Summer road trip - Sidney, Ohio

FINALLY! Summer vacation has arrived. Yesterday, Matt and I hit the road for a week-long vacation to Asheville, Charlottesville and Annapolis. Needless to say, there will be a lot of driving involved, but also plenty of scenery, activities, family, friends and awesome food. In fact, I have a feeling that the next few posts will largely revolve around food, because our meals thus far have been just SO good.

Last night we drove from Berkley, MI to Lexington, KY and stopped for dinner in Sidney, OH. We'd actually stopped there a few months ago when Matt ran the "Flying Pig Marathon" in Cincinnati. One of the things that I love about being married to Matt is that when we're on road trips, he's never interested in just rushing through a drive-through window or dropping cash on a tasteless Subway sub. He figures that when you need to eat, you might as well also get a good look at the small towns that make America so great!

So in April, when we were looking for place to eat between Berkley and Cincinnati, I "Wikipediad" Sidney, OH and learned that it:

• was the recipient of the 1964 All-America City Award
• has a park or recreation area within a half-mile of every residence
• is the hometown of renowned scientist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Lauterbur, who was involved in the invention of the MRI
• and features some unusual architecture for a small town, including the 1883 Second Empire courthouse

Now come on, don't you want to visit Sidney?!

But perhaps most importantly, it's home to the Spot Restaurant, a good old-fashioned diner with homemade fruit pies and thick chocolate malts. When President Bush visited the town in 2003, he even dined at the Spot!

Last night we actually brought sandwiches with us, and ate them in Sidney's courthouse square, while an Ohio State alumni band serenaded all of the senior citizens in the town, plus the two of us. Delightful.

And then, of course, we hurried across the street for strawberry pie and a chocolate malt!

Supernatural tomatoes?

A few weeks ago, we bought a roma tomato plant at the farmer's market. I've never grown tomatoes before and don't really know what I'm doing, so I just water the pot a lot and keep it in the sun. I'm not sure what a healthy tomato plant looks like, and I've been hoping ours is healthy even though it looks a little scraggly to me.

The other day I gave it a closer look and discovered a few tiny green tomatoes on the vine! I told my brother about this and he didn't believe me and said they just couldn't come this early.

Well, here's proof. Maybe I know what I'm doing after all!

A realization

We've been spending a lot of time this week with Matt's brother and his wife, who are in visiting before they move to Connecticut. Matt's brother works for tegu, a toy startup. They're more than just your everyday toy company, so I'd reccommend checking out the Web site for more information!

Because they are designing magnetized block sets, though, it got me thinking about Legos and how much I enjoyed playing with them when I was young. In fact, for a few years in a row, my brother and I would enter a Lego-building contest sponsored by the local toy store, Be Beep, and each design our own space stations, small cities, or what have you out of Legos.

My memories of these contests are a little fuzzy, but I do remember dropping my creation off at the store, and then returning a day or two later to see if there was a little ribbon attached to my design, indicating that I had won a prize (which was more Legos of course).

And lo and behold! There was always a ribbon attached to my design, as well as to my brother's. Imagine that - we both won!

And just the other day it dawned on me - I bet every contestant must have won a prize! I mean, there's no way to really know, but my brother and I couldn't both have been that good at Legos ... what are the odds?? And wouldn't at least one of us be an architect today if we had rightfully won our prizes?

More on asparagus

Tonight I felt like a child again. I had finished an awesome hamburger and was left with a small pile of asparagus stalks. And I just couldn't finish them. Didn't want to finish them. Had to force myself to eat them, even though Matt would have left me off the hook. After all, I am an adult.

I'm a healthy eater. I love vegetables, get sad when I miss my "5-7 servings," and even ate at a vegetarian restaurant last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

However, I'm struggling to love asparagus. It's been sounding like such a good idea these days - easy to prepare, in-season, affordable, etc. And I haven't even been steaming it .. I've been roasting it in lots of olive oil, with plenty of sea salt and lemon pepper.

But it's not really working. I do think the tips taste fine, but the thick, hard to chew, stringy stalks are another story. Ugh! And when they get cold (as they often do when you leave them till the very end to eat) they're just unbearable.

Matt, on the other hand, loves every last bite of every single stalk, no matter how thick or thin. Wish I had known him when I was a child, and really did have to finish every last bite. I could have used the help!