All Women Have Two Jobs, Apparently

I was reading an online article about a woman entrepreneur and when I got to the comments section, I decided to play a little game to see how many comments I could get through before someone mentioned her appearance. To be clear, this was not an ugly woman, this was not a beautiful woman, this was an average looking woman who was successful. Anyway, by the second comment someone was saying she had enough money to get a nose job. (I hadn't noticed her nose) The fourth comment said she was going to be hunted on Wild Kingdom or something like that. And the criticism went on from there. For some reason, no matter how successful or generous or wonderful a woman is, if she isn't beautiful, it makes men mad. Really mad. How-dare-she-be-on-this-planet,-living-her-life,-running-her-business-and-not-be-smoking-hot kind of mad. Even the most hideous, Jaba the Hut impersonator of a man somehow believes that it's a woman's job to look super hot for him all the time, apparently. I bet if I Googled Sister Theresa, I could find a never ceasing bunch of comment about how she wasn't all that good looking and she should have moisturized more while feeding the poor of Calcutta.

Hunger Games - The Movie

I waited for the crowds to clear, but I finally saw The Hunger Games movie. It was... well... kind of boring. This surprised me because the first book is pretty action packed, but I found myself seriously bored before the tributes even reached the arena. Somehow a lot of the flavor of the book didn't get transferred to the screen. I didn't find myself rooting for Katniss and I was disappointed with Hamish. I mean, you've got Woody Harrleson for crying out loud, give him his leash to really play out the character.

I was wondering if I just found the film boring because I'd read the book and knew what was going to happen, but my mom was quite bored too and she had no idea about the story. A lot of the action sequences are filmed with a joggley camera which eventually caused me to simply close my eyes to avoid being nauseated. Maybe it was filmed that way to give you the feeling of being right there, but I found it distancing. I know the Katniss character is very reserved, but she just came off as flat. The only character that is at all endearing in Peta.

After all that hype and really quite a suspenseful book, I personally give it a thumbs down. Even the action scenes were not pulling me in. Pity.

Cleveland Rocks!

Anyone who knows me is without a doubt that I have a soft spot for my home town, Cleveland.

Why?

Because it's awesome. (Open up your mind, you star bellied sneetch, there are more than just three cool spots on the planet.)

Anyway, I was pleased as punch to see Details doing an article that features my honey:

Dredgers Union (Photo: Sean Bilovecky and Danielle DeBoe)Dredgers Union Boutique

Once, Cleveland stood alongside New York City and Paris as a preeminent garment center. While the city is unlikely to reclaim that stature, the Dredgers Union is bringing back made-in-the-Midwest style. Located in a 10,000-square-foot former department store on happening East 4th Street, the 10-month-old boutique does a brisk business in its in-house sportswear lines, which are produced entirely in the heartland: "Our region minus manufacturing equals broken," explains menswear designer Sean Bilovecky, 36, who founded the company with Danielle DeBoe. The store also stocks more than 100 other apparel-and housewares-makers, ranging from the emerging (Lifetime Collective) to the established (Ben Sherman). “In the past, record companies thought, ‘If new acts make it in the Midwest, they can make it anywhere,’” Bilovecky adds. “I think this logic goes for brands and retailers today.”

2043 E 4th St, Cleveland OH, 44115; 216-357-2911; http://dredgersunion.wordpress.com/

Greenhouse Tavern (Photo: Jonathon Sawyer)Greenhouse Tavern

Culinary wunderkinder often leave cities like Cleveland; they rarely come home. But after stints in New York City at the now-defunct Kitchen 22 and Parea, native son Jonathon Sawyer returned with dreams of owning his own place. In 2009, he opened the Greenhouse Tavern, a three-story eatery built with reclaimed materials that serves French-inspired dishes with ingredients—heirloom beans, foraged ramps, freshwater prawns—sourced from within state lines, often accented with Sawyer's acclaimed made-from-scratch beer and wine vinegars. After the restaurant became a hit, the 31-year-old chef opened Noodlecat, a ramen shop inspired by spots in Tokyo and New York, around the corner; its space doubles as the venue for Brick & Mortar Pop-ups, a dining series featuring visiting chefs. “We’re tired of being behind the rest of the country,” Sawyer says. “We’ll open every kind of niche concept to keep our city viable.”

Greenhouse Tavern
2038 E. 4th St, Cleveland OH; 216-443-0511; thegreenhousetavern.com
Noodlecat and Brick & Mortar Pop-ups
234 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH: 216-589-0007; noodlecat.com

Market Garden Brewery & Distillery (Photo: Sam McNulty)McNulty's Bier Markt, Bar Cento, and Market Garden Brewery & Distillery

When he was growing up, Sam McNulty and his family would go grocery shopping at the century-old West Side Market, then the only reason to come to Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. "The area was sketchy, but it was so cool—all these empty old brick buildings across the river from modern Cleveland," the 37-year-old brewer and local booster says. "I knew I'd end up back here." In 2005 he did return, opening the Belgian-focused McNulty's Bier Markt in a storefront across the street from the venerable food bazaar. Two years later he partnered with chef Jonathon Sawyer on Bar Cento, an Italian joint next door that pairs a deep beer and wine list with gourmet pizzas, and in 2009 unveiled Speakeasy, a retro cocktail bardownstairs in (natch) a onetime speakeasy. His latest contribution to the now-thriving hood is Market Garden Brewery & Distillery, a bar-restaurant in a former slaughterhouse that lets you store perishables from the West Side Market while sipping one of 32 craft brews made on site (and soon small-batch whiskey, rum, and vodka, too). As McNulty's favorite saying goes: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Bier Markt & Bar Cento
1948 West 25th Street, Cleveland, Ohio, 44113
(Across from the West Side Market); 216-274-1010; http://bier-markt.com/
Market Garden Brewery & Distillery
1947 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113; 216-621-4000; http://marketgardenbrewery.com/

Best Songs

In general, I'm sick of the music I hear in San Francisco restaurants. Everyone is trying to be ironically hip by playing Rod Stewart.

Stop it! We've all had enough. No more eighties, no more classic oldies, no more overplayed attempts at irony. It's fine if one of you does it, but if you all do it the monotony sets in.

Here is a song that I still love and rarely hear around the Mission:

The Letter by The Box Tops

Yes, Alex Chilton might need a lozenge, but it's still a damn good song.