Holy BBQ It's Hot!

Last Saturday myself and four other friends braved the unholy hotness of August to check out the "Stokin' the Fire BBQ and Music Festival" at Sloss Furnace.

Did I mention it was hot? But oh so fun:).
As much as Sloss creeps me out, it's a great place for events. They set up a music stage in the ginormous shed near the traintracks, and we hid out there later in the afternoon for the shade.

After walking around to check out where everything was and what all was going on, we headed to the two bbq vendors and grabbed lunch. Amy bought the chicken plate from Governor's BBQ and I chose the pork plate from Fat Boy's BBQ. As far as bbq goes, we thought the food was okay.


There were two super cute kids that sat down across from us with their parents to eat a shaved ice. When Hannah asked the little boy what flavor he had, he replied, "Red!" Ah, little kiddies. I would have taken a picture of these little goobers, but I was too busy wiping red syrup off of my legs after they knocked over their ice. Life lesson #35: Food should be eaten, not played with, especially when the table it's sitting on is slanted towards me.

After, we made a quick stop at the little gift shop, picked up our handy paper fans, and then headed over to a food demonstration. The owner of Chef U (why does that make me giggle?) was grilling up some pork loin with coriander and cumin. She topped it off with a really tasty peach salsa, and I have to say it was delicious. Her earrings were super cute too, and I just had to be that person and instead of asking her about her business, I asked where she got them.

Next on our agenda: making iron tiles. Huh? you say. For $7, you could carve whatever you wanted into a pressed sand block and hand it off to a group of ironworkers; they would then pour molten iron into your pressed sand block, where it would take the shape of your carving after cooling.


The most interesting part of all this was watching these men and women walk around (for obvious safety reasons) in thick jeans, welder's masks, and leather chaps, jackets and gloves, while they worked with the iron. They must build up a tolerance to the stifling heat as I'm sure a normal person would pass out after a few minutes.


Just about that time the People's Choice Tasting started, so we all headed down to the area where the bbq teams were passing out samples. To be short and sweet, there was some tasty bbq, and some not-so-much.

The thing I remember the most from the tasting is actually a sauce. It's called "Alabama Mud," and it's made by JCs Low and Slow. They sell on etsy, and I'm considering buying some. What does it taste like? Hard to say as I've never had anything like it. It's basically the child of a mustard sauce and bbq sauce. It's tangy and sweet like a tomato-based bbq sauce, but has more than a hint of what JC's calls South Carolina mustard. It's also yellow-ish, which threw me off at first.

Once we'd finished the tasting, it was after five o' clock and we were all ready to call it a day. So we picked up our cooled iron tiles and headed home.

I'm getting itchy

Perhaps I'm just glutted on TV and movies, but I've been feeling the urge to get creative this week. I've got some silk flowers, ribbon, empty cans, and lots o' beads sitting around, just waiting to be picked up, mulled over, and somehow put together.

I think my brain is also craving projects that have a finite life. Form idea. Act on idea. See finished product. Being crafty is about so much more than acting on my imagination -- it's also about focusing my mind, following through, and having the satisfaction of seeing the product of my labor.

So much in my life in the opposite, especially when I think about my future and career. My parents talk about having plans. You know, when you create a five year, ten year, life plan of where you want to go and what you want to accomplish. Seriously, I can't even think past August. As of now, my planning skills only work a day to a week out at a time.

So, this weekend, I'll be crafty.

While I've been out...

I started a new position about a month ago with MyRecipes.com as their intern, so things have been a teensy bit busy. I am very much enjoying learning how to manage content, build galleries and articles for the site, and getting to use social networking in a professional capacity.

I have, however, managed to write a few posts for our blog, You've Got to Taste This, and I thought I'd put up the links for a little blog love, and to show off my own writing skills:). The first is about my great-grandmother's banana bread; the second is a review of a vegetarian slow cooker cook book; and the third is about my attempts at finding water alternatives for the summer. Enjoy!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Tuesday was a friend's birthday, and she was ever so clever and decided to have a theme party. She and Audrey Hepburn share a birthday, so she chose a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" theme.

Amy hosted the event at her apartment and rented the movie for us. She also requested that we all bring one breakfast item and dress up in either pajamas or Holly's famous black dress and pearl combo.

When I arrived, Amy was cooking up some turkey bacon and eggs. I'd made z

ucchini bread and set it out on one of the plates Amy's roommate had set up for the occasion. In honor of our theme, she decorated the table with black and pink cloth.

Our group has always produced some delicious potlucks, and I was again impressed by the food. Fresh fruit, cheesy grits, lemon-poppyseed pancakes with strawberries, french toast casserole with blueberries and cream cheese, eggs, hash browns and bacon rounded out our meal.

To drink, we had an assortment of juices, and one of the girls brought champagne to make mimosas.

Now, about "Breakfast at Tiffany's" -- I'd never seen the movie before, and it was nothing like I expected it would be! I thought it was alternately bizarre and hilarious. I do think my perspective was biased because I keep expecting older movies from that era of film to be much more reserved, and as a result, I found the movie to be much more shocking than I thought I would.

In all, I had a lot of fun, and I commend Amy for choosing such a good theme. I even had some zucchini bread left for breakfast the next morning.

Nashville Weekend Part II

We started Saturday with a delicious breakfast at....our Holiday Inn Express. I kid you not -- fresh biscuits, non-greasy tasty sausage, eggs, fruit and fresh coffee. Two thumbs up, HIE.

A small group of us walked down to the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame, and the area was already soaked from the rain. I thought that the museum was well organized, and they provided a lot of early history about country music that I had little knowledge of.

After lunch we walked over to Hatch Show Print shop to look at the posters. This is the one place I really wanted to check of my list, and I think what they do is pretty cool.

They are a non-profit (owned by the Museum and Hall of Fame) and they do original posters for all sorts of events using old school printing techniques. When you walk into the store, you can see the shelves where all of the wood blocks are stored. We found posters for races, concerts and fairs in the boxes. I bought a cute Music City poster to hang up in my apartment.

Claire wanted to go back to the boot shop and convince two more of us to buy a pair so we could take advantage of the buy one get two free deal. Amy got a really nice pair right away, but I took a while to look around and agonize over the boots. I didn't find the pair I eventually bought until the last minute. They're super comfortable, which surprised me, and I love the chocolate leather.

At this point, there were sheets of water flowing down the road towards the river, and several tornado sirens went off. And yet, for some reason, I really wasn't that concerned. Nevertheless, we didn't dawdle on the walk back to the hotel.

We crashed in our room (and by crash, I mean pass out and take an awesome nap) until the Derby was about to start. I think Amber woke me up -- she wanted to take bets on the race!

It had stopped raining by the time we went to dinner, which was a nice reprieve. I wish it had stopped raining all together.

We went back to Hillsboro to eat at a restaurant called Cabana. No, it wasn't cheesy beach themed, and the food wasn't tropical either, which I found odd until we got there. Set into one of the outer walls are multiple cabana-style tables, and we were fortunate enough to snag one.

I chose a couple of small plates again for my meal, and three of us shared a plate of fried green tomatoes. My dinner consisted of a mini (about a third of a lunch box sandwich) Brie grilled cheese, tomato soup and a speciality salad with spinach, strawberries, smoked gouda, almonds, red radish, and a citrus dressing.

As small as it was, the Brie grilled cheese was delicious. It was browned, but not burnt, and the Brie was much more satisfying that traditional cheddar or Jack cheese. It was awesome dipped in the soup, which was out of this world, and perfect for the crappy day! It had just a teeny bit of texture from the tomato and just a hint of herbs. The salad was good, but I liked my "Beats and Heat" from the first night better. I could make the Cabana salad at home without much trouble.

The rest of the group headed back to the hotel to rest before going out, while Claire and I killed some time before going to the Bluebird Cafe. Dessert was calling, so we drove back towards downtown and stopped at a diner called Noshville.

They had actually "closed" when we arrived in order to send their employees home. After talking with a couple of the people there, it finally hit me how badly the rain had affected Nashville already. Some areas of the city were already underwater.

After eating our dessert, we made our way to the Bluebird Cafe, and all I have to say to y'all is: if you are in Nashville, you must go see a show here! You can probably just show up and snag a seat, but I recommend reserving space online beforehand.

If you're not familiar with Bluebird, it's a small club that showcases songwriters. They sit in a circle in the middle of the club and there are tables set out around them for the audience. Our show lasted about two hours, and the performers didn't take a break once -- and they were all very good singers, and all of the songs were great.

One of the songwriters, Jaime Kyle, wrote Faith Hill's first hit, "Wild One," and it was amazing to hear her perform a familiar song.

We called it quits after the show since it started raining -- a...gain. The next morning, after another delicious breakfast, I came back to our room to find the girls clued to the news. Central Tennessee was covered in yellow and red.

We talked for about five minutes before deciding to leave as soon as possible, and it was a good choice. When I left the hotel to pack the car, sheets of water were pouring down the side street next to the hotel and we were unable to get onto the highway from downtown.

Claire led our caravan as we wove in and out of neighborhood streets, trying to find a way to the highway that wasn't blocked by a fallen tree or flooded. We finally made it to the highway and hightailed it back to Birmingham.

Nashville Weekend Part I

Yes, I was in Nashville during the Great Flood. But it didn't start out that way!

We (five other SPC fellows and I) went to celebrate Lisa and Amy's birthdays, and we stayed right downtown on Broadway, just off the highway.

Claire and I met Lisa and three of her good friends early on Friday. When we arrived, they were taking advantage of the last bit of sun by the pool.

View of the Columbus River from the end of Broadway. Now, completely flooded.

The five of us walked down Broadway towards the river to check out the bars and shopping. We stopped in a boot store to see what kind of stock they had -- Claire's friend at Vandy informed her that many stores had buy one pair of boots, get two free deals, so we had to check it out.

She found her pair right away, but I didn't immediately see anything that caught me. After, the six of us ate dinner at Sunset Grill in the Hillsboro neighborhood. I'd read about Hillsboro in Southern Living and was really curious to see how it lived up to the mag's description.

It's located right down the street from Vandy, less than ten minutes from downtown. The main drag that we visited is filled with businesses that have a trendy, uber-local vibe. It's the kind of neighborhood that you can find in any city and definitely a place I want to go back to!

I shared the seafood platter (crawfish hush puppies, shrimp and grits, one crab cake) with Claire and had a small salad, which was more than enough food. The salad really stood out for me. Sunset called "Chris's version of Beets and Heat" it included baby arugula, goat cheese, candied pecans, blood orange, fennel and golden beets. To balance the sweetness, Sunset serves the salad with a Tabasco-honey vinaigrette. It was tasty enough that I forgot to take a picture before eating it all.

Our server surprised Lisa with a delicious creme brulee!

After the rest of our group arrived after dinner, we headed out to the bars for a while (my favorite was Robert's Western World) but Claire and I called it an early night since we knew Saturday would be such a busy day.

Southern Voices

I found out recently about Micah Dalton, a singer-songwriter from the Atlanta area. His style doesn't really fit into one category, but I feel it's kind of rock 'n' roll, kind of bluesy, and a bit of country layered in.

His most recent album, Pawn Shop, came out in 2008. It tells the story of a man named Pawnshop and his experiences, and Dalton partnered with a fiction writer to create vignettes about Pawnshop to connect all of the songs.

Dalton's working on his next album right now, so hopefully in the next year there will be some new tunes!