Hedging on the Veggies

Vegetables, exotic and more familiar, at Columbus's Saraga International Market

Kids hate their vegetables, right? At least, the conventional wisdom leans that way, but when you look deeper into the matter, there’s not much defining data. One article in the Mirror UK shows people have a natural aversion to green and other “weird” colors, yet an article in The Daily Meal notes Broccoli as one of the most well liked kids' veggies.  Meanwhile, a report found in HuffPost’s Australia posits a double-whammy: a natural human instinct to avoid off-putting bitter or sour flavors plus a lack of instinct to like veggies in the first place.

However, there are plenty of articles to be had about the strategies and hacks a parent can use to get their youngsters to actually eat these generally nutrition-laden foods.

Would any of those have worked in my case? Who knows, but I could tell you that a vegetable's texture played a bigger role than than the taste, and still does to a certain extent. Mushy vegetables (peas for some reason were a notable exception), especially those used in the traditional soup-based dishes my parents would make, were enjoyed as much as my parents' Andy Williams or Perry Como albums - tolerated, but nothing more. On the other hand, green beans and carrots, like my mom's Tom Jones' albums, offered more snap, so I favored them more. And corn and potatoes, from fries to baked to mashed, proved much like Santana's "Abraxas" (on 8-Track cassette to boot) album - they could be repeated ad infinitum as far as I was concerned.

Going Off The Rails on the Wholesome Train: Acre

Looking back at that Columbus Underground "Best New Restaurants of 2014 List" that I had mentioned on a post last year on Bareburger, I noticed just how many of these restaurants have become or were regulars in our rotation.  Of course, there's local phenomenon Hot Chicken Takeover, but in addition I found the now (sadly) departed Double Comfort, the Brewery District hot spot Arepazo Latin Grill (I have blogged about their first two locations in Downtown and Gahanna), and Clintonville's Harvest Bar & Kitchen, an offshoot of the original Harvest Pizzeria in German Village.

Also on this list was an eatery that for some reason had for some reason slipped through the cracks in terms of a blog post in the locally-focused, fast-casual eatery known as Acre.

Southern Road Trip: Best of the Rest (Pt. 2)

Yes, there's more! We hit a plethora of noteworthy eateries on our road trip that didn't get previously covered in my previous Southern Travels posts - the second and final part of this mini-series continues below:

San Antonio - B&B Smokehouse

The third item food item that my spouse agreed we had to have while we were in Texas (outside of kolaches and crawfish) was BBQ beef brisket. San Antonio's B&B Smokehouse, located in the Harlandale section of town, proved it had the chops to serve this area staple.

An old-timer in San Antonio's BBQ scene (starting in 1958 as Hal's Drive-in and Bar-B-Que), B&B offers a few twists beyond the traditional BBQ menu in its mains (po-boy sandwiches, burgers and chicken tenders area available) as well as their sides (onion rings and creamed corn). Even the condiments were also diverse: bottles of traditional sriracha and sambal oelek stood right next to their hot sauce and balsamic vinegar counterparts.

The Carnage Plate, Refined: Little Eater

This, my friends, is my version of a carnage plate, Little Eater-styled.

Carnage is a word that generally carries negative connotations. And yes, carnage is not a word generally associated with the well-regarded and beloved Columbus' North Market. In fact, most people would probably dream of the heat of hot chicken, the airy chew of macarons, and the waft of ripe produce, simmering stews. and all manner of bakery goods, rather than anything destructive.

It most definitely isn't pretty, but I dare say carnage has never tasted better.