Nostalgia Trip: The First Lady Goes Tailgating in Columbus

The season of the weekend college football tailgate has arrived in
full force in Columbus, home of The Ohio State Buckeyes

With the arrival of the college football season comes the rebirth of the college football tailgate party. Unsurprisingly, this proves to be a popular pastime here in Columbus, home of Ohio State University, its nationally known football program and fervent fan base.

The modern concept of the football tailgate is said to date back roughly a century to the then dominant Ivy League schools, but historians and researchers have traced the tailgate’s origins to the U.S. Civil War and even to old Roman Empire rituals.

Considering my interest in things sports-, food-, and history-related, it’s really no surprise that “The Official Tailgating Cookbook” would catch my eye during a random thrift store visit. What I found inside made it worth far more than the $1 (an 80% discount over its original cover price) I forked over at the cash register.

In Sync With The Shack?

My first visit to Shake Shack came at an advantageous time - on a weekday, just after the prime lunch rush. Even better: most of the electronic kiosks were open, and seeing a tiny bit of a line at the front counter, I figured this would be as easy-peasy a time of ordering the ballyhooed ShackBurger, a creation hyped to outdo all other burgers in this whole wide world.

Shake Shack's touch-screen menu ordering kiosk gave me a bit of a rude
surprise during my first visit into their Easton Town Center location

I slid my payment card in the slot, and punched in my order: a Double ShackBurger and a side of fries. I wanted a milkshake badly, but seeing I'd be pushing 2,000 calories with that trifecta, I figured I'd give my waistline a break by ordering a Fifty/Fifty, a half lemonade/half iced tea combo that sounded pretty refreshing on what was a fairly warm day.  After punching in my personal info, I submitted my order, ready to start my countdown clock for this first time experience

The screen went black, that familiar white swirl holding court in the center. And then, puzzlement, as I tried to decipher the message in front of me.

"Your Order Is Out of Sync"

I duplicated the order again, this time starting without the card in the slot and then inserting it at the end. Again, no dice. I tried again a third time at a different kiosk, and again, the Shack would not abide. Were the burger gods sending me a warning message of some sort?

Brimful of Dishes on the Northwest Side

The regional cuisines of India were, through circumstance, not something I explored a lot while living in the Bay Area. That changed for the better when I moved to Central Ohio, where the dishes of the numerous Indian restaurants here have quickly become favorites for me and my spouse.

For the most part, the Indian restaurants here, from basic curry joints to more fancy establishments and most recently Indian-fusion places (Indian-themed bowls, wraps and salads from places like Curry Up in the Sawmill area and Lewis Center's Rollz Rice) aren't chains. The Indian-fusion chain restaurant actually has become a more prevalent sight around the US as noted in this May 2016 Eater.com article, but Columbus's biggest Indian chain arrival decidedly does not follow that fusion route in the Michigan-based Neehee's.