Road trip, day 1: NY to Cleveland

Hello from Cleveland! We are successfully through day one of our road trip to my new home in Des Moines. I'm exhausted (from driving and singing at the top of my lungs!), but wanted to share a few highlights- which are yes, all food related since that is the real joy of road tripping, as far as I'm concerned. (Though I will say that PA and OH along route 80 are lovely in the spring!) I planned the day to end in Cleveland, which is slightly out of the way, because I really wanted to eat at The Greenhouse Tavern. It's big on local produce, supporting local farms, and being as sustainable as they can (they have the most amazing lights made with bike tires!)—not to mention they serve Jeni's ice cream which I adore. Here's a look at what we had, which we decided is like a snapshot of spring in delicious food-form. That first intro shot is Wild Ohio Asparagus with tarragon, lemon and bearnaise.

Cardoons (like a cross between an artichoke and a leek, I believe) with pecorino and celery

Spring pasta with fiddlehead ferns, wild ramps, poached egg, asparagus and morel. And a nice addition of pancetta for good measure. Virginia was psyched that she managed to try four new vegetables all in the same meal as the cardoons was her entree.

My entree which was grilled romaine topped with puttanesca and white beans. It had a light dusting of bread crumbs to give it a bit of crunch and some grated lemon zest to lift up all of the flavors. Virginia and I both decided that we are going to definitely replicate this dish repeatedly over the summer. Possibly served with a side of steak.

Dessert of Jeni's Salty Caramel ice cream and apricot rugelah. Seriously, the ice cream is amazing. I am glad that I found a restaurant sort of on the way that served it as I was very nearly about to drive hours out of my way to get some.

The rest of the day, we had more standard road trip faire, including lunch at the Twilight Diner somewhere in central PA. We both had the mountain sandwich special, which was freshly baked white bread (sliced to about 2 inches thick) grilled in butter and sandwiched arounded grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato and mayo. So yummy.

And our afternoon snack was apple pie a la mode at Eat'nPark, which I have to say, has gotten a menu upgrade since the last time I was there. They serve soy milk!

We are having a very enjoyable time so far (despite the fact that my camera seems to have broken and we're relying on V's iphone for images), belting tunes, enjoying town names like Moosic and marveling at the availability of pie everywhere we stop. Tomorrow, we head to Chicago for lunch with my brother and then on towards IA...