CMH Gourmand – Eating in Columbus & Ohio

A few parting words. Thinking of Mr. Bilbo Baggins –

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Actually, I like and appreciate all of you more than you know, I have maintained a modest but loyal readership over the years.

Thank you to all who took time to read what I had to share here over the years.

This is a story about my pathway to writing. I am opting to slide away from this path of 25 years which was a fun run.

My road to writing did not have a detailed roadmap. My preschool, first grade and second grader teachers hated me. This statement is objectively true. And sad. It took me longer than most to figure out how to navigate school but I found some solace in books. At first it was history books I could not read but I was mesmerized by the photos World War 2, the Roman Empire (both a deep dive joke with 2023 references and true) and photos of the Australian Outback.

I have a distinct memory of enjoying putting a poem together in 4th or 5th grade about a slippery seal and a banana peel, it was the first time I felt creative while writing and the first time I did something at school I was proud of. I was never encouraged, in anything, at high school, in fact I as actively discouraged in almost everything. The only place I was treated with any type of genuine concern was in art classes, where all of the “rejects” sought refuge. I was not an artist, but it was a safe place and I enjoyed the camaraderie of the classes and teachers who treated me with kindness. In my senior year, we had a religion teacher that let me write about anything I wanted to which gave me a voice to connect with a few other outcasts in the class. I was a latent reader and a largely indifferent student who enjoyed reading history and science fiction. The first book I recall wanting to read was the Hobbit. I received this Christmas of 4th grade from a relative I only saw once in my life. It opened a new world to me. It did not influence my style of writing but it transformed me an active and determined reader. It also made me want to not be a Hobbit and actively seek out adventures in life. The heavy metal band Iron Maiden influenced me to write the only thing in high school that I thought was exceptional, a term paper about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The nun who taught the class was one of the most vile people to cross my path in my life and as much as it pained her, there was no way for her to avoid awarding me an A for that work, it was objectively good work.

I was fortunate that my parents sacrificed to get me a computer during my second quarter of college which took away my great detriment of writing – typewriters and my poor typing skills. Back in the old days when you made a mistake on a typewriter it was a pain to correct and took a lot of time. Classes with writing components treated me well in college. I had one great English class at The Ohio State University (English 261), with the first teacher who really made an effort to encourage me to write. To my great regret, I did not schedule a second class with her. She left a phone message for me to let me know about her evening English 301 offering but because a evening class would keep me on campus too long (I lived at home) and conflicted with work shifts I did not make the effort to make that class work. I tried to find her years later when I wrote my first paid article but learned that she had committed suicide. I would have liked her to know she made a difference for me. I briefly considered a double major in English but no other instructor was even close to Roseanne in a passion for teaching and two were so bad I dropped their classes after a few days. She was the only person of that era and one of a handful that ever “heard” or gave me permission to follow my own path in my writers voice.

I stumbled and flailed about in my early years after college. I created The Good Food Guide, a mix of short essays about my favorites restaurants with copies of their menus which I handed out to acquaintances. Most recipients graciously accepted these, but the majority of these crude spiral bound binders quickly found themselves relegated to landfill. The first time I printed more than 5 copies, I found three water soaked 20 dollar bills in a Kinko’s parking lot which I viewed that as I sign I should continue with the hobby. In the mid 1990’s I had the pleasure to dine with the Grumpy Gourmet in Hilliard to be his guest while he wrote about Chef’s Diner. He was impressed with my gumption to write without any training and he spent most of the meal asking for me feedback on how to make the world wide web thing work for the print world. (Little did I know, I would become friends with him years later and have the honor of dining with him at his home many times). My next pivotal moment would have been around 1997, when I took a creative writing workshop at the Ohio Union taught by the (then) editor of Ohio Magazine, Shannon Arnold Jackson. If there was ever a person that “got me” on first take it was Shannon. She encouraged me to write and offered me the opportunity to do some short freelance restaurant blurbs for the Ohio Magazine. Before I could submit those assignments, I stumbled on the second issue of the Columbus Web Observer at the Whetstone Library. The internet and world wide web were taking off and this new publication was looking for a freelancer to write for them. I wrote 1-3 articles per issue about what you could find on the web from travel sites to the mysteries of cryptozoology in Ohio. I was paid $50 per 300 to 500 word article which felt like a fortune. Concurrent to this, Shannon gave me an assignment to write about the best Ohio Ice Cream spots in Ohio for a cover article of Ohio Magazine. I spent months researching this, traveling to the far corners of Ohio. I was proud to see this on the cover when it hit the shelves. I finally considered myself a real writer. The Web Observer had an eternal 404 error and died off after a year but I picked up work from weekly newspapers in Dayton and Yellow Springs writing articles about the best sites on the web for subjects of interest to me. I was a very active traveler, always taking a Frommer’s guide from the library wherever I did roam so I reached out to their writers and editors trying to find out how I could break into this field and I was offered encouragement and ideas my entering the field.

In the 2000 to 2005 era, I had a lot going on. I was working a on masters degrees in Library and Information Science with a target of getting myself into OCLC as a new career. After spending a decade trying to decide which graduate degree was best for me, I decided to just do it. My education was free thanks to the taxpayers of the state of Ohio and Library Science allowed me to explore what was of interest to me – how to research anything effectively, how the world wide web worked, how to build websites and most important to me, usability and user behavior. My course work included HTML so I created a website called Ice Cream Ohio in 2001 as a class assignment. My co-workers derided me for pursuing this degree and thought I was an idiot for not taking a management position earlier so I could complete my degree on the state’s dime instead of mine. Unfortunately they were proven somewhat true. As I was wrapping up my last semester of graduate school OCLC shifted their hiring focus to computer scientists instead of library scientists. In spite of making solid contacts with my two professors that worked at OCLC, I could not land an interview there. Concurrently, the State of Ohio made massive cuts to library funding which led to layoffs instead of new hires.

As a contingency planner, I was also working on immigrating to Australia and the Presidential Management Fellowship Program as an alternative career path for my degree. I spent six months putting my application together for the fellowship, with a decent chance to get a posting at the Library of Congress. My professor forgot to submit my reference at the appointed window of time and because of that, the Dean assumed I had just changed my mind (after countless conversations with both mentioning this was my best chance to do something with this degree). To miss out on this light at the end of the tunnel was pretty devastating. The only plus as I was graduating was that I published my research thesis in a national journal which was a rarity for students in our program. I finally felt like a scholar and was proud to show I could write about more than food and travel.

As the above was tailspinning to the ground, I offered a thick stack of Ohio ice cream information for a book Shannon was writing, Everybody Loves Ice Cream which earned me a research credit in the bibliography. I offered similar research to Michael McGarry, for one of a series of books he worked on, Midwest Scoops, Finding the Regions Best Ice Cream. I got a mention in his bibliography too and a copy of each of his books. After the success of her book, Shannon asked me to be the writer paired with her as the editor for a book called, Everybody Loves Pizza. I felt that this was going to be my big break. To pull this off, I knew I was going to need a lot of time to research, write and travel to do this book right. I was at a career crossroads at this point. I wanted to leave my current career but I knew that I needed the large bank of vacation time I had stockpiled to make this writing project work so I decided to stick in out and reluctantly took a supervisory position (the day after Shannon made her pitch to me) that was offered instead of more job hunting. After seven months of research and chapter outlines covering pizza all over the world, Shannon let me know that the publishing company had opted to go with another team and the book was no longer on our plate. I disappointed to say the least. I knew Ed Levine was also coming out with a new pizza book in a matter of months so there was no other market for anything I might do with my pizza outline. The next week, I pitched a book idea about regional sandwiches in the United States to Michael McGarry and got the green light, with a generous an advance, to start work on the book. I hit the road immediately, traveling all over the Midwest, Miami, and Owensboro, Kentucky amassing a treasure trove of information on everything from pork tenderloins to Hot Browns. At one point I ate 13 Italian Beef sandwiches all over Chicago in one day. Unfortunately, McGarry’s Happy Belly Guides when belly up and at the tail end of 2005 all of my many projects came to a dead end. As 2006 started, I felt like the last person in an airport after every plane has departed. The day after I had eaten all of those sandwiches in Chicago, my pal MAC planted a seed, “maybe you should do a blog”.

CMH Gourmand started in 2006 as an outlet with no real purpose. It was the golden age of local food blogs and for once my timing was on target. I appeared (with a Dagwood Sandwich from Ohio Deli in my mouth) in a Columbus Dispatch article about the rise of local food bloggers which led to a surge in traffic and some positive encouragement to keep at it (most blogs have a lifespan of a year or less). Concurrent to this, I blundered my way into the online discussions and offline meet ups of Columbus Underground. As someone that never felt like I had a home, community, or tribe and as someone who always felt like an outsider to the point of wanting a new life in the southern hemisphere, I finally felt like I was part of a community that had some investment in wanting me to do well while we grew something bigger than ourselves.
CMH Gourmand had a strong run from 2008 to about 2014. I was able to met some amazing people. I was dined and occasionally “wined” for free on restaurant launches, familiarization trips all over Ohio, especially Cleveland, banked by various convention and visitors bureaus. I also collaborated on Taco Trucks Columbus and Street Food Columbus to support our exploding mobile food scene. I was at ground zero for some major changes in what Columbus had to offer the culinary world and I enjoyed being a champion for it all. My blog allowed me to connect with George Motz when he was writing Hamburger America (original and updated edition) and I was able offer Ohio suggestions and join him at the Columbus spots I suggested for him.

My life as I knew it imploded mid 2010 to mid 2011. As soul crushing as that year was, I was always able to write and find joy and accomplishment it what I felt was good writing. It was my mobile writing and a workshop on how to run a hot dog cart that led me to an odd salvation of a new job. The Food Fort was a new project to grow local food businesses. My focus on the blog and writing shifted a bit in this era. Looking back, I recognize I needed to write to focus my time and energies into things I enjoyed and connect with positive people. Once I was fully immersed in the food world, I did not need to seek out food experiences in the same way because I was immersed in it everyday. Sometimes I needed a break from it. During my Food Fort days, CMH Gourmand was in the running for best food blogs in Central Ohio, it did not even place. That was disappointing. I did not expect to win but I did want to be acknowledged for what I was doing. In relation to this, another individual that did place high in this poll was very derisive of my efforts because I never monetized my efforts and focused more on words than images. Technically this person should not have been a contender because they had a website that featured the work of others and reformulated press releases. I’m a substance over form type that felt a blog should be true true to the origin of the term, a web log.

Looking at the CMH Gourmand content 2015 to now, it is pretty easy to see the change in volume and content. The main reason is my life changed. I no longer had unrestricted free time paired with plenty of disposable income to follow my food muses. I did write for Stock and Barrel and 614 Magazine. I was proud of the content I was able to get published but felt frustrated by what I could get approved. I felt most of what I submitted was dumbed down by the editing process. However, I was really happy of the profile I wrote about the Godfather of Mobile Food (and my friend) Jim Pashovich as well as the tribute to Roger Gentile when he passed away. In my research on Roger, I was able meet several of his friends. They thanked me for getting the story right, by inviting mer to join a group of influential wine lovers in Columbus for one of their monthly lunch / tasting sessions from their private collections. I found myself among the elite of the city and more $200+ bottles of wine than I could count. I am happy to say I was able to recall the afternoon.

In 2019, two things that were certain. My wife and I had to figure out a way to afford to move to Upper Arlington and I was going to turn over Columbus Brew Adventures to Columbus Food Adventures. Both of these changes were needed but neither was going to be easy. Since this was the last year I expected to have some control over my schedule, I decided it was time to write a book while I had the flexibility to do research and first person interviews. The research part was easy. The interviewing part was hard. At that point, I had 20 years of writing experience and significant social capital supporting restaurants, food trucks and breweries. People asked me to write about them and I was a welcome face whenever I walked through the door. Such was not the case with local pizzeria owners. Very few wanted to speak with me. Most would not give me the time of day. One pizza maker was a no show to agreed upon interviews at his business three times. Writing about pizza is an easy thing to do. Trying to write about history of pizzerias in Columbus was a Sisyphean effort that I almost gave up on because I could not get the stories of the owners – which was the whole point. However, I was able to rally during the beginning of Covid and get it done. I do think my book, Columbus Pizza: A Slice of History is a good book. However, it is not the book I wanted it to be. I give it a B. It could have been an A if I had been able to get all the interviews and photos I had hoped for. One of the things that saved the book, when I had to shift to plan B to get it done, was being able pull photos from my blog archives and source a few more from other writers in town to get the minimum 50 images required to get the book to publication. In a perfect world, the amazing Jodie Miller would have been able to get the photos of local shops and owners I had hoped for but a lack of cooperation took that off the table, they blew her off too. I know what the book could have been but it was the best book I would write considering the circumstances and the budget ($0) I had in 2020.

The book did give me the chance to reconnect with Columbus Underground to write the Aficionadough column about Pizza in Columbus. At Columbus Underground, I was given the opportunity to write what I want, the way I wanted to, without limits on word count or editorial pushback on my occasional or culinary tangents. It was the best writing experience I have had. I am proud of what I churned out, especially my tribute to Thurns Specialty Meats which is closing in May. The column also let me write about a few of the places I would have / should have have added to the book. Finally, the column gave me the opportunity to chat with Kenji Lopez Alt for almost an hour about the similarities and differences between Columbus Style Pizza and Chicago Tavern style.

Looking back, I had the opportunity to do something that I love, to write and tell stories about people. I have had the privilege to be paid to write. It was never enough to make a living but it was enough to justify the time. Writing has never been about the money – which is confusing to most, the most important part about writing for me has been as a path to connect to people. I focused on the people first and the food second. Unlike many of my peers, this endeavor has not been about me. If you notice, I go out of my way not to have photos of myself here or elsewhere, and whenever possible when I have been photographed I have tried to obscure my face with a sandwich, a drink or (thank you Covid) a mask.

In the last year, writing has sometimes felt like a chore or something I had to do. There are still plenty of stories out there to tell but it gets harder to write an article that does not sound like something I have written before. There is a finite amount of ways to say tasty. I now cringe when people introduce me as the pizza guy, the food guy, the beer guy or some variant. I may have been at one point but not now. I’m Griffin’s dad and that is where I want to devote my time, my energy and focus, he is the person I most need to connect with. He has good stories so I want to hear all of them. After years of having others ask – if we need to wait for me to take photos before we eat, I now just enjoy the meal immediately. A blog runs best when you have the time, resources and energy to engage in it. I just don’t see much interest in CMH Family Dining which is the extent of my food adventures now.

I not saying that I will never write again. I am in self imposed emeritus status with Columbus Underground wherein if there is a story that needs to be told – such as the 100th year of TAT, I might be the person that writes it. There might be a letter to an editor or a post about gerrymandering as our society continues to not meet my expectations. As for CMH Gourmand, in spite of having 38 primordial posts in my saved drafts file, this is my last dispatch. I’m not paying WordPress to maintain my domain and etc, so CMHGourmand.com now fades away to CMHGourmand.Wordpress.com with more ads to disrupt what is now an archive. I leave behind a fair historical record of a big part of my life. Maybe my son will read this in the future to learn about what his dad did in the “olden times”.

It has been a good run. Thanks for reading. Keep supporting our local food food businesses and support local writers who tell stories with crafted words instead of just flashy photos.