Ideal weeknight meal

We've had Melissa Clark's Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp twice now (including tonight) and I think it is now one of my favorite weeknight meals. It truly is quick, relatively affordable, healthy and doesn't dirty too many pans. Plus, it consistently makes enough for generous leftovers, a real bonus in this household!

Summer road trip - Charlottesville, VA and Annapolis

Well, eventually we made it to Charlottesville, tired, hungry, a bit edgy and basically just ready to call it a night. My parents were letting us use the cottage they rent on Beau Pre Farm in Charlottesville and had even had an extra key made for us to ensure easy access.

Not so easy - for some reason, the key didn't work and we found ourselves in the pitch black dark. Perhaps Matt was secretly hoping this was his one shot to convince me to camp, but I had hotel on the brain if we couldn't find a spare key.

Fortunately, my parents' landlord was awake and let us in. Phew!

The next morning Matt and I drove northwest and up to Skyline Drive, where he began a 40-some mile bike ride along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park. He wasn't sure how long it would take him and just asked me to meet him at a certain point about 4 hours later.

3 hours later, I was in the middle of running errands and leisurely enjoying my morning, when I got a call from Matt saying "I'm finished!" Maybe he's a better cyclist than both of us thought! So I picked him up and we stopped at the Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, VA for pizza and local beer.

Then it was on to my brother and sister-in-law's house for an extended play session with our nephew Tucker and dinner. Austin and Jackie have more squash growing in their garden than they ever could have asked for, so you can guess what we had for dinner!

At one point during our vacation, I got it in my head that I just had to go to a swimming hole. Just had to! Well, Matt had already plotted out a Wednesday morning run for us along Moorman's River, which runs through Shenandoah National Park and has numerous swimming holes. Serendipitous! The picture below isn't actually Matt, just one grabbed from the Internet ... but you get the idea. SO fun.

After our run we cleaned up, had a quick breakfast at the Bluegrass Grill and Bakery in Charlottesville and began our drive to Annapolis. Before ending up at my parents' house, we met Katie and Anabelle Roberts for smoothies at Robeks, which turned out to be a somewhat eventful episode, but you'll have to ask Katie for the details on that one. :)

Our time at my parents' has been full of fun, delicious food, golf, porch sitting, reading, and of course plenty of Tucker time - he, Austin and Jackie arrived Friday afternoon and it's been one Tucker-centered activity after another, as you can see from the pictures below!

Summer road trip - Lexington, KY & Asheville, NC

After polishing off dessert in Sidney, we hit the road again and made it to Lexington, KY in time to grab 7 hours of sleep before jumping in the car once more. Of course our morning wouldn't have been complete without a little breakfast, which we enjoyed at Magee's Bakery, a hot spot for young families, Saturday morning runners, and just about anyone who appreciates homemade baked goods.

As you can see from the picture, the atmosphere at Magee's was as appealing as its offerings - we whet our appetites on breakfast casseroles that had just popped out of the oven, a homemade honey bun, strong coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

But enough about our breakfast. I know you're probably more interested in our lunch! About five hours later we found ourselves in Black Mountain, NC, a quaint town just outside of Asheville, NC, where we were staying the night, and we were definitely ready to eat again. There are a handful of restaurants in downtown Black Mountain, but none looked all that appealing for lunch.

I did spot, though, a rustic little cafe callled An Apple a Day Depot that had words like "vegan" and "gluten-free" on the windows. While this caught my interest, I knew it probably didn't have the same effect on Matt. However, it really was our only option, it looked affordable and we were ready to eat.

Well, it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. I won't belabor you with all the details, but let's just say I'm not so skeptical about the raw food movement now that I've had an Apple a Day wrap, along with "pink" lemondae (made with apple, lemon and beet juice) as well chlorophyll filtered-water, which has a fresh minty flavor. Do check out the Web site for more information!

While in Asheville, we did more than just eat, I promise, although I suppose many of our activities revolved around food. We had dinner with my best friend from college, her husband and daughter, who happened to be there on an anniversary trip, something we figured out just a few days earlier! On Sunday morning, we visited the Western North Carolina Farmer's market and picked up some juicy peaches and local honey.

On the athletic front, we took two early morning runs in surprisingly cool temperatures and tackled quite a few hills. We also hiked a particularly beautiful part of the Blue Ridge Mountains - the "balds" they are named - which afforded us some priceless views, seeing as how they weren't covered with trees.

Because we're operating on a pretty conservative budget for this trip, I must say that we were particularly pleased with our post-hike lunch - two generous slices of pizza and a lemonade from a gourmet grocery store for $7. You can't beat that! Our dessert that night - a Black Mocha Stout milkshake (yes, it was beer-flavored) and a lemon-mint sorbet smoothie even cost more!

On our way out of Asheville on Monday, we enjoyed breakfast at the Early Girl Eatery, a gem that Matt had scoped out prior to our trip. Fabulous! I had the Early Girl Benny, which is a grit cake topped with tomato, spinach, poached eggs, tomato gravy and avocado. Now if I could just recreate it at home ...

We also took the scenic route out of Asheville, traveling up the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 3 1/2 hours, which still put us about 5 hours from our final destination when it was all said and done ... a reality that was a little harsh when we wound up spending 8 plus hours in the car for a trip that could have just lasted 5. This gave me flashbacks to middle school when my dad would want to take the parkway for portions of a trip and I just moaned and groaned about how loooonng it would take!

Fortunately, this time around I tried my very hardest not to slip into that kind of funk and mainly just enjoyed the scenery ... and Matt was a trooper to put up with my brief spells of complaining!

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!