Deep Fried Kudzu

It’s Amazing Counseling
West Monroe LA, 2006.

I’ve been meaning to try to make the Caribbean Room’s Mile High Pie since I first had it, before the restaurant closed (and ultimately became Jack Rose…a little bit from that visit at the bottom of this post to see the change). Mile High is an ice cream pie with dark crust, layered chocolate / vanilla / strawberry / meringue, and capped with chocolate sauce poured over.

ohmygoshhhhh it is crazy and fabulous and so over the top. What kind of tall, tall pan can I make this in? Let me know, please, if you have a good idea. Judy Walker put a recipe for it in the Times-Pic in ’14 but it sounds like she’s saying make it in a regular pie shell and I don’t think all that layering is just going to happen that way (though I could be wrong). I can see it going

1/ Leaning Tower of Pisa,

2/ Leaning shack of Greenbrier, Alabama (which finally succumbed),

3/ Puddle of chaos on kitchen floor
(no pic, but in my first place right out of college, I made sweet and sour sauce in a blender, the top came off, and the kitchen was doused in red sticky evvvvvrawherrrre)

Also: there’s a really fine history of the pie here, along with pics of the restaurant in its first iteration.

Anyway. As I said, the Caribbean Room doesn’t exist anymore (that space now being Jack Rose) but just to set the scene, it was this:

The servers all in suits, Pontchartrain engraved on the silver, the cocktails perfect…

speckled trout pontchartrain with hollandaise, shrimp, wild mushrooms:

tournedos of beef with wild mushroom and potato puree:

and the fun continues, tableside

Jack Rose is there now, there’s a nice rooftop bar in the building, and the hotel — the Pontchartrain — is maybe my favorite non-FQ hotel in New Orleans. Posted about it earlier this year. The hotel’s interior designer, Andrew Alford, also did the Graduate Hotels, and while it’s a different look, it’s his signature fun. And it is fun. xoxo!

Above, 2009
Below, 2017
Roadside Bar-B-Que
Birmingham AL, 2017.

Seventh Day Adventist Church
Maryville TN, 2017.

(more in a series of wonderful things before all this that will forever be wonderful)

Our visit to Le Cirque in Las Vegas:

Le Cirque is what you want it to be: an immersive experience. You’re there, you’re a part of it, they’re so pleased you’re a part of it, we’re just all having this wonderful thing together. Oh, let’s please do this again soon.

Le Cirque is more than just a name — those fabulous fabrics making up a tent, the fanciful decorations and motifs…

Hello, old friend.

egg amuse bouche with a mousse filling and petal atop

St Germain flambeed foie gras with sesame, tapioca, elderflower gastrique

crispy spatzle

rabbit symphony 

Burgundy snails in black garlic herb butter, pernod, licorice ‘salad’

potato crusted Mediterranean sea bass, braised leeks, pinot noir verjus

creme brulee

 

chocolate ball: white chocolate ice cream, hazelnut caramel crunch

…which melts once the server pours hot chocolate over

…and a goodbye gift of these treats, including macaron

It was perfection, perfection, perfection. The boys were at camp on this visit, but can’t wait to take them for next time.

Alleyway
Birmingham AL, 2017.

Visited the Mullin Cemetery in Robinsonville MS a couple of years ago,  where so many of the monuments are handcrafted

RIP — We Miss You — In Loving Memories

Sunrise // Sunset

He Wasn’t the Best but G-d Knew it was Time for Him to Rest // Love Ya the Family

Thinking of beautiful trips we’ve made (before all this)

Anne and I took a day to visit Milky Way Farm in Giles County, Tennessee — when she first mentioned it as an idea for what we call our ‘field trips’ I was thinking “Milky Way as in the constellation?” but the founder was Frank Mars…so…exactly. In 1930 after establishing an office for his Mars candy company in Nashville, he purchased the land, and had 800+ people working on the farm’s construction soon thereafter. The farm was the largest employer in the county during those early years.

On the National Register, the home itself is Tudor Revival with quarry stone, stucco, and half-timber. There isn’t much known about the architect, James F. Drake.

A 25k sqft 35-room house with 21 bedrooms and 15 baths, the dining room includes what’s believed to be the largest dining table in Tennessee:

This table with seating for 40 is giving me serious seder vibes and I want to think about reserving it for first or second night when we’re back to doing that kind of thing altogether. Can you imagine what fun? I can see myself having the requisite four glasses of (prob) Manischewitz, more Bartenura, plus whatever anybody else brings that’s classier and more interesting (brought back from Israel for extra points), then passing out from blissful exhaustion in one of those 21 bedrooms. As we say, next year in…um…well, Pulaski.

The living room is two stories and connects with the dining room through this wrought iron feature:

After the initial part of the tour with a brief history, we were invited to tour the rest of the home at our own pace:

ah, this cedar closet:

Frank Mars passed away in 1934, before his dreams of fully developing the farm took place. In stepped his wife, Ethel, who established a stock of Herefords, and led the horse racing effort, culminating in the farm’s Gallahadion winning the Kentucky Derby in 1940 (Gallahadion’s damsire (maternal grandfather) was Reigh Count, who won the Derby in 1928).

The grounds include a magnolia plantation — at one time, one of the largest in the south

From the home, we were off to explore more of the grounds, including the stables.

This puts me right in the mood to sign the kids up for riding lessons — but can we do the part where afterward they’re just low-key and comfortable on a horse if we want to go on a ride on vacation, and not asking for an Arabian and a, you know, stable in the backyard complete with chandeliers?  Ha!

Eyes
York AL, 2017.

Santas
On the Square, Oxford MS, 2017.