Consuming Louisville

Well Hello There

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:34:30 -0500

Consuming Louisville has gone through a few surface changes over the past week. Some new paint, a new icon here and there, etc. But under the hood Consuming Louisville has gone through a serious overhaul.

What does this mean for you? Well it means if you're actually seeing this message you're subscribed to Consuming Louisville through a method that isn't going to work for much longer. I tried to make the transition seamless for RSS & email subscribers but that just wasn't possible.

So if you subscribe in an RSS reader please subscribe to the new feed instead:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConsumingLouisville

If you subscribe via email please subscribe to the new email delivery service:

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ConsumingLouisville&loc=en_US

Thank you for your patience and support.

Best,

Michelle

Festivus is Tomorrow and I'm Taking a Few Days Off to Migrate CL

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:27:40 -0500

Don't forget that Festivus is tomorrow. I can't recall any grievances I have to air so I think I'll go see Avatar to celebrate the holiday.

The interwebs have slowed to a crawl this week as people start vacating offices for family gatherings, movie theaters and Chinese restaurants. I'll be taking a few days off as well. I plan to see Avatar like I mentioned above and It's Complicated and possibly continue the Grey's Anatomy marathon that I started on Thanksgiving.

My major project for the next few days though is to migrate Consuming Louisville from Movable Type to Wordpress. I've been a Movable Type fangirl since 2002. That's a long time to stick with a CMS and stick I have. Even as MT development for bloggers stagnated, even as Wordpress development grew and grew, even as I got to know Wordpress more and more for clients I stuck with MT. It was my first CMS love and letting it go was too hard. Now, like a bad relationship, staying is too hard.

Consuming Louisville has more than a few posts, images and comments and the layout needs a bit of tweaking. So while everybody else in a holiday schedule for the next couple weeks I'll be making this gigantic (both emotion and technology wise) switch. Then, next Wednesday, B and I close on our new house. We're very excited but as you can imagine closing, painting, moving, etc will be time intensive so don't be surprised if things are terribly light around here for the next couple weeks.

I'm planning some good stuff for January though, including the return of "One Thing I Love About Louisville." If you'd like to contribute a "One Thing I Love About Louisville" entry send me an email.

Whether you're celebrating Festivus, Christmas, the glory that is eggnog or just the coming new year I wish you happiness, love and peace. Thank you all your support of Consuming Louisville, I appreciate it with all my heart.

Let's all kick some serious ass in our respective endeavors and put lots and lots of love and good into the world and our community in 2010.

Love,

Michelle

Zeppelin Has Booze!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:03:06 -0500

I had heard this new from a friend already but I'm glad to see the Germantown & Schnitzelburg Neighborhood Association blog confirming it.

If you are planning a night out for New Year's Eve, consider keeping your business in the neighborhood and conducting your own "Schnitzelburg Walk!" The latest news in the local bar scene is that the Zeppelin Cafe is now serving liquor in addition to beer, so you can go there for great food and your favorite cocktail!

The Zeppelin Cafe is a great place, I love their pretzels, but as you know I don't drink beer. It will be nice to be able to occasionally have a cocktail with my pretzel why B and our dear friends who also love the Zeppelin enjoy their beers.

Bourbon Banana Cranberry Bread

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:26:20 -0500

Just about everybody is kicking back and taking it a little bit easy this week. Well except for B. Apparently sick people don't take time off for winter holidays so doctors and other medical personnel have to work just as much. Since that is the case I'm baking up a storm and making candy like a crazy person so B and her colleagues will have lots of good snacks this week.

One of the things I'm making (and have been making loaves after loaves of since Thanksgiving) is Bourbon Banana Cranberry Bread. I'm going to share the recipe with you because it features two local products: bourbon and bourbon vanilla sugar. Make it for your friends and family and they will swoon over you.

I originally snagged this recipe from Joy the Baker but its origins trace back to Smitten Kitchen and to Simply Recipes.

Bourbon Banana Cranberry Bread

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted salted butter*

1 cup light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon Maker's Mark

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Pinch of ground cloves

1 1/2 cup of flour

1 cup fresh cranberries

Bourbon Barrel Foods Bourbon Vanilla Sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Using a wooden spoon mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices.

Add baking soda, salt & flour.

Add the cranberries, and stir until just incorporated.

Divide mixture evenly into two mini loaf pans. Sprinkle bourbon vanilla sugar on top of each loaf. Roughly a tablespoon should do for just a touch of a sugar crust on the top of your bread.

Bake for 25-35 minutes (oven temperatures and rates of cooking vary wildly. When a knife comes out clean they're done. I let them cool, in the pans, on a wire rack for 20 minutes or so then take them out of the pans to cool the rest of the way.

*I want to try this recipe soon with melted vegetable shortening substituted for the butter thus making it parve and friendly to lactose intolerant folks. If you try that route let me know how it turns out.

Early Warning: Jewish Film Festival

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:07:39 -0500

Did you know I'm on the committee for the Louisville Jewish Film Festival? Well I am. We've worked really hard this summer and fall to put together an interesting lineup of films and I hope you'll come out to see them and support the festival. Naturally you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy these films, these are just good movies that any film fan should dig.

The Jewish Film Festival runs February 13-21, 2010. I'll be giving away some tickets to the festival hopefully but I encourage everyone to buy tickets in advance both to make sure you get to see all the films you want to see but also a show of support for the festival. I think it's incredibly important that we, as a community, support film festivals like this one that brings films to town that otherwise wouldn't come to Louisville.

I've pulled together trailers for just about all the films that are part of the Jewish Film Festival, you can find them after the jump.

I Hope We Don't Have to Use This Info Soon (Sledding in Metro Parks)

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:45:06 -0500

Who is the fool who bought a house and is moving at the very end of December/early January? Um that would be me and my beloved. So you'll forgive me if I say I want serious winter weather to stay far, far away until we're all settled in the new place.

In the case that I'm very unlucky and winter weather shows up sometime soon Metro Parks wants to remind you all about sledding in our fair city's parks.

Metro Parks wants to remind the public it will open hills in seven parks for sledding from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on days when snow accumulation reaches 2-3 inches.

When snowfall occurs, Metro Parks employees will visit designated sledding hills to post an "open" or "closed" sign, depending on snow coverage at each location. As long as the sledding hills maintain adequate snow coverage, they will remain open. Park users are asked to avoid sledding when hills are closed. Sledding on slopes that lack appropriate snow depth will cause costly turf damage that must be repaired in the spring.

The seven parks for sledding
Cherokee Park (Baringer Hill, intersection of Alexander Road and Scenic Loop)
George Rogers Clark Park (1024 Thruston Avenue, behind playground, near McKinley Avenue)
Joe Creason Park (1297 Trevilian Way, behind Metro Parks administration building)
McNeely Lake Park (6900 Cooper Chapel Road, near Korean War Memorial)
Riverview Park (8202 Greenwood Road, along floodwall)
Tyler Park (1501 Castlewood Avenue, on Tyler Park Drive side of park)
Charlie Vettiner Park (5550 Charlie Vettiner Park Road, near Easum Road entrance)

Heine Brothers Open On Christmas Day

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:04:04 -0500

If you're not celebrating Christmas or if your Christmas celebration includes the wonders of coffee then Heine Brothers has your back. Here's the scoop:

All Heine Brothers stores close at 5pm Christmas Eve

Christmas Day:
Frankfort and Chenoweth Lane will be open 8AM-3PM

The Loop will be open 8AM - 9PM (thank you!)

All Stores will open at 7AM on Saturday 12/26

The Comfy Cow Does Dairy & Dairy Only (and I respect them for it)

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:28:02 -0500

Last week when I posted about The Comfy Cow a couple people commented they were disappointed that The Comfy Cow didn't have any non-dairy ice cream options on the menu. Dave Sharpe, the developer of The Comfy Cow's website took the question of vegan ice cream straight to the owners of the new ice cream shop and this is their response:

"We have made the choice to serve a high butter fat, super premium ice cream...good old-fashioned ice cream, nothing else.

I've got to tell you I respect the heck out of that. They've made the decision to focus on one type of product so they can do it very, very well instead of doing a lot of things pretty well. And I've got to imagine that making dairy ice cream and soy ice cream are not the same thing at all. I say that as a baker who occasionally makes vegan treats for friends and parve treats for meals from time to time. So I understand them wanting to spend their time and efforts perfecting their dairy ice cream instead of splitting their time between making dairy ice cream and try to make a better soy ice cream.

I know The Comfy Cow not having any vegan ice cream is disappointing to our vegan (and lactose intolerant) friends but I think it's better to get your vegan sweets from someone who can concentrate on doing them really well (think Cake Flour's vegan Sunday) than a shop where they are always going to be an also-ran.

Backupify Your Social Media Life for Free (Louisville Company)

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:15:16 -0500

Backupify, is an online backup service that protects your social media accounts. It gives you the ability to backup Gmail, Wordpress, Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr, Facebook and a whole bunch of other accounts that you've probably come to depend on pretty heavily

How does this relate to Louisville? Well Backupify is the brainchild of Louisville entrepreneur Rob May. I'm not sure what his exact title is but I'm pretty sure that Jason Falls also works with Backupify. So yay for cool products created by Louisville folks. But also yay for free stuff because if you signup for a Backupify account between now and January 31, 2010 it's totally free.

If you sign up during this time period, you get unlimited storage, for free. You get an account that is not a free trial, not free for a limited time, free forever. You can backup your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook (our app is here), Basecamp, FriendFeed, Twitter, and a total of 15 services we backup. And it is 100% free. We don't sell your data or anything like that.

You are probably wondering how we make money giving away accounts for free. The answer is that we have a lot more data now on the different types of customers that use our service, and we are building features for the small business and advanced consumer users. Those users will pay for premium accounts. Until then, our goal is to give this away for free for a while to get as many people as possible using our service. This helps push the limits of our technology, test the outlier cases, and gives us more user feedback to incorporate on our product development roadmap.

So if you find yourself storing more and more data online, and you think it might be nice to have your own copy of that data just in case, sign up for Backupify today.

Free stuff pretty much kicks ass just about anytime but free stuff that's really cool and useful? Well that's just awesome.

Ask Fairdale Bigfoot (Week 14)

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:42:42 -0500

Hello loyal readers. Fairdale Bigfoot will be out of town next week to visit cousin Yeti and the kids for the holiday. The column will return on the 31st. Keep those questions coming, in the meantime.

How could we seriously get Bigfoot on the Endangered Species list? What is the process for known animals? What is the governing body of the process?

--[name withheld]
Portland, OR
www.bigfootlunchclub.com

A bigfoot lunch club? Count Fairdale Bigfoot in! Lunch is Fairdale Bigfoot's favorite meal. Well, that or lunch's kissing cousin, brunch. Fairdale Bigfoot is happy to see a social club formed around sasquatches and mid-day meals. Fairdale Bigfoot is even more pleased to see that your club is thinking of protecting bigfoots instead of clucking your tongues about fur samples, uprooted radish patches and mutilated cows (wasn't me, honest).

Now, how to get bigfoots on the endangered species list? Well, tighten your monocle and swallow your crumpet, you're in for a difficult ride. Sasquatches are notoriously shy and blurry (we've all starred in a few amateur films we're not proud of), and are unlikely to appear in public. For a scientist to approve our place on the endangered species list would mean appearing in public and subjecting ourselves to scrutiny.

Plus, the list is under the auspices of too fickle a governance. No sooner would bigfoots have protected status than than the blue dogs would pass an act of Congress to strip it away so Dick Cheney could shoot us in the face.

Plus there's the reproduction aspect. While most missing links would love nothing more than a peer-reviewed, scientifically-approved horizontal mambo, Fairdale Bigfoot has no interest in getting freaky in a zoo. It's not the size of the cage that prohibits the shaggy shagging (there's a musky Ford Pinto in Shively that proves Fairdale Bigfoot right on this one), but the onlookers. Men in safari hats with clipboards, children crying, teenagers throwing peanuts. That's not Fairdale Bigfoot's scene.

So, thanks for the help with the protected status, but Fairdale Bigfoot will take his chances with former Vice Presidents for now.

Hello Fairdale Bigfoot,

I was just wondering. Do you have any eligibility left for college basketball? Can you rebound and guard the three? Just sayin'.

Hoops Is Everything Nice Ever

Dear Heine,

Fairdale Bigfoot tried college once...comparative literature was the major. There were long nights discussing Proust with cuties in the lounge, all-you-can-eat Wednesdays in the cafeteria, and weeks between showers. Not a bad life. But college wasn't for Fairdale Bigfoot. Fairdale Bigfoot's favorite baja hoodie got stolen and the a cappella group kicked him out for refusing to sing Journey, even ironically.

Fairdale Bigfoot dropped out and took a few classes at the community college. He feels good about that, though he hasn't been able to quit smoking ever since.

As far as your basketball question goes, Fairdale Bigfoot has rebounded from a few setbacks (like college and that breakup with Stacie), and as for guarding three...three what? If it's three radish patches, you're better off without Fairdale Bigfoot.

Sincerely,
Fairdale Bigfoot

A Very Portland Christmas Saturday December 19, 2009

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:58:23 -0500

Thanks to Erin over at Velocity for this info on this event.

It sounds like a local art fan's dream shopping extravaganza. Arts, crafts, music and not a single item over $50.

Saturday December 19, 2009

1PM-8PM

Nelligan Hall

2010 Portland Avenue

Louisville, KY

Young @Heart

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:12:13 -0500

Community Cinema is showing Young @Heart tomorrow, December 17, 2009. I'm not going to lie to you, the solo version of Coldplay's "Fix You" in this movie makes me cry every single time I watch it. If you haven't seen this (and actually even if you have) you should go see it tomorrow. It's an amazing documentary about an even more amazing group of folks.

Thursday December 17

Fern Creek High School

3:30PM & 6:00PM

WHY Louisville Wishlist

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:10:25 -0500

Holy internet awesomeness Batman! WHY Louisville now has online wishlist capability.

Were you aware that you can make an online Wish List of your favorite WHY Louisville products and share it with friends and family? Get started on yours! Simply head to whylouisville.com, click on "Shop", and choose "Wish List" from the right-hand menu.

http://shop.whylouisville.com/

Victorian Holiday Tour This Weekend December 19 & 20, 2009

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:50:51 -0500

So I'm not terribly familiar with Preservation Louisville but a friend just joined their board (hi Brendan!) so I'm sure I'll be hearing more about them. Anyway, the Preservation Louisville folks are having a Victorian Holiday tour of The Brennan House (also something I've never heard of before) and you should probably check it out.

Come marvel at the beauty of The Brennan House Historic Home during Victorian Holiday Tours hosted by Preservation Louisville, Inc., December 19 and 20. Become transported to a time when horse-drawn carriages clip-clopped their way around downtown Louisville. When the stage of the old Macauley's on Walnut played host to some of the country's finest artists. When Fifth Street was lined with homes reflecting the grace and ease of the times.

Today, the Brennan House remains virtually untouched since the Victorian era. Join us for music and refreshments and experience the warmth of the holiday season in an authentic keepsake of the 19th century.

WHEN: 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, December 19
2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, December 20

WHERE: The Brennan House Historic Home
631 South Fifth Street, Louisville

COST: $5

Ray Parella's Is Closing

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:33:38 -0500

Friend of Consuming Louisville Ricky Irvine sent me a note letting me know that Ray Parella's is closing. I'd heard rumblings about the closing but I hadn't been by there to verify it for myself.

Ricky posted a picture of Ray's and a banner proclaiming that they're closing for good on December 31, 2009.

Ray's has been a fixture in the Louisville community for a long time, it's a loss to see them go. Please go visit them before they leave our community.