A Trip to Amish Country Part 2

Vintage Postcard

I've already told you about our hijinks getting lost on the way to Lehman's. Well, since we were already on US 30, we decided to make a stop in Orrville before dinner in Wooster.

Orrville, of course, is the home of  Smucker's®, and the company has a nice store and mini-museum there a minute or so off US 30. We mainly go there to pick up some exotic Jif® peanut butter variations (peanut butter is the staff of life in our house).

The Smucker's mini-museum was pretty good. It's interesting seeing all of the brands that Smucker's acquired over the years. Besides Jif®, there's Pillsbury®, Crisco®, Hungry Jack® and Martha White®.

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But what about dinner? Well, our Amish Country jaunt ended with a trip to Coccia House in Wooster for pizza. (Remember when I mentioned it back here?)

Since I was first told about Coccia House from that friendly couple at the Lorain County Fair, I've heard about it a few more times. And with all that word-of-mouth buzz, I felt we just had to go there.

Coccia House was very easy to find, since it was close to Downtown Wooster. The business is located in a quaint old house in a residential neighborhood.

The first thing I noticed is that the large parking lot was packed. Once we got inside, I found out why. It's because nobody was going anywhere soon, whether you were picking up a pizza or waiting for a table like us.

It was a half-hour before we were seated, and another ten minutes before our waitress arrived. After that, it was an hour and fifteen minutes before we got our pizza. By then, I was so disgusted that I'm not sure any pizza was going to impress me. (Plus, I think I used up all my dinnertime conversation topics with the spouse for the next few years.)

So how was the pizza? Well, I hate to say this – but we were disappointed! I guess we've been spoiled with so many great mom-and-pop pizza parlors in Lorain and the surrounding areas, such as Yala's, Rosie's, our current favorite Selenti's, and even Stella's in Avon Lake, that nothing was going to measure up.

To be fair to Coccia House, I don't like any pizza with the cheese covering the toppings, which is how they do it. Otherwise, it's not a bad pizza. It had kind of a sweet sauce, a thick crust and generous toppings hidden under that blanket of cheese. But it just wasn't our cup of tea.

But despite my complaints, we were glad we went to Coccia House just for the experience of something new. It's obvious that an awful lot of people love their pizza.

As for me, I'm looking forward to my Selenti's pizza this Friday night.

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So we bid farewell to Amish Country, determined to come back one more time this fall to do all the things we missed. But fate had one last cosmic practical joke in store for us. 

The spouse decided that Dairy Queen would be a good dessert (so much for the whole Amish theme) for our disappointing pizza dinner, and she turned on the GPS unit one more time. The unit took me off my carefully planned route home and all I could do is trust it, since it was already dark and I had no idea where I was.

I followed the GPS directions, all of the turns, etc. and finally heard the unit announce, "You have arrived."

And we found ourselves sitting in a J.D. Byrider used car lot.

2011 Lorain County Fair Wrap-up

Rutana Concession's Hot Apple Dumpling Booth

Went out to the Lorain County Fair in Wellington the other night and had our usual good time, despite a late start.

The highlight of the night was a fantastic Rutana Apple Dumpling. They're always good, but for some reason this year's were really great – hot, fresh and huge. (We get them without ice cream so we can enjoy the extra sauce we requested.) The girls in the booth were super-friendly and quick too.

You can visit the company's Facebook page by clicking here.

Of course, a trip to the Fair means Midway Oh Boys for dinner. After inhaling mine, I was sitting on a bench (listening to the Roadhouse Band) when I felt a tap on my back. "Was it worth it?" asked a gentleman sitting on the bench behind me.

It seems he and his wife were from Ashland, and were trying to decide whether to have Oh Boys for dinner. "If you're looking for an unbiased opinion, I'm the wrong guy to ask," I laughed. "I eat these all the time!"

I convinced the couple to give Oh Boys a try, and they enjoyed them. "There's nothing like this down where we live," he added. He told me that the next time I'm down around Wooster, I have to get a pizza at Coccia House. He says they're fantastic – a really, thick, delicious pizza.

Anyway, here are a few shots of the Fair.

This guy won best of breed and he still looks grumpy

"Hey, are you done petting me already?"

Cap'n Frosty still sails on his Dairy Clipper

A Trip to Amish Country Part 1

Vintage Ohio postcard

The spouse and I headed down to Amish Country last Friday. We got a pretty late start, so we missed our usual lunch at The Barn in Smithville.

Amish Country is kind of a funny thing to me. As a kid, I was never really crazy about going there; in fact it was kind of boring. All it really meant was a good dinner at Der Dutchman in Walnut Creek, topped off with some peanut butter pie.

I know I'm getting older because I kind of like going down to Amish Country now, especially in the fall. It's still all about eating to me, although strangely enough we never eat at Der Dutchman. I guess it's because Der Dutchman was the place my parents always took us to, and I wanted to make some new memories.

1960's Berlin Postcard

But one thing's for sure. Amish County is big business now. Berlin is almost unrecognizable to me – the overdeveloped commercial strip, the sidewalks choked with crowds, and especially the rush hour traffic! (Just try to head west out of Berlin late in the afternoon!)

Nevertheless, our favorite place to go to is Hershberger's Farm & Bakery in Berlin. We usually get some produce (squash and multi-colored cauliflower), some bread, maybe some preserves and some whoopie pies. Then it's a short trip down the road to Guggisberg Cheese – although we didn't stop there this time, because I had bought some of their signature baby swiss cheese at Marc's the week before!

The rest of the day was spent shopping and antiquing in Berlin. Then we usually cap off the day with a visit to Lehman's hardware in Kidron. However, we didn't make it there this time. Why? Because the spouse/navigator decided that she trusted her GPS more than my well-honed travel instincts. To make a long story short, somehow she set the GPS to use major highways to get there – so the GPS mysteriously routed us away from Kidron and towards Massillon instead!

Anyway, tomorrow I'll tell you about our decidedly un-Amish dinner: pizza at Coccia House in Wooster!