Airplane reading

Last week I was supposed to fulfill one of my New Year's resolutions to take a trip somewhere other than Indiana. But unfortunately my plan to head to Denver didn't quite work out the way I had intended it to and I ended up flying straight home to California after my friend's wedding in Indy.

But the condensed trip still helped me make some progress on another resolution. Though I get a little stressed out by air travel - the packing, getting their early enough to make it through security screening, worrying about catching connected flights - the one plus to spending hours in airports, on runways and on planes is that it offers plenty of time to read.

When I travel, I try to bring a mix of reading materials - a couple New Yorkers, which are always plentiful in my house, a lighter magazine like People and a book or two. I rarely get through all the reading materials, but it's nice to have options. This time around, I was low on People magazines since I read those at the gym so I packed two copies of the New Yorker and a random book I found in my room. See part of what prompted resolution No. 1 to read 10 books this year is that I have a cardboard box full of them in my room - gifts from Christmas and birthdays over the last couple of years. I grabbed one out of the box that seemed like it would be light reading and stuffed it into my carry on bag.

When I got through security at the airport, I pulled the book out to kill sometime and that's when I realized it was going to be bad. "A Version of the Truth" is written by two authors, Jennifer Kaufmann and Karen Mack. Now, call me conventional, but I prefer my novels to have just one author and one voice. The pair wrote another book together and I wonder what their process was. Did they trade off chapters? Or did one write the first draft and then the other go through it, adding to it.

The book was not very well-written and it wasn't all that entertaining. But it did offer a break from the in-depth articles in the New Yorker. So I kept reading it. It's one of those books I would have put down after a couple chapters if I had picked it up at home. But being as I had about 12 hours in airplanes and a few more in airports, I kept chugging through it.

The book is about Cassie Shaw who is a 30-something widow who is glad her mean, alcoholic husband died three years earlier. Now it's really hard to find a character sympathetic who wishes her husband dead and then is actually glad when he dies. Even if he was a jerk, she should have had some more complicated feelings than just being happy about it. Cassie doesn't have much going for her. She barely finished high school. She lives with her mom, who is kooky as can be, and she doesn't have a paying job.

She suddenly decides to take things into her own hands - but not by any self-improvement, higher education means. She just lies on a job application and says she has a college degree. She gets hired in the psych department of a college. The more time she spends around the college, she begins to want more out of life - like nice clothes and a good-looking boyfriend. But she is still in the woe-is-me mode for most of the book and it gets old really fast.

The actions of the characters is not believable and a lot of their behavior is inconsistent. The most annoying thing in the book is Sam, Cassie's African gray parrot who not only talks, but seems to converse with Cassie as well as any guests she has. Her conversations with the bird were just one step too much for me. But I nearly finished the book while I was traveling. I only had two chapters to go when I arrived home so I figured I might as well finish it to its very predictable conclusion.

Hopefully the next book I read for the resolution will be better.

Indianapolis has its share of culinary treats

It's a good thing I don't live in the Midwest because it seems like everything I love to eat out there is an the unhealthy end of the food spectrum. I've been to the Indianapolis area a few times to visit a friend and every time I seem to discover a new food that is delicious and unhealthy.

One my first trips, I feel in love with the sippable sundae at Steak N Shake. It became a staple of my visits, although I have skipped it the last two visits. A couple years ago, I tried fried pickles for the first time ever when my friend's mom attempted to copy a recipe from a local restaurant. I got to try the originals last time I visited at Scotty's Brewhouse in downtown Indianapolis. It sounds weird, but the fried pickles are quite tasty. Also on my last visit, my friend's mom made corn fritters for the bridal shower and they were also delicious. She made them with a mix of cornmeal, corn kernels and green onions.

This weekend I went back to Indianapolis for my friend's wedding and I was there for a few days. It seemed like most of the trip revolved around eating. The first night I flew in late in the afternoon and my friend's mother picked me up at the airport. She offered to take me to dinner since my friend was busy with wedding-related stuff. She picked a place near her house called the Brickhouse Burger Company. With a name like that, I knew what I had to get - the only problem was making the choice between the seven or so offered on the menu and building my own. I ended up going with the 'shroom, which included a burger with sauteed mushrooms, Havarti dill cheese, tomatoes, and pickles, all served on a pretzel roll. I had never heard of a pretzel roll before, but I love soft pretzels. The roll was not shaped like a pretzel, but it had all the softness with the brown crust of a pretzel. It held its own against the burger. It was the best burger I've had in ages and I will now be on a mission to find a place in the bay area that has a pretzel bun. The burger was good, but I opted to only eat half of it, thinking I would save the other half for later.

But then the next day, I grabbed breakfast in the hotel lobby (offered for free with the night's stay) and then I went to lunch at a place called Champp's with the other bridesmaids. I started off with a cup of french onion soup and then had the Champp's club. While the soup had just the perfect amount of cheesy goodness, the club sandwich had too much cheese for my taste, with the double layer of Monterey jack and cheddar cheese. I ate half my sandwich so that I could save room for the mile-high ice cream pie we split five ways for dessert.

So after eating lunch close to 2 p.m., I was hardly hungry at all by the time we got to Kona Jack's for the rehearsal dinner around 8 p.m. But I couldn't pass up the soy ginger house dressing on a fresh salad and filet mignon. The best part of the meal was the taste of warm lemon cake I had for dessert, though I stayed to just a few bites since I was so full.

The delicious food I ate during the trip almost makes me wish I visited Indianapolis more often so I could have it again. But for now I am trying to get back to eating healthy with fresh vegetables and fruits from the farmers market.

Photo by Melissa Flores

The 'shroom burger at Brickhouse Burger Company includes Havarti cheese, sauteed mushrooms and burger fixings on a pretzel roll.