This Week’s Dining Events
This week's dining events and cooking classes: Italianfest, Lobstapalooza and more. WEDNESDAY 10 Taste the World Food Tour — Makes stops at six specialty merchants for tastings, market history and more. 11 a.m. $20; $5 optional wine tasting add on. Meets at Daisy Mae’s Market, Findlay Market, 1801 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, findlaymarket.org. Dinner and Dancing:…
Counting Calories Made Fun
“Buy a thing of arugula from the store. Dump it in a bowl.” This is the beginning of Mandy Levy’s Buffauxlo Chicken Salad recipe from her new book Calorie Accounting: The Foolproof Diet-by-Numbers Plan for a Skinnier New You, a humorous and self-deprecating weight-loss book that feels more like your best friend telling you about…
Mad House Vinegar (Feature)
What if you could take unusable beer wort and transform it into something that’s not only edible, but will also help save the environment? Last year, Richard Stewart, farm manager at Carriage House Farm, teamed up with chef Justin Dean to reduce brewery waste with their line of Mad House malt vinegars. “I started picking…
City Desk June 10-16
SORTA Releases Streetcar Operating Costs The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority on June 5 released the dollar amounts for the two lowest bids for the first 10 years of streetcar operations. One bid is under the city’s budget, while the other is not. But a timely decision by Cincinnati City Council might be more complicated…
Balance of Power
Last November, Cincinnati City Council unanimously voted to double the size of the city’s human services fund from $1.5 million to $3 million during the next budget cycle. But when City Manager Harry Black released his proposed Fiscal Year 2016-2017 budget earlier this month, that suggestion was disregarded. Now councilmembers are questioning how much power…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey Cincy. Here’s your news this morning. The battle over the city budget continues. Council’s five Democrats yesterday afternoon released their own suggestions for the city’s fiscal year 2016-2017 spending plan, and they’ve made some key changes. Their operating budget proposal would increase human services funding by $1.5 million, bringing it up to the level…
Leftovers: What We Ate This Weekend
Each week CityBeat staffers, dining writers and the occasional intern tell you what they ate this weekend. We're not always proud — or trendy — but we definitely spend at least some money on food. Ilene Ross: Some days, the job of being a dining writer has more perks than others. On Friday morning I picked up the…
Morning News and Stuff
Morning y’all. Hope you had a good weekend taking in the tons of live music downtown. If you’re one of the 10,000 people who saw Ja Rule on Fountain Square, well, I kind of envy you and wish I could’ve taken that early 2000s nostalgia trip. Ah, the days when Ja’s gruff calls of "every…
Tammy Faye’s Final Audition (Critic’s Pick)
Critic's PickIt was not easy work being Tammy Faye Bakker. In Tammy Faye’s Final Audition performer Shelley Delaney, a theater professor at Ohio University, is a wholly believable Tammy Faye, auditioning — we come to realize — for heaven. She wants whoever it is, the someone or something she has believed in since she was…
SORTA Releases Streetcar Operating Costs
The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority today released the dollar amounts for the two lowest bids for the first ten years of streetcar operations. The names of the bidding companies were not released, per SORTA's assertion that it would compromise the competitive bidding process. You can read the bids here. One bid, called the management…
Your Weekend To Do List (6/5-6/7)
Theater, art, bugs to eat, opera to see, a performance from Ja Rule and a ton of music festival fun. FRIDAY Dress for a fest and head to BUNBURY This year’s Bunbury Music Festival, the first since it was acquired by Columbus, Ohio’s PromoWest Productions, features an ambitious and diverse lineup. The event, running Friday…
Foreign Film Friday: Solaris (1972)
This weekly series discusses the cultural and artistic implications of a selected foreign film. If you watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, you will have, if nothing else, an experience. Yours might be revelatory or painful or, like mine, a bit of both. Based off of Polish author Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel of the same name, Solaris…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. Here’s the news for Cincy today. Today is the grand opening of the Esther Marie Hatton Center for Women on Reading Road in Mount Auburn. The shelter will house up to 60 women seeking to escape homelessness, as well offer classrooms and other on-site facilities. The shelter is one of two replacing…
Your Weekend Playlist: Bunbury Music Festival
It’s music festival time, folks. That barefoot-in-the-grass, sun-on-your-skin, and live-music-filling-your-bones kind of season has arrived, and this weekend our very own city is welcoming music lovers everywhere to Bunbury Music Festival. Here are a handful of my personal favorite jams from selected artists who will be performing this weekend: The Black Keys – Weight of…
Stage Door: Fringe and a Few Alternatives
Let’s start with the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. There are just two more days of performances, so you need to choose carefully. Based on what I’ve seen personally, I suggest you should seriously consider several shows still in the rotation: Moonlight After Midnight (Friday at 6:30 p.m., Saturday at 8:40 p.m.) is my favorite among this…
Love and Information (Critic’s Pick)
Critic's Pick Love and Information is unusual for a Fringe Festival, a work by major British playwright Caryl Churchill (Cloud Nine; Top Girls) that’s been produced by theaters in London and New York since 2011. Yet Churchill (now in her mid-70s) has always been an edgy artist, and her plays have never been considered mainstream.…
Wanna-Bes
Critic's Pick Schlockmeister Max Bialystock (Mike Sherman) and accountant Leo Bloom (Spenser Smith) have the same aspiration. As Bloom sings in an opening number of The Producers, “I wanna be a producer.” But his rationale is “’cause it’s everything I’m not.” He’s trapped in a dreary, repetitive life, the very opposite of Bialystock, whose career…
Weekenders: What We’re Doing This Weekend
Each week CityBeat staffers share their weekend plans: from dinner and drinks or special events to out-of-town concerts and stories we're working on. And some of us just watch TV. Mike Breen: I’m planning on Bunbury-ing as much as possible this weekend at the Bunbury Music Festival. There are some great acts throughout the entire…
I Just Can’t Get Enough
It should come as no surprise that I do not have very high TV standards (check my DVR full of every Shark Tank episode + all Bravo originals), but there is a small pool of programming I just won’t watch — basically anything that involves wedding dress shopping and all things Bachelor/ette related. So I…
Queer City Spotlight: Call Her Caitlyn. Only Caitlyn.
Anyone who knows me is quick to call me out as a Kardashian fanatic. I grew up with them through religiously watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians. My specific fascination and adoration for Kim Kardashian West is ridiculous to most people, but I cannot help it! She is everything to me. Naturally, I jumped for…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning y’all. Here’s a brief rundown of what’s happening in Cincy today. The Southern Ohio Regional Transit Authority and the Amalgamated Transit Union finally signed an agreement yesterday over the potential for ATU employees to work jobs operating the streetcar. The union doesn’t have the gig yet, however; council will be deciding among yet-to-be-released…
This Week’s Dining Events
This week's dining classes include summer appetizers, a dog's night out, Taste of Newport and more. WEDNESDAY 03 French Bistro Classics — Escargot Bourguignon, French onion soup, steak frites and tarte tatin. 6:30-9 p.m. $55. Cooks’Wares, 11344 Montgomery Road, Harper’s Point, cookswaresonline.com.Quarterly Chef’s Table Event — Seven-course meal exploring the chemistry between food and wine. 6-8:30…
Marie’s Story
Born both blind and deaf, Marie Heurtin (Ariana Rivoire) emerges from isolation thanks to the support of Sister Marguerite (Isabelle Carré), who teaches her how to effectively communicate her thoughts and feelings. Philippe Blasband and Jean-Pierre Améris (who partnered on the script for Romantics Anonymous) shared screenwriting credit here, while Améris took the helm (as…
I’ll See You in my Dreams
It is such a rare story to see films involving the exploration of vibrant and loving relations between more mature characters. Brett Haley (The New Year), working from a script co-written with Marc Basch, offers this tale of Carol Petersen (Blythe Danner), a widowed singer-songwriter. Under the watchful guidance of a trio of friends, Carol…
People’s Liberty to Award Three $15,000 Grants to Local Artists
Are you a local artist who can turn a 800-square-foot gallery space into something impactful and eye-catching? People’s Liberty, Cincinnati’s philanthropic laboratory, is looking for three talents to utilize their storefront Globe Gallery, located at the organization’s Over-the-Rhine headquarters. They begin accepting proposals on June 15 — when the application goes live — until July…
Onstage: The Producers
Hit Broadway musical The Producers is the first show staged at Cincinnati Landmark Production’s new Warsaw Federal Incline Theater. It's the story of a pair of hucksters who raise a boatload of money to stage “the worst play ever written,” an extravagant musical they’re confident will fail (its title: Springtime for Hitler) enabling them to…
Comedy: MOTR Mouth
With the number of places in which to hone their craft in short supply, it has befallen many comedians to organize their own independent shows. It’s a concept that developed somewhat oddly in comedy club-heavy towns like the aforementioned, and it’s now in Cincinnati. Locally, the comedian-organized MOTR Mouth presents stand-up comedy the first Tuesday…
Event: Strawberry Spectacular
Lebanon’s Hidden Valley Fruit Farm celebrates the flavor of the season with its Strawberry Spectacular festival — two days of strawberries, shortcake, ice cream, homemade pie and more. The berry-tastic fest include train rides, a bouncy house, petting zoo and playground for the kids, with live music for everyone. 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; 9 a.m.-6…
Film: 48-Hour Film Project Screening
Lights. Camera. Hurry. Five hundred professional and amateur filmmakers in the region recently competed in the 48-Hour Film Project, an event that requires participants to write, film and edit a five-minute movie in only two days. You can watch the local films premiere Sunday at a series of screenings at the Thompson House in Newport,…
Event: Taste of Newport
Restaurants and food businesses from all over Northern Kentucky — 24 to be exact — will be swarming Monmouth Street, festival-style, eager to feed hungry people. Look for bites and drinks from the likes of Carabello Coffee, Dixie Chili, Green Derby, La Mexicana and more. Entertainment, including sidewalk sales, live music and family activities, will…
Event: Germany Day Weekend
Get out your finest lederhosen and celebrate Cincinnati’s cultural roots with German Day Weekend, which provides an immersive environment for attendees to experience a heritage still thriving today. The celebration, which turns 120 this year and raises funds for the German Heritage Museum, kicks off on Saturday, when a parade at Findlay Market will showcase…
Music: Self Diploma Concert Series Ft. Ja Rule
It’s been more than a decade since the early 2000s, which means we’re allowed to start feeling nostalgic about it. And what better way to indulge that nostalgia than with a Ja Rule concert. Signed to the infamous Murder Inc. record label (now called The Inc.), Ja Rule spent most of the late ’90s embroiled…
Art: Heteronormativity at the Ice Cream Factory
Working in monotype printmaking, collage and projection, Cincinnati-based artist Jen Warren will show a collection of artwork at artist/curator Paul Coors’ Brighton gallery, which focuses on her personal experiences living within a society in which queer women and other feminist voices are often silenced. According to the press release, because Warren lives within a society…
Onstage: “I Love Lucy” Live on Stage
Back in the 1950s, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were a big TV hit on I Love Lucy. To experience the fun — and what TV was like 60 years ago — you should head to the Aronoff Center, where you’ll get a taste of what had America laughing. I Love Lucy Live on Stage recreates…
Onstage: Broadway Sing-Along with the Cincinnati Pops
The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra begins its summer series with a special Broadway Sing-Along: Belt out your favorite Broadway hits by singing along to lyrics on the Riverbend Corbett Pavilion big screen with talented guest vocalists. Conductor John Morris Russell will lead the orchestra and audience in classics such as “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, “Dancing Queen”…
Comedy: Jimmy Pardo
Jimmy Pardo continues his slow-but-steady ascent to the top of the comedy world. As the opening comedian for the live audience at Conan and the host of the popular Never Not Funny podcast, he has not only built a solid fan base, but also a reputation as a comedian’s comedian. Consider that when the recent…
Music: Bandstand Bluegrass Ft. Mustered Courage and Blair Crimmins
American Roots music is in the midst of a popularity spike that rivals the huge Folk revival of the1960s. And Americana’s most recent rise is hardly limited to America, as the blockbuster commercial success of artists like the U.K.’s Mumford & Sons has proven. Washington Park’s free every-Thursday Bandstand Bluegrass series offers another great example…
Literary: Judith Fertig
It comes as no surprise that Judith Fertig’s debut novel, The Cake Therapist, revolves around food. The Kansas City resident has made her name through a flurry of cookbooks with titles like Bake Happy: 100 Playful Desserts with Rainbow Layers, Hidden Fillings, Billowy Frostings, and More, and her cooking credentials include schooling in London and…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning y’all. Some jerk ran me off the road this morning while I biked to work. I’m OK except for some scraped-up hands, but it hurts to type. Which means you’re getting a bare-bones, just the facts morning news today. OK? OK. • One of the five new shelters representing a shift in how…
Comedy Underground
Cincinnati's comedy scene is highly regarded in the nationwide stand-up community. Consider that the area has produced comedians such as Gary Owen, Geoff Tate, Josh Sneed, Katt Williams and Greg Warren, to name just a few, all of whom have multiple TV and film credits. Several other comics like Alex Stone, Dave Waite, Gabe Kea,…
Why the Public Library Once Collected Snails
The idea for this column started, innocently enough, with a short article in the current issue of LibraryLinks, the newsletter of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Rather innocuously headlined “Library donations from the early 1900s,” it noted that the library back then received “several donations that might seem a little unexpected by…
Tracking the Heavenly Sounds in Brian Wilson’s Head
Pop music has a mysterious and undeniable hold over listeners. Faithful fans can chart the history of their lives through specific songs, and those songs don’t necessarily have to have been major chart-topping hits. In fact, sometimes the more obscure tunes bear the stronger emotional load because listeners don’t feel like they are sharing the…
Great Choices From the 2015 Cincy Fringe
Just four more days for the 2015 Cincy Fringe. CityBeat’s review team has been covering each show’s opening, giving Critic’s Picks to “must-see” productions. Here are a half-dozen edited clips, in case you need tips for shows to consider. Find more picks and full reviews of the 40-plus productions at citybeat.com. Edgar Allan: This is…
Entourage
The gang from HBO’s loveable series is back and finally on the big screen. Movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), with Eric (Kevin Connolly), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Johnny (Kevin Dillon) in tow, seeks to maintain his level of fame and fortune in the ruthless world of Hollywood by helming his debut feature for the…
‘Hannibal’ Returns as an International Feast for the Senses
Last season’s finale of Hannibal (Season Premiere, 10 p.m. Thursday, NBC) left viewers in shock. Outside of the typical sensory overload the show consistently presents, that last episode marked what very well could be the end for several main characters. Season Three takes the story in a completely new direction. Who managed to make it…
A Very, Very Vivid Waking Dream: An Interview with Celeste Ng
"Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” These are the opening lines to Celeste Ng’s debut novel, Everything I Never Told You. They are not necessarily shocking or revelatory to readers, but instead reveal a central concern that haunts the entire story: the unknown. The novel traffics in secrets — those between mothers…
‘The Connection’ Addresses the French Perspective
The mere mention of The French Connection conjures images of William Friedkin’s prototypically gritty police thriller that set up the contrast between Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman), the emotionally troubled but doggedly determined cop, and Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), the urbane European drug dealer — the smooth criminal, if there ever was one — supplying…
Brew Made New
Walk into any yurt in Mongolia, and you will most likely be presented with fermented mare’s milk, a traditional drink given as a form of hospitality. In the Philippines, they drink fermented sugarcane; Russia has a fermented rye drink called Kvass; and Ghanaian farmers have even started fermenting cassava root, their biggest cash crop, into…
Collective CAC (Review)
Before the Contemporary Arts Center renovated its Kaplan Hall lobby and installed the new Collective CAC café, it was probably the only museum in town that didn’t offer food in a dining setting. The Taft Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum and Cincinnati Museum Center all have cafés, but the advent of the CAC’s…
Worst Week Ever! June 03-09
Smarmy French People Come Up with Plan to Nourish and Show Compassion to Others If there is one thing that American grocery stores can agree on, it’s that they would rather see most of their unsold yet edible food go into the dumpster than the digestive system of people who for one reason or another…
Rising in the West
The hit Broadway musical The Producers is off and running this week, presented by Cincinnati Landmark Productions. It’s the story of a pair of hucksters who raise a boatload of money to stage “the worst play ever written,” an extravagant musical they’re confident will fail (its title: Springtime for Hitler) enabling them to make off…
Bunbury Music Festival Must-Sees
This year’s Bunbury Music Festival, the first since it was acquired by Columbus, Ohio’s PromoWest Productions, features an ambitious and diverse lineup. The event, running Friday through Sunday at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove along the riverfront, will draw plenty of fans to see headliners like The Black Keys, The Avett Brothers (see interview on…
Local Music at Bunbury
Bunbury Music Festival (taking place along the riverfront’s Sawyer Point Park and Yeatman’s Cove) has some great Cincinnati acts scattered throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday, each well worth adding to your itinerary. Visit bunburyfestival.com for more information. One of Cincinnati’s bigger musical successes of the past few years, Wussy, opens up the festival on Friday,…
Bigger Brothers
Fans who go to see The Avett Brothers this summer and expect the kind of stripped-down acoustic performance that was the acclaimed Folk Rock group’s trademark for the first decade of its career will be in for a whole new experience. The core quartet of brothers Scott and Seth Avett, cellist Joe Kwon and bassist/violinist…
Event: Incline District Street Fair
Created to showcase the multicultural richness of Price Hill, the Incline District Street Fair strives to bring the surrounding community together at an event held the first Saturday of every month (through September). The fair, held across the street from Holy Family School, will feature local food, live entertainment, craft beer and a variety of…
Music: The Avett Brothers
Fans who go to see The Avett Brothers this summer and expect the kind of stripped-down acoustic performance that was the acclaimed Folk Rock group’s trademark for the first decade of its career will be in for a whole new experience. The core quartet of brothers Scott and Seth Avett, cellist Joe Kwon and bassist/violinist…
Event: Donut Day
June 5 is National Donut Day, created by the Salvation Army in 1938 to celebrate the men and women who served as soldiers during World War I. While it may not be an official holiday for which you can take off of work, you can still leave the office at noon and head to Fountain…
Music: The Bunbury Music Festival
This year’s Bunbury Music Festival, the first since it was acquired by Columbus, Ohio’s PromoWest Productions, features an ambitious and diverse lineup. The event, running Friday through Sunday at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove along the riverfront, will draw plenty of fans to see headliners like The Black Keys, The Avett Brothers (see interview on…
