Old Red Boots on the Move

Alice, Matt and Myself at the Tour de Fat 

Dearest readers, I'm sorry with the lack of an outfit post today. Things in my world have been a little crazy lately and my posting will be fairly sporadic for the next few weeks, so bear with me. First of all, my Great Uncle Saully passed away on Friday and was laid to rest yesterday. He was a most wonderful man, full of life and great stories until the end. He had a jam-packed 90 years and while I'm so sad to see him go, I'm thankful for the time I had with him and how he chose to live. He is truly an inspiration. 

Additionally, my friends Matt and Alice are in town from Colorado and we have been having a blast! There has been karaoke, BBQ, flea market, Tour de Fat and even an Jonathan Richman show. I love having the opportunity to host friends at my house and show them all the goodies in Nashville. Now, if only I can convince these lovely people to move here in a few years. :)

In other news, I've quit my old job and will be starting a new one next month. I don't discuss work on the blog because honestly, that isn't what this space is about and I have no intention of boring you fine readers, but I'll just say that this is a great change for me and I'll be looking forward to the new challenges. I expect to be very busy with all the new work, so please be gentle if I'm slow to comment or respond to emails.

So here's to changes and Uncle Saully!

Nashville Food Friday: Bella Nashville

I'm constantly on the quest for delicious pizza. As a native New Yorker, of course New York style pizza is my favorite, but I've come to the conclusion that true NY style pizza does not really exist in Nashville (with 5 Points Pizza being the closest thing). This means I have to branch out and learn to love different styles of Pizza. Lucky for me, Bella Nashville makes amazing wood oven pizzas, similar to what I had in Italy.

Located inside the Farmer's Market on Rosa Parks Blvd., Bella Nashville provides a very casual dining environment. Steve and I went on a Saturday and the place was packed! Once you order, you wait for your name to be called, which was about 20-30 minutes (for fresh pizza that's acceptable to me). We grabbed a seat at their eat-in bar and waited our turn.

Bella Nashville offers fresh sodas with house-made syrup. Steve ordered the lemon soda with basil and I had the orange soda with mint. This was the perfectly refreshing on a hot day and a great compliment to the pizza.

All the pizzas at Bella Nashville are personal size, so Steve and I decided to order two and split them. The first one we ordered was the Meat Pizza, with thin sliced country ham, mozzarella, crushed tomatoes and basil. This is a very simple pie, and done very well. The ham itself had a really nice flavor and provided a good dash of salt. The dough was cooked well in the wood oven, leaving the beautiful tell-tale charred marks around the edge.

For our second pizza we went for the daily special: the spring chicken. It contained honey-lemon local chicken, chard, roasted green garlic, aged Gouda and sheep's milk cheese. Holy Hell this was amazing! I have to say that my favorite part was the blasts of flavor I got when biting into a spot of that roasted green garlic.

I really like Bella Nashville's overall vibe. All their ingredients are super fresh, as any restaurant located in a Farmer's Market should be. The staff was friendly and the pizza was tasty. What more can you want for a summer lunch?

Bonnaroo Day 4: Festival Food

By the time I woke up on Sunday morning I was pretty much ready to call it a weekend and head home. Bonnaroo really knocks the life out of you. After staying up super late to see Empire of the Sun (the best act besides Paul McCartney), I was exhausted. I spent most of Sunday morning walking around like a zombie, punctuated with periods of random naps. I was able to pull myself together to catch half of Jeff the Brotherhood. They put on a really great show and it made me so happy to see the Nashville locals play a big tent. I hung around to see Wild Nothing and Holy Ghost! as well. Wild Nothing was fun to see live and they really appreciated having the chance to play Bonnaroo. Holy Ghost!, on the other hand  looked bored out of their mind and seemed as apathetic as you'd expect a Brooklyn band to be. The singer spent most of the set with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL.

By this time of the day I was hungry and decided to get one of the ubiquitous Bonnaroo arepas. These arepas are greasy yellow corn cakes with mozzarella cheese inside. Honestly, they looked kind of gross, but boy did they taste really REALLY good. I guess it's true; things that are bad for you are the ones that taste good. I felt that I could've eaten two of these, but I'm happy I stopped at one because I know for a fact my stomach would hate me for it.

After my obligatory arepa adventure I headed down to the main stage to catch The National. They put on an amazing performance and really got the crowd riled up. They played a good mix of songs from The Boxer and High Violet, as well as some standouts from their new album. There were a few moments when I teared up a bit, but hey, The National always makes me cry. It's a mark of a good band.

Source

I was able to run over after The National to see most of David Byrne and St. Vincent. I was lucky enough to see them earlier this year at the Ryman and I had a great time seeing them again, especially since they worked Wild Life into their set. I plan on naming my first child after Mr. Byrne. 

I walked back to catch Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers who took the normal Sunday night jam band slot. Both Tom and his guitarist Mike Campbell were really noodly on some songs, my guess to satisfy the hippie masses who wanted Phish or Widespread panic. The massive sing along to 'Free Falling' was EPIC and a perfect ending to my weekend at Bonnaroo.

But since Steve & I hadn't had dinner yet, we couldn't go home without shoving something else in our faces. After many recommendations from the American Poster Institute guys (Boss Construction, Lil Tuffy, and Methane Studios) I decided to get some pizza from Spicy Pie. We got the regular pepperoni slice because they were out of their namesake Spicy Pie. It was OK for festival food, but nothing to write home about. The slice itself was pretty big, but for $6 it better be!

I'm home now and trying to catch up on sleep and life. Getting readjusted to the real world is hard. I would like to extend a big thanks to the folks at 44 Communications and Big Hassle Media for taking a chance on a local Nashville food blogger!

Bonnaroo Day 3: EatBox and Roberta's

Have I really been here for 3 days already? Somehow I feel like I've both been here forever and just arrived at the same time. This is the closest thing to sleep away camp an adult can get. Everything is just stating to blur together. On the plus side, I feel like I finally figured out where everything is located. Which is a totally perfect thing to do on your absolute last day here. C’est la vie.

In the morning I was able to catch Cults, a few songs from Two Gallants and most of Death Grips. With so much awesome going on at the same time I was just running around from tent to tent. Because the day was really hot, I retreated to some shade for a tad bit of shut eye.

I went to EatBox for lunch. They specialize in meatball meals, either in a bowl or on a sandwich. After talking to the counter lady about her recommendations, I ordered the PCB (pork and beef balls, hashbrowns, bacon, and a honey scallion sauce). I was totally underwhelmed by this meal. The meatballs themselves were soggy and rather bland. It appears that if they were seasoned, their spices were washed off in the liquid they were sitting in. The hashbrowns weren’t anything to write home about and reminded me of something that I would get in a Waffle House. It also appeared to be missing the honey sauce that should have been splashed on top. I guess the lack of line should have been an indication that this food truck would be less than stellar. 

Credit: Danny Clinch

I was able to see all of Bjork’s set, which was amazing. She had a full choir and a calliope on stage. I really enjoyed the orchestration of her songs live; everything was different than on the album, making this a totally unique experience. I’ve really wanted to see her since middle school, so this was a really special treat for me. Since I wasn’t really interested in seeing Jack Johnson after her, I took a nice break and relaxed with some friends.

Steve and I decided to have a late dinner at Roberta’s pizza. Roberta’s is located inside the Christmas Barn, which has air conditioning, is decked-out in twinkle lights and has a DJ. We tried the margarita pizza- one with pepperoni (which was actually salami), and one without. I don’t know how Roberta’s can make something so good so far away from their restaurant, but they totally do! This was an absolutely perfect pizza. We kept raving about their tomato sauce, which tasted fresh, plain and simple. What would I have to do to convince Roberta’s to open up a location down in Nashville!?

Credit: Steve Cross

My final band of the night, who didn’t take the stage until after 2:30am, was Empire of the Sun. EotS are basically David Lynch’s Dune: The Band. This band was the soundtrack to my marathon training so I was totally giddy like a schoolgirl when I saw they were on the bill. They were nothing but EPIC. The costumes, the dancers, the video screen, the whole production was better than some Broadway shows I’ve seen. I’m sure there is a very slim chance that I will get to see them perform ever again since they're from Australia, but I would be willing to travel pretty far to get a glimpse of them in the future.

Bonnaroo Day 2: Fatback Collective and Cracked

Recapping day 2 already? Bonnaroo is the ultimate time suck. Yesterday I got up and heard the news that Mumford and Sons officially cancelled, and were being replaced with Jack Johnson. So, since neither were bands I'm interested in, my plans (taking a nap during the Sat. headliner) didn't change. What I did do is try the Fatback Collective's pulled pork sandwich for lunch.

I've had my fair share of pulled pork sandwiches over the years, but this might be the most tender, juicy one I've had. You can taste the slow cooked piles of love that went into this. The pork had the most perfect color and not one bit was dry or overcooked. It was simply prepared with a dash of sauce and a couple of pickles, but when the meat is this damn good, you don't need to cover it up with anything.

After my fairly early lunch I headed to catch Charli XCX. This girl is a teeny tiny powerhouse that dresses like an extra from Clueless. Plaid skirt? Check. Crop top? Check. Massive platform sneakers? Check. Charli XCX is pure pop music and I feel like a super tween fangirl for liking her as much as I do. To prove how much she loved the 90s, Charli covered Backstreet Boy's I Want It That Way. 

And I finally got to see DIIV! They have a really beautiful guitar sound, and according to a garbled statement early in the set, their keyboard player quit that morning. Despite their setbacks, I really liked their set. After DIIV, I wandered over to see Foals who put on the best show I've seen at Bonnaroo so far. There was so much energy and passion in their set that the crowd went wild lost their minds. I was for sure bopping my head and screaming along. If you ever have the opportunity to see Foals, DO IT.

Since I can't go more than 3 hours without eating, I stopped back by the Food Truck Oasis to sample something from Cracked. There are few things I like more in this world than a perfectly cooked egg and I know I'm gonna love a truck that makes this humble food their star ingredient. I did what I had to do and ordered the Goy Vey (bacon, hard salami, hash brown and a fried egg with sweet and spicy cream cheese on a ciabatta roll). This was glorious and for sure the best breakfast-for-dinner I've had in a long time. The sweet and spicy cream cheese made this not your regular run of the mill breakfast sandwich. The only downfall was the hash brown was fairly thin and hard to discern amongst all that fluffy bread.

What Bonnaroo at Night looks like to me

After food I checked out Wu Tang Clan for my friend Jeff who insisted I see it. There were 15 dudes on the stage and a whole bunch of kids making the W with their hands. I think this whole show went over my head. Then it was onto Sir Paul McCartney who put on an epic set that was everything I expected and more (I honestly can't say anything about Paul that hasn't been said before, so I won't even try). Would I be lame to say I teared up a bit during Hey Jude? After Paul I wandered around catching bits of the late night shows including The XX, ZZ Top and Pretty Lights. This is why it's so easy for your day to get away from you at Bonnaroo!

Now it's time for me to head back into Centeroo to see some more bands! 

Bonnaroo Day 1: Gastropod and Roti Rolls

Good morning folks! Well, let’s just say that Bonnaroo is off to a roaring start. We got up bright and early yesterday, grabbed our friends and headed down to Manchester. We got our tent set up in time to see local Nashville boy Richie kill it on the Miller Light Stage. He played with an expanded band that included the ladies from Birdcloud and Tristen.

After Richie, I waited around Centeroo to try and catch DIIV who I was really excited about seeing, only to find out they missed their plane and had to reschedule. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch them today!

So to cheer myself up after missing DIIV I went to GastroPod over in the Food Truck Oasis for a snack. I ordered the white corn cake, which was a very fancy arepa. Arepas are ubiquitous at Bonnaroo and seems to be the kid's food of choice. But this wasn’t your garden variety/food vendor stall greasy arepa. The dough was light and fluffy and had not a bit of grease. The cheese on top was fresh and tasted vaguely of goat cheese. The slaw on top, made of cabbage and carrots, remained crisp despite clearly being soaked a long time in vinegar. That slaw was the jam and they should put it on everything...

And look at that! They do! (get out of my head GastroPod) Steve got their Dirty Chips, comprised of potato chips, a paprika based spiced mayo, and that amazing slaw. I wasn’t blown away by this, but for a $4 snack at Bonnaroo it’s a pretty good deal.

After the snack we went to check out Araabmuzik, who has highly entertaining lighting fast fingers.  He is one of the best “one dude on the stage with equipment” acts I’ve seen. HE WAS ACTUALLY DOING STUFF! Amazing, right?! The crowd obviously liked it too because there was some early in the day crowd surfing.

Then we went back to the campground to partake in a crawfish boil. It was a great communal experience because I was able to talk to a lot of people as we waited along the tables for our food. Once those crawfish were dropped people went crazy on them. It was even a few people’s first time having crawfish and I think they really enjoyed the experience. Me on the other hand, let’s just say that I ate myself sick and I won’t be eating crawfish for the foreseeable future.

After I made sure I sufficiently stunk from crawfish, I made my way back to the stages to check out Japandroids. I really liked their last album and it was my first time seeing them live. There was lots of bouncing around and WHOO OHHH OHHS going on. I left their set a bit early to see Father John Misty who put on a really good show. His stage moves were sexy as hell, although he kind of looked like an epileptic belly dancer at points.

After Father John I met up with Steve in the food truck area again where we got another late night snack. I feel like Bonnaroo is designed for food grazing, seeing as there are lots of tempting small options everywhere you look. We went to the Roti Rolls truck where I ordered the Thurman Murman. (Braised pork, creole mac & cheese, and kimchi).

I’ll be honest, the combination of things inside the Roti was weird. The kimchi made everything taste like vinegar which did not mix well with the mac and cheese. But the Roti bread itself? THAT WAS AMAZING. I feel like this truck should just have  a basket full of Roti so I can order that as a snack every night. 

I would say I had a fairly successful first day! (And so did my stomach)

Bonnaroo: The Music

So Bonnaroo isn't all about the food. People generally go for the music if I'm not mistaken. Those crazy kids and their rock n' roll. Since I can't stuff my face every hour of the day, I plan on seeing my fair share of music. And let's just say that this year's line-up is pretty amazing. It's going to be very hard to choose! So in no particular order, here is a list of bands that I would love to catch. And I've even made a playlist! Check it out here!

Paul McCartney

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Bjork

Wilco

The National

The XX

Grizzly Bear

Empire of the Sun

Tame Impala

Foals

Father John Misty

Holy Ghost!

Cults

Four Tet

Japandroids

Death Grips

DIIV

Charli XCX

Am I missing anyone that you think I should see? Let me know!

Cats in Space!

Happy Monday folks! It's really hard coming back from a really nice weekend to a Monday. I know I'm going to sound a lot like Garfield here but I am not liking this Monday one bit. 3 day weekend please? Plus with all the stuff I feel like I need to get ready for Bonnaroo, I'm a total stress ball. I know it's a music festival and should be fun- so why am I totally stressing out about it? Deep breaths.

On Friday night I was able to hang out with a friend of mine who was back in town after moving to LA not that long ago. We had a nice night catching up. On Saturday I cleaned the house and finally started to watch Game of Thrones. I know I'm years behind on this, but I'm finally making time for it and I'm really happy I did. I've watched maybe 5 episodes of the first season and I'm totally hooked. Later in the day I met up with fellow local blogger Aubrey and my girls Leah and Stephanie and went to the Native Backyard BBQ at Fond Object. There was a waterslide, music, beer, brats and free doughnuts from Glazed (I might have eaten more than one). It's events like these that make me totally love my neighborhood.

After the BBQ Aubrey and I went over to see Tony Hale, who plays Buster on Arrested Development, at the Hey Brother! event. While Tony Hale was awesome, the event itself was pretty awkward. Some local band played a short set before the event even started, something that wasn't on the tickets. And then for some reason, due to poor planning, they showed an ENTIRE episode from the first season. Let's be honest, if you are at this event you have probably seen that episode multiple times and have no urge to pay money to see it again. Also, the dude who interviewed Tony was a douche and didn't appear to have any knowledge of the show and didn't know how to ask interview questions. Rookie mistakes y'all. But Buster was funny and I had a great time hanging out with Aubrey!

On Sunday my amazing foodie friend Ana Beth hosted a brunch at her place. She is one of the few people who I totally implicitly trust when it comes to food. We had savory bread pudding, currant scones, kale salad and some amazing cocktails. I ate more than I should have but whatever, I'm honored to eat her food!

And where was Steve all weekend? He was with his band Scale Model recording their new album over at Battletapes. They have a gaggle of new songs to put down and I'm proud and excited for them. The band works so hard and I know how much they have been looking forward to recording!

So in honor of the the new record, I'm wearing the new limited edition Scale Model tshirt designed by Funky Catsterz. It's a fat cat floating in space shooting laser beams from its eyes! I couldn't be more in love with this design or all the other awesome things that Funky Catsterz makes. I highly recommend checking out her shop and taking a gander at all the amazing cat artwork. I really want a few for my new office! You can also order the tshirts on Scale Model's bandcamp.

Shirt: Scale Model Funky Catsterz

Skirt: American Apparel

Leggings: Drop Dead

Necklace: Betsey Johnson

Shoes: No clue where I got these

Nashville Food Friday: Miel

Miel is one of those restaurants that have been on my radar forever but I never got around to eating there. Shame on me, right? What kind of food critic am I?! Well lucky for me my dear friend Catie scheduled her birthday dinner there. Celebrating an amazing lady and eating fine french food? I'm in. What we got was an amazing meal followed by some very awkward customer service. The moral of the story is: Do not go to Miel with a 12 person party (even if you call ahead and they say they can handle it).

The decor is pretty sparse and minimal. They did the best they could with cinder block walls, but you can still see that the building is made of cinder block. There is really no good way to dress up cinder blocks, but I think Miel did a really good job of working with what they got. Their outside patio is lovely and secluded and looks like it would be a great date place.

Steve and I arrived a bit earlier than everyone else so we were able to take advantage of their happy hour deal and snag a $5 strawberry mojito. This drink was fresh and the strawberries were sweet. This might be one of the best happy hour cocktails I've had in a while. Probably because you can't get more springy than strawberries. Later on in the evening I ordered an Old Fashioned after someone else ordered it and let me have a taste. It was a great stiff drink; not too sweet the way some bartenders tend to make them.

Miel started us off with an amuse-bouche of pork terrine and cornishon on a cracker. I'm always a fan of chefs that start the meal of with an amuse-bouche. It gives the diner a taste of what is to come and let's us get to know our chef's palate. This was a very simple dish, but it was quite tasty. Everyone at the table enjoyed this.

We ordered escargot for the appetizer. Steve and I haven't had escargot in years and we certainly aren't experts on the dish. I thought the snails were cooked well and tender. I was also a fan that they came already de-shelled. Steve thought that some of the snails had an odd bitter taste, but he liked the texture. But we both agreed that the herb butter sauce served over the escargot was amazing. I even had to ask for another round of bread so I could soak up all the sauce. I'm a dipper at heart, baby.

For dinner I ordered the duck breast (shocker!) and rillette with farro and chow-chow. The duck was cooked to a perfect medium rare with the right color red in the center. I also enjoyed how thinly the breast was sliced. The dish was great, but I felt it was a little small for the $29 price tag.

Steve ordered the scallops with truffle and a lemon preserve. Steve loved this dish, mostly because he is a big fan of lemons. Another friend ordered the same dish and she found the lemon preserve just too sweet and didn't eat it at all. For the price, I felt like they should have served more than just 3 scallops. If they served 4 or 5, I think that would be more of an entree size meal.

For dessert we split the fig bread pudding with caramel sauce. I was impressed because the dessert wasn't really all that sweet. My mouth wasn't blasted with sugar and that was a nice surprise and a very fitting end to the meal. I love anything fig, which is why I ordered this, but I didn't really get any heavy notes of fig. For me, I would have preferred some thick chunks of fig in the pudding, or roasted and served on top. I think this is a dish I'm going to have to make for myself, with the aforementioned amendments.

Everything was great until it was time to pay our checks. But to explain this fully, it requires a bit of back story. Miel is a small restaurant and the birthday girl wanted to make sure they could accommodate a 12 person party. After a bunch of back and forth with the owner, they decided that we would be offered a reduced size prix fixe menu. When we heard about this, we were excited. The birthday girl was supposed to get a copy of the menu the week before the dinner, but she never received one. After emailing with the owner and not getting any responses, she passed this task off to a friend to try and handle. So we were all surprised and confused when we sat down and were handed the regular full menu. Weren't we having a set menu at a preset price? NOPE! I guess Miel forgot all about that.

Ok, so we moved on and made the best of it which was easy to do because everything on their menu sounded amazing. Our waitress was very meticulous about taking orders and did them clockwise around the table. She even asked each person if their ticket was split or shared at the beginning of the meal. Everything seemed under control until our checks arrived. They were all wrong. I think out of our 12 person party, about 8 people had wrong tickets, including our friend Anna who had EVERY dessert on her tab. So when we explained to our waitress what went wrong, she took all the tickets away and promised to come back with them corrected. THEN A LOT OF TIME WENT BY.

She came back and was apologetic and said that the computer had gone haywire and was messing up our tickets. When I got my next ticket, it was also wrong. There was an extra dessert on it and an entree I didn't order. So we told the waitress again, who took our tickets, and then DISAPPEARED AGAIN FOR SOME TIME.

The next ticket I got had a steak and something else on it. Not even close to my meal. The waitress then asked me to tell her exactly what I had so that she could start over and run it as a new ticket. Shouldn't she have that info? Shouldn't this have been done as soon as they realized the computer had gone crazy? Anyway, I listed off my two drinks, appetizer, entree and dessert and she disappeared again. At this point, there were only 4 people left at the table. Everyone else had figured out their checks, paid and went home. Around this time the manager came over and apologized for the computer issues.

When she and the manager brought back the revised ticket, she said they had already charged it to a card. It wasn't my card, but Steve's. Do we look the same? Do I look like a Steve? So, Steve paid for my dinner and I had to pay for his. When I told the staff that I didn't appreciate it because my meal was more expensive than his and he shouldn't have to pay for what he didn't eat, THEY OFFERED TO CHARGE MY CARD MORE AND GIVE ME CASH TO PAY STEVE BACK. Umm.... nope. A restaurant is not an ATM. Steve of course didn't mind paying for my meal, but it's the principle that confuses me. This is where after getting 4 different tickets and a mix-up they should have offered to comp something to make up the difference, not to mention that we were there for at least 45 minutes trying to pay and leave. WE ARE TRYING TO GIVE YOU OUR MONEY- WHY U NO TAKE MONEY?!

The staff at Miel told us their computer isn't setup to do split tickets. I find that odd, but whatever. The worst part is we had planned around this fiasco from the beginning by agreeing to a set fixed-price menu that they never provided. The staff was apologetic, but I felt they could have done more on the customer service front. You see that the natives are getting restless? Bring them a drink. You keep charging a bunch of people for a creme brulee that they didn't order and you can't figure it out? Just comp the mystery brulee and move on.

Honestly, the food was amazing. The chefs are clearly doing something right. And I would totally go back to eat there, but I would not go with a party larger than 4. They seem unable to handle that.