Culinary Crossroads

Looking for a summer road trip destination that includes great food, shopping and a little culture as well? College towns typically check all of those boxes, and summer is the perfect time to visit. With fewer students, less traffic and a slower summertime pace – but with all the interesting restaurants, cool shops and cultural amenities that college towns are known for – summer is the perfect time to explore an Indiana college town.

There’s a charm visitors will find when driving into Shipshewana, Ind., where a bottleneck of cars and electric bikes crowd alongside horse-drawn carriages with brake lights. It’s a nonabrasive collision of past and present and an unlikely meeting of cultures that captures the town’s uniqueness. On the surface, life seems slower and gentler, honed from tourism, crafts and farming. Farms are planted and tilled to picturesque perfection.

Hopscotch Coffee & Kitchen, celebrating 10 years in Bloomington, began with former owner Jane Kupersmith and the husband-and-wife-team of Erin Tobey and Jeff Grant. Today, Tobey and Grant run the operations; he primarily oversees the back of the house and roastery, while Tobey focuses on the aesthetic and service in the front. Over the last decade, the roastery has grown from a java joint to a full restaurant.

Bloomington’s Hopscotch Coffee & Kitchen celebrates 10 years as an Indiana business with owners Jeff Grant and Erin Tobey. The creative couple, who both moonlight as musicians throughout the area, saw a need for a locally owned roastery, and that’s essentially how the landmark business began. Located on opposite ends of the B-line Trail, with a roastery and to-go shop on one end and the restaurant on the opposite, locals and visitors can sample their 100 percent direct trade coffee.

Only a two or three-hour drive from any number of Midwest cities, Fort Wayne is transforming into a must-stop travel destination. Known for being the home to the oldest ballet company in Indiana, Fort Wayne Ballet, and having the most extensive online musical instrument retailer, Sweetwater, the Northern Indiana city continues to grow its eating and dining landscape with regional and global ingredients.

Fort Wayne’s Brooklyn Pints Microcreamery dispenses frozen heaven for ice cream enthusiasts, offering handcrafted flavors scooped by Culinary Institute of America grads Trisha Tran and Brian Therkildsen. Housed on the ground floor of the 1920s-built Sheridan Court, a must-see for architectural enthusiasts, it’s the perfect location for these former New York City fine-dining chefs, who decamped in 2022 to Therkildsen’s hometown post-pandemic.

Candymaker Carrie Abbott on favorite foods, cooking for family and what’s in her fridge by | Oct 10, 2023 | People, Q&A In 2012, Carrie Abbott, then a caterer, tried to create a homemade Butterfinger candy bar for a wedding client, but what emerged became her signature creation – Frittle. This delightful concoction, a nostalgic fusion of peanut brittle and fudge, would become the cornerstone of her confectionery empire.

By Brian Garrido A native of Taiwan, Chef Ming Pu credits his mother for instilling a lifelong passion for cooking. When he was 7, his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where they lived for two years before making the Louisville area and Southern Indiana their permanent home in 1999.

By Brian Garrido Executive pastry chef and owner Grace Kelly May opened GK Baked Goods in 2015 with the Affine Hospitality Group team comprising Andrew Smith, Daniel Campbell and Jack May.