From left: Zack Sunda, Kale Carm, Rachel Elfezouaty, Fatima Bahloul. (Photo: Michael Donahue).
Loaf isn’t your average slice of food truck.
“Our style of cuisine I would describe as New American with a focus on Memphis and deep South dishes,” says Loaf chef/co-owner Kale Carm. “Also, inspiration from a lot of influences and ingredients from immigrant communities in Memphis.”
Loaf, which opened about two months ago behind First Congregational Church at 1000 Cooper Street, features a variety of unique offerings, including Carm’s take on an East African collard greens dish he learned how to make in Kenya. “It’s collard greens cut thin and quickly braised. It’s not like our collard greens. It’s soft, but a little body to it.” Instead of ham hocks, Carm uses chile ancho, a dried chili. “It has a smoky, umami flavor.”
The Tomato Tomate, a seasonal item, is “a play on that classic Southern tomato sandwich … just a slice of fresh tomato with mayonnaise and salt and pepper. But instead of pepper, it’s based on Oaxacan mole negro. I take mole sauce, dehydrate it, and grind it into a powder.” He uses McCormick mayo. “It’s the No. 1 mayonnaise you find in Mexican and Central American homes.”
Carm was a “very adventurous” eater growing up in Memphis, but after trying sushi for the first time at age 10, he says he “got into eating the most far-out things I could find.”
He began cooking professionally five years ago to earn money for a trip to Southeast Asia. He asked his friends who own Lamplighter Lounge, “Can I bring some food up here and sell it on Friday night?”
He made pupusas, which are “like a Central American pancake but made with corn masa instead of flour and usually stuffed with beans and cheese and pan-fried.”
He also made Thai curries. “I was going to Thailand and wanted to get a feel for the food I was about to eat.”
Carm took notes in restaurants in Thailand, Laos, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore on his trip. “I was sitting as close to the kitchen as I could, watching everything and figuring out how I could recreate it.”
Back in Memphis, Carm started a pop-up called Round Table Food at Lamplighter and Launch Process Coffee. “I would pick a different style of cuisine that we didn’t have in Memphis. Like, I did Japanese home cooking.”
In 2019, Carm moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked as a cook at Uchi, a fine dining Japanese restaurant, until he was furloughed after the pandemic hit.
Back in Memphis, he began cooking for First Congo Food Justice Program, which provides home-cooked meals to those in need. Carm purchased a food truck to continue preparing food while the church’s commercial kitchen was under renovation.
The name fits perfectly. “Our truck is a renovated Airstream. It looks like a big loaf.” And, Carm says, “I am a bit of a loaf. I’m a little lazy.”
He and his business partner Nick Riley operate the truck. “Our tagline is ‘Modern Memphis Cuisine.’ I really want to give back to … and honor Memphis as much as I can.”
Loaf offers a range of exotic fare, but the Memphis Honey Gold fried chicken sandwich — a thigh dipped in honey gold sauce — is the most popular item. “Memphis is known as a city for barbecue, but Memphis has the highest-quality chicken wings. Honey gold sauce is a very Memphis-y chicken wing thing, so I translated that to our honey gold sandwich.”
Carm once took the sauce for granted. “I didn’t realize it was a Memphis thing until I moved to Texas and I couldn’t get it anywhere.”
Honey gold sauce is “something pretty much every wing shop in Memphis has.” And, Carm says, “It just seems very Memphis to me.”
I am not even sure how I wound up sailing in a North American Championship regatta, but there I was — after a brutal day of races that soaked me outside and, after what I can only describe as a Lake Erie bidet, inside as well. We drifted back to the hosting yacht club where a pleasant but serious fellow with a phone in one hand was pointing at the darkening squall line with the other. “Glad you’re back,” he said. “The radar says you’ve got about 30 minutes before that hits.” Well, if the previous three hours were the longest in my life, that “30 minutes” was the shortest; about seven minutes later, we had to tie up and abandon the boat to its fate.
Sailing is one of those sports that, were it not so damned expensive, you’d ask yourself amid the alternating soaking cold and the wicked heat: “Screw waterboarding, let’s send them sailing!” And, like other expensive hobbies such as duck hunting, golf, or almost flying into space, sailing tends to turn into a lifestyle choice. Which raises the age-old question: What do you do with a drunken sailor? Or a whole dock of wet sailors who’ve recently left their expensive lifestyle choices to the whims of Neptune or some watery goddess who feels compelled to torment sailors?
You feed them rum. It’s the drink of island paradises, prison colonies, and drunken sailors. The sailors’ rum is Mount Gay from Barbados, and it’s hard to go wrong. It tastes like, well, what rum is supposed to taste like. The company gives out just enough of its red baseball caps at regattas to make them the sought-after sailing accessory. If you’re really hep, the hat will be terminally sun damaged.
Pusser’s Rum is trying to break into the market by sponsoring regattas and making sure that the hosting yacht clubs are slinging a lot of discounted product. I’ve reviewed Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof rum here before, which tasted to me like rum-flavored moonshine. Perhaps it wounded me on some emotional level because its standard expression had hints of the same. Still, as I crowded into the yacht club with the boat owners grimly searching for their insurance agent’s phone number, they were practically giving the stuff away in nifty little tin mugs. It was called a Pusser’s Painkiller, and depending on how much pain you are trying to kill, you mix 2, 3, or 4 ounces of Pusser’s with 4 ounces of pineapple juice, 1 ounce of cream of coconut, 1 ounce orange juice, serve on the rocks, and grate with nutmeg.
I’m not really a tropical drinks kind of guy, but this was actually very good. If you are a tropical drinks sort or an avid Jimmy Buffet fan, the Painkiller is likely right up your alley, so give it a whirl while it’s still hot. For me, it killed the “moonshine” nose of Pusser’s but raised the question: If you have to drown it in fruit juice and coconut cream to get it down, why drink it at all? Well, in this case, some young thing in a regatta shirt just handed it to me, and sometimes that’s reason enough.
The squall passed almost as quickly as it came, leaving the boat dirty but unharmed. I started sailing about 10 years ago when writing a story on the Delta Sailing Association down in Hernando. I was told that I really couldn’t do the story justice unless I learned how to sail. In truth, they were really just short of crew. At any rate, a decade on and I’m up in Cleveland at the North American Championship, vividly not qualifying for the Worlds. Maybe all this inland sailing divorces you from old naval traditions because the crew I learned to sail with all drink martinis.
Justin Fox Burks
and Amy Lawrence (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Being stuck at home for months, Justin Fox Burks and his wife Amy Lawrence turned to the pan during the pandemic. Instead of vegetating, they wrote a cookbook about preparing vegetarian meals for two.
“We were cooking vegetarian meals for two, morning, noon, and night,” Lawrence says. “We weren’t going out to eat or having anybody over. So, the publisher came to us and we agreed on this idea. And it turns out it’s a really good idea. People are responding.”
Vegetarian Cooking for Two: 80 Perfectly Portioned Recipes for Healthy Eating is the couple’s fourth cookbook. “Simple” is what they went for, Burks says. “There’s nothing that takes a particular set of skills ahead of time. You’re not going to have to study up on chiffonade or brunoise your red peppers. It comes together very quickly.”
Also, he says, “We used some prepared ingredients like salsas and sauces, so you don’t think you’re making everything from scratch. One of my favorites we do is a sheet pan stir-fry with peanut sauce, and it uses any vegetables you have on hand.
“Instead of cooking it in a wok, which has you sort of manning the wok the whole time, you just spread it out on a sheet pan and stick it in the oven for 20 minutes. It’s crispier. The flavor gets concentrated and you don’t end up with a watery stir-fry like a lot of people do when they try and stir-fry at home.”
Spiked Hot Cocoa Tiramisu is one of Lawrence’s favorites. “You use marscapone cheese and whipped cream,” she says. “We put a quarter-cup of bourbon in it. We like Blue Note Bourbon. We put hot cocoa mix in it and dark chocolate chips and mini marshmallows on top.”
The book is divided into breakfast and brunch, salads and handhelds, soups and stews, hearty mains, and desserts. “The first chapter is directions on how to shop,” Burks says. “How to think about cooking every day for two.”
They instruct the reader on “how to go to the grocery store and shop for the smaller can of coconut milk or a jar of salsa that will fit this recipe, so you don’t end up with a bunch of odds and ends in your refrigerator.
“If you’re a small household, you don’t want to have to cook for four or six people and have your freezer fill up with a bunch of the same food. Or, God forbid, waste the food.”
Their goal was to come up with a recipe a day. “It takes me a lot longer to put an idea for a recipe together than Justin,” Lawrence says. “He’s pretty quick. His always seems to turn out the first time. I have to give it a few tries.”
It took a few tries to get their chickpea chicken sandwich patties together, Burks says. “Since we’re a little more health-conscious, we didn’t want to deep-fry anything, which is how you get things crispy. We figured out how to shallow-fry these chickpea patties, and they are fantastic.”
Too many cooks might spoil the broth, but Burks says, “We’re a great team. We both know our strengths. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I’m pretty good with the savory stuff and she’s pretty good with the sweet stuff and salads.”
Burks and Lawrence became vegetarians when they were 12 years old. After getting a hamburger at a dairy bar, Burks decided meat wasn’t for him anymore. “The idea was out there that an animal was a living thing,” he says. “I’d done some reading and research. It was just at that moment it all kind of hit me.”
“It seems less cruel to avoid meat,” says Lawrence, who already cared about the environment when she was 12.
Some people have a misconception about vegetarians, Burks says. “People think if you’re a vegetarian you’re going to be this scrawny little guy. Anybody who’s seen me, I’m kind of a big dude. I bike. I run. I’ve done five marathons.”
Burks goes by “The Chubby Vegetarian” in his books and on social media. “Whenever I say I’m a vegetarian, people say, ‘Really?’”
Visit thechubbyvegetarian.com for more information.
Molly and Richard McCracken at their Memphis Kitchen Co-Op (Photo: Michael Donahue).
Richard McCracken is happy to say, “Amplified Meal Prep has a new home now.”
He and his wife Molly are the owners of their first brick-and-mortar business, Memphis Kitchen Co-Op, at 7946 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova.
The 6,500-square-foot building, which also houses their healthy food business, Amplified Meal Prep, has space for people like themselves, who don’t have room in their homes to make food in quantity.
“I just want to help people,” Richard says. “I wanted to open a community kitchen where people can rent from us. But I didn’t want to be like, ‘Here’s the key. You owe us $700 the first of the month. See you later.’ I want to be able to help people do what we did. We wanted to have a place where we can help you start a business from A to Z.”
Somebody might say, “I have an Aunt Sally, and she makes the most amazing peanut butter pie in the world.”
So, Aunt Sally decides to sell her pies, but she finds it’s $2,500 a month to rent a kitchen. Then she needs an oven and a kitchen mixer. That’s $12,000. She also needs other kitchenware, which could be another thousand. She says, “Oh, my God. I just can’t do it.”
“That’s where we come in,” Richard says. “We offer any equipment you need. I’ll buy it for your use. You come in. Pay us rent.”
Their commercial equipment includes eight convection ovens, eight standard ovens, four 10-burner stoves, two flat-top grills, a 30-quart and 60-quart mixer, food processors, a 24-by-14-foot walk-in cooler, a 32-by-7-foot walk-in display cooler, 50 prep tables, 120 storage shelves, and 40 feet of vent hood space.
The McCrackens “will sit down with you if you have any concerns — how to price food, food costs, where to go for your business license, Department of Agriculture certified aspect of agriculture. We help you with all that.”
They also provide help getting the word out online. “We have an in-house marketing group, Ruby Red Media, that does individual or group social media [and] handles email and stuff like that.”
Memphis Kitchen Co-Op rent is based on time, space, and need, but it’s less than most commercial kitchens, Richard says.
Unlike other commercial kitchens, they will include a store. “We’re going to sell all our tenants’ products in there. People can walk in and buy 30 or 40 different companies’ products.” They also will have a website, where people can order Memphis Kitchen Co-Op products. “We deliver or you come to the store and we have it ready for you in a box.”
Renters can range from bakers and food truck owners to people who prepare school lunch programs. “Anybody who wants to start up a new business, we’ll help them get going.”
Richard also plans to till a 14-by-120-foot patch of grass next to the building for a community garden.
Richard, who wrestled for 20 years, and Molly opened Amplified Meal Prep three years ago. Customers can order healthy comfort food or build custom meals according to their specific diet plan.
They were “camped out” in another commercial kitchen, but, Richard says, “We ran out of room.” The couple couldn’t operate out of that space anymore. “So I started looking in November of last year for a commercial building. All of a sudden this popped up.” Molly originally thought the building was too big, but Richard told her, “We’ll grow into it.”
Memphis Kitchen Co-Op is “a testament of hard work. And I really want to get our message out there that people like me and Molly, who worked our full-time jobs for two years and Amplified two years — that’s what you have to do. Now look at us. We have, essentially, a million-dollar building for four years. It’s centrally located, smack dab in the middle of everything. It’s 15 minutes from Downtown, 15 minutes from out east, and 15 minutes from Germantown.”
For information on Memphis Kitchen Co-Op, go to memphiskitchenco-op.com.
Stan’s Big Biscuit food truck started as a little idea. “It just fell in my lap, really,” says owner Stan Cothren.
It began when he and a friend were at a pub in Yachats, Oregon. “This lady heard me talking and asked where I was from,” says Cothren, 58. “She couldn’t figure out my accent. I said, ‘Well, I’m from Memphis.’ She goes, ‘Okay. So, you do barbecue down there.’”
That took Cothren by surprise. “Usually, everybody asks me about Elvis, and you get tired of that.” Then, the woman says, “Have you ever thought about doing biscuits instead of just barbecue?” She said she was a “trained biscuit judge” for biscuit competitions they did in the area.
Cothren thought about doing a food truck specializing in breakfast. “There was nobody except gas stations that really had a quick in-and-out breakfast [aside from] normal drive-throughs. So I said, ‘I’ll try it. If it doesn’t work, so what?’”
He bought a secondhand food truck and ordered equipment. The woman at the pub had given him a biscuit recipe. “A friend of mine worked for me, and we started working it back and forth. Next thing you know, we had a real versatile biscuit you could do multiple things with.”
Cothren’s biscuits are “Northern-type biscuits. Not a Southern biscuit, not a ‘cathead biscuit.’ It’s not what you’d find at a drive-through or at any restaurant. It’s a much breadier biscuit. Nothing fancy in it, just self-rising flour. We have to let it rise a couple of times.”
He describes the taste as “sweet, salty.” A “Southern-type biscuit” is “just regular, round, crumbly, doughy, hard-shell biscuits.”
Stan Cothren (Photo: Jeff Howell)
Stan’s Big Biscuit originally opened in the Memphis Food Truck Park. “Food truck people are more than willing to help you out and give you little hints and tell you things,” he says. His girlfriend, Dina Capizzi, began posting on social media about the truck.
The four-inch square biscuits served resemble “a big hamburger.” Customers order whatever they want inside: “Sausage, egg, and cheese; bacon, egg, and cheese; smoked bologna and cheese.” There’s also an open-faced chicken biscuit with gravy.
For their cinnamon biscuit bites, the biscuits are cut “like little bread slices” and covered with icing. “They’re made fresh while you wait,” Cothren says.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Cothren didn’t grow up cooking, but he loved to eat. “I grew up on a farm, so if you put it in front of me, I pretty much ate it.”
Cothren, who worked at an Italian restaurant/college bar after high school and at a barbecue restaurant while attending Arkansas Institute of Technology, liked the idea of owning a restaurant, but, he says, “I was a computer person getting a computer degree.”
Cothren opened a CD Warehouse in Denton, Texas, and was approached by an investor who wanted him to open a store in another city. “My dad was like, ‘Go to Memphis. It’s a pretty good, steady city.’ I thought, ‘I’d probably do well there as anywhere. And it’s not too far away from family.’ I went to Memphis. I love it, obviously. I’ve been here 28 years.”
Cothren, who closed his business — which he’d renamed Replays and had converted to a used CD/video game store — now works the truck around town from 8 to 11 a.m. every day except Sundays and Mondays. Eventually, he’d like to open for dinner. “We’re just trying to figure out nighttime comfort food using a biscuit.”
Cothren thought about opening a brick-and-mortar, but, he says, “People are nicer to you on a food trailer than in a restaurant. We’re working on a trailer, making food right in front of you. They see you in the window.”
And, he says, “You’re not stuck in the same place. You still have to make a living, but it’s different. If you burn a batch of biscuits, you just start over.”
Check “Stan’s Big Biscuit” on Facebook to see where the food truck will be each day.
After hearing about Memphis being recognized as the mashed potato capital of America by Idahoan Foods, I wondered how Memphis chefs used mashed potatoes at their restaurants. So, I asked around.
Kelly English, owner of Iris, The Second Line, and Fino’s from the Hill, says, “I love crawfish boil mashed potatoes — with everything you would get in a crawfish boil. Just fold some crawfish tails, crispy sautéed andouille, corn kernels, and roasted garlic into your potatoes and season with your favorite Creole seasoning. Saute a piece of fish from the Gulf and pour brown butter and lemon juice over the whole dish.”
Derk Meitzler, chef/owner of The Vault, Paramount, Backlot Sandwich Shop, and Earnestine & Hazel’s, says, “I’ve used leftover mashed potatoes to make loaded tater tots. Put the potatoes, egg, flour, shredded cheddar cheese, bacon, and chives into a bowl and mix together. Form into the shape of a tater tot and roll in panko bread crumbs. Then fry them golden brown.”
Acre Restaurant executive chef Andrew Adams (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Elwood’s Shack owner Tim Bednarski shared his warm German potato salad recipe. Boil two pounds of new potatoes cut into fourths in salted water until tender. Render four pieces of bacon. Drain the potatoes while warm. Combine one cup sliced green onions, one-half cup diced celery, one-half cup mayonnaise, one-half cup sour cream, two tablespoons Dijon mustard, one-fourth cup apple cider vinegar, one-half cup chopped parsley, one-fourth cup pimentos, salt and pepper to taste, and “hot sauce for a kick.” Give it “a light mash.”
Veteran Memphis chef Mac Edwards, hospitality director for The Paramount, makes Very Anglo Latkes: “To leftover mashed potatoes, add grated onion, eggs, a little flour, and baking soda. Press into a patty, pan fry in one-fourth inch of oil until crispy and brown. Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle with salt while hot. I make a horseradish applesauce to go with it.”
Karen Carrier, owner of The Beauty Shop Restaurant, Mollie Fontaine Lounge, and Another Roadside Attraction, prepares Green Herb Roasted Garlic Creamed Potatoes, made with Yukon golds and a parsley, mint, and tarragon puree, unsalted butter, roasted garlic, creme fraiche, and grana padano, with salt and pepper to taste.
Saito 2 chef Jimmy “Sushi Jimi” Sinh makes a sushi roll with mashed potatoes. “Inside would be a deep-fried panko chicken,” he says. The roll is “topped with mashed potatoes and thinly sliced avocado.”
Ben Smith, chef/owner of Tsunami, says, “Mashed potatoes don’t play a major role in my restaurant, even though it’s one of the most requested side items. They normally only accompany our grilled filet of beef, but some customers get creative. We frequently have people order our pork and lemongrass meatballs on top of mashed potatoes.
“I’ve also known people to order mashed potatoes with a side of soy beurre blanc, which is kind of overkill because our mashed potatoes are already loaded with butter and cream.”
Acre Restaurant executive chef Andrew Adams says, “When I worked in a restaurant in New Jersey, I would make mashed potato sandwiches at the end of the night when leftovers were mashed potatoes and sourdough bread. I’ve been told that I break some sort of healthy eating rule by eating carbs on carbs. Lately, I’ve been doing the same with leftover cornbread.”
Peggy Brown, chef/owner of Peggy’s Healthy Home Cooking, cooks homestyle mashed potatoes: “We use Irish potatoes. Peel, wash, slice them up, put them in a pot with chicken broth, and boil until they get completely done. I also put salt in my pot while they’re cooking. Mash them with a potato masher and put in real butter and black pepper. Sometimes we put a little cream in them.”
If you still don’t have enough mashed potatoes in your life, try making some of these dishes.
Former Memphis chef Spencer McMillin, “traveling chef” and author of The Caritas Cookbook: A Year in the Life with Recipes, knows his mashed potatoes. “I’ve been making smoked mashed potatoes since 1995,” says McMillin, now executive chef at Ciao Trattoria and Wine Bar in Durham, New Hampshire. “Wash Idaho russets, peel them, simmer — always starting in cold water — drain, smoke with any wood but mesquite, fortify with unholy amounts of hot cream and cold butter, season — kosher salt only, pepper and garlic fight with the smoke — and serve them napalm hot. If the roof of your mouth wasn’t singed with the first bite, they’re too cold. Smoked mash is the one side dish of mine that has been remembered, sought after, stolen, and stood the test of time.
“In the restaurants, I always make way too much and find myself trying to merchandise them in other dishes or turning them into new ‘brilliant’ preparations. A kicky shepherd’s pie, creative duchess croquette, savory pancake — so good with braised pork shoulder — or cheddar-laced fritters.”
But, he says, “None of those dishes were as tasty and as simple to whip together during a mad rush as smoked potato bisque. Sweat out some leek and onion in butter, add chicken stock — not that crap in the aseptic box at the grocery store, make fresh — maybe add a bay leaf or two, bring to a simmer, whisk in an appropriate amount of day-old smoked mash — they’re better in this soup — a touch of cream and bam!”
In addition to his sandwiches, Acre Restaurant executive chef Andrew Adams uses mashed potatoes in dishes served at the restaurant.
“I like to make the super smooth extremely rich Robuchon style mashed potatoes or potato puree,” Adams says. “Five large russet potatoes, one pound butter, salt, and a small amount of hot milk. I treat the process like any emulsion, similar to a béarnaise, by slowly adding the butter and then refinishing with milk.”
Mashed potato concoctions don’t need fancy equipment, Adams says. “Years ago, I was eating at a Michelin three-star restaurant in New York City. After dinner, I was having a drink with the chefs who worked there. I was complimenting their truffle potato foam — when that was still popular — on a seafood dish. The sous chef said he spent weeks with aerators, stabilizers, and other high-tech equipment only for the chef to walk by one day and simply toss a spoonful of mashed potatoes into a white wine sauce and blend. The texture ended up so airy and balanced. Fifteen years later, I tried that. I made a simple sauce with white wine, shallots, milk. Then I added saved mashed potatoes slowly until thickened. To this, I added a little brown butter. And that was it. Last year, this made it to our menu. Now I smoke the potatoes. The final smoked potato sauce goes with our potato gnocchi and short rib dish. The gnocchi with ‘smoked mashed potato’ sauce has been a hit. It’s not listed on the menu that way.”
And, Adams says, “If I have leftover chunky mashed potatoes or some with less butter and other liquids, I will use those sometimes to mix with duck confit or duck breast ‘pastrami’ to make potato-duck croquettes. I just mix duck, mashed potatoes, and egg. That gets molded and breaded, fried.
“On days when we make potato rosemary bread, I’ll ask the crew to save the potatoes for the next day. The potatoes get mixed into the dough. The bread is usually used as the base of our country pork pate.”
Justin Fox Burks and his wife, Amy Lawrence of The Chubby Vegetarian blog and cookbooks, shared their Mashed Potato Dumplings recipe:
2 cups peeled, cubed potatoes
1 tablespoon water
2 medium eggs (beaten)
1 cup semolina flour
one half teaspoon kosher salt
“Place potatoes and water in a microwave-safe bowl with a lid or a plate to cover. Microwave on high for eight minutes and then allow potatoes to rest, covered, for another eight minutes in the microwave. Mash potatoes with a potato masher and add the eggs, four, and salt. Mix with your hands until just mixed. Pat dough out to about one half inch thickness on a floured surface. Using a pastry cutter or knife, cut dough into roughly one half inch rectangles. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook gnocchi for two to three minutes. When they are ready, they will float. Use a strainer to remove them from the water.
For extra credit, extra flavor, and extra texture, sear the drained gnocchi in olive oil in a skillet on high heat before tossing them with your choice of sauce.”
Burks and Lawrence serve their gnocchi with “a garlicky parsley and walnut pesto or paired with a regular jar of tomato sauce and heaps of grated Romano cheese.”
Cutting quickly to the chase, Blue Note Straight Bourbon Whiskey Single Barrel Reserve is a great whiskey. It hits the right note, if you will. In fact, it hits a lot of them. Produced here in Memphis, I found this particular bottle — from a barrel hand-selected by the team at Buster’s — when one of said team, Kathrine Fultz, stuck it in my hand. I have a keen grasp of the obvious, you see.
These hand-picked barrels are more than just a gimmick. There is a lot of blending that goes into commercial production, which isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s how producers ensure a uniform product. No one expects their go-to bottle of bourbon to vary from batch to batch, like wine. Whiskey bottled from a single barrel, on the other hand, is something unique. Assuming that the people doing the picking know what they are doing, it’s a great way to enjoy a one-of-a-kind bottle. What Kathrine handed me was bottle #34 from the anointed barrel. I suppose that knowing exactly which bottle I was holding was a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a pretty cool one.
So, I opened up bottle #34 at nine years and, taking myself entirely too seriously, poured out a dram in a snifter. The color was beautiful. When cramming your nose into a tasting glass, remember to part your lips and breathe. That way you get to the whiskey and don’t just get a honker overwhelmed by ethyl alcohol. It’s deep caramel, with some oak spice to let you know it’s there. Then add a few drops of that pure, no-longer-needs-to-be-boiled, Memphis water. On the palate, there is also some citrus, but at 122.4 proof, there is some heat to it. At that proof there would have to be, but the feel isn’t raw.
Photo: Richard Murff
The truth is that those tasting glasses are small and I don’t suggest whipping one out in public unless you just want to look like an insufferable ass. I think that it’s important to try a whiskey out in what we might call “real world conditions,” so I poured what we might call a “real drink” into a rocks glass, along with a cube or two of ice — like an actual human. After giving it a swirl or two, I let it sit for a bit.
If you follow booze twitter or Instagram while pretending to be at work, you get a lot of whiskey-purists barking about not putting water in whiskey. What bugs me about this isn’t that it’s bad advice, but that someone with the handle “Supreme_Bourbon_Buddha,” or some such nonsense, is broadcasting such an obvious rookie mistake. I suppose we all need a code to live by, but the laws of both physiology and chemistry still stand: The tongue and nasopharynx can only process so much ethyl alcohol. At 122.4 proof, you are only getting about half of what you bought. A little water will do both you and your whiskey a tremendous service.
After a swirl, the Blue Note really opens up and hits some different notes. That heat mellowed out into a deeper caramel with hints of orange, and with that oak spice still moving along the palate. The body — or mouthfeel — is richer than you’d expect for proof in this neighborhood, and it all thankfully lingers in a good, long finish.
The downside to a selected single barrel is that there is only one of them, and so by their very nature supplies are limited. Which is as good a reason as any to get to know your local liquor store. You just never know what they are going to stick in your hand.
Bob Cooke, Teresa and Reginald Dalle
(Photo: Michael Donahue)
So, how did La Baguette French Bread and Pastry Shop come to be?
The iconic bakery, recently sold to Tashie Restaurant Group, was the brainchild of Reginald Dalle.
Dalle, who is from near Lille, France, got the idea for the bakery while he and his wife, Teresa, were graduate students at the University of Arizona. A French bakery was located around the corner.
“It’s like a dream for every French person to have a bakery,” Reginald says. “So I was really intrigued. Of course, I started to befriend the owner. He was French, from Paris. He had a bakery there.”
The baker said he’d help Reginald learn the business. “He said, ‘Why don’t you come in nights and I’ll show you the job and we can talk about the machinery and how it works?’”
The Dalles planned to move to Memphis, where Teresa is from. Reginald thought about opening a bakery here if he didn’t land a teaching job. In 1975, Reginald got a job teaching French at Memphis State University, now University of Memphis.
But, Teresa says, Reginald “loved that idea of the bakery. He started getting information on equipment, and he made contacts in Paris.”
The Dalles and their friends Bob and Brenda Cooke, Memphians who were at the University of Arizona when the Dalles were there, formed the group of five people interested in investing in a French bakery. They moved into the current location in Chickasaw Oaks Plaza in 1976.
Some equipment was handmade, including a huge marble-top table, still at the bakery, which was “perfect for making pastries and croissants,” Teresa says. The late Guy Pacaud, a French baker who moved to Memphis, was head baker. “He was the one who started the bread.”
The group chose the name La Baguette. In addition to being the little diamonds on rings, “baguette” is the “famous bread. It just rolled off your tongue.” The French word for bread is “pain,” which didn’t sound like a great name for a bakery, Teresa says.
La Baguette was an instant success. “There was a line out the door. We had no clue it would happen. People were walking out the door with a baguette under their arm for the first time.”
Pacaud brought in a chef and other bakers from Paris, so all the pastries were done by French bakers. “All the recipes were from the number-one bakery in Paris, Lenotre, which is really famous for all its pastries. In order to be true to Lenotre’s recipes, we had to follow exactly the correctness for good pastries. So … natural butter, natural ingredients. Everything was really well studied.”
The pastries included croissants, pain au chocolat, Napoleons, and the still-famous almond croissant. “They take older croissants and put a custard in it. It’s the way French were able to use up croissants that didn’t sell the first day.”
When they opened, there was “no French bread, no baguettes, no authentic pastries” in Memphis, Teresa says. “People are used to it now.”
The bakery became a “cultural phenomenon,” Teresa adds. “We had friends who wanted to come down and work there. They thought it was a privilege to be able to sell some of these goods. It was just a really nice happening at the time. Those first few years were a lot of fun. Then it got to be a lot of work.”
La Baguette opened “satellite stores” in Memphis. The bakery also began serving soups and sandwiches.
Reginald taught French and Teresa taught in the English department at Memphis State. In the early ’80s, Reginald took a job teaching French at Memphis University School, where he stayed for 30 years. “He loved the school and realized his true vocation was teaching.”
The Dalles sold their share of La Baguette in the mid-’80s. Paul Howse, an investor, became sole owner in 1987.
“We really felt like we left an institution,” Teresa says. “I felt like we left something good for Memphis.”
La Baguette is at 3088 Poplar Avenue in Chickasaw Oaks Plaza.
One would be pretty safe calling Regina’s a family affair. Terese Burns and her sister Ciera Robinson, who are New Orleans born and bred, share duties at the restaurant, along with their seven other siblings. A brother found them a prime spot at the corner of Court Square Downtown. A few cousins work in the kitchen, and their father backed them (as his father backed him in his sweets shop). The titular Regina is an aunt. Though Regina is still with us, they wanted to honor the legacy of her genuineness and caring. “She would give you her shirt off her back,” says Ciera. (She can cook good, too, the sisters say.)
Regina’s serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All the New Orleans highlights are there: po’boys? “Yeeeesssss,” says Ciera. Jambalaya? “Yeeeesssss.” Gumbo? “Yeeeesssss,” she says, as if to intone, C’mon now, of course, we’ve got that.
The sisters say they were bound to have a restaurant. Both have backgrounds in the industry, and they considered other locations in Houston and Iowa, but Memphis, they say, had that “it” factor. The restaurant opened in November.
But back to that menu. They’ve got seafood by the pound, including king crab and lobster; Cajun nachos (!) with crawfish tails and smoked sausage; crab cakes; a catfish basket; and a crab platter with stuffed and soft-shell crab with fried crawfish tails, and oysters.
They also serve, on Wednesday and Thursday only, Yaka Mein, aka “Old Sober.” This beef noodle soup, served with boiled eggs and soy, hot sauce, Worcestershire, and ketchup, is known to zap a hangover and is a staple at mom and pop stores in New Orleans.
For breakfast, one could order beignets, a sausage biscuit, and a pork chop platter with eggs. And, yes, lots of grits. The grits are made with heavy cream. “We bring it back to our roots,” says Ciera.
The New Orleans vibe extends to the bar, which serves such classics as the Hurricane, the Sazerac, and Pimm’s Cup.
They also have lunch specials. Four dollars can get you well fed at Regina’s.
“We try to reach all folks,” Terese says. All folks include vegans. On Tuesday, they serve vegan tacos.
Regina’s catfish, served fried, grilled, and blackened, is exceptional, the sisters say. They also insist on sourcing the French bread and red beans from Louisiana or “It will not taste the same,” says Ciera. They’ll put their gumbo up against anybody’s.
If Tuyen Le looks familiar, that’s because she worked for 20 years cooking and serving customers at her family’s restaurant Saigon Le on Cleveland in Midtown.
While Saigon Le is not coming back anytime soon, you can find Le once again cooking and serving customers on Cleveland at New Orleans Seafood.
This is the second New Orleans Seafood. The original is on Crump. Le got into the business through her boyfriend. She says there was no learning curve in going from Vietnamese to Creole. She’s got her instincts, after all.
The seafood is sourced fresh from New Orleans. The menu features fish and chicken wings. A 12-piece shrimp platter with fries, onion rings, or hush puppies is $8.99. Two dozen oysters are $10.99.
New Orleans Seafood also serves steamed dishes of snow crab and lobster tail, plus turkey necks. They come with potatoes, broccoli, or corn.
Tuyen Le of New Orleans Seafood
Customers can also buy raw seafood to take home and cook for themselves — tilapia, whiting fish, mussels, red snapper, snow crabs, king crabs, shrimp, crawfish, frog legs, and more.
Le hopes to see some familiar faces from Saigon Le soon. “I love my customers,” she says. “I miss all my customers.”
Crosstown Concourse is at it again with another addition to their fun selection of eating places. Next Door Eatery, a sister restaurant to The Kitchen, opened at the end of last month and should prove to maintain a steady clientele through lunch and dinner.
The concept is the same as The Kitchen — locally sourced, clean eating that tastes good. Next Door aims to lower the cost and make the food even more accessible.
“We tried to create a menu with a broad appeal that would reach a wide audience,” Colin Ness, director of operations for all of the Next Doors, says. “We are trying to limit the no vote.”
That includes trying to reach vegetarians, vegans, and the gluten-free audience.
In addition to a nice variety of salads, there’s the Roasted Veggie Bowl with seasonal veggies served over quinoa and topped with sunflower seeds and their cilantro tahini dressing ($11.95); Veggie Tacos ($9.95); and a Beet Burger ($8.95), as well as a nice selection of Snack & Share bites and appetizers.
Cheft Drury Baswell (left); Friday’s special — fish and chips
One of their most popular items is their burger, which can be ordered “50/50” — a patty mixed with cremini mushrooms to cut down on the calories ($11.95).
They offer daily specials, soups, craft cocktails, a patio, and an environment that mixes contemporary and rustic styles.
“We want to offer something to the construction worker who is looking for an incredible tasting burger to families, millennials, urban professionals, and everything in between,” Ness says.
The Crosstown location is the second Next Door to open, the first being in Boulder, literally (I literally mean literally) next door to the first Kitchen. The Memphis location was the first expansion out of state, and there are more in the works.
The Kitchen and Next Door were launched by Kimbal Musk, Jen Lewin, and Hugo Matheson in an effort to serve healthy food that is responsibly sourced and tastes good. The nonprofit The Kitchen Community grew out of this effort, which uses a percentage of profits from the restaurants to build Learning Gardens in schools across the country so that students can learn the importance of real food. There are around 100 gardens in Memphis so far.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the team we’ve put together in Memphis,” Ness says. “Being in Crosstown Concourse is such an exciting and unique opportunity. How could we not be a part of it?”
Next Door Eatery, 1350 Concourse, Suite 165, 779-1512, nextdooreatery.com. Hours 11 a.m. to close daily.
When Philipp and Cru Peri von Holtzendorff-Fehling decided to open their first all-organic vegetarian restaurant Mama Gaia in Crosstown Concourse, they always had the idea they wanted to expand.
They just didn’t know it would happen so quickly.
“We were talking to Philip West and Dorothy Pugh [of Ballet Memphis], telling them what we were up to at the time, and we were not even open at Crosstown yet,” Philipp says.
One thing led to another, and the four of them quickly realized they were all on the same page.
“They were considering food and beverage options, and we were telling them about our concept of offering food that is healthy, delicious, and fast,” Philipp says. “We were what they were looking for. They just didn’t know it before they met us.”
Just five months after launching their first restaurant, the couple is offering Mama Gaia 2.0 in the exquisitely archimania-designed Ballet Memphis in Overton Square. The architectural firm won an award for the Crosstown Mama Gaia space already.
This one is round and all windows and light with touches of Elektra Eggleston — daughter to the photographer — textiles in green leaf patterns.
This space offers some options the other does not, such as the Copia Petitzza, a pizza made out of pitas with oven-roasted zucchini, eggplant, peppers, onion, and leeks over olive basil sauce and topped with cheese (vegan option offered) and basil ($7.50), as well as Pita Wedges served with house-made tzatziki sauce ($3), quinoa patties made for dipping in marinara sauce ($4), and a full coffee bar (my personal fave).
And there are cocktails.
“Everything is made fully organic with fresh-squeezed juices and herbs,” general manager Cy Washer says.
That means organic vodka, gin, and tequila. As of now, they haven’t found organic rum and bourbon, so they offer non-GMO versions.
The Crosstown Cooler comes with fresh-squeezed cucumber and lime, mint, and The Botanist gin, and the Allegro is puréed berries with vodka ($9-$11).
Due to space and a few other restraints in the electrical department, there are a few things left off the menu, but look for brunch with waffles and crepes, a tastily stocked grab-and-go cooler, and a thoughtful calendar of events to come.
“We are so happy to be in Overton Square and are looking forward to finding out what’s going on and do some programming around that as well as what’s going on with the Ballet,” Philipp says.
