An Ohioan would never search for how to make buckeyes, because it’s an inborn skill.

Okay, so things have been slow here on the blog lately, and I sat down today with a pure intention to write something serious, namely a rant about this article on school lunches that annoyed me greatly, blah, blah, blah. But when I went onto Huffington Post to find the article again, I stumbled upon this one, which is approximately eighty times funnier, and so I’m going to write about that instead and save the rant for some future day, possible a day when I have a school-aged child who eats lunch.

The second article was about what recipe, according to Google Trends, each state searches for the most frequently. It’s not very scientific, to be sure, but it does provide plenty of food for thought. What is Connecticut’s obsession with Moroccan chicken thighs, for instance? Are there really that many lobsters in Wyoming, or are Wyomans just so confused by them when they do show up that they have to Google what to do with them? Would Thomas Jefferson be proud that his fellow Virginians are searching for ways to make paneer above all else? I like to think so.

I was also a little surprised that cooks in my home state of Ohio are supposedly looking for recipes for spaghetti. You’ve got this, Ohio! Trust your instincts! You just boil water! But it did make me think of a really delicious pasta sauce that we made a few weeks ago at a friend’s house in Maryland (while everyone else was Googling how to make chicken, apparently). We cooked it at a leisurely pace, together, and used the time while the vegetables were roasting to drink wine and play Cards against Humanity. I highly recommend making your own version.

Cut up whatever vegetables you have so they’re about the same smallish size. I believe that night we used beets, cherry tomatoes, garlic, onion and carrot, but honestly, you could use just about anything. Put them in a big roasting pan with some olive oil, salt, pepper and whatever dried herbs strike your fancy, stir it up, and put it all in a 400 degree oven. Meanwhile, someone else can get some crushed tomatoes going on the stovetop with some red wine and whatever else pleases him at that particular moment. When the vegetables are almost tender, dump the tomato sauce on top of them and put it back in the oven while you boil some spaghetti in salted water. Serve it all up topped with cheese and basil. Could anything be easier?

But if instead you want to make something called Bean Taco Soup, you’ll have to go ask someone from Montana.