Crumbs and Carrots!

Today, my roommate, Kirstin, and I visited the marvel of East State Street, the Village Bakery.

Kirstin had never been there before, and I had been bugging her all week to take me there. (She has a car on campus, and I was too lazy to walk a mile when my tummy was rumbling.)

We walked through the glass door to find a counter stretching the length of the shop. Along one side of the counter are pastries, cookies, breads and cheesecakes galore (my personal favorite). To the right of the counter is the beverage station with four coffee varieties and tap water for drinking.

The mid-morning sun brightly shined through the windows that completely encompass the front of the building. The aroma of freshly baked bread mixed with the scent of coffee, herbs and spices whirled at me from every direction.

Employees with plain and simple clothing, wearing bandanas to keep their hair out of their faces, scurried behind the counter like mice, twisting and turning through the maze of the open kitchen.

Giant chalkboards with the day’s menu hang above the counter. Each chalkboard has a different category: salads, soups, beverages, pastries, morning nourishment and cookies. On Sundays, the menu is revamped for a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. brunch, which is a bit pricey if you ask me, even though the quality is excellent.

Although I was craving a pastry, I decided on something new. (OK, it was because I worked out before, and I guess I wanted to keep up with the health kick, at least for the day.) I ordered a side salad with feta dill dressing, which was yummy but interesting, and a cup of Cuban black bean soup.

The salad was sort of atypical because the sprout to lettuce ratio was equal, and I’m not used to that many sprouts. Have you ever heard of feta dill dressing? I hadn’t until I looked at the menu, so I figured, Oh, what the heck? Why not? And honestly, the name is very telling because it tasted like feta cheese, with a sprinkle of garlic and dill pickle juice. It may sound nasty, but if you like feta, I highly recommend it.

And the soup was great, except that it was a bit watery. Unlike the other black bean soups I’ve tried, this had chunks of sweet potatoes and a bit of cream poured on top, which gave it a slight milky taste.

Though I didn’t get dessert (Remember the health-food kick?), I promised my roommate that we would definitely be back during finals week for a nice, little Village Bakery treat.

An Athens-Themed Weekend

Every week, I show you to a different business in Athens and attempt to describe the feel of each place in two blog posts.  But with this week’s second post, I’m stepping slightly out of topic.  Only slightly.  Instead of another post on Athens Underground, I want to take you through my Athens-themed weekend with my parents.

Ohio University has quite a few weekends each year dedicated to the family visiting—Parents Weekend, Sibs Weekend, Moms Weekend and Dads Weekend. Not only do our families have an excuse to visit us and check out the town and our lives as students, but we also have the opportunity to bring money to local businesses in Athens.  But does it really bring money to the little shops, or does it just provide more business for Applebee’s or Bob Evans?

In my attempts to stick it to the “corporate” man, I took Mom and Dad to the little Athens wonders, which I’m in love with. During the 27 hours they were with me, we jumped from place to place, starting with the Athens Farmers Market, an outdoor market located on East State Street, where local producers and businesses sell fresh produce, fruit, breads, pastries, salsas, jellies, flavored coffee and so much more.

At the AFM, Mom and Dad bought me necessities to get me through the next four weeks—pumpkin spice coffee, pineapple hot salsa and Fuji apples. After roaming through the crowds for a bit and getting me a blueberry muffin for breakfast, we left to get any remaining food items from Kroger (OK, I didn’t completely stick it to the corporate man, but you get the point). 

From there, we hopped to Brennan’s for a soup-and-sandwich lunch and some chatting. Then to Donkey for some hot, non-fat vanilla chai drinking, some Pastimes board game playing and chatting (I had to take Dad to Donkey since he’s never been there).  Because of the hours of chatting, we were hungry again, so we left for Casa Nueva, where we ate our share of local veggies with a Mexican kick and did some more, you guessed it, chatting. Sorry, no habanero salsa this time.

We finished up the rest of yesterday by sitting in the lobby of my dorm playing 500 Rummy, and … chatting.

This morning after church, we traveled to the Village Bakery on East State Street to feed our appetite for healthy, local foods yet again. Sitting on high stools next to the window, we enjoyed our slices of quiche Lorraine and fresh, sweet apples and pears. Oh, and we did more chatting.

If you haven’t noticed, we do a lot of eating and chatting.

Although my throat is still a tad bit dry from all the chatting I did this weekend, I wouldn’t have traded that time for anything.