Bloomington, Indiana does what it claims. Talking about local food?  Here’s a city group of 34 independent restaurants cooking fresh.

Claim the arts? Here’s a 60-block entertainment and arts district locals call BEAD, ten distinct walkable neighborhoods.

Praise the outdoors? Here’s a city water filtration system designed as a park with fountains and sculpture and elsewhere, a city plaza and pedestrian walkway.

Fun for citizens, and doubly good for visitors. Bloomington people show up the same places company does; as a traveler I like that.

I’m leery of eateries with only tourists, or museums without families. Bumping elbows with locals all day long seems normal in this middle America University town.   

Even the historic Showers Inn blends community and out-of-towners because this 1903 home is the scene of artist receptions, music, fundraisers and food—all happening the three nights I stayed there.

Glorious expansion of the bed-and-breakfast routine of meeting guests in the morning and going your separate ways.

The Showers Inn invites the neighbors in the afternoons and evenings for special events, and I opted to go to their parties.

 Plus the Fierst family: owners, brothers Michael and Dan, and their parents participate too, clearly liking the place and sharing stories about the house, its 1906 sunken courtyard and gardens.  

This is North Washington Street, platted in 1889 and now three blocks from the downtown courthouse and shops and four blocks from Indiana University, resplendent with gardens, almost an urban forest, and iconic Indiana limestone buildings.

Showers is a name long known in Bloomington because the family made 60 percent of the furniture manufactured in America in the 1920s, and Dan Fierst, the renovator brother, says they invented and named laminating.

    Funny fact: in 1910 the U.S. government pinpointed the spot in America with an equal number of people living to the north, south, east and west.

Front door of the Shower Brothers building!

The factory is now city hall with a lobby gallery and big glass doors that spill out into a farmer’s market, tall sculpture of a dinner table and the pedestrian walkway with restaurants, shops and more public art.

My big second-floor bedroom named for artist Mary Cassatt had four big windows overlooking treetops and framing red sunrises each morning.

These are pocket windows with wide ledges, walls and floors of wood. Cherry, hickory and oak I identified, but suspect more varieties throughout the four-bedroom house, especially in the intricate parquet floor in the buffet serving room.

Parties seem so normal that the Showers Inn has its own chef, a casual-looking Leo Cook whose vanilla lemon cookie cocktail won the Food Network Ultimate Recipe Showdown beverage contest in 2009.

“I’m always looking for flavors,” Cook says, “and that started as a little boy learning in the kitchen with my mother, growing up with her Belgian- French heritage.”

He gave me an autographed copy of his favorite Arroz con Crema, rice with cream, recipe and if you’re interested I’ll share.

People attending the fill-the-Inn dinner party my second night at the Showers cared a lot about the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington.

This was a fundraiser to help the Cultural Center provide even more educational and cultural classes, workshops and exhibits of traditional Mongolian and Tibetan art forms.

Custom-designed retreats can be arranged.

Sacred beading will be among the classes, learning to create ancient Tibetan art called thangkas.  Hawaiian native Russ Ellis is the resident thangka artist.

Multicultural and interfaith dialogue is the focus on this campus of 108 acres with striking buildings of traditional Tibetan architecture and sacred art. Vibrant colors. Peaceful lawns and walking trails.

Butter sculpture in one of the spacious gathering rooms; that’s where I joined a yoga class.

Why in Bloomington? Because the late Thubten Norbu was professor of Tibetan studies at Indiana University and he founded the Cultural Center in 1979; he was the eldest brother of the Dalai Lama, who visits periodically.

Read a remarkable memoir before you go: “Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan lama’s account of 40 years under Chinese rule” and then meet the author when you arrive.

The Very Venerable Arija Rinpoche is his proper name; Bloomington people refer to Rinpoche with ease and awe.

Gentle, unassuming, thoughtful and deliberate with his words and responses to questions, dressed in saffron robes with a hint of yellow showing at his neck.

Powerhouse of experience and heritage I learned when I read his life story. Born to a nomad family in Mongolia, destined by discernment to become a spiritual leader, including service as abbot of the Kumbum Monastery in Tibet.

Target of repression and persecution during Chinese occupations of Tibet. Tapped by the Dalai Lama to guide the Cultural Center.

And you can be as amazed as I to find yourself sipping tea with such a man. Paying attention to discover the extraordinary when I travel always pays off.

“Interfaith learning is an important part of my life,” Arija Rinpoche said to me. “For a long time I thought I could only practice Buddhism for its wonderful wisdom, compassion and loving kindness.  

“Then I learned other religions with actions that make much sense to me too,” he shared.

That’s the kind of open-minded, openhearted sharing I saw happening at the Cultural Center.

World peace is a big-picture goal and Rinpoche suggests “Inner peace is the way we can create world peace, calming our minds, calming ourselves.

“That allows balance.”

If I’m fortunate enough to return and stay in a cottage on this property, I’m guessing meals prepared by the monks will be balancing too.  On-site vegetable garden of course.

In the meantime, I ate fresh and local in downtown Bloomington and checked out the spices 40 miles outside the city. They’re international.

Marion-Kay Spices doesn’t have a factory tour yet but the front room is an international spice museum.

This is a family business started in 1922 to help groups with fundraisers.  That’s how third-generation manager Kordell Reid described the first customers and he’s got the sales suitcase filled with spice jars to prove the point.

“Sell 36 bottles of vanilla, and earn a 36-cup coffee pot,” he said. Founder Marion Bill Summers managed the 1972 USA Olympic basketball team, denied the gold medal. Summers is quoted in historic news reports refusing to accept the silver.

Equally interesting to me are three bags of cinnamon from Vietnam, the last delivered before the 1972 embargo, Reid said.

This too is a place to muse about world peace I thought, contemplating the hands that grew and packed ginger from Jamaica, dill weed from Egypt, thyme from Spain, oregano from Mexico, yellow mustard from Canada and much more from India, Turkey, France and more lands, now in Brownstown, Indiana.

Local means Hoosier at FARM, the downtown Bloomington restaurant where chef owner Daniel Orr sticks to local, organic, free range and grass fed food sources.

He’s an artisan as well, both the presentations and the descriptions. How about my luncheon BLT?  Peppered bacon, avocado, goat cheese, tomato, arugula and wasabi herb mayo.

Or this pizza, called a Wild Bianca FARM pie? Herb pesto, ricotta, shitake and oyster mushrooms with white truffle oil.

Contemplate the FARM hot dog: all meat on a baguette, melted goat cheese and three-meat chili—bison, pork and beef. I skipped that but enjoyed a salad of beets, cauliflower, Kalmata olives, spinach and roasted tomatoes.

This is a city restaurant with a root cellar—gathering space below the dining room, music venue too. Dim, secluded, cozy feeling, quite a contrast to the sunny upstairs with high pressed tin ceilings and wood floors.

City and country seem to merge easily in Bloomington with compelling museums and exhibitions along with parks and walking trails. A bustling courthouse square with downtown shops and then Pedal Power, a recycling pickup service via bicycle.

Enjoy the contrasts and the consistencies.