New Year, New Resolutions

The holidays have come and gone once again. We managed to take three family visit trips in the course of three weeks...and I only took one extra day off of work. We've been to the north Georgia mountains, northeastern Pennsylvania, and Augusta, Georgia; and I can't be happier about doing absolutely nothing this weekend. We got a bit of snow in Knoxville this week, and if all goes well I won't leave the house again until Monday morning.

I've never set a serious New Year's Resolution for myself, but this year I've got a good one going. By the end of 2010 I want to buy a house. And more ambitiously, I want to do it by the end of April to qualify for the $8k tax credit for first time home buyers. If we still lived in New York, it could easily be another ten years before I could even consider buying a home, and the definition of "home" would be a questionable one bedroom apartment in south Brooklyn. Knoxville is an incredibly affordable place to buy real estate. The prices are shocking to people from the northeast. A nicely updated small house in a nice neighborhood is attainable for under $150k.

It's intimidating to make a decision of this scale, but more than anything I'm super excited. I can't wait to live in a place I can be proud of. The rental house we live in here is fine; it's a roof over our heads, and it's about twice the square footage of our last apartment. But there's no motivation to make it better. I'd like to think that in a house of my own, I'll gradually work to make it great. Imagine having a home that's filled with only the things you love, painted in the colors you choose, and every corner is yours. I can't really imagine it yet. But it's fun to.

I'll leave you with some highlights from the holiday festivities. In preparation I made my first batch of perogies (a.k.a. pirohi, pirushki) from scratch:

Some delicious sugar and spice nuts packaged up as gifts in recycled jars:

Our Christmas trees for the last two years have come from this strange little farm that's less than 2 miles from our house. You walk up the hill and choose your little tree, then a man with a chainsaw comes and cuts it and throws it in the back of his gator to take it down to your car. Good family fun to be had.

And after about two years, I finally finished another knitting project I'm happy with. Here's the colorful Noro striped scarf I made in December:

Happy new year, friends!

Care of the Earth CSA

This fall I stumbled upon a new local farm called Care of the Earth Community Farm that was offering a fall season CSA farm share. I've always been interested in the CSA concept, but it always seemed like such a big commitment of time and money. But since this farm just got up and running this year, they decided to offer a partial season from September through November. So it was only a 12 week commitment, thus significantly cheaper than a full season. So I did it...and it was GREAT.

I went with the half share, which turned out to be just the right amount each week. A typical box from early September might have been 3 summer squahses, 2 green peppers, 4 jalepeno peppers, 2 large tomatoes, one small head of lettuce, one bunch of swiss chard, one bunch of herbs, a few small potatoes, a bag of green beans, and maybe some other little things too.

By the late fall there was a lot of butternut squash, carrots, beets, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and dark greens (so much damn kale!) I found myself cooking a lot of different things that I would never buy at the store, because I had to use it all up. I learned that roasted beets are amazing, and that I don't much care for turnips or radishes (especially that evil daikon radish).

They had a little open house one Saturday afternoon at the farm. It's just outside Knoxville to the east side of town. They have about 30 acres total. For this first short season, one young woman did ALL of the work herself. Everything. She fed 50 people for three months. I think that's an admirable job.

The last CSA pickup was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. And now, two weeks later, I'm really missing it. The freshness of this produce was like nothing else I've ever had. I guess I got used to it, because after a weeks worth of Kroger produce again, it's just not the same. I was wavering on whether or not to make the investment for their full season next year, but the last week or so has completely made the decision for me. I can't wait until it starts again in April.

The Finest Bacon Money Can Buy

It's time for the world to know about Benton's. Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams. Benton's bacon. It's an authentic delicacy. It's only made in East Tennessee. It'll change your life.


This little hole in the wall on highway 455 near Madisonville, TN is a real deal smokehouse. It's every pig's nightmare. They smoke and cure country hams and their bacon is really something else. It's like no bacon I've ever had before. Think about that expensive thick cut applewood smoked bacon you can get at Whole Foods or Fresh Market, but ten times better. It's really meaty, and the hickory smoke is amazing. This stuff smells delicious before you even start cooking it. Open up the white butcher paper and the whole kitchen already smells good.


Foodies and chefs are obsessed with it. They ship bacon all over the country. But not many make it to their actual store. It's staffed by a crew of Tennessee good ol' boys who will answer any question with a smile. And...it's cheap. It's really a great deal. We got 2 lb of fresh cut slab bacon for less than $8. (They'll ship 4 lb of it for $21.) Yet another perk of living in Knoxville.

We finished out the order with 3 huge, beautiful NY Strip steaks, one of which he gave to us for free for some reason. Plus a little packet of Benton's prosciutto. "What? Rednecks in the holler making prosciutto? How do they even know what that is? Only Italians can make prosciutto." Don't underestimate a man who smokes pork for a living. It's effin' delicious.

Homespun Neighborhood Fireworks

I didn't realize until yesterday that Tennessee is the first state I've ever lived in where fireworks are completely legal. It's a new concept- you can buy colorful novelties filled with gun powder and shoot them off on the city streets. The kids squeal, the drunk rednecks sometimes burn and blind themselves, and the rest of us get a damn good display. It's 100 times better than going somewhere crowded and waiting in the hot sun for six hours before it gets dark for a 15 minute show. (Ever been to the DC mall on Independence Day?)

We were lucky enough to have our two immediate neighbors spend about $200 on the best stuff they could find. One even had the Pyromaniacs Discount Card from the Fireworks Supermarket. I'd say it was worth every penny of someone else's money. Enjoy these blurry, yet fascinating pictures, all taken from our front stoop.

pizza! pizza!

I'm fully aware that with my decision to leave New York I have also forsaken the best pizza in the world. From what I understand it's futile to try and find great pizza in Knoxville, but on the other hand I've never met a pizza I didn't like.

My earliest pizza memory is sitting in the back seat of my mom's minivan after picking up two lovely cheese pizzas conveniently packaged together with paper and cardboard from the Little Caesar's across from Dobbin Center. It was my favorite, and damn was that ride home a long one.

For years I've been under the impression that Little Caesar's all but went under, existing only at the checkout of select K-Mart locations. Upon arrival in Knoxville, I found out that I was wrong. Little Caesar's still thrives in the American South! They've got a new gimmick now, you don't have to buy two pizzas at a time any more, but you also don't have to call ahead. They just constantly make pizzas, and they do enough business to have them "hot-n-ready" for pizza lovers with no foresight.


We got a pepperoni pizza, crazy bread, and even crazy sauce for $8.18. What a crazy meal it was. For the most part the actual pizza was just how I remembered it from childhood. There's sort of this thick shelf of cheese above the sauce, and it's prone to big burnt bubbles on top. So to all those I've discussed the extinction of Little Caesar's with, rejoice in the fact that I was wrong.

Grainger County Goodness

So one of the first things that I've grown to love about Knoxville in the summer is the Grainger County tomatoes. Grainger is the next county to the north, and they know how to grow 'em. So we decided to go to the source last Friday and head up to Ritter Farms about 45 minute drive north of Knoxville. They grow and sell wonderfully fresh produce, and cook up delicious meat and three lunches on weekdays.

The lunch we had there was the best. I had been craving some serious southern style meat and three since we got here, and this place serves the best for 5 bucks a plate (plus a dollar extra for the sweet tea). And on the way out we picked up a bunch of those tomatoes, some pickling cucumbers, half a dozen ears of corn, and some homemade apple butter. With a giant lunch for two and three grocery bags full of produce and preserves, it only set us back $27.


So what to do with this beautiful, perfect produce? Well, I'm in research and training for doing some real canning and preserving this fall, so with the cucs I decided to make some refrigerator pickles. I had done this before, but with a recipe from Roy Finamore's book that turned out too sweet for my taste. So this time, I had to turn to homemaker extraordinaire, Martha Stewart for a recipe. This one didn't have any sugar at all, so we'll see how they turn out. Only 5 more days to wait. I did half of them as spears and half as slices to see which work better.


As for the tomatoes, I've never made a real sauce before from real live fresh tomatoes. But I figured it couldn't be all that different from using canned whole tomatoes, especially if you simmer the hell out of it for a few hours. So I winged it and made a marinara sauce from the best fresh tomatoes I've ever had. It was absolutely delicious; I've never had a red sauce that actually tastes like all the vegetables that are in it. And I've got a freezer full of it.

Before the ol' blender stick went in:


And after:


Let this be the official beginning of my list- "Why living in Knoxville, Tennessee is the best" 1.) Grainger County Produce

A Permanent Departure

Yes, it's been a while since anything new has been posted up here. But, something substantial has been in the works. It's been too long now that we've been living unhappily in New York, and it's time to do something about it. It's now 100% official, we're moving to Knoxville, TN at the end of this month.

We found a little house in the North Hills neighborhood to rent from a super cool landlord (who's not out to rip you off like every landlord in NY). Here it is, 2454 Amber Street:



And so now that we won't be "escaping" from Brooklyn every weekend, but permanently, the nature of this blog will have to change. I'd like to keep posting updates here about our outdoor endeavors in the Smoky Mountains and little highlights of life outside of the Northeast. Cheers!