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!

Failproof landscaping

We did a little yardwork yesterday. Actually, perhaps I should say Matt did a lot of yardwork yesterday and I was moderately helpful and hopefully inspirational. (I only say that because on one of our trips between the nursery and home I commented that I didn't feel like I was much help, and Matt said I was inspiration. Kinda cute and I'm hoping he wasn't just joking!)

In just three hours, Matt mowed the lawn, dug up 5 ailing rhododendrons, extended the width of our front bed by two feet, transplanted our Japanese maple, planted 5 hydrangeas and 13 boxwoods, and laid some mulch!!

To my credit, I planted some herbs, did some pruning and weeding and laid some mulch as well.

I really don't have much of a green thumb, and, at this stage in life, am not all that interested in doing what it takes to make it greener. It makes me sympathetic to those people who really aren't that interested in cooking, but still want to eat well without too much effort or cost.

Our friend with expertise in landscaping told us that this plan was "failproof" ... here's hoping he's right!

The top five things

Well, we just returned from a fantastic long weekend in Charlottesville, which has me missing the East Coast a bit more than normal.

So, here's what we do about that ... we make a "Top five things about being in Michigan right now" list!

1. The weather is awesome. Even better than VA and MD. No humidity,and steady temps in the 70's and 80's.
2. Local produce will soon be exploding and my summertime meals will surely benefit. Hopefully my yet to be planted garden will, too.
3. It gets light very early and stays light very late, making waking up in the morning less painful and the evenings seem a lot longer.
4. It's golf season, and since last season got cut off unexpectedly early due to my foot injury, I'm feeling a new sense of gratitude for the ability to enjoy this sport. Also, we often play on Friday nights after work, and finish off the night with sausage and green olive pizza from our favorite pizza place - a perfect way to end the work week in my opinion.
5. Summertime also means that we have a couple of trips to look forward to in the next several months that will bring us back to the East Coast.

I'm not sure if the last one really counts as a top five for being in MI right now, but I'm running out of time and ideas, so it will have to do!

I need to be more careful

Last night I volunteered at a cowboy-themed fundrasiser for the Junior League. I don't own cowboy boots, a cowboy hat or even a checked button-down shirt ... the only affordable Western flair I could figure out at the last minute was a bandanna.

So I asked Matt if he had any I could borrow, and he hedged a little. To be honest, I was a bit miffed by his response. After all, it's just a bandanna, he wasn't going to be using it on Saturday night I'm pretty sure, and what was I going to do ... lose it?!?! Of course not! It would be tied around my neck for all of 2 or 3 hours and then back in his hands, safe and sound.

I'm guessing you can tell where this post is going. Matt was right to hedge a little in lending me his white bandanna, the one he feels the most sentimental about, the one that reminds him of his backpacking trips.

When I got to the event, I put my belongings in a coat closet and decided not to wear the bandanna at first, since I couldn't really make it look cute tied around my neck and figured I looked "cowboy couture" enough with my denim and heels.

And of course, a few hours later, I returned home, bandannaless. In my rush to leave, I didn't notice that it had fallen of the top of my purse, where I had set it initially.

Here's the good news, though! First, and most importantly, Matt forgave me pretty quickly. Yes, he was bummed that we might not be able to get his bandanna back, but he didn't give me a hard time about it. And for that I am very grateful!

Second, I did track down a friend who was still at the event and she rescued it for me.

Lesson learned - I need to keep bandannas tied around my neck! (and be more careful of course)