Memphis Eats: Dinner at Iris, Finally!

We heard about Iris before we even moved back to Memphis, and I think we've called every weekend at the last minute trying to eat there, and they've been booked every time.  We finally got in Tuesday night, and it was packed!  On a Tuesday!  That is nuts for Memphis.  It was great.  We drove up and it felt like New Orleans.  Its in a small house in Overton Square and has a neighborhood feel to it.  There are a few outdoor tables, and you walk inside to a packed house.  It really felt just like some of our favorite New Orleans restaurants, and for good reason. The chef, Kelly English, is from southern Louisiana and trained under John Besh (who has some awesome restaurants in New Orleans like August and Luke).  Anyway, dinner was awesome.

I started out with the sweet corn griddle cakes with crab ravigote.  They were amazing.  It was like a mix of a crepe and a corn pancake with layers of crab in the middle.  So so good.

I took the pictures with my Iphone so not that great.  For dinner, I had the flank steak.  It had a great flavor and was served with some spicy rice.

Again, kind of hard to see, but it was thin slices of flank steak with a side of rice tucked into this green cone. Not sure what the green was, so I didn't eat the outside!  Brian had the "surf and turf" new york strip stuffed with fried oysters and blue cheese.  It was delicious but very very big and filling. 

For dessert, we had the creme brulee that was coffee flavored with beignets on the side. It was an awesome combination.

Overall it was an awesome meal and the restaurant has great ambience- it felt so much like a New Orleans neighborhood restaurant it felt like we were there!  It is definitely a big, fancy meal and not the type a place you would go every week (unless you had a really big food budget!), but so worth going for a special occasion or if someone else is paying :)  We have the 3M rep, Scott Stumpf, to thank for treating us to this awesome dinner and being able to get the table in the first place.  Apparently his mom is somehow related to the bass player for Wilco and is friends with the chef's mom.  Scott's mom hooked the chef up with front row Wilco tickets, so the chef hooked Scott up with a table!  And we got to enjoy the awesome food.  We will definitely be back.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Last night I cooked!  I'm going to try to get on a cooking kick.  We'll see how that goes since tonight we're eating at Iris.  oops.  Anyway, I made Classic Chicken Tetrazzini from September's Southern Living and it was delicious!  So I thought I'd share the recipe and some pics.  Here's the recipe:

Classic Chicken Tetrazzini (click on this link for the actual recipe to print)
This is the full recipe, but I split it in half and it was enough for 2 with leftovers.

1.5 (8 oz) packages vermicelli rice (I used Chicken Rice a Roni and cooked it without adding the flavor pack)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups milk
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp. chicken bouillon granule
1 tsp. seasoned pepper
2 cups freshly grated parmesan cheese, divided
4 cups diced cooked chicken
1 (6 oz) jar sliced mushrooms, drained
3/4cup slivered almonds

Boil the chicken.  I split the recipe so I used 3 chicken breasts and that ended up being about 2 cups, so for the full recipe, use 6. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare pasta acoording to package directions. 

I made the Rice-A-Roni according to the directions on the back and left out the chicken seasoning pack.

While the rice is cooking, melt butter in a dutch oven over low heat.  I used our fabulous red Le Creuset dutch oven that was a wonderful wedding gift from Michelle Drinkard!  Go ahead and measure out the flour, milk, wine, bouillon, pepper, and 1 cup parmesan cheese because you have to do some continuous stirring once you start.  Once the butter is melted, whisk in 1 cup of flour until smooth. It should look like this:  

Next, gradually whisk in milk and wine:

Cook this over medium heat, whisking constantly, 8 to 10 minutes until mixture is thickened and bubbly:

Next, whisk in the bouillon granules, seasoned pepper, and 1 cup parmesan cheese.

Congrats, you just made Mornay sauce from scratch!!  Remove it from the heat.  Your chicken should be finished boiling now and the rice should be finished.  Drain the chicken and shred or dice it.  Drain your jar of mushrooms and add them to the sauce.  Next add your cooked rice and chicken.

Spoon the mixture lightly into a greased 13x9 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle the slivered almonds over the top (the almonds were yummy on top so I'd add extra).  Then sprinkle on the remaining 1 cup of parmesan cheese.  Tada!  Bake it at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.  It came out looking like this:

It was delicious!  Probably not the most healthy meal ever, but very good.  Southern living says it "freezes beautifully".  We had it with a salad with mandarin oranges and feta cheese with balsamic vinegarette dressing.  Yum!

Music Monday...My Own Sinking Ship

My new favorite song is "My Own Sinking Ship" by Good Old War.  XM radio has been playing it a lot lately, and I really like it.  I also have a feeling that its one of those songs that is going to get played a million times and I'm going to hate it later, so lets enjoy it while it lasts!



A couple of other favorite songs that are older, but I really love and they don't get a lot of radio time, are Band of Horses- Funeral:



And Drive by Truckers- Two Daughters and a Wife.  I love, love, love this song.  This is one of my top ten songs.  Its sad and sweet and kind of haunting and you can just listen to it over and over:



If you like Drive by Truckers, they are playing at Minglewood Hall in Memphis on September 17.

Memphis Eats: Dinner at Sweet Grass, Brunch at the Arcade

This weekend, my mom and and dad came into town to visit.  We pretty much ate the entire weekend.  Oh, and my mom spent her required two hours (and two visits) at the Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma Outlets.  We had a great weekend and tried a new restaurant and loved it!  We will definitely be back.  We always talk about what restaurant we would take our friends from out of town to when they visit, and Sweet Grass just took over the number one spot.  We also love Harry's Detour and I'll have to take some pictures there soon.  Sweet Grass is in Cooper Young at 937 South Cooper Street.  They have Small Plates, Medium Plates, and Large Plates.  I really love that because I like eating an entree but am usually not hungry for a big entree and this makes you be able to try a small plate and medium plate and not spend a ton of money, which is what I did and it was delicious.  They also have a good wine list and every bottle is $26 which I also think is cool.  That way Brian and I don't have to do our usual awkward picking the second to least expensive bottle off of a fancy list. 

I started with the Fresh Vegetable Gazpacho.  It was delicious, refreshing, flavorful, and light.  We got on a gazpacho kick in New Orleans and I have been looking for somewhere here that can satisfy the craving, and the gazpacho at Sweet Grass measured up.  We had gazpacho at Hunt Phelan (the rest of our dinner was really good) and it was almost like a tomato chutney.  It was too thick and too sweet and we couldn't eat it.  We did take it to go, and I put it on top of a pork tenderloin the next night and it was really good.  Anyway, get the gazpacho at Sweet Grass.  It is perfect. 

After the gazpacho, I had the Chicken Jambalaya.  After spending two years having every kind of yummy jambalaya in New Orleans, I was a little nervous to order it here.  It ended up being great though!  Didn't taste like the New Orleans style jambalaya, but I like this Memphis style.  It was really fresh tasting and not as heavy and the flavor was delicious.  It had chicken and sausage and country ham with tomatoes and corn and okra.  The combination was yummy:

Brian had the Pork Osso Bucco which was soooo good.  It was extremely tender and the flavor was so great.  He wants to go back already and get it again.  He had already eaten half of it before I could take a picture so no picture, but really delicious.  Mom had the scallops and they were yummy:

Dad and Jenn had the shrimp and grits and said they were great.  They also had a couple scallops on top and everyone loved the scallops.  So, overall Sweet Grass gets two thumbs up.  We will be back very soon, and itis new at the top of the list for visitors!  I embarassed everyone (ok just Jennifer was embarassed, but she gets embarassed if you ask someone for directions) and took a picture with the chef, Ryan Trimm.  I told him it was for my blog and he would probably be disappointed if he saw I only had 8 followers, but oh well!

And some pics with mom, dad, Jenn, and Brian:

For breakfast yesterday, we went to Brother Juniper's and it was a hit.  For breakfast today, we headed to the Arcade Restaurant.  It was founded in 1919 by Speros Zepatos and is Memphis' oldest restaurant. 

I had the sweet potato pancakes, and they were really good.  The pancakes were a close second to the sweet potato pancakes at the Pancake Pantry in Nashville.  The Arcade is always a good breakfast with standard breakfast food and a cool atmosphere. Brother Juniper's still has the best breakfast in Memphis so far, but the Arcade gets style points for being the oldest restaurant in Memphis!

I know its not Music Monday....but can you teach me how to Dougie?

I know its not Music Monday, but no one really reads my blog anyway to keep up with any sort of Webbsite blogging standards, and this is pretty important and I have to share with those not so fortunate to be in a city on the cutting edge of hip hop and R&B.  If you met Mrs. Sarah Farmer, you might not realize she is a closet hard core hip hop and R&B fan but she busted in to pedo this morning and dropped this little jewel on me and changed the pace of pretty much my entire day so I just had to share.  Sarah explained that she listens to Memphis' K97FM almost exclusively while riding to and from school every day and they play this "like a million times a day and we just have to hear it".  Sooooo here you it.  This beat was bubble gum, so I had to chew it:



Amazing right?  Kind of can't stop listening to it.  If you're like me and are not so much rhythmic or dancey, you might find this instructional video helpful:

The Newest Addition to Our Family...thanks Katie Ham!

So I was on Facebook and saw a post from Katie Ham saying that a cute little German Shepherd had followed her home on her run a couple weeks ago.  She sat on her front porch and Katie saved her and brought her inside.  She called the Humane Society in Nashville and looked on Craigslist and Petfinder and all around the neighborhood and couldn't find anyone looking for a dog.  No collar and hadn't been eating much.  Anyway Katie put her picture on Facebook and the rest was history.  She waited a while to see if she could find an owner, and when no one surfaced, she drove her up to Memphis last Friday:

We took her to the vet and she is about 7 months old based on her teeth.  She is also about 20 pounds underweight, but if Coco is any kind of judge, we know how to fatten a dog up.  We are having a little trouble because Coco is about 10 pounds overweight.  Figuring out how to fatten one dog up and skinny another one at the same time is a bit of a challenge, so nobody tease big Coco if you see her.  We googled German names and decided to name her Ayla.  Coco is not sure what to think about her new sister.  She is sort of less than pleased but I think she's coming around:

Ayla is convinced they are going to best friends.  Coco is not so sure. She is so sweet!

Red Dress Gala in Jonesboro with Dr. Burris and friends

This Saturday, we were invited to the Red Dress Gala in Jonesboro, Arkansas by Dr. Burris, who Brian works for.  We had a great time getting all dressed up, and I got to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while and meet some new ones!

All dressed up with Kelly Gwynne Fergus, Emily Gairhan, and Kendall Jones.  I went to dental school with KG and Emily and haven't hung out with them in a while so it was so much fun to get to see them again because they are both awesome!  And, just met Kendall, but I had to admit to her that I've been reading her blog since I got to Memphis.  It was sort of stalkerish, but I think she has a lot of fans so hopefully I didn't freak her out too much.  She has a lot of great recipes with step by step instructions and photos, and she has got quite the following!  Check out her blog and bookmark it! 

Kelly Gwynne and her neighbor in Jonesboro who is so much fun looking prommy!

Kelly Gwynne and her husband Jay.  KG is an orthodontist and is the Fergus in Fergus/Burris Orthodontics where Brian works.  Jay is a dentist in Jonesboro.  They are the Doctors Fergus, or as we like to call them, the Fergi.

Afterwards we headed to Cregreen's Irish Pub in Jonesboro downtown.  Fun times with fun people!!  We got a taxi ride home with Tina, then the next morning sat at our hotel for an hour and a half waiting on a taxi to take us back to our car only to give up and be rescued by The Daniel Holsinger.  Thanks Daniel!!!

Pedo Party at the New House!

I haven't been doing much blogging so I'm going to do some catching up tonight.  First off, last weekend we finally got the house somewhat unpacked and set up.  Still have some leftover random furniture that Brian said we should give away as door prizes to anyone that came over, but we didn't have any takers...We took a few pictures, but I should have taken more!  We have six second year residents and six first year residents, and almost everyone was able to come with their spouses and kids.  It was fun to get to use the new kitchen to make dinner for everyone, make some of my favorite appetizers, and use some of my party paper products.  I have come to realize after getting married that I have a bit of an addiction to paper products, napkins, decorations, serving platters, tablecloths, and anything that I can say "it would be great for a party".  I have more of these "party supplies" than I've had parties in my life.  I get it from my mom and she got it from her mom.  I wish I had pictures of my mom's party supply closet for any occasion.  Anyway, it was a great excuse to have everyone together and meet their families annnnddd use party supplies!

The Kunkels on the couch and their cute daughter, and Kevin on the left!

Scott and his fun kids eating some dinner!  They were super party kids and stayed up watching cartoons at our house later than anyone, annnddd Scott says they sleep in until 11 every day.  Lucky!

Karen and her husband who just had a baby one week ago!

Kate and Renalie and some of the food.  I went with my go to entree- Poppyseed Chicken Casserole.  This is my favorite meal my mom makes, and its easy and yummy.  I think every southern mom has some version of this casserole.

Braving the 100 degree heat to eat on our back patio.

                                                           Sarah, Renalie and Emily

Thank goodness Kate and Chase were smart enough to bring this awesome train track and trains.  All the kids got here and we realized we had nothing fun for kids!  They saved the day with this- the kids loved it.

And here are some of us earlier that day at an outreach event at a community center in Memphis.  Check out my awesome white socks.  Stylin.

Memphis Politics

After living in Memphis for four years, we got a good taste of the craziness that is Memphis politics.  Moving down to New Orleans was not much of a change as far as all of this stuff goes, but in returning here right in the middle of the primaries I felt I had to highlight a few of the things that can be learned from our great candidates.  I can say that this commentary is truly bipartisan because I don't really know who any of the candidates are, and its really more about political flair, signage, and campaign slogans because I do think this great city can serve as a model for future politicians of America.  I am going to highlight 3 important lessons that can be learned if you want to be a successful politican in Memphis. 

Memphis Politics Lesson #1: Picking the perfect campaign slogan
The first sign I saw that I really liked the slogan was this one:

Sorry its hard to see.  Taken while driving with my phone.  What I had to appreciate with Mr. Moore is his direct, to the point approach.  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".  Only in the south would people appreciate this saying I think, and the lingo probably wouldn't fly in New Yawk, but the man has a point.  Sometimes, fixin things aint all its cracked up to be.  And that is his platform. 

The next billboard that caught my eye, was this one: 

Again, you have to appreciate the direct approach.  Pick the main drag headed to downtown Memphis and throw this sign up, and you're sure to get a few votes.  Anybody who has spent any time in Memphis knows about ol Willie, and I'm not even going to get into that.  Just have to appreciate the direct approach of this billboard.  No flags, red white and blue flowery words, or happy family photos here.  Love it.  I thought it might be a joke, so I came home and googled it and got a little more info:

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/072010-the-forgotten-9th-district-candidate

Memphis Politics Lesson #2: Signage Placement

Now I will be the first to say that nothing annoys me more than driving by an open bit of grass and seeing it filled with a million red and blue and yellow and white political signs.  Especially the same person's sign over and over, buttt I had to appreciate the perfect placement of these signs:

This is really a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, but its really a win win situation for everyone involved.  There's so much going on here its hard to say what catches my eye first, the KFC, the watermelon stand in the background or the wide variety of signage we have going on here.  I just can't decide whether Willie Moore saw the opportunity here and added his hand painted Soul Food Restaurant sign where you can get catfish, hot wings, and chitterlings for 5.99 or if the ever present politicians saw this eye catching corner and Willie Moore's sign and decided this was a signage hot spot.  Always a mystery, but either way, placement is key.

Memphis Politics Lesson #3: Never underestimate the power of the write in vote

Now here I really should have done a little more work on my photos because these signs can be found all over Memphis and this one is really pretty weak:

So apparently this guy is going for the write in vote.  This sign, with the simple "AwGo?" was spotted while driving down Union.  The other, better, signs have his slogan "AwGo What?" (which also happens to be his last name) annnddd a picture.  If anyone can post a better picture, please do.  Just got word that he is officially on the ballot:

http://rssmemphis.com/tag/ernest-lunati/

Along with AwGo on this esteemed list of potential mayorial candidates is Silky O'Sullivan:

Silky is the owner of the Beale Street hot spot and self-titled, Silky O'Sullivans Bar.  It is a great spot featuring "The Diver", a delicious drink served in a bucket to be shared with friends...or goats.  When we first came to Memphis the goats drank beer dtraight from your bottle, but I believe the animal rights activists stepped in and put a stop to the beer drinking goats.  The goats were quite sad and probably went through some serious withdrawals, but they still have their home at Silky's, just no more beer:

Anyway, back to AwGo, or Lou Awgowhat as his name will appear on the ballot.  Apparently he was a patient of a dental student that just graduated and discussed his political aspirations with his student doctor during his many visits to the dental school.  Lo and behold, the big moment rolled around and he is hitting the streets hard with his hand made signs and unique approach.  So the moral here is never be afraid to go for the write in vote.  In Memphis you never know what's going to happen, so aim high!