Mason

FARM & TABLE

Vegan Venture

Chef Shanna Dean’s Lifestyle Cafe in Columbus serves up tasty plant-based takes on chicken and waffles, fish sandwiches and other classics.

COURTESY OF LIFESTYLE CAFE Fish sandwich and side of fries drizzled with ranch dressing and Buffalo sauce

Local Flavor: These three food and drink events across the Buckeye State usher in the arrival of spring, from a celebration of ice wine to a maple syrup driving tour. Sonder Brewing: This Mason brewery’s founders created a space all beer lovers can enjoy, offering a wide range of styles and a communal atmosphere.

Lifestyle Cafe’s breakfast bowl and chicken and waffles (below)

Lifestyle Cafe’s quaint corner restaurant in Columbus’ historic Olde Town East is dominated by an open kitchen with two counters and a collection of four tables that fill the brick-walled space. It’s the creation of Shanna “Chef Bae” Dean, who serves a 100-percent-vegan menu of classics like chicken and waffles, fish sandwiches, BLTs, grilled cheese and avocado toast — all skillfully adapted to plant-based versions.

Dean worked as a personal chef and caterer before opening her cafe in January 2020, and she was initially hesitant to get back into the restaurant business.

“I was catering to specific needs like vegan or organic,” she says. “A friend of mine was doing a detox, and I made some things for her. She had traveled a lot, and I’ve traveled a lot and loved trying out vegan and vegetarian options. She said, ‘You make some of the best vegan food. If you do a restaurant, I’m in.’”

Dean went to culinary school to apply her skill to crafting good-tasting vegan fare.

“It was a long journey for me when I started cleaning up my diet,” she says. “I had so many unsavory experiences with vegan food. I went to culinary school to learn what I could do to take cleaner, better ingredients and make the food delicious.”

She opened Lifestyle Cafe just in time for the pandemic to set in, but because her restaurant is small, Dean was able to adjust and survive, emerging as a solid operation in a growing neighborhood.

Dean says her chicken and waffles is Lifestyle Cafe’s signature dish. She combines gluten-free flour with spelt flour, cinnamon and coconut sugar brulee to create a wonderfully crispy base. Diners have the option of topping Dean’s waffles with mushroom chicken or a soy-based chicken substitute that successfully replicates the flavor and texture of dark-meat and white-meat chicken.

“A lot of people like our taco toast,” Dean adds. “It’s like an open-faced taco. It features our house-made taco meat — we call it sloppy mix — plus pico de gallo, avocado cream. That’s one of our bestsellers.” — Nicholas Dekker

891 Oak St., Columbus 43205, 614/3346686, thelifestyle.cafe

Local Flavor

These three food and drink events across the Buckeye State usher in the arrival of spring.

2022 Ice Wine Festival March 1–31 Ohio’s Grand River Valley region is known for its ice wines, which can be enjoyed during the 19th annual Ice Wine Festival. Six wineries and one distillery offer samples and an accompanying appetizer ($7 per person at each stop) in celebration of the final frozen grape harvest of the year. Visit Sunday through Friday for a quieter experience, or make the trip on Saturday to enjoy vendors and special events in a festival environment. visitashtabulacounty.com/events

Ohio Maple Madness Driving Trail | March 5–6 and 12–13 More than 50 maple syrup producers are part of this year’s trail. The annual driving tour provides an opportunity to learn about our state’s maple syrup industry while sampling a flavor of rural life. Food stands, farm animals and nature walks are among the attractions at the various locations. Some stops invite attendees to try their hand at collecting sap and learn how it becomes the stuff that ends up on the breakfast table. ohiomaple.org

Chocolate Walk | April 28 Take part in an event that spotlights the specials, products and services of 20 local businesses, old and new, during the city of Defiance’s 12th annual Chocolate Walk. Stop in to learn about each spot and enjoy chocolates along the way. Tickets go on sale in March and proceeds from the event support city beautification projects such as floral decorations and upgrading outdoor seating areas. visitdefianceohio.com/chocolatewalk

Sonder Brewing

This Mason brewery’s founders created a space all beer lovers can enjoy, offering a wide range of styles — from traditional to trendy — and a communal atmosphere.

Before opening Sonder Brewing in Mason in October 2018, its founders were searching for a name that would capture the spirit of their brewery. They stumbled upon the obscure English word “sonder,” a noun that refers to the realization that every random passerby is living a life as vivid and real as your own. For a brewery centered around community and creativity, they felt it was a perfect description.

“Sonder means every person has a story,” says co-founder Justin Neff. “And each of our beers has a story. We use the phrase ‘Uniquely Crafted’ to describe our beer. There’s science and art behind beer, and it’s uniquely crafted just like each human is.”

With that in mind, Sonder makes everything from classic lagers brewed traditionally, to new wave IPAs with the latest trendy hops, to barrel-aged dessert beers that taste like tiramisu or cinnamon rolls. Co-founder and chief operating officer Chase Legler earned his brewing stripes at Wisconsin’s legendary New Glarus Brewing and oversees a brewing team that balances creativity with quality and tradition.

The brewery’s bestseller is You Betcha New England IPA, bursting with tropical fruit notes from the hops. Surprisingly, the brewery’s second-most-popular brand is Voss Kölsch, a classic, easy-drinking German style. While Sonder’s more exotic beers earn the brewery buzz, its traditional styles earn respect, and the brewery is proud of its traditional takes on styles like hefeweizen and schwarzbier.

Sonder Brewing’s spacious taproom has picnic tables and other seating options, as well as rentable spaces for groups. BrewRiver Kitchen provides excellent from-scratch food options. Just outside, the Sonder beer garden covers a 5,000-square-foot patch of turf with tables and ample room for relaxation and play. In the winter, the brewery covers this area in a large, heated tent.

“We wanted Sonder to be a place mom and dad would bring their kids during the day and then come back later for date night without the kids,” says Neff. “It feels like you get a little bit of everything here.” — David Nilsen

8584 Duke Blvd., Mason 45040, 513/7792739, sonderbrewing.com

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LIVEWell

Road Rules

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, a time to reacquaint yourself with what it means to stay focused behind the wheel.

Between 2016 and 2021, 66,181 Ohio crashes were related to distracted driving and 212 people lost their lives, according to statistics from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Troopers also issued 20,174 citations related to distracted driving during that time. “Until we get distracted driving to be as culturally unacceptable as impaired driving is today, we have work to do,” says Sgt. Ray Santiago of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. — Kristen Hampshire

Defining Distraction. Distracted driving can be visual (averting your eyes from the road), manual (removing your hands from the wheel) or cognitive (taking your mind off the task at hand). “Texting includes all three,” Santiago says. “When you stop doing these three things in concert while driving, it’s dangerous.” Distractions can also include reaching for something or handing snacks to kids in the backseat.

Seconds Count. Santiago says sending or receiving texts takes your eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds — the equivalent of driving the length of a football field if you’re going 55 mph. “Folks think they are doing the right thing by putting their phones on speaker,” he says, “but they are still holding it, and it defeats the purpose of the hands-free function.”

Avoid a Fine. Distracted driving adds an additional $100 fine to a moving violation. To prevent crashes, fatalities and citations, the Ohio State Highway Patrol is focused on engaging drivers so that they understand: Distracted driving is just as dangerous as driving under the influence. “Getting a knock at the door from a trooper who tells you a loved one is not coming home because of a poor decision is a hard way to learn a lesson,” Santiago says, “and it’s the last thing we want to do.”

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A Lifesaving Decision

Following a successful heart transplant, Ohioan Kenneth Smith shares his personal story about the importance of organ donation.

Marva Smith remembers looking into her husband Kenneth’s eyes after he survived cardiac arrest on the surgery table, following an ablation procedure to correct his heart rhythm.

“I grabbed his hands and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’” Marva recalls. “They brought him back, but they told us he would not make it through the night.”

It was 2017, and Kenneth had been struggling with progressive heart problems, beginning with a persistent cough in 2002 and advancing to congestive heart failure treated with medicines. By that point, he already had undergone a mitral valve repair to help restore heart function.

Marva, who previously had worked at Ohio-based Lifebanc — a nonprofit organ, eye and tissue recovery organization — saw a fight in Kenneth’s gaze.

“It was like he was begging me to do something,” she recalls.

Kenneth experienced a turnaround, and his vitals began to improve. He stayed in the hospital for several weeks, eventually returning to his Cleveland home with more medicines. But he quickly deteriorated, with fluid building up in his lungs and his heart capacity dropping to 15%.

After visiting with cardiac specialists at Cleveland’s MetroHealth and then Cleveland Clinic, Kenneth was given two options: a left ventricular assist device pump used for patients with end-stage heart failure, or a test to see if he was a candidate for a heart transplant. Kenneth chose the latter and underwent screenings before his case was presented to a board that determines eligibility.

“It’s an arduous process,” he says, recalling the moment in 2020 when the news was delivered by a team of a dozen doctors and nurses. The decision was unanimous. Kenneth qualified. Some patients wait months in the hospital for an organ. Kenneth waited less than two weeks, and on Sept. 13, 2020, he received a heart transplant.

“I immediately felt so much better,” he says. “I was a little sore, but I could breathe again. Within a couple of months, I started working in the yard again.”

Lifebanc CEO Gordon Bowen says the pandemic has put a strain on organ donation, but the organization is still achieving results. In 2021, Lifebanc received 501 organs from 182 donors and 926 tissue donors.

“We still want to emphasize the need for individuals to become organ donors,” Bowen says. “In Ohio alone, there are nearly 3,000 individuals currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant and just over 106,000 nationally.”

Kenneth continues rehabilitation therapy to maintain his heart health, and he and Marva are organ-donation advocates, volunteering with Lifebanc to share their story.

“I always believed in being a donor,” Kenneth says, “and the more I learned about it, I found out that eight people can be saved from one donor — and that’s a beautiful thing.” — KH

KENNETH AND MARVA SMITH

kentuckytourism.com • 1-800-225-TRIP