Meat. Meat!

The first time I went to the Knoxville farmer's market, I noticed a remarkable lack of meat. Someone willing to raise and whack their own hogs, pigs, or chickens could make a killing.

Well, that guy exists, but only goes to the Oak Ridge farmer's market. Fine by me. Apparently their business from high-end resorts and eateries must buoy them enough that they don't need the Knoxville business. Laurel Creek Meats sells a remarkable variety of assorted cow, pig, chicken, turkey, and duck parts, plus more esoteric beasts as well -- goat, game birds, and Lord only knows what else. We picked up a pair of massive bone-in pork chops last week to grill today. These things were seriously huge -- over an inch thick, with a tremendous thick rind of fat on them.

Given our spartan kitchen, I just rubbed them with salt, pepper, olive oil, and some rosemary off the plant we brought with us. Turns out that was the right choice: the magnificent swiny taste of the meat shone through, and the fat rind crisped up gorgeously, the sweet fat balanced by the acidic woodsmoke. We rooted the sweet melty marrow out, scraped the dark, hugely flavorful meat from the bones, and were generally barbaric. Some grilled farmer's market summer squash rounded out the meal. (The patty-pan squash was particularly nice.)

I still think that what Laurel Creek needs the most is competition (although their prices were remarkably low for a de facto monopoly). We've found our meat vendor for the forseeable future, but someone must be able to turn out better sausage, or a nicer broiler chicken, or a hanger steak that will make me weep. Prove me wrong.

Every apricot should be bite-sized

This one courtesy of the fried pie stand at the Knoxville Farmers Market.

Review: Market Square Kitchen

Saturday morning after the Farmer's Market, which lacks the tasty breakfast sausage sandwiches that were our weekly breakfast back in Nebraska, we went to the Market Square Kitchen for breakfast.

Melanie had the French toast, which had no shortage of cinnamon and sugar, so was right to her taste. Her side of bacon was unremarkable and a touch overdone.

I got the ham steak breakfast, with the runniest dang over-medium eggs I've ever seen. The grits were overpoweringly chicken broth-flavored, and pretty hard for this Yankee to eat first thing in the morning. The ham steak, though -- ooh, boy, was that a tasty hunk of pig. Crispy around the edges, with a nice rind of fat, carmelized bits, and wonderfully salty.

Service was mediocre, coffee was passable, and no dog bowl was provided.

Review: Oodles Uncorked

Friday night we grabbed the dog and headed to Market Square, where a number of Knoxville's many dog-friendly restaurants are. The three of us walked around getting loved up (okay, just the dog) until a menu jumped out at us, eventually pulling up a patio table at Oodles Uncorked. It was devilish hot, so I ordered a beer.

Two of my favorite things about Knoxville: 1. You can get Yuengling; and 2. It's routinely one of the cheaper beers available.

I ordered the seafood fra diavolo, which was awfully tasty. They had spiked it with chili oil, not just with red peppers, so the heat permeated the whole dish. I'm more accustomed to mussels with a hefty helping of meuniere or the like, so they were a little raw and fishy tasting without anything similar, but the shrimp were perfect -- tender, not overcooked, brightly flavored. Beer, spicy pasta, nice sun -- awesome.

Melanie got the portabello sandwich, which was absolutely drenched in a to-die-for goat cheese sauce. Unfortunately, the quantity of sauce tended to drown out the other flavors -- not that that's necessarily a bad thing when you're dealing with goat cheese. She had a glass of Sebastiani Chardonnay with it, which was smooth and tremendously buttery. Not my first choice for a hot weather wine, but a nice deal on a deeply malolactic chard. The wine list in general was quite complete, with a wide range of various varietals, including organic and otherwise "green" choices.

Our dog got a bowl of water (very promptly, with ice), which she seemed to enjoy immensely, lots of love from about every server in the place.

A rudimentary kitchen; figs; strawberry salad

Our first home-cooked meal in Eastern Tennessee was, I suppose, about as good as it could be given the conditions. The conditions: a supposedly fully furnished townhouse that would actually best be described as "barely furnished," with four non-stick pans, a basic Pyrex set, a few plastic cooking utensils, no hot pads or mitts, no knives, no cutting board.

We've been eating out for about the past month since we weren't allowed to use the house while it was on the market, so we wanted something healthy. Melanie found a strawberry salad in Good Housekeeping, and we kicked it up a few notches. The original recipe was just a side, but we added some sauteed chicken and a few other bits (green onions, some goat cheese, a better dressing) to make it a meal. The dressing turned out pretty chunky and the greens were cut too big, but in my defense it's remarkably difficult to mash garlic with a pocket knife on a cutting board made of cardboard covered with plastic wrap. Check out the recipe.

We also had picked up a small wheel of goat's milk "brie" from Earth Fare (my new favorite supermarket) this weekend, and had some figs we brought on the trip, so I sliced a few wedges of the cheese, laid half a fig on top of each, and drizzled with honey. A glass of James Arthur Vineyards Edelweiss went nicely with it.

Strawberry salad with chicken

For the chicken:

3 skinless boneless thighs or 2 skinless boneless breasts
1 T coarse mustard
2 T olive oil
1 T white wine vinegar
1/2 T fresh or 1/2 t dried tarragon
Salt and pepper to taste

For the dressing:

2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T course mustard
2 T olive oil
1 T honey
1 garlic clove, mashed with coarse salt
Pepper to taste

For the salad:

1 bunch spinach
1 bunch red-leaf lettuce
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 c. toasted walnuts
3/4 c. sliced strawberries
2 oz. Goat cheese (a fresh chevre would be ideal)

Whisk the marinade ingredients together and let the chicken marinate for 2-4 hours. Grill or saute over medium heat. Let rest (even until partially cooled) and slice.

Assemble the salad. Whisk the dressing ingredients together and serve over the salad. Serves two people sick of fast food fat and calorie content but accustomed to fast food portion sizes.

Review: Sangrias

Saturday for lunch we hit Sangrias on Market Square, which I can't seem to find a website for. (It's a pretty new place.) I was wearing a Fedora schwag t-shirt and the waiter recognized it, so he got points right off.

We eschewed a lengthy tapas lunch in favor of a carafe of sangria (half priced!), a big salad, and the meat and cheese plate.

I think it's a mistake to judge sangria too harshly, and this one was no exception. We had just finished walking around the Knoxville Zoo, so we were sweltering hot and it was deliciously cold. That said, I like my red sangria a bit dry and this was quite sweet. It also lacked any significant citric tang or fruity kick, but it did what we needed it to do. It was also big and cheap, so that wins points in my book; sangria shouldn't be expensive.

The salad was excellent, with a very thick, flavorful balsamic dressing that was drizzled on lightly, not drowning the salad. There wasn't much to the salad aside from lettuce, although I have to wonder if that changes when other produce comes into season.

The meat and cheese plate was actually a mistake; we ordered the mixed cheese plate, but didn't see the need to send back such a tasty array of charcuterie. The three meats were serrano ham, lomo, and chorizo. The lomo and serrano were too similar to my coarse palate, but the chorizo was a huge, glorious triumph of charcuterie. It went magnificently with the dried fruit that accompanied the plate. There was only one cheese: manchego, and not nearly enough of it.

Aside from the shortage of cheese, it was a great light lunch (albeit a bit heavy on the sangria for Melanie). The tapas menu is brief but promising, and the daily specials look especially interesting, so we've already booked our reservations for our anniversary dinner.

Review: Taste of Thai

Friday night we went to Taste of Thai with some friends. It was a quirky combination Thai/sushi joint where, as far as I can tell, the sushi is the thing to get. Of the six of us, I was the only one who got Thai, and I regretted it.

They seem to be especially fond of their specialty rolls, which, unlike the specialty rolls at lots of other sushi joints, were not all loaded with cream cheese or other Americanisms. They also had a selection of "normal" rolls, nigiri, etc., which were tasty (albeit smaller portions than I was used to). Their spicy tuna was not spicy, and was ground tuna, which seems to be the trend but still is always a disappointment to me.

Melanie and I split some spring rolls, which were unfortunately fried, but passable. I got the basil chicken, which certainly appeared uncontaminated by basil. The predominant flavors were a) spicy hot (I ordered it three out of four for hotness, and it delivered); and b) half-cooked green peppers. It also showed up 20 minutes after everyone else had finished eating. (The service otherwise was excellent, and they were preparing for a graduation party, so I can forgive that.)

They had a good selection of Asian beers, mostly Japanese; they didn't have Singha or any other Thai beers, sadly. The wine list was short and overpriced.