Everyone’s heard of The New Adventures of Old Christine (the CBS comedy series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Pretty soon everyone will know about the new culinary ventures of Vito’s new/old chef — Leslie Richmond. Richmond has worked for Mary and Vito, the owners of Vito’s Café, off and on since 2003. She recently came back after a hiatus that included giving birth to her daughter, who is now 2 years old.  

“There’s no such thing,” the women at Glier’s Goetta in Covington emphatically told me when I called to ask if they knew anyone in town that sold vegetarian goetta. By definition, she explained, goetta has pork in it. Ipso facto, there is no such thing as vegetarian goetta.  

The building located at 527 York Street in Newport has not been kind to its recent restaurant tenants. Since Mokka moved a few years ago, this address has been home to NuVo and Pinky Sue’s Smoke House, both of which disappeared quickly after arrival. There is now another new restaurant hoping to break this string of bad luck.  

In some ways, SPAM is the Paris Hilton of the supermarket. It’s always there, it’s a perpetual punchline, everybody knows its name and no one really knows why it’s so popular. SPAM’s moments in contemporary pop culture have been mocking — it’s the name given to all the “junk” in our email, while a silly musical, Spamalot, put SPAM’s name in lights on Broadway.  

My daddy was a bootlegger. Well, not exactly — he never sold the applejack, or “hard cider,” that he distilled in our cellar when I was a little girl, and he always told us that it was “strictly for medicinal purposes.” But now it looks like dad was ahead of his time. Bootlegging’s on the rise — legal, legit and oh so delicious.  

Cincinnati native Fallon Horstmeyer is a passionate woman — passionate about quesadillas, that is. This spring, Horstmeyer opened Turophilia Quesadillas, a food truck that is semi-permanently located in the parking lot at the corner of Eight and Vine streets downtown.
  

For years, Mythos was downtown’s “Greek place.” At the satellite locations, it was a quick stop for a gyro or, at the main location, a plate of spanikopita with a serviceable salad. Then, suddenly, Mythos was gone without a trace. Overnight, the feta and the baklava vanished, and those of us who like the occasional lamb in our lunchtime were left to wander the streets.  

When Chris Burns left The Bistro after seven years as chef, he'd made a lot of good connections in the farm-to-table movement. Now Chris and and his wife, Tess, are developing two new business concepts: Hearth, and Homestead. Hearth is a 21st-century general store, and Homestead will connect city folk with their rural heritage.  

According to recent research, typical Americans consume three hamburgers each week. Unfortunately, many of them are gulped down from drive-thru lanes at fast-food restaurants. If we eat so many of these quintessentially American sandwiches, why don’t we take the time to at least seek out quality? With the recent opening of Flippin’ Jimmy’s we can get a pretty damn good burger for basically the price of fast food.  

Those of you dancing your way through the summer heat with cool drinks and sushi should be sure to waltz over the Dancing Wasabi’s new location in Hyde Park. The space is just off Hyde Park Square in what used to be Beluga and has something for everyone. There’s an outside patio to enjoy when this heat spell breaks.  

Summer is tomato season, and that makes the BLT the king of summer sandwiches. Bacon, lettuce and tomato are three ingredients that really complement each other — bacon giving the tomato the salt it always needs; lettuce adding color, crisp crunch and stability. Tomatoes. Red, ripe and robust.  

Pho Saigon can be found in the uninspiring shopping strip across Mall Road from Florence Mall. It’s easy to miss — you’re more likely to spot the JoAnn Fabrics next door. The interior has tall apricot vinyl booths along its midsection, and that’s where we found ourselves on a recent hot summer night, with our guest of honor: a neighbor, this one celebrating his 30th birthday.  

For a restaurant to even survive their first year, that must be like aging a decade. Five years? To a lot of eateries, that’s getting past the young, vulnerable years and making it into adulthood. So you’d think that a restaurant celebrating its 70th anniversary would be ready for the rest home, but Sugar N’ Spice is alive, well and going strong.  

Amazing opportunity alert! I know you’ve heard that Todd Kelly, the executive chef at Orchids in the Hilton Netherland Plaza, was named Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation. This is huge, right? Cincinnati Chef Kelly wowed the judges with his Crispy Snapper dish and was named the best of a national organization of 20,000 chefs.  

One of my favorite things about this job is getting to try new foods and different cuisines. Lately, we have been fortunate that more exotic, ethnic restaurants have been popping up around town. Tumi Café is a kitschy yet urbane four-table restaurant serving Peruvian-style cuisine that would fit in as perfectly in New York City as it does on Beechmont Avenue in Mount Washington.