Having finished my Labor Day Dinner of a roast salmon and cumin spiced roasted cauliflower I wanted something special for desert to end my Labor Day. Looking around my fridge I found 3 of my favorite foods. Fresh Figs, Tupelo Honey and goat cheese.
Since my oven was already warm I decided to have roasted figs with goat cheese on top with a balsamic/honey sauce. Amazing!
Pretty simple recipe. Heat oven to 400°. While oven is warming up add 1 tbsp of butter, 3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar & 3 tbsp of honey with a touch of Maldon salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Slice 6 fresh figs (I used green California figs) vertically and place on a baking sheet skin side down. Add a dolop of goat cheese and then pour the sauce over the figs. Roast the figs in the oven for 15 minutes.
Simply mouthwatering and wonderful way to end Labor Day!
After a wonderful night dreaming about all the wonderful food eaten the day before it was time to get up and hit the foodie trails in Asheville again.
My first stop was breakfast at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. I was overjoyed when I heard that they were going to open a branch on Market Square in Knoxville where the Soup Kitchen used to be. Among many dishes they are famous for, the one the really stands out is the Sweet Potato Pancakes. Along with ordering the pancakes I also got the peach lemonade. The waitress brought me a complimentary biscuit to start off the meal along with some Tupelo Honey. Now this is the kind of biscuit I like. Light and fluffy and buttery. Much better than the biscuit at the Early Girl Eatery. With a good dollop of honey spread out on the biscuit I was in biscuit heaven.
Then the waitress brought me the sweet potato pancake. My eyeballs popped out! It was the size of a medium pizza. Holy pancakes! Of course size doesn’t make up for quality. Was it as good as it looked? Yes! With maple butter and spiced walnuts on top, all it needed was some gooey maple syrup and it was time to dig in. Oh man was this good. The sweet potatoes worked perfectly with the pancakes. After indulging 3/4 of the way through the pancake I had to throw in towel. I was loaded. By the way, the peach lemonade was just about the best tasting lemonade I’ve ever had. Super fresh as if it was made right on the farm.
When Tupelo hits Knoxville in a few months I guarantee customers will be lined up around the block for the best new style southern food they’ve ever smacked their lips to. Can’t wait and unable to get to Asheville? Try their wonderful cookbook.
Being a big bread fan checking out a few bakeries was next on my list. According to everything I read City Bakery topped most lists. Considering that Asheville has over a dozen local bakeries, you would think that being named the best in Asheville they’d be baking some mean bread. While City Bakery was a little off the beaten path the extra walk was good exercise. The layout reminded me a little of Panera Bread. The selection of bread though was very meager. Being early in the morning I opted for a croissant , one of my truly fave breads.
With a little jam and butter along with a cappuccino I found a seat at a table. My two main requisites for a great croissant are is it buttery and how flaky it is. The outer crust of a great croissant should literally crumble onto your plate. The croissant at City Bakery was neither. Didn’t have much taste to it and was not flaky at all. A dud, just above a Sara Lee version. With their meager selection and lackluster croissant I decided not to try anything else. Panera Bread is much better.
Still full from the monster sweet potato pancake, skipping lunch sounded like a great idea, plus a little nap. Needed to save all my energy for what was about to come.
Within the past year undoubtedly the hottest restaurant to hit Asheville has to be Curate. A Spanish tapas and wine bar. Now you may be wondering that its a little odd that a small town like Asheville in southern Appalachia would have a spanish tapas bar, much less a very good one.
Curate
A little background. The chef that owns Curate along with her partners has trained under some of the most famous chefs in the world including whom many consider the greatest, Ferran Adria of the famed EBulli in Spain. She decided to open her restaurant in Asheville. And the food and the experience is like being in Barcelona or Madrid. You’d never know you are sitting in the foothills of the Smokies. Even though many of the food is sourced locally, some come from Spain like the famous jamon Iberico ham, which is on display when you walk in the door and the chefs are constantly slicing from.
I tasted a little something from every part of the menu. Three hours of wine, tapas and spanish sherries. Whew!
To start off with I got a wonderful Negroni aperitif. Then my first tapas-pan con tomate, kind of an spanish version of bruchetta. slices of french bread with a tomato garlic mixture spread across the top. Excellent. The next tapas was some of the famous jamon ham. While it was wonderful, quite frankly I couldn’t tell the difference between this and italian prosciutto. I mentioned this to the waiter (who happened to be from Oak Ridge!) and he said I should have gotten the more intense (and expensive) version. Now he tells me.
Pan con tomato
For the third tapas it was fried eggplant with local wild mountain honey drizzled on top with rosemary. Amazing stuff. Now was the perfect time for a nice clean salad, so I opted for the purple kumato tomato salad and bunito tuna and local grown greens. Refeshing and love the kumato tomatoes. You see them here locally in those little packages in the gourmet food stores and Kroger. I’ll have to grab a package next time I’m grocery shopping.
Fried Eggplant
Now that I’ve clean my palate with the salad it back to more tapas! While I’m setting there at the bar trying to decide what to eat next a nice lady sitting next to me is working her way through the menu and we start talking about what a great place this is. She’s here in Asheville on business and noticed all the rave reviews of Curate and had to try it. Asked her if she ever been to a tapas bar before and she said they had a couple ones in San Diego were she was from and thought this was far better. She also had spent some time in Spain and thought Curate could hang with the best of them. Now that’s quite a compliment.
For the rest of the evening we decided to split tapas here on out so we could explore more of the menu. Next was a saute tapas of wild mushrooms and a dash of sherry. Mouthwatering. Couldn’t have been cooked better. Of course I couldn’t resist something from the tapas grill, so I got a plate of skewered lamb rubbed with Moorish spices. Man this was good. I would have never thought Moorish spices fit in with Spanish cooking , but then it dawned on me that Spain is just across the Mediterranean sea from Morocco.
Throughout all this I was trying several Spanish red and white wines from an amazing selection of reasonably priced wines by the glass. Each wine perfectly complimenting the food.
The only type of tapas left on the menu was the rosemary ice cream and almond sponge cake. Me and my lady friend dipped right in and felt this was the only miss of the night. Just wasn’t groovin’ our taste buds, even though the waiter raved about it.
Of course I couldn’t leave a Spanish restaurant without trying some of their famous sherry. A wonderful glass of sweet Casa Diva sherry topped off the evening perfectly.
I’ve only begun to touch the huge menu of tapas offered at this amazing restaurant. Can’t wait to come back and spend another 3 hours exploring the world of Spanish tapas.
Leaving Curate I just couldn’t get over the sheer quality and wide range of food offerings available in Asheville. In a town of less than 100,000 this town can compete with many towns in this country many times its size. In fact, within a 10 block area of Asheville I don’t think I’ve seen this many good restaurants except for just three cities in America-New York, San Francisco and New Orleans.
Asheville is America’s little gem, tucked away at the foothills of the Smokies. Unlike the other side of the Smokies (Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg) where its nothing but one big tourist trap with gaudy, tacky souvenir shops, fast food joints, tasteless overpriced restaurants, Asheville offers a non-touristy, European feel and restaurants serving local farm to table food in an amazing array of cuisines from around the world. No wonder Asheville has been called “The Paris of the South” .
How lucky I am that this little gem is only 2 hours away. Only in Asheville. Only in Asheville.
After making it through another wild Valentine’s I decided to take a couple days off. Looking for a place within quick driving distance of Clinton I wanted it to be relaxing and at the same time pursuing one of my pleasures, food. Asheville was my choice.
Asheville has been popping up more and more in the foodie world for its hip new restaurants. In the next few months Knoxville will be getting a branch of a hot Asheville restaurant, Tupelo Honey Cafe. Not only is the restuarant scene in Asheville thriving, but in the past year a cool boutique hotel has opened up within blocks of many of the best restaurants in town.
Arriving Monday afternoon I checked into the new Hotel Indigo, a chain of trendsetting boutique hotels throughout the world. It’s hard to miss the place, since its 12 story building stands out in Asheville. Booking a corner room which looks out at both the glorious Smoky Mountians ( you can see the famed Grove Park Inn) and downtown Asheville, the view was breathtaking.
My first stop to eat was a restaurant that gets a lot of attention is the Early Girl Eatery. It’s situated on a street that feels right out of London,with it’s cobblestone pavement and all the quaint antique stores, curio shops, wine bars, cafes all situated in early 20th century buildings. It makes the Old City in Knoxville look like a dump.
Stepping into the Early Girl Eatery, one quickly discovers an Asheville custom-waiting for a table. Just about every ‘hot’ restaurant in downtown Asheville is packed. If there is such a thing as Asheville cuisine, Early Girl would be a good example. Basically, the cuisine is based on procuring local foods and cooking it as simple as possible. Lots of vegetarian options. Breakfast is a big staple with grits, pancakes and egg dishes. Very health oriented. Kinda upscale southern’ food meets the slow food movement.
So many interesting dishes on the menu it’s hard to know where to start. Settled on the Local Sausage and Sweet Potato Egg Scramble, grits and multi-grain pancakes and biscuits Sweet potatoes and eggs sounded like an odd combo that I hadn’t seen before and didn’t know whether this would be one of those weird, awful creations or a taste bud blowout.
Soon the waitress brought a heaping plate of scrambled eggs, local sausage, shitake mushrooms, bacon, chives and sweet potatoes. The first bite had my taste buds kicking on all cylinders. The eggs were perfectly cooked. Most restaurants way over cook their eggs to the point they taste like rubber. I like my eggs runny. The mixture of sweet potatoes and eggs was heavenly. Adding a little spicy sausage and some mushrooms and chives kicks it up another notch. This is hands down one of my all-times favorite egg dishes. Everything in this dish was locally grown or raised.
The biscuit that came with it was okay. I’m not a huge fan of the more hard, scone-like version of southern biscuits. I prefer the the light and fluffy kind. To the rescue though was a delish bottle of jam sitting on my table. From a local farm called Imladris Farm Adding jam with a little butter turned an ordinary biscuit into the next level. This jam was out of this world. Got to track this down and buy some!
The grits and pancakes were okay, but in all fairness, by the time I got around to eating the pancakes they were already getting cold. The breakfast is so popular here they serve it all day. Just be prepared to wait, on weekends they are lined up down the block.
Walking around downtown Asheville it’s truly amazing the number of restaurants and food stores with just about every specialty you can imagine. Being a chocolate lover, I couldn’t resist going into a store called The Chocolate Fetish. Some consider their truffles to be the best in America. I picked 4 different ones-Hazelnut Gianduia, Ancient Pleasures (with cayenne peppers!), French Velvet and Triple Chocolate to try when I got back to my hotel. Ooh la la. Unbelievable. Best chocolate truffles in America? Certainly won’t argue with that.
Searching for a place to eat dinner I stumbled across an all you can eat mussels night at a french bistro called Bouchon, Mollusks are one of my favorite seafoods, whether they be scallops, oysters or mussels. Being a big fan of french bistro cooking and a $15 all you can eat mussels night had me salivating.
Bouchon is a small bistro in an old brick building. As soon as you enter you feel like you’ve been transported to Paris. The place was jammed packed with a friendly boisterous crowd drinking lots of french wine and eating hearty french bistro food like onion soup, steak au poivre and cassolete, just to name a few tempting dishes. My mission was the mussels. The all you can eat mussels. You can get them one of five ways-Parisienne, Mediterranean, Beer City, Bleu & Bayou. I started with the parisienne in which the mussels are infused in white wine, garlic onions and butter . While waiting for the mussels to arrive the waiter brought out a basket of delicious french bread. Bouchon has several interesting aperitifs, but I settled on a house specialty, the Basil strawberry aperitif. A mixture of vodka, strawberries and basil and perfect way to start off a meal. Bouchon’s wine list is spectacular, with page after page of resonably priced french wine by the bottle and glass. My choice was a crisp white wine, that would complement the mussels.
Then the steaming hot mussels came with a complement of pommes frites! I’m in heaven. It didn’t take me long to devour 3 dozen mussels. Since it was all you can eat I quickly ordered another round this time with the Mediterranean sauce, that had white wine, onions, saffron and peppery pepper flakes. These mussels, have been flown in from Boston were wonderful, maybe not quite as fresh as you would get living near the coast, but still very good. Oh, and those pommes frites were not bad, not the greatest, still the french know how to do french fries better than us Americans.
After finishing off 6 dozen mussels it was on to desert. The banana bread pudding excited me the most. Bouchon lists about 10 different deserts from the typical cast of characters from creme brule to chocolate mouse. The pudding was fine, nothing to make a detour for.
Stumbling out of Bouchon after downing a 12 year old Glenfiddish scotch, it was on to a unique tea room a block down the street and geeez was I in for a surprise.
Most tea rooms I’ve been to have been of the English Tea type with the little shortbread cookies, etc. In fact, Knoxville has an excellent one called Tea at the Gallery. Entering Dobra Tea it’s obvious that you’re in an oriental tea room.
When you are seated at Dobra a thick book is given to peruse of dozens of authentic teas. No watered down blended teas you find at places like Teavana. Reading through the book (menu) is like exploring the history of tea. Dobra is part of a chain of tea stores founded in Prague Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism in 1989. There are only 3 stores in the U.S., with the owners traveling to various parts of the world searching for tea. Reading the menu/book is like reading a travelogue.
When you find the tea you want the waiter brings back the tea in an authentic tea set just the way it is served in the country the tea was grown. Really authentic. I ordered Long Jing, more commonly known as Dragonwell, one of the most famous Chinese green teas.The tea was amazing and fresh. For people used to watered down, sugary, blended tea, Dobras Tea is probably going to be a shock. For me, it was the perfect, relaxing way to cap off the day.
Wandering out in the wee hours of the night with the crisp cold breeze blowing in my face my insides all warmed with Dragonwell tea I was exhilarated, so I headed back to my hotel admiring all the old buildings housing shops of various degrees of odd and unusual curios and restaurants from all corners of the globe offering everything from Authetic Himalayan Cuisine to down home southern cooking and I may add- not a McDonald’s or Burger King in sight. Only in Asheville. Only in Asheville.
Tomorrow, the second part of my food journey in Asheville.
I love oatmeal. For years I used to eat Quaker Instant Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal. Loved the stuff. Then I noticed all the stuff that was listed as ingredients on the side of the box. Junk I never heard of, must less able to pronounce. I wanted a change.
Luckily, I remodeled my apartment and now have a full blown kitchen. I like to cook everything from scratch with natural ingredients. One of the first things I tackled was oatmeal. First, I had to find the best oatmeal that had nothing but oatmeal as the ingredients.
While many people swear by McCain’s, I found the real oatmeal connoisseurs loved Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats. It has just one ingredient-whole wheat oats. I tried it and was blown away. Unlike any kind of oatmeal I’d ever tasted. No artificial taste. Just pure oatmeal. Now it was on to take this oatmeal up another notch devising the perfect recipe.
You can cook oatmeal any number of ways, including in a rice cooker, slow cooking overnight, double boiler, microwaving and the traditional boiling on the stove.
My favorite and quickest, not to mention the easiest is boiling them for about 10 minutes.
Here’s my recipe
My Go To Perfect Morning Oatmeal
Serves 1 or 2
1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats
1/2 cup Milk (I use vanilla soy milk, coconut or almond milk, use whatever you like)
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon sugary spice (i.e. cinnamon, nutmeg or allspice)
1-2 tablespoons pure honey or molasses
A few nuts (I like pecans or walnuts)
1/2 cup blueberries or any other fruit
Want to take your oatmeal to the next level?
I got this idea from Cook’s Illustrated and it really adds to the flavor and unfortunately- unhealthy.Before you boil the oatmeal, add a dable of butter to a saute pan over medium high heat, then throw in the oatmeal and cook for 1-2 minutes. Man, this really gives it a nuttier flavor. I do this once a week on my “free” eat anything I wanna day.
If there was one food I could not do without, it would be bread. Give me some wine, cheese and bread and I’m happy. I’ve alway wanted to bake bread, but my results have always been lacking. I don’t mean those soft wonder bread types. I want want big crusty european kind of breads like a crusty french baquette or a big round pain de campagne (country bread).
Years ago I experimented with Julia Childs recipe for french baquette in her classic book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. I even bought some scrap tin to make special molds to bake the bread in. The results were just so-so.
To make really great crusty bread you have to have a super hot oven. Most home ovens top out at around 500 degrees, while commercial ovens can reach 1000 degrees or more. If you wanted great bread you had to go to a bakery or restaurant.
I remember reading an article few years back in the New York Times about a baker named Jim Lahey who came out with a revolutionary way of baking bread that took no more than 5 minutes to knead and resulted in a crusty bread that could be done at home. He wrote a book called “My Bread” that showed home cooks how to make crusty European style breads that takes hardly any effort, 5 minutes worth of work and presto-phenomenal bread.
For the past few weeks I’ve been working my way through the book using the no-knead recipe with amazing results. Mouthwatering, crusty bread. I’m hooked. Never again will I buy store bought bread.
Here’s a picture of this delicious bread hot out of the oven.
The only problem I have is I’m baking so much bread I can’t gobble it up before it goes stale. A huge advantage in most European breads is their long fermentation process which give the bread several extra days shelf life. In fact, this bread will taste better the second day. The bread develops a tangy taste. I’m learning all kinds of ways to use stale bread. Lip smacking crunchy croutons that make those store bought stuff taste like sawdust. Using breadcrumbs in place of Parmesan cheese in salads and pasta dishes, a great low fat alternative and surprisingly good. One of my favorite ways to use stale bread is when I’m making my rustic french onion soup by putting a few slices in the bottom of the bowl and pouring the soup on top. Oo la la!
My ultimate way to use stale bread is in just about my favorite dessert-bread pudding! Love the stuff. Made a batch last night and ate two whole bowls. I was in bread heaven.
Scrumptious bread pudding
“Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad but bread is king.”
Louis Bromfield, American novelist (1896-1956)
