

From left to right is grandma's bowl which has: Bourbon Pecan and Gravel Road.

My bowl which has: Wilberry Lavender (purple), Goat cheese with roasted red cherries (white/red), and Rhubarb Rosé (pink).

The Wildberry Lavender is my favourite, so much so that the purple ice cream in my tattoo is supposed to be this Jeni's flavour.

And then the boys bowl, which has: Buckeye State (tan), Strawberry Buttermilk (pink), and Honey Vanilla Bean (cream).

[The hat seen here is the trilobite pattern by Hannah Ingalls available for free here on Knitty.]

As always Jeni's was far from a disappointment. I didn't get a chance to taste grandma's (but I wasn't after hers anyway) but I did try the boys. The Buckeye State wasn't for me but that's because despite my love of dark chocolate, I am not usually a big peanut butter ice cream fan. The strawberry buttermilk lived up to it's description of fragrant Ohio strawberries with rich buttermilk impart a light, clean finish. Like a bowl of strawberries and cream. It was indeed like a bowl of strawberries and cream.

The Rhubarb Rosé which boasts that is is, creamy with a burst of sweet wine flavor and a hint of not-too-sweet rhubarb. Was dead on, I found a lot of pleasure in the wine finish.

In fact, wine flavouring is one of my favourite things you can be sure to find in their other flavours like Riesling Poached Pear and Cocoa Zin. I forgot to taste the new flavour, Cherry Lambic (lambic isn't a wine anyway), but hope to very soon (my own birthday is only about a month away now.)

What I didn't forget to taste was the [new] Mango Lassi. This was a fantastic idea. For those of you who are not familiar with it, Lassi is a traditional yogurt-based Indian drink. Ice cream was a great move. Mango flavouring had me at mango. I loved it!

Even my non-cheese-eating hubby was able to enjoy the goat cheese with roasted red cherries.

If any of this appeals to you on a scale where you find yourself cursing the fact that you don't live in the capitol city of the Buckeye nation. Have no fear. Not only can you order Jeni's over the internet and have it shipped to you but it has recently become available in Whole Foods (however, I cannot remember if that is only a local deal right now.)

Cupcake Pebbles

Ever since I heard about Cupcake Pebbles I've wanted to get my hands on some. Who could blame me? Yesterday when I went grocery shopping I was finally successful.

Naturally, this morning I decided to try some for brekkie.

When I opened the box and took a whiff I swear it smelled exactly like cupcakes. Exciting.

I made sure to get a quick pic of the cereal before I laid into it.

This cereal tastes a lot like some sort of rice krispy treat cuppy.

The Om Nom Nom stance on this cereal is - for the win!

Another Entry for the Om Nom Nomtionary

I mentioned a while ago I coined another term for the "Om Nom Nomtionary"

Knitwhipped [nit hwipt, nit wipt]
- adjective

1. Having received a whipping from your knitting
2. Having been subdued or defeated by a knitted project as though by whipping
3. Exhaustion caused by having been beaten by knitting


Origin:
Knitting fuckery