the quest for zest

A food & travel community from The Crossroads of America.

Eat Local. Travel Global.

Journeyman Distillery

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Work hard. Follow your heart.

We are all on personal journeys. We spend our entire lives on this trip, creating a twisting path, dotted with mileposts highlighting events both momentous and mundane. For some this passage is easy and the destination clear. For others there are road blocks and dead-ends; frustrations that fuel a fire of doubt about ourselves and leave us confused about the purposes of our lives. The desire to surrender to an existence of no importance can become great. However, accepting that the journey is long and difficult, for a reason, can begin to bring order to the chaos. A man who knows all about the u-turns, detours, and delays of a long journey is Bill Welter. At thirty six, he has run the family bank, been forced to give that up, played golf semi-professionally, and lived as far afield as Scotland and Arizona. Today he is the owner of, and head distiller at, Journeyman Distillery.

read more

Valpo Velvet

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Scratch made. Start to finish.

In the grey, pre-dawn light of a hot July day, the narrow wheels of a truck crunch down a gravel back road in northern Indiana. In post-war 1920’s America, The Valparaiso Home Ice Company’s daily deliveries are returning a sense of normality to life. Blocks of ice for the ice chest, cool bottles of milk, and perhaps a carton of ice cream for after dinner. These simple treats waiting in small tin coolers on porches will make the humid summer days of prohibition-era life in northern Indiana slightly more tolerable.

read more

Chuck Kaiser

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Keeping the old ways alive.

To watch Chuck Kaiser mix a batch of sourdough bread is to watch a master at work. There are no recipes, no measuring cups, and no distractions. Focused completely on his task, Chuck quietly adds dashes of yeast and scoops of salt to flour and water to create the artisinal bread he loves. He started his professional career as a chef, but a bicycling accident lead him to be a baker. He has made his old-fashioned sourdough bread for many Fort Wayne restaurants over the years, and is now in charge of all the bread making for Club Soda. Decades of long hours and hard work have taken their toll on his body, but he loves baking bread and can’t imagine doing anything else for a living.

read more

Columbus, Ohio

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Finding a hidden gem in the Buckeye State’s capital.

Even with a bad case of the flu, or possibly a sinus infection, Columbus, Ohio was a difficult place not to like. The heat was staggering and the road construction was a challenge, but with very little planning on our part, we still managed to have a great time. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting from a capital city with a major university. A “college town vibe” was all but nonexistent and the art museum was a mild disappointment, but Columbus held a quite charming neighborhood - German Village. In it’s narrow streets we discovered excellent desserts, espresso, Bavarian food, chocolates, and tapas.

read more

Saigon

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Conquering my fear of Pho.

Saigon is one of those restaurants that satisfies a very specific kind of craving for me. There is no other place in town quite like it in terms of atmosphere or menu. For people who aren’t familiar with Vietnamese food, or the south side of Fort Wayne, it can be an acquired taste. I know that was the case for me when I was first taken there. However, thanks to its grittiness and the unusual food, it is now one of my favorite places to eat.

read more

Dash-In

The Quest For Zest - Main image.

Steadfastly, downtown.

After college, I was a graphic designer in the advertising industry and I lived and worked in downtown Fort Wayne. As a small town kid, the tall buildings and busy streets, served as a reasonable facsimile to what I imagined working in Chicago, or New York, might be like. I especially liked that there were local lunch spots that only “downtowners” seemed to know about. Over the course of the dozen years I spent pushing pixels in various offices downtown, many of those cool lunch spots came and went. However, one stalwart was Dash-In. Back then, I remember being unimpressed with the food. It was fine, but I didn’t understand the fuss, and I assumed people mostly went there for the great atmosphere. Today, Dash-In is under new management and subtle changes are being made to take it from being another mediocre coffee shop, to becoming something truly special.

read more

Email me when a new article is up.