CHEESE STOP

Way back up I-65 on the way home, there’s a wonderful place called THE SMOKEHOUSE---we stop there every trip to the coast, and I told more about it here:

http://lawntea.blogspot.com/2009/03/cheesier-and-cheesier.html


Pink pig has reigned over his kingdom since we’ve been going there, and the dusty vintage STUFF would make Cracker Barrel swoon:

With one homage to the “Aw, Shucks,” expectations of such an establishment:

We nipped in to get some real, shure-enough, Purentee HOOP CHEESE, and somehow got into the entire experience whilst we were there.

We walked up to the counter, saw that the same familiar tatty box was in residence beneath that huge black guillotine, and breathed a sigh---you CAN go home to some things again; they are still as they were, despite the changes in places and lives and circumstance. Some things endure, and we were delighted to see this old favorite still flourishing.

Miss Jeannette lifted the lid:

We looked at the slumping, softening wedges, their curled-away rinds drooping over the edges of the counter, their surface oiling with warmth and time. She looked, too, and said, “Lemme get you another one---we’ll use that for the mac&cheese.”



She immediately turned to the cooler, returning with a fresh hoop, shining roundly red as a child’s balloon, and with the same heart-lifting cheer.

She set it on the low counter as we edged into the aisle to watch, and another young woman came over to help managing the heft and thickness of the big circle. The two ladies conferred, pondering the moment like two diamond-cutters appraising a life-or-death first cut.

Miss Jeannette placed the knife carefully in the very center of the red. She slowly eased the blade downward, piercing through rind, then a gentle slide through the thick cheese, then through the bottom rind. They held tight to their work, making a clean, precise incision all the way to one edge.

She made another cut beginning at the center, angled away to approximate our “about three pounds,” and sliced neatly through the meaty round. A slide of the knife beneath, small strain of the lifting-free, and the gold emerged, rising out of that ring like an opera sequence---it was dramatic and beautiful---ordinary magic in its purest form.

Onto paper and scale, and the verdict---You may not be able to see the numbers, but she cut that thing to a perfect 3.1 on the scale, prompting my breath-held deflation of “You’re GOOOD.”

Crinkly paper, doubled, taped tight for the journey, double-bagged in thin white plastic for the ride. We wandered a bit with our prize in hand, taking in the tables, with their glass-topped collections of graffiti, business cards, phone numbers, social interactions, and scraps of mysterious writings---the hieroglyphs of the transient civilization just passin’ through Interstate 65.

I’ve noticed that every day, the little counter on the right side tells of a visitor or two who has Googled HOOP CHEESE and happened in on that old post from WAY back when I started this blog. http://lawntea.blogspot.com/2009/01/hoop-cheese.html

This here’s the REAL DEAL, the Pure D HOOP CHEESE, and I hope someday you all get to taste it.

GOIN' SOUTH II

Now see---there's nothing like a big ole tub of tangy homemade Paminna Cheese in your cooler to take your mind off a dull lunch.

We traveled off and down, forgetting that forgettable food immediately through the magic of those glorious mountains, with blue sky and floaty clouds, some of which would surprise us occasionally with a sudden little sprinkle upon the windshield, but never any real rain. Beginning somewhere in Tennessee, I looked my eyes full of crape myrtles---that's how my Mammaw spelt it, and that's how it IS---my favorite Southern flower, and impossible to grow here.

When you get on down into Alabama, they’re in the median of every highway, from palest lavender to deep rose to almost yellow.

To my favorite---WATERMELON.

Our plans were considerably changed, between planning and departure from home and arrival there, for our GA contingent did not get to join us---Gracie had been out West with her other grandparents, and her traveling companion/chaperone had other plans for the weekend, so instead of coming back on Sunday, she arrived on Friday.

Her Mom and the two little ones had planned to be with us Thursday night til Saturday night, and just didn’t feel that she could make the drive AFTER going to the airport Friday, then having to return home Sunday in time for Gracie’s departure for Summer Camp, etc. So we mightily missed our group, having all sorts of plans and fun in the works, and no one to enjoy the games and books and tree-climbing with.

We’d loaded up all the unopened snacks and pretzels and other things which we didn’t use while they were up here, and so we just brought them back home with us. We’ll probably take them back again in Sept., when we’re scheduled to meet the group in TN.

And we had WAY too much food. I’d made DD’s favorites---Chicken salad and Asian Star Noodles and Tuna Salad with apples, and her request: Devilled eggs, but all chopped up into Egg Salad. I’d also made a quart of Paminna Cheese (MIL’s favorite, in a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast, with peach preserves), and several of Kit’s Mac&Cheese, in order to heat up a quick lunch one day or the other.

The grapes and cheese are old stand-bys from Sam's, as were the big box of croissants, the brownie bites, the lemonade pound cake, the tray of small round Cheese Danish and the flat of Otis' Banana nut and Blueberry muffins. We never know how many for any given meal, and the last time we were there, we averaged 20 per meal. And this time, I didn't cook. At least, not THERE.

Our Baby Boy and his parents were also a little off plan---they stayed for supper, but did not spend the night, for her parents came down for the week to the beach house---it was the first time that all three sets of us Grands and his GGMom met him. Quite an occasion.

DS had told us that Little One just carried on the longest conversations---cooing and talking and grinning all the time he is awake. Since he’s only ten weeks, we sort of took it as Parents’ Pride, but the moment they stepped into the house, his Daddy set down the little car-seat onto the kitchen counter, Chris stepped up and spoke to him, and that little guy started babbling and talking up a storm.

He’s a chuckler, as well, just like his Ganner---a deep little huhhuh that just takes your heart.

And his little habit of giving a little baby-snort between yelps when the bottle’s empty---we’ve all been laughing at that for days. A round, compact little boy against your shoulder, hefty and warm, tolling out his dismay with Waaaa!-snort-Waah!---that was just so endearingly, hysterically funny that we were all in tears.

And such a pleasant little fellow---he got passed into about a dozen laps, back and forth, during the course of the day, with one dear aunt who hasn’t been well for a while getting right down on his floor pallet to play with him---it was just like a magical thing, that warm circle around our family’s newest---he brightened us and he strengthened us and we were exponentially all MORE for the knowing of him. We were all enchanted.

How HE might have felt about US---well, that might remain a mystery until he can use his words.

GOIN' SOUTH

We left on our coast-trip on Thursday morning, sailing along to Leonard Cohen’s sepulchrally joyous tones (first song when we hit I-65 is always CLOSING TIME, which we bellow out word for word, all ninety-nine verses, as we head for our first stop---McDonald’s down in Greenwood, where we get a BEC biscuit and one of those aching-cold tiny tubs of yogurt and strawberries with a little crinkly cellophane of yummy-crunch granola to sprinkle on). What can I say—most of our tastes are quite plebeian, plus a lot of our “dining out” is with folks under four.

We rattled along quite nicely, just cruising down and down, through Kentucky’s beginning-to-elevate, through the horse country, crossing into Tennessee, where the hills began to get serious. I love the looking-ahead, the peeping-over, the bluing of the distances as those great shoulders rise like distant ocean swells, every shade of green and blue that there is.

We’d decided on barbecue in Tennessee for lunch, and took an exit whose previous tall billboards had exalted smoke and pork to heavenly proportions. We took a right, then passed everything BUT barbecue spots, finally turning at what Chris calls a “whupper”---a place you can “whup” around and go back the way you came. As we reached perhaps the 220th degree on our circle, a name appeared, prominently featuring the word, Barbecue.

We took it as a sign---as if it had been set down there that very moment, fresh and new, just for our lunchtime. About nine pickups in the parking lot---a good sign for home-food, we’ve found, and though I sniffed no smoke in the air, a step inside the door rendered the familiar hickory-meat-sauce aroma of long-ago memory. It was as if the varnish on the knotty pine walls had been imbued with the deep-smoke scent, trapping it beneath the shine.

I ordered the usual: PP sandwich, slaw on, with potato salad and beans as sides---you have to taste all the regular items---it’s the LAW. On a table whose polyurethaned surface shone as slick as a Last Supper Clock, the accoutrements were: salt, pepper, a chrome finger-pinch napkin dispenser, and two squeezies, promising “Sauce” and “Hot.”

Chris retrieved our tray from the little order-window in the wall. After the blessing, first ritual is ALWAYS a pin-dot of each sauce onto rim of plate, then a fork-tine dip to tip of tongue. Squeezing the “sauce” bottle required the hand-strength of a bodybuilder---it was so thick it ribboned out in a little pile of loops which just sat there like cake frosting. A taste delivered naught but vinegar cooked thick with cornstarch, perhaps, and the “hot,” though a bit more liquid, was more of the same, but with a throaty afterburn.

Lifting of sandwich top revealed nice even clumps of soft pork---oven pork, if I’m not mistaken---with not the vaguest hint of crispins or edges or any association with a real pit, for the flavor was merely PORK, and boiled pork at that---no smoke at all, beneath the straight-from-the-plastic-bag bun.

Beans were adequate---big soft pinto-types in a sugar/tomato sauce, and potato salad was definitely the deli-case variety; each cube was squared off like machine-cut, and every third bite had the hard, undercooked consistency of a hunk of apple. I hoped no one was watching as I grabbed up napkin after napkin, spitting out and stashing the hard little cubes which were just not edible. After three tries, I was done.

We ate perhaps half of the sandwiches and most of the serving of beans, and passed on the peach cobbler. I do hope that there’s a good local following---travelers would have to happen upon the place, and I doubt that any would mark it for a return visit. I just keep wondering how it smelled like that. Perhaps there’s a company turning out aerosol cans somewhere, manufactured of dreams and memories, which dispense that lovely, unmistakable hickory-whiff tang of a REAL crusty-runged barbecue pit, laden with shoulders and ribs and sometimes a whole pig, watched and tended through the night, becoming succulent and flavored with the REAL taste of barbecue.

I think I'd buy a can of that.

And moiré non,

BIRTHDAY MECHANIC

I know I must have little boy babies on my mind lately, after that wonderful visit with our little 10-week-old GRAND, but I just ran across something so clever and so well done that I just had to share it.

I'm eternally amazed at the wonderful things a Mom and GrandMom can do to make a little child's dreams come true, and this birthday party was just the cleverest, most well-put-together-with-love event I've seen in a long time.

Step over to Sheila's MUSTARD SEEDS for a look and a smile:

http://sheilamustardseeds.blogspot.com/2010/07/tool-time-birthday-party.html

 

TARTES de LUNE

I love travel blogs. I love to see the places people choose to visit, to see, to immerse themselves in, far from home. It’s wonderful to see what they choose to do and see and buy when they’re on their journeys, and I especially love the ones which visit cooking stores and food shops and the open markets with their arrays of vegetables and fruit and flowers and herbs arranged in those fleeting still-life bouquets.

I’ve looked with tongue-curling envy on all the lovely boxes from Laduree’ and Fauchon, their jewel-box presentations of chocolates and pastries and small, perfect creations of sugar and cream and cake. I especially enjoy the photos of all the luscious pastel macarons, set like precious stones in the velvet of the distinctive boxes, carried gently home for another sweet taste of the trip.




We purchased these in a quaint little shop on our travels; the colors were intriguing, and the creamy ganache smooth as baby-skin. They’re called Tartes de Lune---round and luscious--- one softly tinged with essence of orange, one with the crisp tang of lemon, and the third, scented with delicate vanilla.

I’d never seen a pastry quite like them before, save for their more robust chocolate brethren, but they have a second layer of the fluffy mousse, sandwiched with another of the tender pastry rounds. We’re looking forward to trying them for dessert this evening.

Their scent is enticing, their demeanor, lovely still perfection. Their blush of color, smooth and shining, with the creamy interior cushiony and lush, all belie their humble origins and their purveyor’s plebeian atmosphere. Far, far from Paris, I admit, but so aptly OURS, so perfectly ME, that I find them charmingly alluring and simply delightful in their humble way.

TARTES de LUNE:

From the famous patisserie and purveyor of all things delicious and enticing: THE SMOKEHOUSE, in Pine Apple, Alabama.