by Brian Garrido | Aug 21, 2024 | Places, Featured Destinations
Thirty-five minutes from Evansville and nearly three hours from Indianapolis sits historic New Harmony, Ind., a creative community of almost 700 residents with rainbow flags and progressive architecture and situated along the banks of the Wabash River. According to the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, the town’s original 1814 formation originated from Christian separatists called the Harmonists, founded by a German preacher named George Rapp. He sold the area to wealthy European industrialist Robert Owen a decade later, who began a commune, “Community of Equality,” although the effort failed two years later. All this utopian history occurs amidst a two-century-old farming region that hosts unique culinary events such as the annual German-inspired Kunstfest or Monthly Market Auction.
While visitors can explore the historic village and learn about the area’s enlightened philosophies and ideas, they can also enjoy Midwestern hospitality and deliciousness. Start your day at the Black Lodge Coffee Roasters, a small-batch roastery and cafe named after David Lynch’s 1990s “Twin Peaks” TV series. Locals and visitors can partake of handcrafted matcha lattes or an Icelandic-inspired dimmubürg (“dark castle”) made with activated coconut charcoal and topped with black volcanic salt. Alex Gale, a coffee sommelier, and his husband, Ben Ward, purchased the business, which is housed in a historic former cooperage, in 2019. Follow their social for events such as sound baths and talks by area artists.
Down the street, Sara’s Wine Bar is a cozy café and wine bar that provides a nice respite for community gatherings. It offers a laid-back atmosphere where diners can enjoy handcrafted sandwiches and homemade desserts. In the evening, the café transforms into a lively wine bar featuring selected wines from Indiana vineyards.
Open every day but Sunday for breakfast and lunch, The Main Cafe offers classic diner food and desserts made from scratch and in-house. Complete with a full-service ice cream soda fountain, the café offers indulgences like a root beer float, ice cream with one of the house-made cookies or brownies, or the cinnamon roll breakfast sandwich. Pounded thin and large enough to cover a plate, the hand-breaded pork tenderloin sandwich is also worth a drive. Their social media pages feature daily lunch specials and regular menu items.
The home goods and cooking store, Capers Emporium, is also not to be missed. Owned by Oklahoma City transplants Mary Beth and Michael Guard, the well-curated general store stocks all manners of cooking and table accessories, from meat thermometers and small appliances to ceramic platters, glasses and cocktail napkins. Visitors can even find home decor, body products and more. In the back, partake in one of the cooking classes taught by Guard herself or sample any of the baked goods made in the commercial kitchen.
With its mix of restaurants, cozy cafés, and unique culinary events, New Harmony offers a dining experience as unique and diverse as the town’s storied past. Whether you’re a foodie, a history buff or both, New Harmony’s culinary offerings will surely satisfy.
by Brian Garrido | Aug 8, 2024 | Places, Featured Destinations
Nostalgia, architecture and American pop culture blend when visitors find themselves in Grant County, Ind. Marion, the county seat, is the birthplace of cartoonist Jim Davis, and a city driving tour takes visitors past three large statures of Garfields. A dozen orange statues throughout the county depict the tabby in various cultural endeavors showcasing the area’s heritage, such as a Garfield in jeans, T-shirt and red jacket as an homage to the actor James Dean, another famous Marion native.
On the southwest corner of East Fourth and South McClure streets, a granite monument dedicated to the Oscar-nominated actor marks his birthplace. The memorial provides a place for fans to connect with the spirit of the “Rebel Without a Cause” actor at the site where he was born. (Dean grew up in nearby Fairmont, where his childhood home has been transformed into a museum.)
Marion’s Train Station Pancake House sits directly across the street from the Hollywood star’s shrine in a historic restored depot. Here you can have flapjacks, biscuits and gravy, burgers and other Midwest fare.
The city is also home to Indiana Wesleyan University, one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges. On the campus, coffee lovers can head to McConn Coffee, where students gain hospitality experience in marketing, business development and accounting while making lattes and frothy cappuccinos. Downtown is the charming Abbey Coffee Co., which brews up specialty java in a cozy cafe separate from academics.
Visitors should also check out the Quilters Hall of Fame, located in the restored home of Marie Webster, an entrepreneur and author who created a quilting movement at the turn of the 20th century. The two-story museum provides visitors a fascinating opportunity to view carefully curated quilt art from around the country and glimpse Midwestern life in the 19th century.
For lunch, the historic 1912 Hostess House offers a menu with classic sandwiches, burgers and salads in a three-story mansion built by the famed Black architect Samuel L. Plato. It is considered one of the finest structures of the Neoclassical style with dramatic Greco-Roman pillars, an elaborate front door and a grand scale.
On the opposite end of the architectural spectrum, Woodside, erected in 1955 and located 10 minutes north, is one of seven Indiana homes by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Considered a “Usonian,” a term coined by the designer, the home features wings extending out from a 40-foot cone-like center. After exploring the area’s history, dining and architecture, travelers can even book this five-bedroom abode on various vacation rental sites and enjoy an authentic Grant County experience.
by Brian Garrido | Aug 8, 2024 | People, Q&A
Chef Brian Therkildsen, a Fort Wayne native, brings his culinary expertise to micro-creamery Brooklyn Pints with his life and business partner, Trisha Tran. With a passion for creating innovative dishes and a Culinary Institute of America degree, he honed his skills in some of New York City’s best kitchens. He infuses his Midwestern roots into the duo’s culinary creations using locally sourced ingredients and sustainable practices. At Brooklyn Pints, chef Therkildsen, along with Tran, combines their love for traditional flavors with modern techniques, delivering unique ice cream flavors delighting both locals and visitors.
What made you want to become a chef?
I have a few photos of me as a small child helping my mom in the kitchen, and I always wanted to bake by myself as I got older. It was more of a hobby but turned into a profession after I entered a culinary competition team in my high school, and we won state! That’s when I knew I would be a pastry chef for a living.
What is your favorite type of food and why?
I would have to pick Asian or Mexican. Both have some great flavor combinations that I’ll never get tired of.
Where do you get your inspiration?
A lot comes from reading other chefs’ books that I’m familiar with and also from chefs I know. One of my biggest inspirations was the chef I worked under when I was working at Gramercy Tavern in NYC. He pushed me to be a better chef and a leader.
What is your favorite thing to make for yourself and your family?
I love baking bread, by far my favorite thing to make. If I had to pick. it would be brioche, milk bread or sourdough!
If you could eat anywhere in the world, where would that be, and what would you eat?
I want to visit Japan and go back to Scandinavia. Both are such unique cultures and what fascinates me the most about a country’s culture is its food. I want to visit the best ramen spots in Japan, and I want to go to Bergen, Norway, mostly because it is so pretty. But it is right on the coast, so I’m sure their fish is incredible.
If you could choose a favorite place in Indiana to visit, where would that be located, and what would you eat?
To be honest, I haven’t explored much outside of Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. But I will say I always look for those hole-in-the-wall places – the ones that deserve to be popular but are really only talked about by the locals. I’ll always gravitate towards those.
What items are always in your fridge?
Nothing surprising, ha ha. Eggs, some sort of starch and a protein. When you work the hours I do, the time for cooking doesn’t exist, so it’s pretty simple in my fridge. But cheese sticks will always be in there. I love cheese sticks.
by Brian Garrido | Jul 24, 2024 | Places, Featured Destinations
Surrounded by miles of cornfields, soybeans and vegetable farms, the small city of Frankfort, the county seat of Clinton County, offers locals and visitors alike a tasty stop full of agriculture, changing demographics, a tiny bit of Hollywood history and a variety of women-owned restaurants.
Stop at the eclectic Vintage Cafe, owned by a mother-daughter-friend team, a former bar turned breakfast and lunch spot that opened in early 2022. It features an extensive menu featuring a variety of appetizers, breakfast dishes, soups, salads, sandwiches, burritos, quesadillas and options for kids. Highlights of the massive menu include the Fat Girl Monte Christo, a sandwich of two French toast-dipped donuts stuffed with ham, turkey Swiss and Provolone, grilled and then drizzled with a housemade honey mustard sauce; a Whole Hog Breakfast Burrito with ham bacon and sausage; and “Not-Cho Nachos,” a concoction of your choice of tater tots, housemade chips or french fries slathered in pulled pork, cheddar, and black bean salsa. Decorated with a floor-to-ceiling collection of celebrity images and rock and roll posters, the restaurant features a vintage jukebox and disco balls, adding to the fun.
Closer to the center of town, marked by the limestone Second Empire-style courthouse with a 165-foot domed clock tower, sits another all-female-owned eatery, Fresitas Artisan Ice Cream & More, which opened in 2021. Barbie pink coats the interior, and customers sit at tables with swingset seats. A social media selfie wall with plastic foliage and a vintage ice cream cart sits prominently beside the indoor jungle gym at the entrance. Guests can enjoy housemade paletas and ice cream or have a full-on lunch with quesabirrias, “mega” tortas of shredded beef and cueritos locos (chicharrones smothered in meats and cheeses). It is owned by Lorena Alvarez and her three daughters, Thania Ramirez, Mya Ortiz and Laura Guzman; according to The Frankfort Times, it has been the dream of the elder Alvarez since she was 15.
A few blocks north is another family-owned operation, the almost two-year-old La Mixteca. Spearheaded by Jackie Dominguez with her family, the Mexican restaurant is awash in bright red, yellow and tangerine hues, a hallmark of Oaxaca where moles, tamales, masa and giant empanadas reign. For inexperienced norteamericanos, loaded nachos, tacos, guac, and chips prevail, but for those seeking rich Oaxacan dishes like menudo and mojarra frita, La Mixteca may be the place to travel. Diners will also find well-stuffed burritos with braised pork, rice and salsa, which may be the dish most locals order but the empanadas of stewed chicken awash in achiote and melty cheese are an experience. Tucked into handmade portable pockets, the meat-filled handheld fills the belly. Enjoy beers, Mexican soda, tequilas and mescals from the country’s central region, too.
And for a bit of TV nostalgia, don’t miss the large mural depicting the famous faces of Frankfort, including the actor Will Greer, famed for playing Grandpa on “The Waltons.”
by Brian Garrido | Jul 24, 2024 | People, Q&A
Fort Wayne’s Brooklyn Pints Microcreamery dispenses frozen heaven for ice cream enthusiasts, offering handcrafted flavors scooped by Culinary Institute of America grads Trisha Tran and Brian Therkildsen. Housed on the ground floor of the 1920s-built Sheridan Court, a must-see for architectural enthusiasts, it’s the perfect location for these former New York City fine-dining chefs, who decamped in 2022 to Therkildsen’s hometown post-pandemic. Tran, who worked in Michelin-starred Manhattan restaurants, creates inventive tasting profiles with her churning partner such as cinnamon honey, Thai tea and pineapple upside-down cake along with vegan treats like peach crumble and blueberry corn. Did we mention house-baked waffle cones for the ice cream and other baked treats such as cookies and beignets? We caught up with chef Trisha recently for a quick Q&A. (And we’d like a bite of that peach crumble, please!)
What made you want to become a chef?
Watching my grandma cook traditional Vietnamese food as a child.
What is your favorite type of food and why?
My favorite type of food is any type of soup. Soup is versatile and offers comfort in every culture.
Where do you get your inspiration?
We get our inspiration from everywhere! We’re constantly trying new things and seeing if we can make an ice cream flavor out of them.
What is your favorite thing to make for yourself and your family?
I don’t have a favorite or a “go-to” dish. When I have time, I like teaching myself how to make Vietnamese dishes because I live far away from my family now. I want to learn and bring back that nostalgia from my childhood.
If you could eat anywhere in the world, where would that be, and what would you eat?
A goal of ours right now is Japan, and I would want to eat where the locals eat! I want to try all the curry, ramen, sushi, snacks, etc., and immerse myself fully in their food culture!
If you could choose a favorite place in Indiana to visit, where would that be located, and what would you eat?
There are SO many places in Indiana to explore. I can’t pick one; I want to try them all!
What items are always in your fridge?
Eggs, rice, bread, cheese, vegetables and chicken nuggets. Being business owners, we work long days, and when we get home, we want something quick and easy… you’ll find our fridge usually empty, but we typically try to keep these foods in our fridge for fast and easy meals!
