Loafing Around Encouraged: The Whitney House

The humble meatloaf has graced numerous household dinner tables
around the world in one form or another

Many dishes come to mind when it comes to American classics: hamburgers, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and so forth. Often times, these dishes are adaptations or variants on more traditional dishes, like American spaghetti or Tex-Mex creations like Fajitas or Chile con Carne.

A dish that in many ways reflects the melting pot that is this country lies in meatloaf. While meatloaf has competing origin stories, its concept is pretty clear cut - a collection of culinary odds and ends combined into something not necessarily elegant, but assuredly comforting.

And indeed it was; my parents’ rendition was fairly standard (ground beef, onions, stale bread, eggs, and seasoning) but one my favorite things to eat with ketchup and rice. In addition, many parties hosted by relatives, friends, and family allowed me the chance to eat another favorite variation in the Embutido, a Filipino take which mixes a variety of meats with somewhat unique ingredients such as raisins, carrots, bell peppers, and hard-boiled eggs.

Seekh The Unique: Everest Cuisine (Worthington, OH)

Lithopolis, Ohio and its roughly 1,600 people have a pretty nice
Mexican restaurant within city limits in El Pedregal

Almost every small town seems to have at least one.

One what, you ask? In this case, I refer to the random international restaurant or two that provides a prospective diner a break from the plethora of fast food, diners, and pizza joints that tend to dominate the landscape. The food, when judged by other similar eateries in bigger cities and towns, may not match up. But as a resident of that town, you take a bit a pride in knowing that something is your hometown Chinese, your local Mexican, or even something even a bit more uncommon.

Vinyl COHvers: A Very Worthi(ngton) Christmas

A view of Worthington's High Street during Old Worthington Market Day 2015,
the town's largest one-day festival featuring arts and crafts & food vendors

On last year's inaugural Holiday Edition of Vinyl COHvers, we found our selves in the Northeast corner of the Columbus metro in the suburb of Westerville.  In that post, we featured three songs from the Westerville High School Choruses and Orchestra, from a recording that had reached its golden anniversary (the album contained music from a Christmas music festival from December 19, 1966.)

This year's Holiday Edition of Vinyl COHvers moves only a few miles west along the I-270 beltway to another "W" suburb in Worthington.

Columbus Coffee Chronicles (Vol. 3): Highline Coffee

The buildings which make up downtown Worthington, otherwise known as Old or Olde Worthington to the locals, are a reflection of the town's founding; Thomas Kilbourne, the man who purchased the land that would become Worthington, platted the land to be a New England-styled village (indeed, one of the main east-west thoroughfares here is New England Avenue.)

One probably would expect an area like this to have a little neighborhood, locally-oriented coffee cafe of some sort. However, that hasn't been the case pretty much since I moved to the area more than four years ago. There is a nice little triangle in this area of brick-and-mortar eateries where you can grab a cup of coffee brewed from locally-based coffee sources like Stauf's (the French bistro/bakery Le Chatelaine), downtown's Cafe Brioso (courtesy of Sassafras Bakery, one of my local favorites for baked goods), and duo of Roaming Goat and Crimson Cup (the bicycle store/coffee bar mashup Ride Home.)  The outdoor edition of the town's popular Farmers Market also offers its Saturday morning visitors the beans and brews of southern-Ohio based Silver Bridge Coffee out of Gallipolis. 

This situation has changed recently, however, with the arrival of Highline Coffee.