Family Comes To Tennessee!

When I came back from my recent trip to Missouri, I had company with me.  Mom came down to spend a few days, with Dad coming down later in the week.

We made it total “chick time”! 

Starting even as we left for Tennessee, we stopped for lunch at an old family favorite: The Hotel Ste. Genenieve.  On Sundays they serve a “family style” menu.  You choose your meat (Mom had their roast beef which they call ‘kettle beef’ and I had the fried chicken) which comes with mashed potatoes and gravy.  Then everything else is served all-you-can-eat.  The sides are sauer kraut, green beans, their special dressing with rice in it, and liver dumplings.  Those dumplings are THE reason I was there!!!  I took my fried chicken home in a carry-out and had dumplings for my protein.

Other stops on the drive were at the peach orchard I visited in June, a TJ Maxx store, and a frozen yogurt shop.

The next day we just chilled out, visited, and cooked good food. 

On Tuesday we got moving!  A trip to Nashville was in order with shopping and a seafood class at Whole Foods (I’ll blog that later). 

We stayed local on Wednesday with a trip out to “Amish land” to visit shops, a bakery, and farm stands. 

At my favorite farm, we bought some apples that we got to pick ourselves. 

Lunch was at my favorite sushi restaurant.

Dad came down on Thursday so we just did a bit of shopping in the morning.  I grilled for supper… porterhouse steaks and a swordfish steak I picked up at Whole Foods.  None of us had ever had swordfish, so it was fun to try.  Our sides were from the produce stand we visited the day before… green beans, baby potatoes, and absolutely ripe tomatoes. 

Friday we all headed down to Nashville in the late afternoon to have dinner at Caffe Nonna (http://caffenonna.com ).  The restaurant owned by the guest chef at the Italian cooking class Himself and I took this spring.  It was FABULOUS!!!  And it was fun to see Chef Dan again.

All too soon it was Saturday morning and time for my parents to head home. 

(And HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!!!!!)