...and we're back!

by caitlin

i'm officially back as a bff with all my other bffs (which fortunately includes most of my friends. we're all pretty into food and only a couple people don't live in brooklyn. sorry, hoboken residents). i've been gone too long to tennessee and north carolina.

today was my first real day back and tyler and i walked with devon down to the blue sky bakery in park slope where she's hopefully going to be working this summer. they have totally delicious muffins.. i think the one i got was a raspberry pineapple but i could hardly eat half of it because we had also just got sandwiches for from farmer in the deli. also, after months of teasing them, i finally ate a "la yogurt" at pat and todd's house this morning. it was guava-flavored, of the sabor latino line, and i have to say, it was quite good. i just think the name is hilarious. la yogurt.

i intended to dedicate an entire post to the food we ate in tennessee, but its just going to get rolled into this one. i know, lay-ZAY. we were there a week ago, but in between then and now i was staying at my parents house getting my wisdom teeth out and was asleep on the couch all week. so much for vacation.

so joan's aunts have a cabin in gatlinburg tennessee and she and laura and devon and i drove down there to spend a few days as a little graduation vacation. i'd never been there, the home of dollywood, and was expecting a quiet little secluded mountain cabin. we got that, but to reach it we had to drive through this weird vegas-y strip of "attractions:" ripley's believe it or not, miniture golf, magic shows, music shows, every chain restaurant known to man. yuck. we were glad to arrive at the cabin after our 12 hour drive to cook our first meal of tortolini with pesto and sundried tomatoes, with a mixed green salad and honey mustard dressing.

in the morning, after some bird-watching on the deck, joan and i decided to make breakfast for everyone, which consisted of eggs scrambled with garlic and herb cheese, carmelized onions and sundried tomatoes. we also had delicious bread to toast along with it.

that night, after antique shopping down in the town, we tried out the grill.

i had brought tomatillos and pineapple and jalapeno to make a grilled green salsa. it turned out pretty well. luckily our group was 87% vegetarian (devon's math) and we also grilled veg burgers with the works and had orange slices in our blue moon belgian white beers.

it was a joyful feast.

the next morning we tried out one of the many pancake houses spread throughout the towns. i think the pictures from that are on joan's camera because i don't have any. it was a pretty good example of southern dining establishments: big food, big people, smoking section. totally outrageous to four little girls from brooklyn. we all got stacks pancakes filled with various fruits, smothered in whipped cream and butter, syrup on the side of course. i also got syrup on my i heart holland bag because i set it in a puddle on the floor. boo.

after looking around at all the tennessee mountain craftpeople, we went back to cook feast number two: macaroni and cheese with tomatoes, black bean burgers, salad, and "guacamole" (the avocados we brought were so hard and i didn't have the foresight to ripen them in a paper bag, so i just tried chopping them up really finely and mixing everything up together. the results were okay..). this was our last night so we were trying to eat as much as we could. we burned the burger buns on the grill and the ketchup bottle broke so we could only salvage a little, but it was a delicious collabo dinner anyway.


we decided to spend our last day in dollywood, after a breakfast (at shoney's!) of grilled cheese. the food, like everything else at dollywood, was great. unfortunately, no photos exist of the 'maters and 'taters we ate (skillet-cooked potatoes, peppers and onions topped with "cheese" and fried green tomatoes dipped in ranch dressing). totally delicious. on our way out of the park, we got kettle corn and candy.

i drove us out of tennessee to my parents' house in charlotte. my mom had seemingly been cooking all night waiting for us, and we found a feast of cavatelli pasta and broccoli (also known in my family as "broccoli and bombs"), eggplant baked with cheese and tomato, caeser salad, olives stuffed with feta cheese and bruscetta. for dessert she made little strawberry shortcakes!


that fanatastic meal transported us to bed. after the girls left in the next few days, i got surgery and ate nothing but applesauce. sorry i don't have pictures of that.