Roadfood

Whenever Wendy and I travel, we like to sample the regional cuisine. So this past week when we journeyed to Ithaca to take our son Scott back to college, we hit a seafood restaurant. Since we're out of Michigan and closer to the east coast, I figured we could get fresh fish that isn't lake perch or whitefish (not that either is bad though).

The feature that day was arctic char. That sounded deliciously exotic. I don't think I'd ever eaten fish from the arctic. And I wasn't even sure what a char was?

I was prepared for a feast. And a gourmet feast at that since this char was being served with pomegranate sauce and fingerling potatoes. Sounds very "Top Chef" to coin a favorite phrase of mine and Wendy. I let Wendy and Scott finish off the fresh-baked bread with dill butter, tasty though it was, so I would have room for the char and potatoes.

Turns out that wasn't necessary. My portion of char was about the size of a large hamburger patty and came drenched in very sweet pomegranate sauce. I'm still not sure what char tastes like. Maybe salmon. But I can certainly tell you what pomegranate sauce tastes like.

And the fingerlings? More like fingerettes. Very tiny potatoes. My grandson Grant's fingers would look gargantuan in comparison to the fingerlings I ate though Grant's only two-months old. So a great feast it wasn't.

On to Amish country in Berlin, Ohio where Wendy and I made a brief shopping side trip on the way back. I made sure we had breakfast at Boyd and Wurthmanns restaurant in downtown Berlin--"where the locals eat."

The special that morning was "fried mush with tomato gravy." Hmmmm. I passed. Arctic char with a little pomegranate sauce, excuse me, pomegranate sauce with a little arctic char was culinary adventure enough this trip.

What piqued my interest was the list of fresh pies available for dessert. There were about twenty varieties including raisin, elderberry and peanut butter. Then there was 'brown bag apple pie' and 'ground cherry pie.' You really have to be a pie baking afficionado to know what they are. A gourmet baking co-worker did. But my wife didn't. Do you?

I didn't try the pies, afterall it was breakfast. But I did sample the extremely tasty peanut butter at our table. Would I love to take this home. We bought a jar of locally made Walnut Creek peanut butter at a nearby store but it just wasn't the same.

Was almost tempted to swipe the peanut butter server off our table but how would that go over here in a religious enclave where restaurant menus include a meal blessing and the television in the public lobby of your hotel is tuned to a revival?