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Road-fed
The green beans tasted like meat at the Loveless Cafe. Of course, I would expect nothing less from a place serving authentic Southern cooking. The beans were the closest thing we had to an actual vegetable when we went to dinner there last week. After picking up Frank Jr. at the Nashville International Airport, we drove through rush hour traffic to get to the other side of town and then some. Despite the traffic, we still arrived before the dinner rush. As we left, there were several people waiting for tables.
I read about the Loveless Cafe over the years in books like my old copy of “Roadfood,” where it alphabetically followed the sole Knoxville entry, Litton’s. Conan O’Brien, Martha Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres and others have featured the Loveless Cafe on their shows, mostly by cooking with Carol Fay, the Biscuit Lady. The memory of the Biscuit Lady is honored in the restaurant and in the gift shop. Unfortunately, Carol Fay Ellison died in April.
We ordered a family-style meal, which came with two meats and three sides. We went with the most popular choices, fried chicken and pulled pork. It looked like they had put pancakes on top of the pulled pork. No, those were hoecakes, I was told. The leftover pork found its way into the stuffing for our turkey later in the week.
Odd Squad
“Oddities” is a show that I should like. It is about the staff and customers at Obscura, a shop in lower Manhattan that specializes in bizarre antiquities. They sell gallstones, taxidermy, outdated medical tools and the like. The so-called reality show seems rehearsed and not very real.
One at a time, the episodes are tolerable. Unfortunately, my kids and I watched five episodes in a row and grew frustrated with the repetitive format and “regular” customers. A typical episode features someone bringing in an oddity, hoping to sell it to the shop. The staff asks how much they want for the item and the person quotes a price that is too high. The staff makes a counteroffer which is usually accepted, occasionally rejected. The process is reversed when someone wants to buy an item. They try to strike a bargain, sometimes bartering a performance of their sideshow act.
The staff at Obscura is likable and knowledgeable. I find it a bit implausible that Mike Zohn always knows more about the stuff people are trying to sell than the people themselves. The clientele seem to have been recruited from a meeting of Overactors Anonymous. One character claims to be a playwright looking for a straitjacket. His put-on voice sounds like a cross between Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Another character is supposedly a former embalmer turned fashion model turned designer who wants to buy a mortician’s table. One more believable client deserved better. She is an artist selling tiny sculptures made from nail clippings.
World Infamous
Of all the themed Kevin & Bean singles parties, the Losers Singles Party is perhaps the most memorable. I wrote about it in 2007 when I saw my second Air Supply concert while at a Children’s Miracle Network convention. The ’80s icons rocked the house at the mid-’90s KROQ event. It was my job to persuade them to participate.
Bill Smith was the KROQ employee who had the foresight to videotape various events and stunts. He sent a Facebook message to several former colleagues that he had found those old tapes. The first video he posted online is of the legendary Losers Party. In it, you can see me, Jimmy Kimmel, Michael the Maintenance Man, Tazy Phyllipz, Lisa May, the Armenian Comedian and many others. Sadly, the tape stops when Air Supply starts.
Egg Around
Before opening gifts on Christmas morning, my family ate a delicious wreath. No, we didn’t go all Euell Gibbons or anything. My daughter suggested the breakfast using Pillsbury Crescents and some ingredients you might think of as omelet fixin’s. She was inspired by a recipe she saw online a few years ago but has modified it to make it her own. We used Benton’s bacon because we’ve been hooked ever since my field trip there last March. During the cooking process, my wife ran upstairs to ask me for the camera, saying “you’ll want to put this on the blog.” Once it was done, they put a bowl of fresh fruit in the middle to make it look healthier. Here is my daughter’s version of the recipe:
Breakfast Wreath
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2 cans of Pillsbury Crescents
7 large eggs
¼ cup milk
¾ lb bacon
½ cup chopped zucchini squash
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped red or green bell pepper
¾ cup chopped, blanched broccoli
1 cup shredded Asiago cheese
2 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp basil
¼ tsp oregano
Pinch of rosemary
Extra virgin olive oil
Egg wash: 1 egg and 1.5 Tbsp of milk whisked together
1. Preheat oven according to directions on crescent roll package (375°F).
2. Cook bacon and pat with paper towel to remove excess grease. Crumble into small pieces and set aside.
3. Coat bottom of large skillet with oil and add chopped zucchini, onions and bell pepper when oil is hot. Sauté until soft.
4. In large bowl, beat eggs, milk, spices and ½ cup of cheese. Pour egg mixture into skillet with sautéed veggies and cook on medium heat until eggs are barely runny (do not cook eggs all the way or else they will dry out in the oven).
5. Arrange 23 of the 24 precut triangles of crescent roll dough on a non-stick cookie sheet in a circle pointing outward and with the bottoms of the triangles overlapping slightly. There should be a void in the center of the circle about 7 or 8 inches wide.
6. Sprinkle remaining ½ cup of cheese on overlapping portion of the dough ring. Place broccoli over cheese.
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7. Carefully spoon egg mixture on top of the cheese around the ring.
8. Sprinkle the bacon pieces on top of the egg mixture. Add more cheese if desired.
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9. Wrap the points of each triangle dough piece inward, over the mound of eggs, cheese and bacon and gently press the points to seal with the inside of the dough ring.
10. With the last piece of dough, form a festive bow and gently press it onto the wreath. If you are really ambitious, make a poinsettia bloom or holly branch. Be sure not to show off, however; it’s breakfast, not an art show.
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11. Use a pastry brush to coat the dough with the thin layer of the egg wash.
12. Bake for about 15 minutes or until dough is golden brown.
13. Serve hot.
Yule Haul
Hours of entertainment await me thanks to several of the Christmas gifts I received on Saturday. My sister sent a Fandango gift certificate that will allow me to take my wife and kids to a movie this week. She also sent Bruce Springsteen’s new CD of old songs, “The Promise,” which I am loading into my MP3tunes Music Locker.
Murder most foul and murder most civil were both represented. My son gave me a paperback copy of “Dexter by Design,” the fourth novel in the series that is the inspiration for Showtime’s “Dexter.” One of my brothers-in-law sent “The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries: Set One,” which I watched on PBS with my parents when I was young.
My wife saw something on my wish list that captured her fancy. She gave me “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special” on DVD. It features a plethora of pop culture figures including KISS, Witchiepoo, the Wicked Witch of the West, Pinky Tuscadero, Florence Henderson and, of course, Betty White.
The Ornamentalist
Rather than buy a souvenir that takes up counter space, my wife and I buy Christmas ornaments to commemorate our travels. Last week at the Loveless Cafe on the outskirts of Nashville, I overheard someone explaining that they do the same thing. We both walked out of the gift shop with one of their spiffy ornaments. We have more ornaments than fit on our tree but it means that each year we can display a different combination.
After several trips to St. Louis, I finally went up in the Gateway Arch this past March. We got a nice ornament in the underground gift shop beneath the Arch. It has me thinking I may need to make a return trip to Fanning, Missouri. I have a World’s Largest Rocker refrigerator magnet I bought on the day the rocker rocked but I would like to have a Christmas ornament of it too. I called them today and suggested it.
This August, I went on a field trip with the FBI Knoxville Citizens’ Academy Alumni Association. At FBI Headquarters, I bought a discounted ornament in the employee gift shop. That same day, my kids and I visited the National Archives and bought a Christmas gift for my wife. We found an ornament that reminded us of “1776,” the greatest musical ever written about the Declaration of Independence.
The ornament hanging between the ones from the FBI and the National Archive is from our July trip to the Northwest. It is hand painted with a scene of beautiful Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. After Idaho, we went to Seattle to visit my friend Bean and his wife. We got an ornament on sale at the Space Needle. You can see the portrait of Hamptons-native Julia Tyler on the 1993 White House Ornament in the background.
Bean and his wife visited the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris over the summer. They sent us a beautiful stained glass ornament that looks great on the tree. Unfortunately, my limited photography skills don’t do it justice. Maybe we were supposed to hang it by a window.
Make Glad the Heart of Childhood
Impersonating Santa Claus last week made me believe in his magic all the more. It was fun to put on the famous man’s red suit and paint my beard white even if it looked like I fell asleep face-down in a bowl of Liquid Paper. It was exciting to use my Santa voice and to ad-lib in character. What really made it a memorable experience were the kids who were just the right age to interact with Mr. Claus.
One young man wanted to put me to the test. “You know my name, right Santa?”
“Ho ho ho! There are so many names. Let’s play a game. You tell me the first letter.”
“It’s E.”
“E like Eric?” I asked.
“Yes Santa!” he exclaimed.
I thought it was a lucky guess and proceeded to ask Eric if he had been good all year and deserved to be on the Nice List.
After a few seconds of conversation, Eric said, “you also know my brother’s name.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, you know the first letter, it’s the same as brother.”
The name Brian was headed toward my lips like a runaway train barreling down the tracks. It didn’t feel like the right answer but I’ve known so many Brians during my life that it was all I could think of. At the last millisecond it veered away and I heard myself say, “You mean Brandon?”
Eric’s eyes grew wide. I was two for two.
I couldn’t stop and think about what had just happened. Eric fully expected Santa to know his and his brother’s names. Santa would continue with the conversation without wondering who had somehow taken control of his speech.
Eric’s mother was nearby but out of earshot. She came over to tell Eric not to take up too much of my time and to give the other kids a chance. They went to some of the other activities in the parish hall but Eric kept coming back to Santa. He followed me when I went to visit the senior citizens sitting at tables in the hall. I let Eric help me hand out candy canes to the older folk.
There were activity tables around the room. At one spot, kids could place stickers of the Holy Family, the shepherds and the animals onto a manger scene. At another, they could decorate sugar cookies. At a third, they could make Christmas ornaments of Santa or a reindeer or a snowman.
Eric came back to my chair yet again. “I made you a present,” he said. He handed me an ornament of Santa’s face.
“Now Eric,” I said, “I’m going to give this back to you for a moment. I want you to take it and find a pen. I want you to write your name, write Eric on it and give it back to me because that will make it extra special.”
When I got home, I put Eric’s ornament in a place of honor on our tree where I would see it from my chair. I will treasure it as much as any of the souvenir ornaments my family and I have collected through the years.
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