Category: Uncategorized

4. OK, because I like you (most of you, anyway), I’m going to give you the dirt on where to eat in this town. Though Cincinnati seems like a sleepy mid-sized Midwestern city, it is actually a hotbed of fantastic food and drink. I’ve lived here since 1996 and have spent as much time investigating food as woodworking.

So if you want to eat yourself sick, here is my shortlist.

1. Eli’s BBQ. Crap. I let the pig out of the bag. I’ve spent most of my life in the South and so barbecue is more important than a blond-hair blue-eyed Jesus. Eli’s is the real deal. When you go, simply order the pulled pork sandwich with slaw. And get the jalapeno cheese grits. Bring your own beer (it’s OK). And when you are there, pull out one of the vinyl LPs and put it on. It’s all good.

2. Tacocracy. You need a car to get to this taco joint in Northside (one of the neighborhoods north of downtown), but holy mackerel is it worth the trip. The photo above says it all. It’s a taco filled with mac-and-cheese and braised beef.

3. Rookwood. This gem of a restaurant is high above the city in Mt. Adams. It is in the building used by Rookwood Pottery during the Arts & Crafts heyday. The food will kill you – chicken-fried bacon with chipotle honey – and you will die happy. Get the Grippos fries. Eat in a kiln. And ask for Rom – one of the mixologists who is also a hard-core woodworker.

4. Sotto. I so hate to give this to you. This is my favorite place in the world. Buried beneath the streets of downtown, this restaurant is where I have had the best three meals of my life (and I’ve eaten there only three times). Go. Eat what they recommend. Thank me later.

5. A Tavola. I’ve written about this place before. It’s the best pizza in the Tri-state. The owner, Jared Wayne, made all the furniture himself. Everything is as it should be.

And sign up for Woodworking in America, Oct. 18-20. There are 100 more wonderful places to eat in this town. We love our food.

— Christopher Schwarz

In digging through the inventory I found a large plastic trash bag full of shirts.  We are already looking at a new design due out for Woodworking in America, but before we have anything else enter my domain we need to blow out the current blockage.  In other words I have no more space.  To see the shirts click here.  All the shirts except the Anarchist Tool Chest editions, are American Apparel stock.  The prices have been reduced and include shipping.  We are limited in some sizes which you will see when you get to the order page.

john

Not sure how, but I found one copy of “Mouldings in Practice” bound in leather. Depending on how the book sells and when we re-print we may do another batch in leather. It won’t be anytime soon, however.

The book is on the site, so if you would like to purchase it click here.  The price is $185, which includes shipping.  If you click the link and can’t see the book that means it has been sold.

Best

john

This week I am in the “Land of Tolpin” – Port Townsend, Wash., which is where Jim Tolpin lives and works as a woodworker, instructor and writer.

Port Townsend is an odd little corner of the world in many ways, and it is unusual in that many of the woodworkers here are familiar with the concepts that Tolpin and George Walker introduce in “By Hand & Eye.”

The students here are adept with dividers and really do talk in terms of ratios instead of measurements. Yesterday when I was laying out the slope of a bevel on a tool chest, I was asked: what ratio is that? Not: What angle is that?

Interesting.

Now other woodworkers are discovering the ideas in the book and are starting to write about them on the Internet.

Blogger Bob Jones of The Christian Tool Cabinet blog called “By Hand & Eye” “The most original woodworking book in the last decade.” Read the full review here.

J. Norman Reid of Wood News Online says the book is a “unique combination of theory and practice that is destined to become a classic reference for woodworking design.”

Read his full review here.

“By Hand & Eye” is available in our store and our select retailers.

— Christopher Schwarz