As LunaPierCook points out in SE Talk, the local offices of Congressional Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio) were evacuated yesterday after a suspicious package of bacon arrived there. Authorities think it was sent by a constituent upset that the congressman voted for the $700 billion bailout package on Capitol Hill last week. Pork, get it? Sounds like a waste of bacon to us. Thanks for the link, LPC! Here's some video, after the jump.... More

There is now more food than I can eat. Last Market Scene in the Midwest was paltry at best, but now the produce is piled high and shopping requires a little bit of restraint. This time the fiancée and I had to be even more careful—while we normally just head over a few blocks to the North Market in downtown Columbus for our weekly dose of fresh vegetables, this time we biked five miles up to the Clintonville Farmers' Market and were limited to only buying what out backs would fit and support for the ride home. It wasn't quite the harvest, but the difference in selection between a month ago and now is striking. (It wasn’t until we... More

Compared to our West Coast brethren, the fresh picks in the Midwest still look slim. Sure, we have the odd morel (expensive!) and asparagus a-plenty, but compared to the West Coast’s plethora of spring greens and fava beans and the East Coast's odd eggs, we’re still waiting for something to get really excited about. And that’s when you can find an open market. In Columbus, Ohio many of the markets I relied on last year haven’t even opened yet (most open next week, I’ve heard). Of the ones that are, I had the most luck at the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market at the North Market. Even though half of the market was filled with potted plants and loads of... More

Well, it's one way to achieve some sort of sandwich-based immortality. The mayor's errant ceremonial first pitch on baseball's opening day has inspired a sandwich with a fitting name: The Mark Mallory Screwball.The ingredients for the sandwich at Izzy's deli will be "any two meats tossed in the general direction of a bun or two pieces of bread." But Mallory has a good sense of humor about it: "This is wonderful," he said. "Who wouldn't want a sandwich named for them?"... More

We asked our friends Jane and Michael Stern over at Roadfood.com to give us their top five chili picks. Here are their choices. From Milwaukee to Seattle to, of course, Cincinnati, where chili is the city dish. More