Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

No Steve, I did not get credit for AP chem but I did get credit for 2 semesters of AP modern European history and 1 semester credit in American history. Thanks to Mr. Knab. I still don't spell well in any language 

Steven Levinson

All in all, Bonnie, AP Chemistry was still a positive experience, yeah?

Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

Yes , it was

Philip Spiess

With all of the discussions of Cincinnati Chili on this Forum, it's time to offer an authentic recipe:

“EMPRESS CHILI” RECIPE FROM CINCINNATI

[Originated by John Kiradjieff in Cincinnati’s first chili parlor, as printed in Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker’s Joy of Cooking (2006 edition), page 514 (“Cincinnati Chili Cockaigne”).]

Ingredients:                                                                         

4 cups Water     2 lbs. Ground Beef Chuck     2 medium Onions, finely chopped     5 to 6 Garlic Cloves, crushed     One 15-oz. can Tomato Sauce 2 Tablespoons Cider Vinegar     1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce     10 Whole Black Peppercorns, ground     8 Whole Allspice Berries, ground     8 Whole Cloves, ground     1 large Bay Leaf               2 teaspoons Salt     2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon     1 ½ teaspoons Ground Red Pepper  [Cayenne] 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin     ½ ounce Unsweetened Chocolate, grated                               

[Note (PDS II):  I grind all of the spices together with a pestle in a mortar.]  Makes 6 servings.  [Traditional sides to Cincinnati Chili:   Oyster crackers and/or hot pepper sauce.]

Instructions:

Bring water to a boil in a large pot.  Add the beef; stir until meat is separated, and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Add the onions, garlic cloves, tomato sauce, cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in the ground black peppercorns, allspice berries, cloves, bay leaf, salt, cinnamon, red pepper, cumin, and unsweetened chocolate.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 2 ½ hours.  Cool, uncovered, and refrigerate overnight.  Before serving, skim off all or most of the fat and discard.  Discard the bay leaf.  Reheat the chili [and see “Ways of Serving” chart below].

Ways of Serving Cincinnati Chili:

1-Way:  Chili served by itself.

2-Way:  Chili served over spaghetti.

3-Way:  Chili served over spaghetti and topped with grated Cheddar cheese.

4-Way:  Chili served over spaghetti, topped with grated Cheddar cheese, and sprinkled with chopped onions.

5-Way:  Chili served over spaghetti, topped with grated Cheddar cheese, sprinkled with chopped onions, and all topped with cooked red kidney beans.

[Note:  You may learn about the justly famous commercial chilis of Cincinnati, such as Empress, Skyline, Camp Washington, and Gold Star, in Dann Woellert’s book, The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili (Charleston, S.C.:  American Palate, 2013; 175 pp.).]

Paul Simons

First thanks Phil for your many contributions to this forum. I don't mean to argue but I want to point out that if someone is new to Cincinnati Chili that person could get a distorted picture from the description of the 5-way, which puts the beans on top of everything which we know is not the case. And we know a 4-way can contain onions OR beans. In my experience if the customer doesn't specify the server will ask which one. In all cases the element that tops the whole thing is the grated cheese. Nothing is on top of that.

These are minor points. As the person who might be most responsible for what can easily be considered an overabundance of references to Cincinnati chili on this forum, I want to thank you for your many excellent articles.

An afterthought - reading various teachers' names in preceding posts I remember a couple of not-so-pleasant things. One was a student threatening a science teacher Mr. Ankenkman with physical violence right in front of everyone, up in front of the room. Another was one of the coach/teachers, maybe Bailey, maybe Philbin, paddling me hard with a wooden paddle in front of the whole class for the crime of exchanging a few whispered comments with another student. Those jackasses wouldn't get away with that crap now and they shouldn't have then.

Nothing against football. Go Bengals!

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Wishing all my Jewish classmates a healthy and joyous New Year.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Paul, Paddling?! I never heard of that at Walnut Hills. I couldn't have been in your class when that happened because I'd remember.  I think it was said that in elementary schools the principal may have paddled students but not done in class.  That's crazy!

Philip Spiess

Yes, Barbara, Paul's right.  In 8th Grade Homeroom with Mr. Bailey, he had a wooden paddle with holes drilled in it (for less wind resistance), and, for the slightest infraction of "rules" (say, "whispering"), he would state the well-known (to us) phrase:  "Assume the position!"  This meant to come to the front of the room and bend over with your butt out, ready for a good, hard smack with the paddle.  (I didn't see or hear this action or phrase again for 5 1/2 years, until I was a pledge in a college fraternity.)  Because I never had Mr. Bailey as a teacher or coach other than in homeroom, I don't know what he did in class, but I dare say that he didn't paddle girls.  (Note:  We didn't dare do "the Grand Moose" in homeroom when Mr. Bailey was there; we reserved that treat for entertaining substitute teachers, such as Mr. Fish.)

And Paul is also correct about the chili.  Of the four standard possible chili toppings or additions -- spaghetti, grated cheese, chopped onions, and/or red kidney beans -- these can be added in whatever order, in whatever number you choose:  chili with spaghetti and red kidney beans thus becomes "Chili Three-Way."  (I just copied the "ways" in the order in which Ethan Becker gave them in Joy of Cooking.) 

Jon Singer

Malman and I cut up in Bailey's class with the sub we all called Skijump.  Baily somehow found out about our misbehavior.  He called us sequentially before the class upon his return and paddled us.  Whitey Ford paddled me x2 for attempting to climb thru the basketball net ( a .25 bet with Rick Lindsey).  Will Bass kicked me in the ass for telling him how to take a valid standing 3 jump measurement of Harold Silberman.  That sent me airborne and hurt, but the lingering pain was the "F" he assigned me for the whole 11th grade gym. I had to make it up senior year as I couldn't graduate without the credits per the State mandate.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

I think I must revise my whole opinion of Mr Bailey! I had him for Algebra and it was the first time I enjoyed math, maybe the only time.  

I'm glad I never saw that barbaric side of him. Maybe he was just easy on the girls? 

Laura Reid (Pease)

Jon Singer, I was laughting out loud at your antics.....not at your punishments, but your infractions!  Sorry about the "kick".

Sharon Okrent Abraham, Deedee Doernberg Abraham and I had a yardstick cracked across our desks by Mr. Bailey numerous times for talking in class.

But I really liked Mr. Bailey and Algebra.

Gene Stern

Recall that Biff Bailey was also my football coach for three years.  He was a no nonsense guy who liked to use his yardstick as a weapon. Once Dave Schneider and I were talking outside his classroom and he barged out and wacked both of us. I learned that he left WHHS and ended up teaching at Country Day School

Paul Simons

I guess looking at the big picture it all kinda worked out. Maybe the ridicule that accrued to various substitute teachers somehow had to be cosmically balanced. Speaking of math - I remember poor Mr. Fish filling a blackboard with equations and at the end the solution just wasn't there. I don't remember the exact derision but I'm sure it was there. But he never buckled and maintained his mantra "If you didn't come to learn, you can leave!" throughout. And poor Mrs. Vines aka Grapey-Boo, maybe she was also known as ski jump, not sure, but we could have made all feel more welcome. Maybe Bailey's paddle (which if it had holes in it to reduce wind resistance tells us he was into some weird stuff) was the instrument of cosmic justice. I wish he was still around, there are some fully grown adults that still act like adolescent punks these days in Washington and other places that need to be on the receiving end of Bailey's paddle in front of not just a classroom but a nationwide TV hookup.

Philip Spiess

Not to denigrate, nor belittle, the serious flooding that is going on right now in Florida due to Hurricane Ian, but here is a flood story from Cincinnati's Great Flood of 1937:

The worst flood in the Ohio River's recorded history occurred in January of 1937.  It was so intense that all of the bridges across the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois -- which is to say, the entire length of the Ohio River -- were closed and unusable -- except for Cincinnati's great Suspension Bridge, built by John Roebling (later of Brooklyn Bridge fame).  Roebling had had the foresight to build the bridge's arch way above the waters of the Ohio (though partly so that Ohio River steamboats could pass under -- and even then their smokestakes had to be hinged in order to be folded down so they could pass under), but even then, in 1939, the bridge's approaches, in Ohio on the north and in Kentucky on the south, had to be heavily sandbagged against the flood waters in order for transportation vehicles to actually reach the bridge proper.  In short, it was the only way to cross the river in its entire length to get needed supplies to the many flooded communities in the five or six states abutting the Ohio River.

I might also add that this flood affected Walnut Hills High School and its students.  Although Cincinnati is famed as "the City on Seven Hills" (I'll tell you which those hills are another time), the Mill Creek Valley at the base of those hills backed up with flood waters all the way to Cumminsville and beyond, which meant the Western Hills communities could neither get to downtown nor to the eastern hills (Walnut Hills among them).  Likewise, Kellogg Avenue and the low-lying lands east of Lunken Airport and on to the Little Miami River were completely flooded as well (the Beechmont Levee proved to be totally ineffective in blocking the waters).  Thus those students from the far eastern reaches of the city could not reach school either.  And then there was the drinking water problem:  most of the city's water was contaminated by the flood.  (A number of natural springs in the hills surrounding the downtown basin, which I'll write about another time, had to serve for fresh drinking water.)  As a result, for the first time in its history, Walnut Hills High School's mid-term exams were cancelled.  (My mother, then a senior at Walnut Hills, was apparently ecstatic.)

But here is the flood story I was about to tell:  after the flood waters had finally receded, there was much Ohio River mud left about.  (I know, this happened nearly every spring at old Coney Island, when they had to dredge out the Sunlight Pool.)  Cars which had been abandoned, then stranded, re-emerged from the subsiding waters and were found to be caked -- indeed, clogged -- with mud.  One lady, on recovering her car, found that it would not run.  Managing to coast it downhill to an auto service station, she got the staff there to clear out mud from the engine and other parts, so that it could operate once again.  While they were doing that, the lady herself was trying to clean the mud off the seats, floorboards, etc.  Finding it quite a task, at one point she asked the station manager if he had a restroom.  Misunderstanding her, and thinking she had asked if he had a whisk broom, he responded, "No, lady, but if you back it up to the air hose, I'll blow it out for you!"   

Philip Spiess

So, since there's been no action for awhile here, and since (once again) there's been discussion of White Castle hamburgers on the other site, I thought I'd share a couple of recipes from the leafet "Cooking 'em by the Sack," courtesy of White Castle System, Inc., 1992:

CASTLE NACHO GRANDE:

10 White Castle Hamburgers          1 large can Nacho Cheese                 2 chopped Tomatoes          1 head Lettuce, chopped          1 medium chopped Onion          1 large jar Salsa          1 large bag Nacho Chips       1 8-oz. container of Sour Cream          10-25 chopped Black Olives         1 large bag Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Spread 1/3 salsa on the bottom of a 9" x 13" pan.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup shredded cheese and chopped onion.  Cut each hamburger sandwich into 4-6 pieces and arrange on top of salsa, cheese, and onion.  Add more salsa, shredded cheese, onion, and black olives.  Pour nacho cheese over all and bake at 350 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes.  Remove and cool 5 minutes.  Top with lettuce, chopped tomatoes, onions, shredded cheese, black olives, and dollops of sour cream.  Serve with nacho chips.

MEAT LOAF SUPREME:

12 White Castle Hamburgers (pickles and ketchup included)          1 lb. Ground Pork                       2 cloves Garlic, minced          8 sprigs chopped Parsley          1/2 tsp. Black Pepper                       1/3 cup Milk          Pinch of Oregano          1/2 can Tomato Sauce          Salt (to taste)

Mix all ingredients [I'd cut up the hamburgers first, as in the recipe above] except tomato sauce in a bowl.  Grease loaf pan.  Shape mixture and place in pan; smooth meat with oiled hands.  Pour tomato sauce over meat loaf.  Bake at 350 degrees F. for one hour.

After all, White Castle hamburgers are so good that you're tempted to say, a la Mr. Bailey's paddlings, "Please sir, may I have another?"

Nelson Abanto

I don't know Phil... that sounds pretty brave to me.

Not to change the subject but I am working my way through Donizetti's Tudor trilogy (again).  It has stunning music and drama.  I wonder why it never attained the popularity of other Bel canto opera?

Philip Spiess

I can't give a good answer to your question, Nelson, but I will say that most opera houses stick to certain guaranteed operas that they do over and over and over again.  When was the last time anybody did Wagner's Rienzi?  The first opera I ever saw, von Flotow's Martha (at the Cincinnati Zoo opera), is a delightful opera and easy (and, I would imagine, cheap) to mount, but I haven't seen it around since, despite the popularity of two of its arias, "M'appari" (last heard in the movie Breaking Away, 1979) -- one of Caruso's favorites (the opera was performed by him many times at the Met) -- and "The Last Rose of Summer" (an Irish air interpolated into the opera early on in its career).  And there are many 20th-Century operas that are seldom performed (some with good reason).

I was privileged to see Donizetti's Roberto Devereux at Cincinnati Music Hall with Beverly Sills in the role of Queen Elizabeth I, and, by god! she was Elizabeth, storming in at her first entrance.  This must have been circa 1972, because it was about the time of the move of the Cincinnati Opera from the Zoo to Cincinnati Music Hall, shortly after Music Hall had been renovated by the Corbett Foundation.  (The Corbetts were patrons of Sills.)  Donizetti's "Tudor trilogy" (so-called, but not by Donizetti) was revived in the late 1960s-early 1970s by the conductor Richard Bonynge for his wife, Joan Sutherland, as well as by Beverly Sills at the New York City Opera (which was more apt to do lesser-known operas than the Met), but the three operas seem to have disappeared from the repertoire once again.

Philip Spiess

At the risk of being the only remaining member of our class writing on this Forum (in which case I would seem to be writing to myself, and therefore becoming something of an Echo), I feel the need to alert you all to the insidious headline of the "Food & Drink" column in the current (October 21, 2022) issue of The Week magazine, namely:

"Cincinnati Chili:  The Most Hated Cult Dish in America?" (p. 31).

Needless to say, my blood turned cold (you might say "chilly") at reading this outrageous whopper of a statement by someone who is obviously an eater of, let us say, quiche, or perhaps a vegetarian, but more likely a rival and envious Texan.  I was hardly mollified by the opening sentence of the article itself:  "Cincinnati chili is often insulted by outsiders, but 'I will tolerate no slander of it,' said Kat Kinsman [?] in Food & Wine.  Yes, no other place in the country favors a thin [!] chili sauce made with nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove, but 'to those of us who grew up in the Greater [Graeter's?] Cincinnati area, this stuff is mother's milk.'"  [Well, to me that's an awkward way of putting it -- I would have said "It's ambrosia!"]  "And when it's served on spaghetti and topped with grated cheddar cheese (and perhaps some chopped onion), it's 'a perfect food.'"

Okay, the article was beginning to improve a bit at this point in my opinion, so I won't quote it all -- nor, having recently put the original "Empress Chili" recipe on this site, I won't reproduce the recipe The Week prints (though I haven't checked it for accuracy).  But the article does give a little of the history of Cincinnati chili:  the Macedonian brothers who founded Empress Chili in 1922 and the outgrowth from there into Skyline, Dixie, Gold Star, and all the others -- as well as mentioning the ongoing debate about chocolate in the recipes.  The article also mentions "three-way" versus "five-way" chili, so I had calmed down by the time I had concluded my reading of it.

But I want to know:  What do you think of that headline?

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

It's all a mystery to me.  My mother made delicious chili and I didn't have Skyline until I was an adult.  I'm probably a Cincinnati food freak because of this.  Mom took me there when I came to visit her once and I wondered what the hype was about.  Am I now a social outcast?

David Buchholz

Phil, I have a foodie friend in the East Bay.  I persuaded him to try a can of Skyline and add the requisite addenda to make it a bonafide four-way.  He did.  Accustomed to traditional chili he poohpoohed it.  His loss.  In February, 1974 Esquire magazine ran an article called, "The Best of America."  It considered eating Skyline in Cincinnati the best of the best. An excerpt.

In 1973 the New Yorker had this to say:

If you're a subscriber you can access the archives and read the rest of this article and many more about Cincinnati chili. 

What I do best, though, is to ignore the critics, buy more cans of Skyline through Amazon, keep onions in the pantry, cheese in the fridge, then reach for one of these four thirty-eight year old plates, and have myself a little authentic visit to Cincinnati.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I didn't have my first taste of Skyline until I was an adult either, but I grew up eating my mom's version of Cincinnati chili, which always had two types of beans (Brooks Chili Hot Beans and Joan of Arc Dark Red kidney beans). My mom always put crumbled bacon in everything, especially the chili since had bacon remaining after sautéing the onions, bell peppers, and celery for the chili in bacon grease. She always added spaghetti to finish the pot chili. She served it to us with shaved cheddar cheese, but she always ate hers with Kraft grated parmesan cheese out of the green container. Leftover chili in a Thermos was my lunch many days in a row. 
My work friends made the introduction and I loved Skyline from my first bite! Afterwards, became a regular lunch place for decades. Sometimes I would frequent Gold Star, if it was closer, but my heart belonged to the Lambrinides brothers. 
Years later, while doing some work in Columbus, Ohio, everyone told me to try a place that made the best Greek gyros. I had never had a gyro before but worth going. When I tasted that gyro, recognized familiar spices, and fell in love with gyros. The Greek connection! 

Florence (Now Jean) Ager

      I, too, wasn't introduced to Cincinnati chili until I was an adult. While visiting in Cincinnati,, my mother took me to Skyline Chili. We returned for about 4 consecutive lunches! 
      A Skyline Chili opened in Northern Virginia while I lived there in the 1980s. The number of diners dwindled so that I was often the only person there for lunch. The manager opined  that the menu did not seem to suit Washingtonians. I think the restaurant closed within the year. 

Philip Spiess

Ach, Gott!  So much to comment on, so much is a repeat from this "Forum"!  Let me start by saying my introduction to "Cincinnati Chili" was my Grandmother Goepp's recipe, which we had many a Sunday night for supper (with other Schleckeri), as well as taking it to Coney Island for picnics, etc.  Needless to say, it remains a staple in the Spiess household, and it has served valiantly at church suppers, museum staff get-togethers, and so on.  It does not have most of the spices of Cincinnati's commercial chilis.  The recipe for this dish appears on this "Forum" at Post # 1136 (10-30-2014), as does some commentary on the history of Cincinnati chili.

My own favorite of Cincinnati's commercial chilis, I will readily admit, is Skyline Chili (I know many of you agree with me).  I was practically raised on it.  BUT -- let me say that, although my family often buys the canned version of Skyline Chili, because that is what we have available to us here in greater Washington, D. C. -- and are grateful for it -- I find the canned stuff to be mere pablum compared to what we can get in the restaurants in Cincinnati.  Perhaps this is why the friends of our WHHS compatriots have been unimpressed by it.  [See Post # 891 (8-31-2014) for some commentary on Skyline Chili.]

And then there is the original Cincinnati chili recipe:  Empress Chili, the recipe of which I found in the latest edition of Joy of Cooking (2006), listed as "Cincinnati Chili Cockaigne" (p. 514).  Having cooked this recipe, I found it delicious (and not too different from Skyline Chili), and so I posted the recipe for it on this "Forum" [Post # 6092 (9-25-2022)].

I have tried to answer the question as to "Why Cincinnati Chili?" several times on this "Forum" [Post 1136 (10-30-2014) and Post 1740 (7-4-2015)].  It was because of salted lunches that drove the eaters to buy drinks; this was not limited to Cincinnati, but existed as well in New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, to say nothing of other cities with a significant German population. 

I myself wrote up Camp Washington Chili in my "Glimpses of Camp Washington" post [# 5997 (3-31-2022)].  Dave Buchholz has featured Gold Star Chili [# Post 890 (8-31-2014)] in a photograph; Paul Simons has posted a photograph and recipe of an otherwise unnamed Cincinnati chili, "Famous Cincinnati Chili" [Post # 5454 (1-26-2021)], which, to my astonishment, includes "tomatoes and tomato sauce," never before seen in a Cincinnati chili recipe!  Margery Erhart Feller mentions using venison in her chili [Post # 1151 (11-3-2014)], and good for her; I'm an advocate of vension (why is it so expensive? because it's dear meat).  And Ann Shepard Rueve offers her mother's chili recipe.  [Note:  Ann, my wife states that "Kraft grated parmesan cheese out of the green container" is to be avoided -- it's loaded with "fiber", which is often "sawdust."  Just sayin'.]

So -- the immaculate resource to go to on the subject of Cincinnati Chili is Dann Woellert's book, The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili (Charleston, S. C.:  American Palate, 2013.  175 pp.).

Cincinnati chili?  The fuss over "hating it" is all Greek to me!

Jon Singer

Years ago I gave deposition testimony on behalf of an Emergency Physician who had done the right thing as supported by practice and written document.  The physician's legal defender and the evil money grubbing legal denier of truth had flown to the onsite Greater Cincinnati hotel together and were due to return to Dallas on the same flight, 2.5 hours after we ended the debate. I remarked about their apparent togetherness. The good guy said, "We often hang together...he sues 'em and I defend em." I suggested in their remaining time they visit the airport's Goldstar Chili. I explained the history of our institutions and apologized that they could not experience the exact maiden "hit" I had at downtown Empress, or any of our Skylines ( OR my all time favorite, Chili Time-St. Bernard/ Bond Hill)*.  I suggested they would find a three or a bean four way FAR superior to their Texas chili. The bad guy said, "I'll take this case to court, put this fool on the stand and make him repeat that statement.  We'll win outright." The boys took less umbrage and showed greater delight with my suggestion to co-visit Graeters(which had at the time been recommended by Opra) on the way to their terminal.

* Original small facility of Chili Time went from the east side of Vine Street to the west side about the time of our Latin studies. The Bond Hill facility at Reading, near California was run by the same family and closed in the late 60s or early 70s. I last had a three way there at 7:30 am after a 11pm-7am Christmas break week of temp employment back in college.  The folks having eggs and bacon looked at me with suspicion. 

Paul Simons

Skyline and Gold Star are fine, Empress was too (although - Dave - from my experience the stuff in cans is at enormous variance in a negative direction from the stuff in the restaurants) but don't forget to visit Camp Washington Chili when you return to the old hometown - good enough for Lonnie Mack to record a song about it -