Pip's Plate

Who would’ve thought that Nashville, TN, is full of fantastic food discoveries? Well…I guess not me. But I’m here visiting a friend, and man oh man, we’ve been eating real good.

My sister and I are here visiting a friend, but she didn’t know I was coming. My sister cleverly booked my flight to arrive the same time as hers came in from Syracuse. When Jen came to pick us up Friday morning, we were sure we’d spilled the beans at least 4 times. Somehow, she had no idea and hadn’t picked up on our slips. The look on her face when she saw me was priceless! Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? It looked a little like that followed with a lingering of “I can’t believe you’re here!”

Thankfully, Jen understands the love of food. Our first mission? Drive out to the Loveless Cafe.

This cafe used to be a motel that also served food to travelers. The motel is now a series of little shops, but the cafe is still there and still rocking their delicious trademark biscuits.

Ahhh…..Southern hospitality. We sat down at our table and wahlah! biscuits with homemade jams arrived at our table with our server’s friendly smile.

These biscuits are tender, flaky, warm and a little bit crispy on the tops and bottoms. They’re clearly made with lots and lots of butter – but how else would they get so delicious? Fat is flavor! But the best part of these biscuits is the taste – they have a hint of that cakey buttermilk pancake flavor. Unbelievably good.

The second best part of these biscuits is the homemade jams that come with them. (Note: this picture is our second plate of biscuits – hence the partially eaten jams.) Strawberry, Blackberry, and Peach jams – it’s a toss up for my favorite but if someone put a gun to my head and made me choose, it would be the peach. Little chunks of fresh peach swim in syrupy jamminess. But the blackberry is really good too – it’s easy to forget the seeds in this jam because it’s packed full of ripe berriness.

And then the food – I ordered the BBQ Pulled Pork and Eggs. I looooove BBQ pulled pork, but this was out of this world good. Pork and eggs? What an easy way to redo steak and eggs!

The pulled pork was so tender and moist. It had a slight smoky flavor and the sweetness of the BBQ sauce made it taste like a little slice of heaven. I almost forgot where I was when I first took a bite. And mixing it was the eggs? Also delicious. The right way to have breakfast.

Cook of course! I had Friday and Monday off this last weekend (I started a new job and am getting into a new schedule).

It was really nice to have 4 days off in a row, but more importantly it was incredible to have 2 days off when the majority of people are at work. I literally woke up and my first thought was, “What am I going to cook today?”

I made breakfast and coffee … then sat down on the couch with some cookbooks. I already talked about the mole I made on Friday (which was utterly delectably rich and savory and perfectly spicy). I’ll make mole again for sure.

I also made cinnamon rolls (which were somewhat unsuccessful – yeah. It turns out I can bake pies and some cakes, but not much else), pork tinga, and lasagna. Pretty much all over the place, huh?

Monday afternoon I was relishing my weekend. I got to cook all weekend! It was perfectly satisfying. And I realized this is what I get to do every Monday – cook all day. Whew – this makes me happy.

I’m quite sure I’m not the first to use that headline. But really, if you’ve ever made mole, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I finally made my first mole! And it was….extraordinary? Well, it was quite delicious, but I think I learned a few things from it.

I followed Lupe’s Mole Sauce from the Jimtown Store Cookbook (in Sonoma County) and it worked quite well. (you can find it here) NOTE: this is one of my favorite cookbook – I highly recommend it.

I had the day off and thought, “Well, what the hell, I’ve got the day off I might as well cook.” And I’ve been wanting to make this mole since August. Yikes. It’s about time, right?

So I made the mole all afternoon – it took about 4 1/2 hours – and then I brought it over to my friend Molly’s. She just had a baby so her sister and I made dinner for her and her fiance. Let me tell you…it was not as spicy as I had suspected. In fact, it was delicious and flavorful and … well … perfect.

And I have lots left over. Yay!

I made this awhile ago, but my sister’s friend keeps asking about it, so here’s the recipe:

Roast chicken with proscuitto and sage

1 roasting chicken (3-4 pounds)

3 oz proscuitto, torn

fresh sage leaves, chiffonaded

3 cloves garlic

1/2 lemon

1 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Loosen the skin from the chicken around the legs, thighs and breasts.  Place pieces of proscuitto and sage underneath the skin and inside the cavity. Add the garlic and the lemon in the cavity. Rub the olive oil on the outside of the chicken.

Place chicken in a roasting pan and cook until the thickest part of the thigh reads 180 and juices run clear (about 1 hour 20 min).

Let it rest for about 5 minutes, then carve.

I think this would be good with a nice pinot noir or even a lighter chianti.

I suppose quickly get it into your car and out of your boss’s sight is the best answer.

I recently started working for a new company and neglected to change any shipping addresses to anything but my old office. Woops.

Monday morning I hear from my best friend who still works there: “12 cases of wine showed up with your name on it today.” hee hee. What a way to leave a job!

It was more than just hilarious since the UPS guy, Alan, says to her, “Was Courtney expecting a palate of wine today?” while laughing hysterically.

In any case, the wine wasn’t ALL for me. It was a collection of wine from my California trip in July with my 3 girlfriends – it was so GD hot here and there that we had to wait until October to ship it – and my wine club shipments (which I’m really excited about from Preston and Stryker).

We distributed the wine…and all I have to say is that I shouldn’t have to worry about wine for awhile. (haha) And I have some nice ones to put away for several years (although I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to store it).

I almost titled this post ‘getting kids to eat right’ but thought better of it, because really what is eating right? I think all the diet and food fads clearly point out that eating “right” is always changing meaning.

Regardless, I want to comment on  kids eating today. It’s been coming up in a lot of conversations I’ve had in the past couple of days.

What I’ve heard/learned:

Over on ReubenMiller, they’re talking about a Stanford University study that found out kids would determine anything in McDonald’s packing must taste good, regardless of what the food actually was.

Jerry Seinfeld’s wife Jessica was on Oprah the other day talking about pureeing vegetables and adding them to everything she makes in order to get her kids to eat nutritiously. However ethical this may seem (she doesn’t tell them), at least they’re eating something. more here

Have you played the Consumer Consequences interactive game on Minnesota Public Radio’s website?

You can find out what the world would be like if everyone lived like you…

“Nice Planet…Want to Share?

The Earth couldn’t support its 6.6 billion residents if everyone lived like a typical American. Consumer Consequences will tell you how many planets it would take to support your lifestyle on a planetary scale and provide some ideas for making your ‘footprint’ a little smaller.” 

What does my footprint look like? If everyone on the planet lived like I live, then we’d need THREE planets. Whoa. I spoke to a friend yesterday who said she’d need 6 planets, so I guess I’m doing alright.

However, it seems that I need to cut down on my coffee addiction (wah wah) and start using my car less.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about people advocating for not using plastic bags. I wrote a post about this awhile ago, but I’m going to comment again because I found some great places to purchase cool grocery bags. And hey, these can be used for ANYTHING- not just groceries!

delight.com sells Envirosax for $34.50. This is the option I went for. They’re stylish, they wrap up and snap up small enough to keep in your purse or glovebox, and they’re pretty inexpensive. This includes a set of 5. I’ve given 2 to my sister to keep in her car too.

One other thing I love about these bags….they were delivered promptly in the mail with a handwritten thank you note. I mean, c’mon! No one does that anymore! I got all warm and fuzzy when I saw it.

Some other options out there:

magic-pony.com

blueq.com

bringyourownbag.com – and this one is organic cotton. isn’t this great? makes you want to use this at places other than just the grocery store, huh?

perpetualkid.com

  reusablebags.com – these nifty produce bags are a great alternative to loading up on plastic bags for single produce items. heck, i don’t use bags for any of my produce so i don’t have to worry about this at all.

do you have a favorite? please share your links for cool non-plastic grocery shoppers.