Before It Was Cool--Toledo Farmers' Market

Main corridor at the
Toledo Farmers' Market

Farmers' markets have firmly established themselves as the new fad in urban centers across the United States.  And I know to stay away from fads, having seen the effects of the Atkins diet, colonics and Cavariccis.

Back in New York, it always seemed to me that half the people at a farmer's market only went because attendance there is an essential accessory to the hip persona.  And it's amazing how a vendor can charge so much more for a bunch of carrots when it's sold as an accessory rather than as food.  These factors usually kept me away.  But sometimes if the sun was shining during my walk back from the coffee shop, I would stop by the market and browse the produce, all the while feeling a bit like a phony and a fool.   So when my wife first made enthusiastic mention of a farmer's market in Toledo I struggled to match her enthusiasm.

However, when we did eventually find our way there, I got the sense that people in Toledo had been coming to the farmers' market long before it was cool (later that day, internet research revealed that the market had been in existence since 1832).  I did not see a single pair of skinny jeans, and anybody wearing a mesh baseball cap was doing so in earnest.  The food, free of a fashion surcharge, was priced at or below the prices in the local grocery stores, which was amazing given the variety and quality of the produce for sale.

And so I consider Toledo Farmers' Market to be another important addition to the list of reasons to live in this city.  http://www.toledofarmersmarket.com/market-history

Buck Wildwood

In Toledo, people who care about fitness don't jog--they run. When I first moved in, I thought the track teams from nearby high schools and universities did their training in the park across the street from my house.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered that most of the people who run in Ottawa Park (or as I like to call it, my park) are just civilians.

From what I can tell, the real warriors run in Wildwood Park, pictured above and to the right.  While walking with my daughter along one of Wildwood's trails I was tempted to hide in the brush when I saw what looked like a viking boot camp rounding the corner at a sub-five-minute-mile pace.  As they passed us, fear gave way to resentment because I realized that they were conversing as casually as if they were sitting in a coffee shop.

In fact, I still hate them, even as I am writing this.  My daughter made a face not unlike the one to the left when I told her, "I could do that."  Apparently she inherited my skepticism as well as my hair.

But at the end of the day, the humiliation was worth it.  My daughter was fascinated with the park and I was impressed with the efforts the city of Toledo makes to groom it.  Below are pictures of my daughter playing at one of the many scenic overlooks in Wildwood Park.  At this particular overlook, an elevated walkway leads out to a large deck that provides a view of the wooded valley sloping downward into the woods.

Without doubt, the winding paths of Toledo's Wildwood Park offer access to beauty and serenity.  And once I get a jogging stroller, it will offer a literal as well as a  proverbial path towards viking fitness that seems to be so popular in these parts.

You're moving TO Toledo?

Our house nestled in those trees

In New York City's subway cars there used to be an ad for a storage facility that went something like this:  "Sure, you could get more space by moving out of the city, but then you'd have to live in America."  So when my wife and I broke the news to our friends that we were leaving New York for Toledo, the scoffs did not surprise me--many of them had probably never acknowledged its existence.

View from our living room window

Entrance to the park fifty feet from our driveway

The reaction of our friends and family in Cleveland was much more complex and interesting.  The initial stage of the reaction was denial, which gave way to moment of abstracted concern punctuated by earnest admonitions, and finally resolved into a sort of determination to show courage in the face of some inevitable catastrophe.   I thought I had misspoken and told them I had contracted some terminal illness or been the first inductee into a renewal of the military draft.  I think the citizens of Cleveland reacted as they did in part because they believed Toledo to be a crime-ridden suburb of Detroit, but mostly because of the perception that, outside the crime, Toledo is an abyss of boredom.  Reminded me of John Denver's "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio."  Still, we were undaunted.

My daughter enjoying free
museums and ample elbow room

What I found most discouraging were the reactions of folks who were actually from Toledo.  Two weeks prior to moving, my wife flew out for business and I came along to watch our daughter during the day.  One quote from a hotel receptionist was, "Wait, you're moving from New York to Toledo."  Shortly after moving, I had to show my ID for a credit card purchase, at which point the cashier asked, "So, what brings you to the armpit of America?"  Finally, one person in Toledo had the audacity to do what everybody else wanted to do but felt uncomfortable doing.  He raised an eyebrow, and in a voice dripping with skepticism and contempt asked, "Why would you do that?"

The pictures in this blog post are my response to that question.

The Boil from Hell (not an allusion to Faulty Towers)

Quality time with a kettle.  I 

should have been a Trappist

monk.

When my wife first broached the possibility of a job offer in Toledo, I did some internet research to see what northwestern Ohio had to offer.  I grew enthusiastic about moving westward when I saw two things on the web:  evidence of a thriving home brewing culture and videos of people surfing on Lake Erie. Unfortunately, after checking out a few "beaches" upon arriving here, I became fairly certain that those videos were a hoax intended to lure naive surfers to Toledo.  Luckily it turned out that the home brewing scene in the Midwest is legit, so I decided to purchase the equipment necessary to brew 5 gallon batches and  finally found time to put that equipment to work.

My boiling equipment--note the

white can opener lodged below

the black propane burner.  

Safety first. . .

The steeping/boiling process took much longer than normal because the safety sensor that came with my Brinkman turkey fryer kept cutting off the gas supply.  Eventually a can opener enabled me to rig the valve to stay open.  I rationalized this risky decision by telling myself that the safety sensor was designed to prevent oil from catching fire and that nothing could possibly go wrong with propane as long as it was being used to make beer.

Brewing in daylight is preferable to brewing in the dark, but as a stay at home dad, I can't brew unless my wife is available to watch my baby daughter.  This essentially means that I need to wait until the weekend to brew in daylight.  But since we will not spend a weekend at home until the last weekend in October, I convinced myself of several falsehoods:  1)  if I did not brew tonight, I would never brew at all and all that equipment would go to waste  2)  daylight is an unnecessary and costly luxury to a man in my position;  in fact, viewed through the lens of economy of scale, it would be just as well if I were never to see daylight again   3) patience is effeminate and therefore inappropriate, not only to the brewing of beer, but also to the use of propane (or any highly flammable substance for that matter).

Needless to say, over the course of the evening there were errors in more than just the reasoning.  Twelve hours later, the yeast still had not activated.  Going to check if anything is happening yet--wish me luck.

No H2O

Our water was turned off today.  For a few days I'd be fine without internet or even electricity--it could even be enjoyable.  But try spending an afternoon caring for an infant without running water.  No washing her, no washing dishes, and only about two flushes in the toilet.  I was about to drive down the Maumee river with buckets (it would probably be better than water from the lake).

Worst of all, beer brewing is postponed yet another day.

Swing State

The website for the Ohio DMV is difficult to find, mostly because there is no DMV in Ohio.  Instead, the Buckeye State has a BMV (B for Bureau) and it is wonderful.  I'm not sure whether  bureaus are categorically more efficient than departments, but my experience at the BMV made me never want to set foot inside a DMV in New York or New Jersey again.

Well, now that I'm registered to drive in Ohio I'm also registered to vote in a swing state.  I believe that my vote counts for more in Ohio, and the resulting excitement has led me to forget about my skepticism towards the voting process in general.  In the past, I always suspected that the people in charge of tallying the votes discarded  the ballots and simply negotiated among themselves.  And given that most voters are far more biased than they are well-informed, my suspicions about the round file method of ballot counting never stirred my sense of indignation.

But never mind all that gloomy rot.  This time and place has me feeling like voting actually matters again.  Obama has spoken once in a school in Toledo and once in nearby Bowling Green.  People are gathering in coffee shops to discuss the candidates (though as a newcomer to town, I've been reluctant to butt in).  It's good to be here!

Toledo's Tit's

The title of this post is neither vulgar nor mechanically incorrect.  Okay, perhaps it is vulgar, but there is no punctuation error.  Tit's is the shortened possessive form of  Titgemeier's, the eponymous name proudly emblazoned on the front of a feed and garden store on Western Avenue (Tit's is not the plural form of a word that is not fit for print).  I'm new to Toledo, but it's because of places like this that I'm falling in love with the city.

I came across the store when I ran a Google search on homebrew supplies.  At first glance, I did not see  "gemeier's" and was tempted to close the browser before anybody noticed what I thought I had stumbled into.  Luckily, I realized what I was looking at and found what turned out to be an excellent homebrew supply store.  The prices either matched or bested the ones I saw in the Northern Brewer catalog and the people working in the store were helpful and friendly.  

My plan was to brew tonight, but I had to postpone until tomorrow since I was too lazy to go out and buy ice at the supermarket.  So I've been up all night thinking about Tit's, where I intend to pick up a piece of equipment that will obviate the need for buying ice ever again (at least for brewing).