Better quit eating delectable fresh food now and then when you visit Columbus, Ohio because there’s more to do than dine.

Trouble is, if you start a holiday in this university town at the North Market, resisting just one more flavor is almost impossible.

Foodie places are trendy today but bakers, fishmongers, greengrocers, butchers and farmers have been serving up groceries and ready-to-eats since 1876 in this place.

I’m pretty sure newcomers to America have been serving up astonishing new flavors the whole time.

Thirty-five booths with chefs of many personalities cooking right there. This is a big gathering place, filling a city block, and a second story balcony with tables and chairs overlooking all the food action.

Some places great markets are all about locals, featuring groceries to take home and cook. This one also considers travelers -- plenty to eat right away and some walk-about eat-later food too.

My lunch was a little crazy but vibrant: eggplant from Don and Carolyn Ziliak’s Pastaria, sushi from Nida Perry’s booth, focaccia bread from Amy Lozier’s Omega Artisan Baking, a tall glass of tapioca bubble tea and for dessert, Jeni Britton’s ice cream.

Diversity dining isn’t the only option; North Market has plenty of delis, barbecue, cheeses, fish, fresh fruits and veggies. Chocolate too. Food purveyors in every booth share their names and stories, tastes and food tales. This is a place of good cheer.

Plan ahead and sign up for the $15 tastes tour; that’s a guided hour sampling food and wine and a $5 gift certificate.

Cooking classes happen at North Market too---soups, stews, salsa, three-course lunches, four-course dinners or whatever you might like.

This is a lively open-every-day place. Artisans and crafters join in with handmade works every first and third Sunday, May through October.

Guess it’s cold those other months in Ohio.

One way I figured out to build a new appetite for more of the market’s flavors is to walk around the Short North Arts District that begins a block away, starting with a lovely green space and lake called Goodale Park.

The district bustles, very horizontal with shops on both side of N. High Street beckoning you inside for more than shopping.

Sure they sell things too, but this district with the funny name is all about getting involved, making things and making decisions.

A shop called Substance lets you work side by side with their designers to create something one-of-a-kind for yourself. Workshops cost $29.95 and you end up with a new tee shirt.

Choose to deconstruct and redesign one of their private label tees with hand sewing techniques or choose antique Batik blocks to stamp and hand paint a new shirt.

Same price lets you bring something out of your closet and make it new with the Substance designers.

Rosendales modern bistro on the same street lets you spend only what you want, and order whatever parts of the menu you like. Not stuck with prie fixe here.

Mix and match in a restaurant. That happens downstairs and on the patio. Go upstairs for fine dining and creative dishes.

Experiences with tea pour up at ZenCha tea salon, a calm and soothing place after all the ins and outs of the dozens of stores and galleries.

No stress here even when choosing between silver needle Chinese tea which can be harvested only a few days each spring, or German Black Forest tea, Kyoto cherry blossom or cardamom ginger from the Middle East.

Go in even if you prefer stout coffee; gentle conversations, soft lighting and shadow box window displays of teapots and cups will be good for your heart.

Saturday nights are hopping the first of each month when galleries, shops and eateries stay open late and street performers fill the other nooks and crannies of the sidewalks.

Every night 17 arches of light cross N. High Street, wrought-iron affairs with LED technology so the show changes on the hour.

Many designated districts like this, or small towns, try hard to be interesting yet their sincerity outweighs any reality.

Short North captured it. Edging the mercantile parts is architecture to stroll by: Victorian and Italian villages, plus pocket parks and enormous murals with a topsy-turvy replay of the farm couple in “American Gothic” and a new look for the Mona Lisa.

Just to the north is Ohio State University, a sports and museum destination itself, accommodating a vast student body, but I stuck to the Columbus neighborhoods.

German Village calls itself the largest privately restored historic neighborhood in the U.S. I don’t know how to measure that, but I had fun admiring the houses, mingling with the residents walking from front doors to restaurants and waiting in line at the bookstore at 10:30 p.m. just to get inside.

Really. Crowds of people, some for a book signing and some to browse the shelves, read a little, tell a stranger “I’ve read that and it’s good.”

The Book Loft of German Village is its name. The size is the thing to remember: 32 connected rooms. Some are tiny but all are packed with books. Sounds a bit like the White House: upper west wing, lower east wing, etc.

Saloon, nickelodeon cinema and shops are really what this 1863 structure started out as.

The porch has the big bargains. I bought a brand new “Reading Lolita in Tehran” which I’ve been wanting and paid $4.95, plus six Advent calendars that are hard to find, especially cheap.

Anyone lucky enough to hang out in the Book Loft often might figure out how each room is grouped by topics, but on my one late-night chance, I just wandered, mesmerized and wishing my flight home had no luggage weight restrictions.

Navigating Columbus did make sense and I can’t say that everywhere I go; these interesting neighborhoods flow one into the other, and they’re marked in shades of yellow, blue and raspberry on tourism maps.

I found the Columbus Museum of Art and a topiary garden in the Discovery District, and Franklin Park Conservatory a little further to the east. That only scratches the surface of exhibits to explore.

Standing in front of a Degas or Matisse, works by O’Keeffe, Hopper or Picasso is a fine past time for me and they’re here, but starting in the children’s sections is a good idea too.

Incredible folk artist display, and very fun interactive games to play. Didn’t seem limited to kids to me.

The Columbus Museum of Art also has a lovely courtyard with sculpture and sometimes musicians.

Look for Georges Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” but go outside to do so, a few blocks south on Washington Avenue. This version isn’t painted in the pointillism style; it’s planted.

Fifty-four green, growing and well-trimmed people, eight boats, three dogs, a monkey, cat and a real pond all in the Topiary Garden. And it’s free.

Free lights in the Victorian glass Palm House are a bonus too at the Franklin Park Conservatory. The admission fee to wander among all the plants, climate zones, bonsai and orchids is quite acceptable.

Glass artist Dale Chihuly is all over the place through Mar. 28, 2010 so you have time. I only saw a sneak preview in June with glass orbs floating in a Koi pond, and butterflies perching on blown glass spheres.

Those Palm House lights can be seen from the grounds every evening, dawn to dusk. James Turrell is the light artist, using LED technology to program and mix colors.

“We drink light as Vitamin D,” he says. “This idea of being in a place where you don’t feel apart from nature is important.

“I hope to bring the magic of light, this elixir we forget, to this beautiful icon.”

News to me the building is an icon---but that’s the way it always is with travel. Great fun discovering places that are already important to plenty of other people.

No need to be first, or even aware, to appreciate.



Columbus celebrates glass



Breakthrough is a scary word for titling a glass show but that’s one they’re using in Columbus, Ohio for more than a year of handcrafted glass exhibitions all over town.

“Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass” features 97 works of 43 glass artists from around the world, now on exhibit until Oct. 10.

Artists from Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden and the U.S. were selected from 651 entries.

Find them at the Ohio State University Urban Arts Space and Hawk Galleries on E. Main Street.

Dale Chihuly works are already installed at the Franklin Park Conservatory and more will appear in the Columbus Museum of Art Sept. 25-July 4, 2010.

Hawk Galleries will also exhibit what they say is the last available Chihuly chandelier made with Waterford crystal Oct. 2 until Jan. 31, 2010.

Look for works of glass, clay and metal by Steve Hazard at the King Arts Complex Nov. 12-Dec. 15, combining traditional and contemporary African artistic styles.