super gyros

Last Friday I made the greatest discovery ever. If you are remotely near Chattanooga, take yourself to 249 River Street to a darling little whitewashed building which houses Opa, a brand new authentic Greek restaurant.

The space is tiny and painted a happy, bright white inside and out, with photographs and posters of sunny Cyprus on the walls. Greek music was playing in the background and for a moment I completely forgot that I was in rainy, gray Chattanooga. There were only two full tables, one by a bay window overlooking Coolidge Park, and both were occupied so I took a seat on one of many bar stools by a wooden counter that spans the circumference of the restaurant. After reading the specials on the chalkboard menu, I went to the kitchen counter to order a lamb gyro (pr: yeer-oh) for lunch. The man who runs the place was just the nicest person and though he was the only person on staff, my lunch arrived rather quickly. 

Everyone. This lamb gyro was amazing. The lamb was perfectly cooked, so tender that I could shred it with a fork. The other ingredients were delightful in their simplicity: sliced cherry tomatoes, chopped red onion, fresh herbs, seasoned with salt and pepper, all wrapped in a fresh, airy pita. If you've never eaten Greek food before, a lamb gyro is a crowd-pleaser; you can never go wrong!

A heavenly lamb gyro from Opa!

After that amazing lunch, I had to bring something to Rob so someone could share the deliciousness with me. I perused the menu again and decided to order dolmades and fresh pita with hummus and tzatziki (a seasoned yogurt sauce) to go. Dolmades are stuffed grape leaves. They are usually stuffed with rice and spices, though sometimes ground lamb is mixed in as well. These were vegetarian. One of my aunts is a beautiful Greek woman, and her mother, who my cousins and I all call yia yia though we are not entirely related, comes to visit our whole family every Christmas. She was the first to introduce me to dolmades years ago and I've been hooked ever since. 

I sat on my barstool reading James McBride's The Good Lord Bird (excellent book, by the way...just won the 2013 National Book Award), enjoying the quiet, understated, and honestly, very European atmosphere of this restaurant. When the dolmades were ready, I was actually quite sad to pay for my meal and leave. The owner gave me an incredible Greek coffee on the house along with a copy of Opa's menu and encouraged me to learn some of the Greek phrases on the back page. He was so friendly and nice, I absolutely hated that I spilled the coffee on my way to Rob's office to deliver the dolmades. 

After I changed my coffee-stained shirt I dropped off the dolmades and pita and before he had a chance to figure out what exactly they were I had eaten at least 3. Oops...you sn-ouzo you l-ouzo! Hehe, see what I did there?

Anyway, it was so wonderful to find such an authentic and absolutely charming Greek restaurant. It is the perfect place to drop off the grid for a little while with coffee, good food, and an intriguing book. I truly can't wait to go back!

sprouts!

January is the month to put my ducks in a row, as mothers might say. My desk is clean (who knows how long that will last), my calendar updated (online and in my ever-present Filofax), and I ate my first genuinely healthy meal since Thanksgiving....hehehe.

Like most Americans, most of my meals in November and December have either been holiday feasts, or leftovers from holiday feasts. Olive oil was replaced by butter, and, as you may tell from my previous New Years Eve post, I have more than a mild love of cheese.

So, tonight I took an opportunity to prepare an easy meal that is my go-to dinner after a long, busy day at work. It's the easiest thing ever. Baked chicken, marinated in olive oil, lemon, garlic, and mustard, accompanied by brussels sprouts.

This post concentrates on the brussels sprouts, because my they are the recipients of my late-blooming love. My mother was never a fan of brussels sprouts; whenever she doesn't like a vegetable, it's typically because a boarding school cafeteria abused it. So we can single-handedly blame Kent School for my lack of experience with brussels sprouts, collard greens, and cabbage. Unfortunately, my mother graduated still liking cauliflower, as I've had to push the sadly bland albino broccoli around my plate on more than one occasion.

Anyway, back to those sprouts.

It took me a few tries to cook them so that I'd like them: soft, but with enough of a nutty crunch, and the perfect blend of spices to make them more addicting than popcorn.

It turns out, as with many things in life, the simplest recipe proved to be the most delicious. I found a recipe from Martha Stewart, added one twist, and now it's a foolproof recipe that I use "on the reg."

sprouts before....

sprouts after!

Brussels sprouts are one of the prettiest veggies. They have such lovely little blonde ruffles covered in bonnets of deep green. Look at those colors pop even more after spending a little time in the sauté pan!

Ok, here's how you fix 'em!

Sautéed Brussels Sprouts (from Martha Stewart)

Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup of EVOO
• 2 lbs of brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
• Coarse salt and ground black pepper
• Red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

If you're new to prepping brussels sprouts, just chop off the bottom and slice them in half. Let the larger, outer leaves fall off naturally. Tear off any pesky outer leaves that stick to the sprout. Don't overdo it though; sometimes the yummiest parts are the outer leaves that brown while cooking. 

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Enjoy the scent of olive oil heating up (it's one of my favorite smells!). Add the sprouts, salt and black pepper. Go ahead and toss in some red pepper flakes. Use your judgment here, you know how much your palate likes spiciness. As for me, I love red pepper flakes in my vegetables to give them a kick, but too much heat gives me the hiccups...is that weird?

Sauté these babies, stirring frequently, until they caramelize, about 8-10 minutes.

Now here's the crucial part that softens the sprouts: add 1/3 cup of water and cook until evaporated, about 2 minutes. Now pour two tablespoons of lemon juice (or the juice of a half a lemon if you like a little more tang) over the sprouts and stir to coat. 

And you're done! Serve these suckers immediately out of the pan. They are delightful. Enjoy, and don't let the boarding school veggies keep you down!

Cheers!

champagne in scenic city!

Public House restaurant in Chattanooga's Warehouse Row. How swanky awesome is that?!

My good friend Natalie and I have this ongoing joke that whenever we're together we're on "vacay." We are, therefore, allowed to treat ourselves to an expensive cocktail or add a cheese plate (or both) to our meal. Which is exactly what we did when we made dinner reservations at Public House in Warehouse Row in Chattanooga.


Public House was packed on New Years Eve, so Natalie and I found seats at the adjoining bar, The Social, while we waited for our table. We started the night off with French 75's (my favorite champagne cocktail that I first discovered while living in Dallas, TX for a summer). Our table was ready in no time, so we took our bubbly back to Public House and ordered a cheese plate.

Girls will be girls?! Myself and Natalie, New Years Eve 2013

Anyone who knows me knows I'm nuts for cheese. Y'all. The cheese at Public House. I'm still speechless. Form sentences I cannot. Wanna hear about it? Good, I'll tell you.

Beemster Gouda, goat's milk, Netherlands
Asher Bleu, Sweet Grass Dairy, cow's milk, Georgia
Grayson, Meadow Creek Dairy, cow's milk, Virginia

We chose the first two right off the bat, but had difficulty deciding which to choose for our third. When our wonderful waiter offered a cheese that "is not on the menu because it's quite stinky and not for the faint of heart..." we accepted with an eager heck yes. True to his word, the cheese was as delicious as it was stinky.

What followed the cheese was even better:

I ordered lobster bisque and shrimp and grits, a blasphemous act for anyone from the lovely land of coastline who is landlocked in the mountains, but hey, sorry I'm not sorry (though I might still be a little homesick for the Lowcountry!).  The bisque was perfect and velvety, and the shrimp and grits were also quite good! They were prepared in a red pepper sauce, lending them a smoky, spicy taste which was enough of a deviation from my traditional Lowcountry favorite that I didn't compare the two.

As for Natalie's salad and duck confit-- all reports said they were delicious as well.

We finished the meal with coffee and Bailey's, just in time for Rob and other Chattanooga friends to meet us for the New Years festivities at The Social.

The rest is history! Champagne, wine, NYC ball drop, midnight kisses, and party hats ensued.

If you're looking for a simply elegant dining experience in Chattanooga, give Public House a try. The restaurant itself is of modest decor, accentuating the amazing taste and presentation of the food. For the most part, ingredients are locally-sourced, highlighting the wonderful agriculture of Tennessee. If you go, call me and I'll meet you there for more cheese. Cheers!

New Years Rouxvolution

As the New Year 2014 fast approaches, I find myself more and more anxious to see what the future holds. Ordinarily, you'd find me to be a put-together woman with solid ideas for my career and life, however, by the day those visions become less and less clear. Lately, my thoughts have been catching flight in the cold winds of worry and perplexity that often accompany young-20-somethings whose trajectory get lost in the many arcs of the real-world, the whole world, and the world wide web. I certainly fall into the category of pesky "millenials" that the media likes to pick on.

The upside to this metaphorical sky-dive, I suppose, is that what matters, the people and places, activities and hobbies I love become anchors to the present. Family and friends for love, reading and writing for the mind, yoga for fitness, and food for any problem life chucks at me.

Ever since high school I've sought comfort in food. Not so much the eating, though that is divine, but in the preparation. Every single step in the process of cooking is spectacular to me. Cooking is the most transcendental of the arts for its sheer sensory performance. Sights, smells, textures, and obviously, taste.

Vignettes:

It's mid-October, and fall has graced Tennessee. The leaves have changed into bright patches of orange, yellow, and red, subdued by constant evergreens. The only thing to do on such a perfect day is to whip up a batch of chewy molasses ginger snaps. Like the newly dressed trees, the dry ingredients become a canvas themselves: together, the various hues of brown in the ground cloves, ginger, and cinnamon become apparent; they complement each other in flavor and color. As these beauties bake, my kitchen is left smelling like fall for days.

Molasses Ginger Snaps

On the Mountain (what we all lovingly call Sewanee) you can tell winter is coming when there's a warm spell. This year the weather reached the 70's in November. Girls walked around campus in charming spring skirts and the men removed their coats between classes. Those of us working in the student union braced ourselves for the coming of winter and, sure enough, it came bearing sleet and fog. Enough fog to inundate the campus for two whole weeks. Indeed, the fog was so thick I was unable to find my way to the grocery store one night. Scary! Returning to my kitchen, I pulled out the necessary ingredients for chicken noodle soup. The perfect meal for the beginning of a long mountain winter, with the simplest ingredients anyone could ask for. Not to mention the ease of cooking if you have a crockpot!

It's almost unbearable to think about a summer vignette when the December gray skies of Tennessee match the rooftops of the houses, but here goes. In the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, where I'm from, we keep it simple in the summer. The humid heat is so taxing that too much "fluff" in food becomes a little overwhelming. Hence, the perfection of a Lowcountry boil. If you hear a sound more pleasant than a boiling stock pot, let me know, and I might believe you, but probably not. Whoever invented the Lowcountry boil probably just threw whatever they had in the fridge/pantry into a stockpot and was shocked by the final result. The combination of shrimp, corn, and sausage can't be matched. But wait; two words: Old Bay. Gotta have it. The blissful blend of savory spices is ubiquitous along the coast and meets its love in seafood. My family eats a Lowcountry boil at least once a week during the summer. We slap some newspapers and a roll of paper towels down on the table and everyone peels their own shrimp. The meal is delicious, and the easy clean-up even better :)

The coast comes to the mountains. A summertime Lowcountry boil in western North Carolina.

I like to consider writing as an artful exercise, much like cooking. Both activities nourish the doer and the recipient in a multitude of ways. Funny how the simplest things are the most wholesome. A propos the name of this blog "roux!" A roux (roo) is a paste of flour and fat that is the base of all the incredible sauces of French cuisine. It also is the first step to all my very favorite southern meals like gumbo and étouffée. Shall we continue the metaphor game? Fat for all the flavor and richness of life and flour for living it to the fullest. "Roo" has also been my nickname for always.

I've had a poor track record in the past for keeping up with blogs, but by golly, this is a New Years resolution. No, revolution. Nay, rouxvolution! (see what I did there...?)