Eat Your Heart Out - Food Events in Nashville

Where do I begin? There's so much to you'll want to eat this weekend and into next week that maybe it's a good idea to live on Juice this week till the weekend and then go treat yo'self. Warning: this will make you hungry.

What: VEA Supper Club

Where/When: Nashville Farmer's Market, Saturday 4/20 @ 6pm

The Husband and I have always been huge fans of Vivek Surti's Supper Clubs. This takes place once a month on a Saturday at the Nashville Farmers' Market and this month's is going to be extra special - Vivek's mother, Lata Surti, will be cooking with him and it's going to be the best Indian food you'll ever eat.

There are still a few tickets available, you can purchase them here.

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What: Otaku South Extra Large: Five Chefs, Three Styles of Ramen, One Big Yakitori Grill + music and a full bar.

Where/When: Marathon Music Words, Saturday 4/20 from 3 - 8pm

I ate every drop I could possibly scrape from my bowl of Sarah Gavigan's Tonkotsu ramen the last time I went to one of her pop-ups and I wish I could make it to this one but there's no reason why YOU can't and shouldn't.

She's teaming up with other Japanese food pros from around the country like Guy Wong (Miso Izakaya) and Dennis Lange (Den-Chan) from Atlanta, Akiko Moorman (The Gohan Society in NYC) and Phillip Foss (El Ideas in Chicago). 

The event itself is free, you can purchase your food tickets for $12 at the door.

Win tickets to Otaku South Extra Large from Beth over at Eat, Drink, Smile! Click here.

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What: Sycamore Spring Dinner
Where/When: Catbird Seat, Sunday 4/21 @ 6pm

Tony and Caroline Galzin's Sycamore Spring Dinner is going to be amazing. Their last event featured a nose-to-tail lamb dinner, and this one will feature locally raised rabbit and I can't wait. Tony is currently the pastry chef at Flyte, and from what I've been told he's as good (if not better) at food as he is with dessert and believe me, he's AWESOME when it comes to dessert.

Menu:

Charcuterie: Rabbit liver pate, potted rillette, spring herb terrine

Spring Vegetables: Baby artichoke, shaved carrot, pickled ramp, pea shoots, ramp top vinaigrette
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Warm asparagus, salt cured egg yolk, preserved lemon, tarragon, rabbit crackling vinaigrette

Pasta: Morel tortelli, fava beans, rabbit confit
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Strozzapreti, spicy rabbit sausage, dandelion greens

Entree: Roast leg & pancetta wrapped roulade, peas, radish, nettles, lemon thyme jus

Cheese: select spring cheeses from The Bloomy Rind, pickled green strawberries, house lavash, local honey

Dessert: Rhubarb bavarois, strawberry sorbet, basil, black pepper shortbread

Each course will be paired with wines hand-picked and donated from Nashville's wine expert Tom Black. And don't be concerned with dining solo because you won't and you'll be surrounded by some extremely cool people that evening.

Get your ticket here!

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And please don't forget, on Tuesday 4/23, I host lunch at PM Nashville with Chris Chamberlain for Dining Out For Life. We'd love to see you, bring your friends, come eat anytime between 11am and 2pm. Details here.

Food Bloggers Against Hunger

I am against hunger. No, this isn't me making a joke about how much I just love to eat food. Today, I and hundreds of food bloggers in America take a stand against one of the biggest epidemics that isn't discussed - poverty-stricken hunger. 

Local food writer Jennifer Justus was inspired by the documentary, A Place At The Table,  and reached out to the food bloggers here in Nashville about joining the good fight. Today, we are asking you, our friends, families and readers, to join us in fighting hunger in America. Right here in Nashville, in our own backyard, there are families who have to survive on food stamps and who are at risk of having that program taken away from them.

A few facts:

• 16 Million CHILDREN in America aren't getting the food they need.
  
• Food stamp participants are only allocated $4 a day to survive. Let's see Rachel Ray do a show on $4 a day.
  
• 1 in 4 children in America don't know where their next meal will come from.
• SNAP—the nation’s food stamp program—is at risk for severe cuts that would impact millions of families, especially children, that rely on school meals and food stamps to survive.

(source)

I'm not talking about a third-world country, I'm talking about the United States of America. This is our backyard, and it's shocking how this is happening yet most people choose to ignore it.

Oh, by the way, it is HARD to buy groceries for just $4. However, it's not impossible and it takes some strategy. One of our challenges was to either come up with or adapt a recipe that someone who has a very limited budget could make instead of eating microwave pizza or junk food all the time. It's hard, but not totally impossible.

Ground Beef & Green Bean stir fry: (original recipe here).

I used fresh green beans but frozen ones are just as nutritious. I went to Kroger and looked at what I could find for $4.

• Ground beef that's pretty lean from Kroger is $2.96/lb. The recipe only calls for half that.
• Brown rice is $1.66 for a 2lb bag and that will last several meals.
• Eggs are 99 cents for half a dozen.
• You can get frozen veggies for $1.09**

**Applying for one of those Kroger Plus cards will get you all sorts of discounts. There was pasta that was going for $1 for $10, same for canned vegetables and frozen vegetables.

The More You Know

Here are some other facts I found:

• In March alone, more than 66,000 households in Davidson county applied for SNAP.  (source)
• North Nashville, East Nashville (by Cayce Place), Edgehill are a few of the food deserts in Davidson Co. (source)

The local food bloggers and food writers and I would like to invite you to join us on Monday, April 29th at the Downtown Presbyterian Church for a free screening of A Place At The Table. The screening will be followed by a food advocacy fair and I've been told that some local chefs will be there to provide us with their take on how to make healthy, low-cost meals so, free food!

The event starts at 6pm, and the screening begins at 6:30pm.

If you'd rather just get started on fighting hunger, here are some ways you can help:

• It takes less than 1 minute to write a letter to congress asking them to support anti-hunger legislation. This is especially vital here in Tennessee where we have state legislators looking to punish families by stripping them of their food if their children don't perform well in school.
  
• Volunteer locally: One of the non-profits in town trying to educate families on how they can eat better and provide their families with nutritious food is the Martha O'Bryan Center which can always use more volunteers and donations.
  
• Another way to work with a local organization is to volunteer or donate to Second Harvest Food Bank or organize a food drive, collect some decent quality canned goods and donate them to your local food bank or to Second Harvest (which also sends food to the Martha O'Bryan Center's families).

It's a challenge to shop on $4 a day but it can be done. We should count our blessings, and we should appreciate the food we're able to eat because there are many many more people who aren't even half as fortunate.

To find out more about how you can help, visit The Giving Table. There you'll also find a list of other food bloggers and their recipes so do check the list out.

Do you have a recipe that's easy to make? Please share it with us as well and if you have a blog, it's not too late to add a post there and share it with your friends.

Ground Beef & Green Beans

This is my go-to dish when I want something hearty but not fussy to make. And there's always enough leftover the next day for a good lunch, plus the ingredients don't cost much!

I Used:

• 1/2 lb ground beef/pork
• 1 lb green beans, chopped into 1 cm segments
• 1 - 2 garlic cloves, chopped or diced, whichever you prefer
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 cup chicken broth or vegetable broth
• 3 tbsp cold water
• 1 1/2 tsp corn starch
• Crushed red pepper, salt and pepper to taste.
• Optional: 1 tbsp oyster sauce

Cook the meat in a pan or a skillet till just browned. Season with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Set aside on a plate. Use a paper towel to wipe off any access bits. Make sure oil/fat didn't drip down the side of the pan before setting it back on the stove.

Using the same pan, heat oil on medium heat. Add garlic, let it sizzle for a bit til fragrant. Combine cornstarch, soy sauce and water in a bowl or cup and set aside but keep handy.

Add beans and stirfry till they turn a little darker green. Carefully add the chicken stock and fry a bit more till the stock starts to bubble/boil.

Quickly stir and mix the cornstarch/water/soy sauce concoction making sure there are no clumps of starch. With one hand, carefully pour the mix into add to the bean/stock mix, all the while stirring with your other hand. Lower heat once everything's been combined and starts to thicken. Taste, and add a bit more soy sauce if you want.

Add the meat back into the pan and stir everything together. Season to taste. Dish it up and serve with rice. I also like to add a sunny-side-up egg on top.

Enjoy!

Come have lunch with me on 4/23 for Dining Out For Life

On Tuesday, April 23rd, I will be co-hosting a lunch at PM on Belmont Blvd. My co-host is the awesome author, blogger and a true Southern Foodie, Chris Chamberlain who is also one of the contributers to the Nashville Scene's Bites Blog. If you haven't gotten his book, you must, especially if you want to keep up with some of the best restaurants in the South.

PM will donate 75% of your food bill to benefit NashvilleCARES and Dining Out For Life. This is a great opportunity for you to not only contribute to a good cause (HIV/AIDS awareness) but you get to stuff your face with delicious food.

I highly recommend the PM Burger or Mee Krob Chicken Bites (I like to order a bowl of rice to go with it) and their sushi's not too shabby either. If you're a fan of sweet potato fries, I encourage you to order those and, if you can bear to, share with your friends. Here's the menu if you'd like to plan ahead. It's a PDF, sorry.

Lunch with me and Chris starts at 11am that day till 2pm. No need to RSVP, just show up, bring your friends and enjoy a delicious meal.

We look forward to seeing you!

Old Made Good

Spent a part of that gorgeous Saturday we just had shopping at Old Made Good's new location. The space looks great, everything's really nicely laid out and this won't be my last visit.

I picked up an old, wooden ladder I've been looking everywhere else for and once I've done what I need to do with it, maybe I'll share before/after pics!