Another helping, please...

As part of year-end reflection, I’ve been looking at my work from 2011 to decide what I liked/didn’t like and also to determine the subjects I hope to write more about in 2012.

It might seem simple, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m most interested in writing and life when I stay ahead on story ideas – when I’m trying to carve out little roads rather than just fill potholes in other words. I feel like I should always be asking: “What do I need to say?” "What do people really need to know?”

Here’s something I really wanted people to know about in 2011:

(Photo by Shelley Mays, The Tennessean)

The Nashville Food Project serves hot meals, hope

By Jennifer Justus | The Tennessean

This is the story of a 42-cent meal.

A plate of baked chicken with balsamic sweet potatoes; a salad of homegrown lettuces tossed with peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, herbed croutons made with Provence bread and freshly whisked lime vinaigrette; and ending with a scoop of bread pudding drizzled with vanilla glaze.

Yes, that meal costs only 42 cents. No, it's not especially efficient.

But The Nashville Food Project Executive Director Tallu Schuyler Quinn
is OK with that. Because the energy it takes to help make this meal —
served to some of Nashville's poor — helps make connections among
local food advocacy organizations while reducing waste, invigorating
volunteers and emphasizing cooking over convenience. It provides
nourishment, but also education and empowerment. So, yes, this meal
costs 42 cents, but it's worth much more than that.

The Nashville Food Project (TNFP), which changed its name from Mobile
Loaves & Fishes recently, has been serving meals to Nashville's poor
since 2007. Until lately, it mostly provided sack lunches with a
turkey sandwich, boiled egg, bag of trail mix, cheese stick, piece of
fruit, pretzels and bottled water. But increasingly, the organization
has been adding hot meal runs to underserved areas — providing
homecooked food with produce grown at the organization's two gardens
or gleaned from farmers market donations and Second Harvest Food Bank.
While the sack lunches cost about $200 for 80 people, the hot meals
cost about $31 for 82 people. Meanwhile, as Americans waste about 27
percent of food available for consumption, the hot meals help move the
excess to those who don't have access.

We followed the process to learn just how a 42-cent meal comes to be.

A numbers game

Tucked inside Second Harvest Food Bank's warehouse with beeping
forklifts and boxes stacked to the ceiling is the "open shopping" room
for nonprofit groups. It's the size of a convenience store —
fluorescent lights, freezer cases along the walls, shelves lined with
boxes of Triscuits and Cheez-Its.

The food here, facing its last days, has mostly been donated by
Kroger, Publix and Walmart, and it will be given away or sold by
weight at greatly reduced prices — 25 cents per pound of meat, 4 cents
for dairy.

Anne Sale, hot meal coordinator for TNFP, begins her Tuesday each week
at open shopping, and she likes to go early, before the "good stuff
gets gone." She heads straight for the meat, with a pallet on wheels
as her cart.

"I got a bunch of pork tenderloins today, which I'm so excited about.
... Oh, eggs! We can use those for the bread pudding," she said.

Sale tries to plan the hot meals a week in advance, but she'll make
adjustments if necessary, such as when a batch of slightly overripe
bananas became banana pudding.

The selection at open shopping can seem random — cans of clam sauce,
scads of pickles, guacamole — but with a little creativity, it can
make a fine meal.

"I'm a little bit of a numbers person, too, so I like to create as
nice a meal as I can with as little as possible," Sale said. "All this
is basically gonna get trashed. ... If I wouldn't eat it, I'm not
gonna get it."

Sale pointed out a box of frozen sweet potatoes. "I would normally get
those, but we just got bushels from the garden."

She also has to choose things she can get in large quantities. Each of
the two trucks owned by The Nashville Food Project can hold about 85
meals.

"Dessert, I kind of struggle with, because I want it to be healthy,"
she said, picking up a box of cake mix. "Trans fat, zero. I'm gonna
get some."

And then, looking in the freezer case, she spotted some sausage that
she hadn't noticed before. "This is turkey. I'll buy that." She had
made jambalaya last week.

Sale collaborates with volunteers at The Nashville Food Project and
must make quick decisions about the menu. But health is important to
her, too. She's fit, exercises regularly and practices moderation and
healthy choices, which she works into the hot meals. Her background in
banking also serves her well on the financial end of menu planning for
a nonprofit.

After having the contents of her cart weighed, Anne loaded it into her
car. She'll head back to The Nashville Food Project's headquarters in
Green Hills to prepare for the next day's run. She'll make croutons by
using donated Provence bread, donated olive oil and dried basil from
the garden. Meanwhile, volunteers will make homemade bread pudding.

But as she loaded her car, she worried about some limes she had been
given by a caterer who had extra after making a lime curd.

"I've still gotta figure out what to do with those," she said. "I just
love that challenge."

New name, focus

TNFP serves hot meals on Wednesdays and Fridays with plans to add a
meal on Thursdays in November and a fourth weekly meal in January.

Volunteer coordinator Nicole Lambelet said that the idea to serve hot
meals initially came from a desire to pack more nutrition into each
plate while using produce from the garden or donations. But then they
realized that the hot meals could be cheaper.

Sale was part of that ah-ha moment with Quinn when the pair sat down
with a recipe for chicken pot pie.

"This is like $30, and that's all," Sale remembered for a meal that
served about 80. The aluminum pans used for serving the meals (which
they try to use more than once) are the largest expense, along with
other serving supplies.

The emphasis on hot meals also happened to coincide with the rollout
of a new name for the organization. The group recently broke away from
Austin-based Mobile Loaves & Fishes.

"It was an amicable divorce," Quinn said. "I think we outgrew the
national organization and what was expected to be part of it."

Quinn said she wanted to be a local organization using local money
with local volunteers focusing on the local problems of hunger and
poverty. And although Mobile Loaves & Fishes isn't affiliated with a
particular religion, Quinn — a minister at Woodmont Christian Church —
wanted to remove the association.

"I would never want the people we serve to think they have to believe
in something in exchange for our food."

Fresh, local ingredients

On the morning of the Wednesday hot meal truck run, Sale drizzled
glaze onto bread pudding while volunteer Rachel Blair, a caterer of 30
years, whisked up a citrus vinaigrette. She had found a place for the
donated limes.

The meal had come together mostly through donations, harvests from the
garden and purchases made at a discount. Cucumbers, tomatoes and
peppers had been gleaned by The Society of St. Andrew, an organization
that picks up leftover food from local farmers markets and
redistributes it where needed. Garbanzo beans, adding protein and heft
to the salad, were purchased from Second Harvest at 18 cents a can.

For later meals, Sale pointed out a bowl of figs donated by Whole
Foods Market, a pallet of tomatoes from the farmers market and a
colorful bowl of antohi peppers from Eaton's Creek Organics. There
were 25 logs of goat cheese and chocolate almond tea bread in the
refrigerator, also from Whole Foods, and a bucket of Jerusalem
artichokes just harvested from the garden that she'll roast with
potatoes for meals later in the week.

Care and feeding

The truck crew for the day, coordinated from a pool of about 650
active volunteers, included Quinn, longtime volunteer Becky Atkinson,
and newcomer Judy Alford, a Hendersonville farmer at Hunt's Century
Farm. Alford had donated some corn, turnips, potatoes and tomatoes in
July and wanted to learn more.

"I'm just kinda trying to figure out the bigger picture," she said. "I
just love that you are using produce that we can't sell." It's a
situation she sees often, like when the ugliest tomatoes — still
perfect in taste — get left behind.

The truck headed toward Dickerson Pike and Trinity Lane, an area known
for high crime, drug use and prostitution.

"This is where the thistles grow," Quinn said. It's an expression used
by the Magdalene House's Thistle Farms, a group that helps get
prostitutes off the streets.

The people who live in many of the motels along this stretch of North
Nashville pay $600 to $700 a month for rooms with maybe a small fridge
and microwave for cooking. Some are in transition from homelessness.
Others live in a motel room for decades.

"If I were driving down this road this time of day," Alford said, "I
would have thought no one was here."

But when the truck pulled into the Key Motel and Quinn honked the
horn, a man stepped out of his room and waved. Residents trickled out
of their doors as volunteers formed an assembly line.

Lisa Allen, 49, said she looks forward to seeing the truck every week.

"Wednesday at 12 o'clock, I'm like 'Where you at?' " she said.

"I came here 10 years ago to spend a weekend and never left," she
said, though she's worked as a manager at the hotel for the past three
years. "It's not what it's all cracked up to be."

But on this Wednesday, she had particularly bad news for volunteer
Becky Atkinson. A former resident named Linda that Atkinson knew had
died. Allen said Linda had suffered from AIDS and cirrhosis, caused by
alcoholism. Allen knew Atkinson would want to hear.

"I love them to death," she said of TNFP. "They are thoughtful people.
They not only come and serve us lunch, they pay attention to us."

"Just like her," she said, pointing to Atkinson. "They talk to you,
and if they can, they give us suggestions."

Despite the bad news, the volunteers at TNFP have hope. The group made
the decision, Quinn said, to focus on smaller neighborhoods such as
Dickerson Road and the Trinity Lane area where their small
organization can have a greater impact by partnering with other
organizations. As a mobile unit, they also choose out-of the-way
places that aren't near a bus line or downtown, where more meals are
served to the homeless and poor.

"As we've made this transition, more of the people we serve have
started volunteering with us," Quinn said. The formerly homeless
residents at the Hobson House, a place created after Tent City was
flooded in 2010, now help prepare and deliver TNFP meals, sending the
message that those served can someday do the serving.

Quinn and Lambelet also hope to implement cooking education in 2012.

"Not only do people need access to food, they really need to be
empowered to make it themselves," Lambelet said.

Further down the road, Lambelet spoke of a "dream" to have a
pay-what-you-can restaurant. Located in a food desert with alternative
staffing, it would provide jobs, education and an income stream for
the organization.

But even now, the group's efforts prioritize cooking over a meal that
can be standardized.

Resident Shawn Lewis also stopped by the truck to grab a quick lunch.
He works at a tire shop and has been staying at the hotel for about
two years. He makes maybe $35 a day, which is hardly more than what he
pays in rent per day.

"You gotta eat somehow," he said. "It helps. ... Sometimes you can't
get to the mission."

And so as volunteers packed up to leave, it seems the hot meals — and
lending an ear — are making a difference.

"I'm sorry about Linda," Atkinson said to Allen.

"I am, too," she called back with boxes of food stacked in her hands
for her boyfriend and grandchildren. "I really do miss her."

--------

Breaking down the plate

Chicken (purchased from Second Harvest Food Bank): 25 cents per pound

Sweet potatoes (harvested from The Nashville Food Project gardens): $0

Lettuces: spinach, arugula, heirloom bibb lettuce (harvested from TNFP
gardens): $0

Cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers (gleaned by The Society of St. Andrew
from local farmers markets): $0

Garbanzo beans (purchased from Second Harvest): 18 cents a can

Croutons (made with donated Provence bread and olive oil and dried
basil from TNFP gardens): $0

Lime vinaigrette (made with donated limes and extra virgin olive oil): $0

Bread pudding (made with donated bread from Provence, raisins
purchased from Sam's Club and eggs purchased from Second Harvest): 4
cents per pound (for dairy)

Staples, spices and condiments, such as sugar, flour, paprika, garlic
powder, vinegar and salt and pepper, are items kept on hand in The
Nashville Food Project's pantry.

To get involved

What: The Nashville Food Project

Where: 3605 Hillsboro Pike

Contact: 615-460-0172, thenashvillefoodproject.org or search "The
Nashville Food Project" on Facebook

Christmas Recap Part 2

My dad doesn’t like chicken and dumplings, and he has never bothered to make them. But it’s interesting what a person can pick up just by hanging out in a kitchen with a woman who cooked for eight children at home and hundreds more at her work.

My grandmother was an elementary school lunch lady (back when lunch ladies cooked), and she made chicken and dumplings for every major holiday. So when I decided to make them for Christmas, dad stepped in as supervisor extraordinaire offering tips on everything from seasoning of broth to consistency of dough.

I like cooking with my father because he has a deep built-in knowledge about food that must have seeped into his pores with the steam off a stock. He’s also pretty fearless.

Here we are posing for mom in a faux wishbone-pulling shot (the Christmas equivalent of our ribbon cutting).

Making the stock.



Rolling the dough.


Dad’s sister tasting the dumplings -- and giving her approval. (This is a big deal.)

Here’s something I wrote about chicken and dumplings for USA Today and The Tennessean earlier this year, and the reason I decided to make the dish:

My father grew up the youngest of eight children, so Thanksgiving on his side of the family - with in-laws and cousins and grandkids in tow - made a potluck spread that could rival entire church congregations in our small Georgia town.

We would gather in my grandmother’s kitchen, where finding a spot for each dish felt like working a Thanksgiving jigsaw puzzle - rectangular dishes of sweet potato casserole wedged next to small bowls of marinated carrots, a tray of turkey squeezed beside a platter of ham. Pies and cakes such as my aunt’s chocolate pound cake with fudge frosting were even exiled until later atop the washing machine.

But no matter how short on space, we always made room for the largest mixing bowl of the lot. Sitting like a queen on the table, it held a dish that completed our tradition: My grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.

When my grandmother’s eyesight began to fail, it was my aunt Loyce who took over dumpling duties (partly because she loved them so). But now with my grandmother gone and Loyce too, I called my cousin Margaret, Loyce’s daughter, for the recipe. I should have known, though, that traditions don’t always come with traditional recipes. What’s left of granny’s chicken and dumplings is a paragraph of instructions typed directly from Margaret’s memory -- learned not from the page of a recipe but from standing at a mother’s elbow.

I asked my father if he, too, remembered watching his mother cook the dumplings.

“She’d throw flour out on the counter; she didn’t have a cutting board,” he said. “She would roll out the dough with a jelly glass and cut it into strips.” Then she’d drop the dough into the chicken stock, heavily peppered, and rich with cooked hen. “That was something that all the girls learned to do from Granny,” he said of his four sisters.

Maybe I’m a bad Southerner, but being too young for a lesson, I have never tried to make chicken and dumplings. Could I learn to make them too? This year, I’ve decided, it’s time to find out.

I referred to the chicken and dumplings recipe in the Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. You can find a version of that recipe here, but I totally recommend buying the book.

Christmas Recap Part 1

“We gonna put the MAS back into ChristMAS!!!”

That’s the message my friend Emily sent when she invited us over for a tree-trimming fiesta.

It’s the only tree-trimming I’ve ever attended, and it might as well be my last ‘cause I doubt anyone else could make it cooler. Emily served stiff margaritas rather than eggnog, and carnitas tacos with a trio of salsas instead of boring canapés. Tony brought a ukulele and a six pack of Corona, and the lovely Molly Thomas joined us. Then we helped Emily and Kevin decorate their tree with Elvis figurines and miniature guitars and sock monkeys and psychedelic icicley things.

Emily shared her recipe for pineapple salsa, which added sweet crunch to the tacos, and tasted perfect with tortilla chips, too.

Emily’s Pineapple Salsa

2 cups of diced pineapple chunks (fresh or canned in juice, either is fine here)
1 cup of diced white onion
1 generously sized serrano chili, diced finely
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar
Juice of a small lime
Season generously with salt, to taste

Mix it all up, and feel free to add more or less of anything to taste. This salsa is all about the balance of sweet, crunchy, spicy, sour and salty. Make it like you like it!

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And speaking of Mexican-influenced experiences, I went back to Sopapilla’s in Franklin not long ago.

Earlier in the year, I spent 101 minutes there for Nashville Lifestyles and The Tennessean. Here's what I wrote:

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This month I decided to go it alone.

Up until now, I've spent my 101 minutes at restaurants with friends
because I like food shared. Discussed. Enjoyed over conversation. Its
ability to connect us is one of the main reasons I write about it.

But then there's also something special about eating alone, too. It
helps me pay closer attention to the soft texture in a slice of warm
bread, the hearty aroma of slow-roasted beef, the pop from a fleck of
cilantro. The colors both on and off the plate shine. It's an
opportunity to (try to) be completely in the moment. To wonder about —
and be grateful for — the people who planted the chile peppers,
harvested them, roasted them over an open flame. It's both a spiritual
act and an indulgent one, like meditation — or a spa treatment. My
friend Jaime has a favorite restaurant she likes to visit alone. She
calls it church.

So on a recent Wednesday, I snuck off for Sopapilla's in Franklin.

It was 4:30 p.m. when I took a seat at the copper-topped bar. It was
early for the dinner crowd, so the place was mostly empty. The
bartender — bearded and bald, tattooed with small hoop earrings — had
the music cranked (Seal and the Kings of Leon in the mix) as he
hustled to prep his station.

He stopped his side-work to get me drink. The Cucumber Margarita. His
choice. I loved how the crisp cucumber in fat slices added freshness
to a drink that can sometimes taste too sweet and too tart. Cucumber.
Ah. Spa treatment, indeed.

He also placed in front of me a bowl of salsa (my very own bowl!) and
a basket of warm chips. I later learned that Steve Dale, the
restaurant's owner, had spent months perfecting the salsa that he
would take in batches on tour when he played bass with artists like
Carrie Underwood and Little Big Town. The muted rusty-red color with
flecks of black pepper was a salsa more layered and complex than
standard Mexican restaurant fare.

Soon after my drink arrived, a couple of women who work at the salon
next door popped in for a couple after-work drinks. Sopapilla's sits
at the corner of Camden Commons, a shiny newish development that mixes
businesses with residential space on top. The bartender recognized the
women.

"We have $5 house wines and margaritas," he said.

Then he shot me a look.

"I'll give you a discount on that one," he said pointing to my
speciality margarita that wasn't part of happy hour.

"I didn't tell her," he explained to the ladies.

I didn't mind, but then I heard one of them order a drink that isn't
on the menu. The Key Lime, a creamy concoction that arrived in a large
martini-shaped glass. He reminded the ladies of his name again, and
introduced himself to me. Roland.

Next up, I ordered my meal. Should I go Green Tamale & Chipotle Shrimp
Taco or the Stuffed Sopapilla, I asked him. He didn't hesitate.

Stuffed Sopapilla.

Chicken or beef?

Beef.

I like a man who gives direction with authority.

As I waited for my meal, a fourth guest rolled up to the bar — a
middle-age man in shorts and polo with a tan, gray hair and
sunglasses. He was just killing some time, I learned, by eavesdropping
between verses of a Tom Petty song. He ordered a margarita and read a
book off his iPhone. Meanwhile, my sopapilla arrived smothered in
sauce, chock with hunks of green Hatch chili and a melty layer of
cheese. Swaddled inside it was a mound of spicy, shredded beef.

Dale, who moved to Nashville in 1995 for music, grew up in Phoenix and
Albuquerque.

"From the get-go when I got here, I felt like there wasn't the Mexican
food I was accustomed to in Phoenix and Albuquerque," he told me after
my visit. "I started cooking my own food."

He had fallen in love with the Hatch chili while busing tables at a
restaurant during high school.

"Just the heat of the chilies and rich, roast flavor," he said.

The chilis grow in Hatch, N.M., where the soil and humidity suit them
well. Dale now orders them 1,500 pounds at a time, about every three
months.

In addition to his salsa experiments, Dale treated his musician
colleagues to "fiestas" while on the road.

"We'd break out the Crock-Pots and slow cook meats during the day," he
said. "After the show, we'd have a big thing of margaritas ...
quesadillas ... and tacos."

His restaurant's concept and menu development — about three years in
the making — happened on the back of a tour bus.

"Not bad for a margarita," Roland said to the sunglassed man.

"It does not suck," he said. "Hits the spot. Thank you, Roland."

Then he ordered a second one.

With hardly anything — but everything — happening around me, I didn't
remember to be grateful for my time alone until 5:06. Shame on me. But
the man in sunglasses was asking Roland about his past. I just had to
hear.

Roland came to Nashville from Columbus, Ohio, for music. He played in
a Christian hard rock band. His father had been a musician, too.

"What's for dessert?" I asked him.

He suggested the sopapillas again — this time without a savory
stuffing and just with a drizzle of honey — which are on the house.

Dale explained later that sopapillas typically arrive mid-meal in New
Mexico, "like we would have biscuits here." And while he sees himself
as a bit of an educator on authentic New Mexican cuisine, the timing
of the sopapillas hasn't resonated here. Guests would often ask the
servers to take them away until after dinner so they would stay warm.

"We kinda lost that battle," Dale said, though he's OK with that.

I, too, would be having mine for dessert. They arrived as dreamy
little pillows, soft and studded with pockets of air. With just a thin
layer of crisp on the outside from the hot oil and a dribble of honey,
they'll make you want to lick your fingers.

Sopapillas originated in Albuquerque hundreds of years ago. The
Indians were making fried bread when the Spaniards arrived, adding
their own twist.

"It's really an art form," Dale said. "We call it getting the bump."

When the staff gets it wrong, he'll tell them: "We're not called
'Indian Fried Bread.' Throw those away. It's our namesake."

I offered my second sopapilla to the man with the sunglasses.

"Oh, no, thank you," he said. "I would eat it."

And as the bar began to pick up, it was time for me to leave.

A trio of regulars had convened at the end of the bar to drink
happy-hour margaritas and talk football, and it reminded me how
restaurants embody so much life as places to play, work, nourish,
socialize.

When my check arrived, I learned that Roland had not discounted my
drink. He just didn't charge me for it at all.

"Thank you, Roland," I said waving over the heads of the regulars. I
sort of wanted to be a regular, too. Despite my time alone, I couldn't
help but feel the call of connectedness.

"Hey, have a good night and come back," he said.

And then it occurred to me, I was never really alone at all.

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Sopapilla's

1109 Davenport Blvd., Franklin

615-794-9989, www.sopapillas.net

What to order:

Try the blue corn chicken enchiladas with a fried egg on top.

"That's probably the most authentic dish that we have," said owner Steve Dale.

And while the traditional sopapillas with honey come on the house,
they're also good with meat tucked inside. When given a choice, go
with the beef. It's road-tested.

What to drink:

The Cucumber Margarita arrives in a tall glass with ice and several
thickly sliced hunks of cucumber. Or ask for Roland's off-menu drink,
The Key Lime, which works well as a precursor to the peppery cuisine
of New Mexico.

The restaurant has also upped its wine list since the bar was
installed in January.

About the Series

It's been said that a proper chef's hat has 101 folds representing the number of ways you can cook an egg. So we're choosing a local restaurant to visit each month — just for 101 minutes