Life is a combination of magic and pasta.

A few of us are ordering lunch from Veganized today. I've been craving the hell out of this sandwich for a while so I'm already drooling in anticipation: The Angelica: House sandwich bread, cashew cheese, smoked tofu, roasted carrots, charred onion, lettuce, lemon pesto

I never used to have tofu much and then I had smoked tofu. It's sooo good. They also do a great job of roasting/charring the vegetables for the sandwich every time. I won't be getting any sides to go with them because the folks down the hall are having a building-wide fall celebration this afternoon where we paid $3 and we'll get cider and apple/pumpkin-based treats.

With the Papa Johns brouhaha going on, it's made me crave pizza - though not theirs and not just because the owner is a dickhead. So Emily's coming over later and we may have good ol' Pizza Hut. I haven't had pizza in a while. Each time I'll crave it, I've been good and made something else at home. 

Good thing we've already decided to do an extended gym visit tomorrow morning, I'm gonna need to burn off the calories.

Speaking of food, someone in a food forum on FB posted this interesting article about Bisquick.  Reminds me that I haven't had chicken and drop dumplings in ages. It's supposed to finally get some steady fall temperatures late next week. I may have to get some stuff for that. Though my Mom preferred using Jiffy over Bisquick mix. What about y'all? Make anything with the mix or have any memories about it?

Youtube gave me another cute suggested video

I especially love Bill Geist videos. The pies look awesome in the video but as usual, there's a bigger message. It reminds me of the kind of trips that I like to make - not to some desert island, not to some far off land but to the little out-of-the-way quirky little places that can be explored not far from home. 

I used to do this in Ohio when both my Dad and I weren't working and we'd get in the car with Mom and go on our little adventures to some of the little backroads. In one small town we wandered through a dinky little antique shop and I found these vintage menus. One of the places - Arnaud's in New Orleans is still open but clearly the prices on the menu are much different nowadays. 

Another place we visited was Urbana Ohio at the Robert Rothschild farm HQ. You've probably seen or bought their stuff before. The funny thing is years later I was in the Hamptons for a film festival with Emily and we wandered into Barefoot Contessa's store. I saw that they had some of the Robert Rothschild stuff and I picked one up to see that they'd marked up the price obnoxiously. One of their salespeople came up and was all snooty as if I was some unimportant little plebe and started talking about the products as if they were made of gold. I gave her an amused look and said how their raspberry festival in Ohio was fun. She knew I wasn't buying her bullcrap and wrinkled her nose and walked off. Looking it up that store is now closed - perhaps with less conceit and better prices it would've stayed open.

Another one of the areas that we loved driving through, that my parents still visit is Amish country in northeast Ohio. We actually started to visit Berlin (not pronounced like the one in Germany) Ohio less because it's become such a fabricated tourist trap. 

Do you like to do the same? What kind of places do you visit? Found any really interesting quirky places that you didn't necessarily plan to go to initially?

Dad called to ask me whether we ate at Antoine's on the one time we went to New Orleans (pre-Katrina). We hadn't, but I told him the reason why it was familiar to him is because I have a menu from a place in NO with a similar name - Arnaud's - that I found in an antique shop in Ohio and at the last place I live, I turned scans of it into a wall-long mural. It didn't come down from the wall in good enough shape to transport but I could have it made again sometime. The gallery with the scans of the old menu are here with other vintage menus on my flickr gallery

He asked because there was this piece on CBS Sunday Morning

I wish we would have gone there since they clearly value their people and their customers. Maybe I'll get the chance sometime. For the record, we didn't go to Arnaud's either. I am wondering about the menu and prices for a place ther around the Civil War!

Makes me wonder - any of you have a place like this that you frequent? I do get along well and like to visit my local Ruthie's Bagels regularly. I'm FB friends with the owner even.

(Posted on my LJ in public, if anyone feels like sharing in a comm for more feedback, that would be cool)