Travel Eating

Charlotte NC Airport

Domestic airport food is kind of bad.  The choices are usually fast food burgers/fries, deep fried, bad bbq, wilty salads, or soggy sandwiches.  I have been traveling a lot lately with layovers in domestic airports, and I have been smirking at the terrible offerings, and lack of care that the airport food comes in.  But, refreshingly Charlotte, NC Airport has one food offering that made me really happy - Sushi!

The sushi bar and restaurant is right in the middle of the grand walkway outside of Terminal A and B in Charlotte.  The tables are nice, the bar is nice, service is fast, and the plates are pretty.  If that is not all, the food is not fatty, deep fried, or ready to give a heart attack.  The plate was made with some care, and the waitstaff was really nice to me.  It was so opposite of the current normal airport food experience with pissed off workers just slapping food on a tray.  This lovely plate of sushi did cost $18, about twice as much as a burger, fries and a soda, but I felt twice as healthy and not weighed down.  This meal made me so happy.

Dining Out for Life

BLVD - fun food

The Annual Dining Out For Life Event was a couple weeks ago.  There were about 70 restaurant locations around Nashville which participated and all of the restaurants committed to give a percentage (30- 75%) of the cost of meals sold to Nashville CARES, a fantastic non-profit organization in Nashville which provides direct services and support to 17 counties around Nashville helping and supporting families who are dealing with HIV/AIDS.

Dining Out For Life is so easy to participate.  Just dine out at your favorite restaurant, and that is it.  I can do that.

So this year, I had a lunch meeting and a dinner plans at restaurants participating in Dining Out For Life.  For lunch, we decided on going to BLVD because our local sweetheart Chef, Arnold Myint decided to donate 75% of our meal cost to Dining Out For Life and Nashville CARES.  We shared a pile of curry fries and I had a romaine salad with fried egg and lardon.  My friend had a PRB (Porter Road Butcher) hot dog on a roll.  We just had a lovely lunch meeting, and $30 of our meal went to Dining Out For Life, Nashville CARES.

Capitol Grille - Dinner Prix Fixed

And for dinner, my friend made plans for a dutch treat dinner out at the Capitol Grille, one of my favorite restaurants in Nashville.  This is the 1st year Capitol Grille decided to participate in Dining Out For Life, and my friend decided we should dine at the Capitol Grille in celebration of this great decision.  Capitol Grille arranged for a prix fixed 3-course menu for this special event.  I was so happy to see my favorite first course, the onion bisque with a mini brie sandwich and bacon.  The onion bisque is an old "hold over" and has been on the Capitol Grille menu for years and years.  With changing of the chefs over the years, the onion bisque has continued on each menu year after year.  There would be irate patrons who would boycott if the onion bisque were to be removed, so smartly, year after year Capitol Grille keeps the soup on the menu.  The soup is just so yummy for my tummy.  

My second course, I opted for the Double H ranch beef dish.  As you know, I am all about the local food movement, and I love that the Hermitage Hotel now has the Double H ranch for local organic, free range, grass feed beef.  I have loved that Tyler Brown, Capitol Grille and Hermitage Hotel staff have lovingly tended to the local organic Glen Leven farm, where most of the spring, summer and fall vegetables served at the Capitol Grille comes from.  Glen Leven is about 5 blocks from my house, and I can't really get more local than that, unless it is from my back yard.

And for dessert, I got the panna cotta, chocolate, coffee dessert with a nice camomile tea to accompany the dessert.  I am not a dessert person.  I also am not a a caffeine at night person anymore.  The older I get, the most sensitive I am to caffeine, and I stay up too late if I have caffeine in the evening.  So for this dessert which had caffeine in it, I decided on the camomile tea to "duke it out" in my stomach with the caffeine.  I wasn't up too late with the caffeine, so the camomile tea probably did help with that.

On this evening, the 7 of us had a great time chatting and dining, and about $140 of meal went to Dining Out for Life - Nashville Cares.

That is not a bad take, $170 in one day, for doing what we would have normally done anyway.   I will try to keep you posted next year for Dining Out For Life.  It is so easy.  Pick your favorite restaurant and do what your normally do!  

Win Tix to Generous Helpings!

THE CONTEST IS CLOSED. 

And the random winner is DAVID Roffwarg!  Congratulations David, you won 2 tickets to Generous Helpings.  Please email me at LannaeFood@gmail.com to confirm your winning status.  If you do not email me, I will be forced to give the tickets to the next random winner.

Generous Helpings is undoubtedly one the most delicious ways to support Second Harvest Food Bank!   Generous Helpings has 40 plus excellent restaurants and caterers offering tastings in return for your generous donation to attend this event.  Come hungry, and make this a fantastic dinner for yourself while you help fight hunger in Middle Tennessee!  I am so excited about this event, and being able to taste offerings from around Nashville.

What:

Generous Helpings an Evening to Benefit Second Harvest Food Bank

This is an evening of featuring tastings of appetizers, salads, entrees, desserts and wine from 40 plus local chefs, restaurants, markets and local wine distributors.  

Where:

Nashville Farmer's Market

When:

Thursday May 16, 2013
Starting at 5:30 - 8:30 pm

Admission to the event is $40 in advance (and are on sale now), or $50 at the door, or a $150 Patron's ticket (includes a special Patron's Party on Monday May 6, 2013 to be held at Flyte World Dining and Wine, a ticket to Generous Helps, a tee-shirt and special gift).   You can also purchase tickets by phone 615-627-1611.


Here is the awesome news! You can win 2 tickets for you and a friend to attend Generous Helpings!

All you have to do to be entered in to the drawing for the 2 tix:

Mandatory

1. SIGN UP for the Second Harvest Email List at SecondHarvestMidTN.org,  LIKE Second Harvest on Facebook Facebook.com/2HarvestMid TN, or FOLLOW Second Harvest on Twitter Twitter.com/2HarvestMidTN  Then EMAIL me at LANNAEFOOD@GMAIL.COM  with the subject line SECOND HARVEST and let me know your first and last name and which one, two or three have done (or already do).  

Optional

For an additional entry, you can Follow me on Twitter Twitter.com/Lannae then EMAIL me at LANNAEFOOD@GMAIL.COM with the subject SECOND HARVEST and let me know your first and last name and telling me you are following me on Twitter.

THE CONTEST IS CLOSED NOW and it closed at 9:00 pm on May 9th.  

Virginia is for Lovers of Crab

Croakers

3629 Shore Dr

Virginia Beach, VA

757-363-2490

Best Corn Muffins

The spring week we decided to go to Norfolk and Virginia Beach was really bright and sunny, but also really cold with a stiff ocean breeze.  It has been a while since I have been in Virginia Beach, and I really enjoyed it this time around more than the last.  Last time, I was just out of college, didn't have a lot of money, and was trying to do Virginia Beach on a $0 budget.  This time around, I have some extra money, and actually ate at real restaurants with real good seafood.

Best Lump Crab

We went to Croakers in Virginia Beach for dinner.  It is averagely price for me right now, but when I was fresh out of undergrad, I probably wouldn't go here because it cost to much.  It is so much better to be me now with respect to dining out and having disposable income for a nice dinner.  Croakers was probably the best dinner we had in Virginia Beach.  We got popcorn shrimp, raw oysters, she crab soup, shrimp salad, baked crab, and the fish special.  Dinner came with a potato, side salad and corn muffin.  Those who know me well enough, know I don't like corn muffins, hushpuppies, nor most any corn bread.  I was quite surprised and taken aback by how good the corn muffins are at Croakers.  The muffin is slightly sweet, moist and corny, everything you want in a muffin.  The muffin was so good, I asked for a second one.  This is how good these corn muffins are, I asked for a second one.  The popcorn shrimp was terrific with a very light breading on the outside, and and big pieces of shrimp on the inside.  We also liked the house made salad dressing quite a bit.  The waiter said that the dressing is a Lebanese olive oil, citrus and mint salad dressing, with a toucho of garlic.  This salad dressing is some of the best salad dressing I have ever had.  Oh, and my entree I opted for was a simple baked crab meat dish lightly sprinkled with Old Bay and parsley.  The crab was fresh, sweet, and perfect.  I would go eat this again and again and again if I lived there.  I would be there every week.  I would be a regular for sure.

The State of Oysters

The Perfect Oyster Bite

I am so honored to be invited to "The" Annual Oyster Party which has been going on for decades.  It is great fun for me because many of the guests are interested in food, are CSA members, and are interested in great tasting ingredients and food.  As I chatted with various people, the topic came around to the humble oyster.  This party gets boxes and boxes of oysters from Apalachicola.  This year, the oysters taste different, were way saltier, and smaller than Apalachicola oysters from years pasts.  Where they oysters live is an area that is on the freshwater and seawater line, where the water is brackish.  The seawater is coming further up into the bay providing more salt to the oyster beds, thus the oysters are saltier in flavor because they are living in saltier water.  The Apalachicola River is not supplying as much water to the bay, so there a lower volume of fresh water to feed the oyster beds as years gone by.  The Apalachicola River feeds water to Georgia, and Georgia has been in a state of drought for years, and Georgia has been in a state of population growth, so there is more demand for fresh water up stream from Apalachicola.  The result is that the Apalachicola oysters are not reproducing for some reason.  It is possible because the salinity is too high, the temperture is too low, but it is because the environment has changed and the environment is not right to reproduce.  Also the BP oil spill dispersants have been detected in Apalachicola Bay.  It is possible that the chemical change in water may be inhibiting reproduction.

This may be one of the last oyster parties I get invited to, so I really tried to enjoy myself.

Reilly Craft Pizza and Drink

191 E Pennington

Tucson, AZ 

520-882-5550

charcuterie and cheese

 There is a lot of desert in Arizona.  Desert.  Wide expanse of sand, scrub, dry air, rock and desert.  While I wondered the desert for days with a 20 lb pack on my back, I could not seem to drink enough water.  I was always on the edge of thirst.  Living in Nashville, it is fairly humid all year long, which I am used to now, so it is a double whammy for me to go to the desert where it is dry as a bone.  The funny part about being used to Nashville humidity is that when I first moved to Nashville from a very dry climate, I thought it was like walking in a bathtub.  The air is so humid that I found it hard to breathe here, it was like breathing bath water.  Coming out of the high desert in Arizona and back down to the flat lands in Tucson made me happy, less freaked out and close to a good water supply.

The high desert freaked me out, it was not at all relaxing.  Elevation, dry air, heat in the day, the freeze at night, all were a challenge.  I respect those Native Americans who came before us and called the high desert home because they had to be hearty stock.  I am not hearty stock like that.  I am a low lands city gal who likes all the modern conveniences of life.

It was wonderful to descend into Tucson, with lots of civilization, water, restaurants and hotels.  We decided to give Reilly Craft Pizza and Drink a try to satisfy our hunger and thirst that was generated in the high desert.

kale salad

We walked in and instantly we liked the place.  I felt a great vibe, saw repurposed building parts from yester-year, and a brick oven for pizza.  There is a daily specials board including what charcuterie and cheese are up for the chef's cheese board.  There is a nice list of drinks to quench thirst.  The menu looked great with pizzas, entrees and salads with a nod to Italy.  We also noticed the bones of the building which was a funeral home for four scores prior.  We obviously were seated in the sanctuary area of the funeral home.  The vaulted ceilings are beautiful.  We think that the chef's bar was the viewing happened.  We did not sit there.  The staff is hip and young, but I would not call the staff hipsters.  It was an inviting place for me.  It was a nice place to take in a repast and relax after days in the desert.

pizza

We opted for one item from every category.  We got a cheese and house made charcuterie.  I loved it.  There were some stinky ripe cheeses that I cannot get in Nashville, and the meats were quite lovely.  I also loved the house made pizza crust crackers to co with the cheese and and meats.  I love the thin and crunchiness of the crackers, the fresh snap in the mouth with the softness of the cheeses.  This was really a delicious beginning of our meal.  We followed up with a kale salad.  The salad was something that tasted so good, and I wish I could figure out how to make it.  The kale was young and sweet, the croutons were crispy polenta, and the salad dressing was a house made citrus.  It was wonderful to have kale and citrus, ingredients I was missing this year.  I did not do a winter CSA with weekly kale, so I miss my having kale every week for 12 weeks.

short rib stew

For dinner we opted for a brick oven pizza and braised short ribs served with pasta.  Both plates we enjoyed quite a bit.  Both pizza and pasta were made with care, no short cuts.  The pasta was freshly made for the evening, as well as the pizza dough.  Reilly Craft Pizza and Drink was truly a treat for me after a long week in the desert.

Who knew?

Airirang

1100 AZ-92S 

Sierra Vista, AZ 

520-459-1615

banchan

Going further west, from the vast AZ desert, we found ourselves in a town, a real modern town with live people: Sierra Vista.  Seemingly at first, there didn't seem to be much here but a Walmart, chain fast food, a dead mall, and some strip malls. None the less, it was nice to be out of the desert, and nice to be near a meal.  You know me, I can eat anytime, and it was time for me to eat.  I finally got cell phone service in Sierra Vista, so I dialed up Yelp.com and Urbanspoon.com to find out where there was to eat.  Sierra Vista is not high on the list of yelp, so there were only 9 restaurants listed and amongst those listed were a Pizza Hut and a Subway.  I did not travel across the desert to eat at a fast food chain.  

yummy red sauce

Then Arirang restaurant popped up on my app.  Yes, a Korean restaurant in the middle of the desert.  I called and they were open, and off we went.  We walked into the small strip mall space, and it is rather utilitarian inside.  A few tables and plain chairs, and the wait staff are white, but the woman cooking is Korean with Korean language as her first language. Actually, the waitress said that there was some issue communicating with the chef and owner because she did not speak a lot of English, and the chef cooked way too much food that wasn't ordered.  I thought that was a good sign for dinner, a Korean meal being made by a woman of Korean decent.  We ordered a ton of food such as seafood pancake, kim chi pancake, steamed dumplings, jigae tofu soup, bipimbab, kalbi, and more. 

seafood pancake

When the appetizers came out, the banchan, the seafood and kim chi pancakes and the dumplings, we dove right in.   My travel pal, who has spent time living in South Korea, exclaimed that the banchan and appetizers were the best he has tasted outside of Korea.  Yes, in the middle of no where AZ dessert is the best Korean food outside of South Korea.   I too liked the banchan kim chi, there was one that was some sort of ginseng kim chi which was my favorite.  There were baby bok choy, napa cabbage, zucchini, potato and other kim chis that were quite tasty too.  We really loved the seafood and kim chi pancakes.  The pancakes were fairly thin and crispy, just the way I like them.  The restaurant gave us this really delicious red vinegar soy and chili pepper sauce to dip our pancakes in. I am not sure what was in the dipping sauce, so I asked.  The waitress was trying to ask the chef, but there was mis-communication and I could never find out.  So, I am thinking it is a little soy sauce, red vinegar and Korean red chili flakes and possibly something else.  This is a dipping sauce like I have never had before.  We also ordered entrees, but we were so stuffed by the starters, we didn't really eat much of the meal, so we took them back to the motel to eat later.

I learned after talking to the waitress that it turns out that there is a small but vibrant population of people of Korean decent living in Sierra Vista.  There are a couple other Korean restaurants as well, but they are not showing up on Yelp.  The reason why Arirang was opened is because the owner was not pleased with the other Korean restaurants in town, he and his  wife claim that the others are dirty, or do not have good quality food.  It was the husbands idea to open his own restaurant, and prove to Sierra Vista that Korean restaurants can be clean, good quality, and a fair price.  It is true, the restaurant is clean, the food is good, and the food is a good price.

High Desert

This is what I saw in AZ as we drove west.  There is a lot of nothing but desert.  No cars, no trees, and no residents.  There a lot of sand and scrub, and that is about it.  The landscape and lack human inhabitation was freaking me out a bit.  I am a "city girl" having lived most of life in highly dense areas of Boston, Phila and Nashville, and these wide open spaces like the AZ dessert freak me out.  There was no cell phone service in the AZ desert, and there is no incentive for phone companies to put towers in the vast desert because there are no people to use cell phones there and there is no profit.  What happens if the car would break down or something would happen to me, who would hear me or find me?  The high desert is what isolation nightmares are made of.

I am home now in my densely populated area of Nashville where I know many of my kind neighbors and in my home is the Man and the Cat.  It is comforting for me to be home.    

Boot Hill

As I moved across the southwest, I entered Arizona.  I have not been in Arizona for 35 years, and I wasn't necessarily planning on going into AZ ever again. But it is tough to move across the southwest without going through AZ.  AZ is where I found myself, so I ended up taking a look at Tombstone, AZ the home of the O.K. Corral.

O.K. Corral re-enactors

I don't know much about AZ, Tombstone, O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, nor the Chinese and Jews who inhabited the Tombstone area.  I actually did not know the Chinese role in Tombstone until I got to the tourist town.  The current era Tombstone is just a few blocks long with re-enactors, and touristy shops.  Tombstone is no different form cruise ship ports with lots of tshirt shops and fudge shops, except that Tombstone is surrounded by dessert, not water.

Tomestone Courthouse

We walked the town up and down and I saw this sign that there was a community of Chinese in Tombstone during the wild west days.  They lived in the 3 block area, and were probably there to work on the rail road going through AZ in the 1880s. After that work was over, they had no where to go, so they stayed in Tombstone.  It is estimated that the Chinese were about 10% of Tombstone population, mostly men and some women, during the Wyatt Earp days.  After the railroad work dried up, the Chinese worked at what ever jobs they could, laundry, cleaning, and mining.  The big issue standing in the way of Chinese was the law, the Chinese Exclusion Act banning Chinese from becoming citizens.  Because of this Act, Chinese people Tombstone were not counted in AZ state census, were not afforded the same rights as whites, and were not treated the same as whites.  By the way, Chinese is the only nationality ever in the history of the USA to be excluded by law from immigration to, living free in and becoming citizens of the USA.

Sign on some building in Tomestone

The Chinese of the time of Tombstone believed that the body and soul remain together.  In the time of death, the body and soul should be taken back to the place of birth to be buried and that would allow the soul to rest.  For some reason, the Chinese of Tombstone did not return the remains to China of many of the Chinese residents who died, rather they buried their remains in a Chinese section of Boot Hill Graveyard.  It is speculation that the "transporter" was a bad man, and was not really transporting the remains back to China, and he was just dumping the remains anywhere out of sight and stealing the money which was paid to him to respectfully transport the remains to China.  The Tombstone Chinese probably  thought it was better to bury their friends and loved ones at Boot Hill knowing they respectfully treated their bodies and souls, rather than risk having the remains dumped un-ceremoniously.

Grave yard on Boot Hill

The Boot Hill Graveyard is open for free to see, or for donation.  The donations help for the up keep of the graveyard.  Most of the graveyard has been restored, so what you see isn't necessarily how it looked in the 1800s, rather in the early 1900s, the graveyard fell into disrepair and was nearly forgotten, and then some people of the  Tombstone area decided to restore Boot Hill and remember those who died.  As best they could, in burial location, name and cause of death, they have restored the graveyard. 

One grave at Boot Hill

I don't foresee going back to Tombstone any time soon, but I am glad I went.  This is a part of USA history I don't know much about, and seeing it for myself helped me learn something new.

Southwest in Winter

The Original Goode Company Seafood

2621 Westpark Dr

Houston, TX

713-523-7154

oyster po' boy

I have been traveling around the southwest of the USA this winter from CA to TX to see what I can see, and to see family and friends for various reasons.  I was close to Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico throughout the winter which means I get to have really great Gulf seafood.  Landing in Texas in time for lunch, I grabbed my car and and drove to Goode's Seafood to get some Gulf oysters straight from the Gulf.  Living in TN, landlocked by 7 states, it is not easy to get good seafood prepared well.  When I travel I always try to take advantage of what is local.  And Goode's is as good as it gets.

Gulf (of Mexico) oysters

This day, I drove and picked up long-time pal for lunch.  Houston is really spread out, so going 7 miles from her house is "close by".  Goode's started out as a small family owned TX bbq biz and has been around Houston for 35 years.  In those years, Goode's expanded to a handful of locations specializing in TX bbq and Gulf seafood.  We went off to the Original Goode Seafood which is in a boxcar diner with the original chrome swirly barstools. Goode's Seafood is Zagat rated at 26/30 with the grilled seafood, gumbo, shrimp cocktail and oysters.  26 is a really good rating I think.  

We ordered gumbo, an arrangement of oysters from 3 regions of the gulf, and oyster po' boys.  The standouts for me were the oysters and the po' boys.  I forgot where the 2 TX oysters came from, and the other one is Apalachicola.  The Apalachicola oysters were the biggest and meatiest oysters with nice sea flavor, and I enjoy them greatly.  The other two, one was more minerally, and other was the most mild and sweet.  I wish I knew what the mild and sweet one was because it was my favorite.  And the oyster po' boy was outstanding.  The bread was right, the same bread as you would get in New Orleans.  The bread was light on the inside with a nice crispy thin crust on the outside to give the crunch your teeth wants.  The oysters were fresh oysters dipped in a cornmeal crust as I ordered them. These oysters in the po' boy were obviously made really fresh to order, they were NOT frozen, nor made by a food distributor.    I really enjoyed the sandwich which is impossible to find the right combination here in Nashville.

It was a nice lunch to catch up with my friend.  As I left her to go on to see family, I said I wasn't going to miss my pal too long.  She planned on coming to Nashville the very next week!  So when she was in Nashville, we went to Midtown Cafe for dinner one night.