Our Hippie-Amish-Twelve Tribe Road Trip

Nashville Restaurants and Food
Our Hippie-Amish-Twelve Tribe Road Trip
Summertown and Pulaski

An intriguing thing about living in Nashville: another world awaits, just a short drive outside the city limits. Rural Tennessee can get pretty darn interesting and sometimes even a little weird. That’s one reason we enjoy road trips through the Volunteer State. We had a mixture of disappointment, discovery and moral soul searching on a recent expedition to Summertown and Pulaski. Watch how quickly a simple food foraging road trip turns into something else entirely.

Yeah, you already know the Summertown thing. We went to the legendary Farm. And it really isn’t that weird anymore. After 38 years the communal farming colony is well established, and the hippies have branched out into all sorts of vegetarian business ventures. We swung buy in hopes of purchasing some fresh mushrooms. Unfortunately, while they are leaders in helping people learn how to grow mushrooms (http://www.mushroompeople.com/; they don’t sell any on location. Visiting season is over now so we’ll have to go back for a mushroom tour next year. We did visit the Farm Store. Most of it is just organic and veggie commercial products like you would find in any health food store. They do sell their own soy products under the name FarmSoy (http://www.farmsoy.com/). We picked up some firm tofu. Under the Healthy-Eating label they produce textured vegetable protein. It looks worse than it sounds, much like dry dog food. Don’t let the Purina appearance dissuade you: with a bath in boiling veggie broth these nuggets come to life. The Veggie Eater sautéed them in onion and used Greek yogurt to make a zesty cream-like sauce. Mixed with angel hair egg noodles the soy creation made for a great dinner.

All of this healthy living talk must have lead to a case of the D-Ts for the Meat Eater. Just down the road we made a sudden U-turn at the sign proclaiming Shaffer Farms Custom Meats. Inside was a meaty paradise of steaks, ribs and briskets, enhanced with the smoky aroma of the adjoining barbecue joint. The main attraction is the butcher shop. They take meat really seriously. We waited while one couple had a top to bottom explanation of every type of meat and cut. They make their own sausage, so after a search the Meat Eater bought some German smoked sausage. The Veggie Eater went outside to escape the carnage and the Meat Eater took the opportunity to cheat on the upcoming lunch with a quick and stealthy beef brisket sandwich from the Texas Barbecue joint attached to the butcher shop. The brisket was good: smoky and quite moist. It was a little light in the flavor department, but it did provide a nice antidote to all of that tofu talk. The sausage, cooked up later, proved to be wonderfully strong and super smoky, with herbs and hints of spiciness.

Driving through Lawrenceburg is a blast. You watch Amish horse and buggies go head to head with two lanes of busy traffic. Look one way and you see three of them hitched outside the Save-a-Lot grocery store. Look another and they are navigating through a mall parking lot.

Down highway 64 towards Pulaski we found Powder Mill Hill. It looks pretty cool from the outside: an old farm mill nestled next to a limestone rimmed creek. The creaking building is covered top to bottom in antique commercial signs. Hundreds of rusting antiques and regular old crap of every size and description are strewn around the mill. Cow skulls anyone? Unfortunately it’s rather touristy inside, with the kind of newly minted “Americana” stuff you can get in a million stores these days. It is put together in a fun way with genuine antiques mixed in with the “Americana” kitsch. The owners are a blast. They couldn’t be nicer and insisted the Veggie Eater keep piling more apples into a $3.50 a bag special. We hit a couple more places a bit like this down 64 East towards Pulaski. The blueberry and cream cheese fried pie from the Green Valley Country Store is the best the Meat Eater has ever sampled and well worth an extra stop.

Our destination of Pulaski had one primary reason: a supposedly good vegetarian restaurant named Staff of Life. The menu online looked promising and we had a reader tip us off with a good experience. Unfortunately Staff of Life is gone. The owners have moved on to Alabama, according to residents we quizzed. Thankfully we had another stop in mind for Pulaski: the Common Ground Bakery. And this is when things got weird.

Common Ground has been selling baked goods at the Nashville Farmers Market this year. The breads have a distinctive European taste and texture: hearty, grainy and robust. The sourdough spelt is a real eye-opener. We swing by the bakery and are pleased to find a café, saving us a Pulaski lunch dilemma. Now forgive us for not knowing about this, but Common Ground cafes and bakeries can be found around the world. They are run by the Twelve Tribes organization (http://www.twelvetribes.org/). It’s a Christian sect that espouses giving up worldly goods and living a simple lifestyle outside of the money driven society. Sound a little like a cult? Well, they’ve certainly been accused of that and a visit to the café can’t tell you much at all. It’s a pleasant environment: a beautiful, historic home and a laid back tea room atmosphere. The menu is a simple collection of sandwiches, and salads. The tomato bisque is quite a bit like the bread: hearty, chunky and full of herbs. The bread is the star on this menu: even a sandwich filled with corned beef, roast beef, hot pepper cheese and provolone, gets some zing from the fresh and doughy onion roll.

Okay, we don’t hear a word about religion during our visit and if you don’t read the newspaper they give out (actually kind of hidden away) you might never realize that this place is religious. The women are dressed in a kind of Mennonite meets gypsy style. While it may not be obvious, it’s still clear something is going on here. They say nothing to us of any religious nature and everyone is laughing and having a good time, including the many locals who pack the place for lunch.

We get back home and do some research. The Twelve Tribes have been a subject of much cult debate. Do they beat kids and make them follow the Twelve Tribe lifestyle, whether they like it or not? Do they get so much flack because they rail against the big money, super church Christianity favored by so many today? Some quick internet research and a visit to their café isn’t enough information to form a valid opinion. We did appreciate this thoughtful television piece put together by the well respected Chronicle TV show in Boston. Take a look and see what you think: http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2008/01/twelve-tribes-community-or-cult.html

Will we buy stuff from Common Ground anymore? Probably not. They seem like genuinely nice folks. I appreciate their commitment to an alternative lifestyle and quite frankly share their concern about big money religion. However, anytime there is a powerful church leader there is the danger of blind faith. While they say there is no such leader in regular worship, news reports point to one of the founders of the group, who started it in Chattanooga in the 1970’s. Elbert Spriggs is accused of making pronouncements and telling followers what to believe. That’s not what bothers us. If ex-members can be trusted, he says some pretty weird things. In our final attempt at fairness we include a link to the ex-members site. Check out the alleged quotes: http://www.twelvetribes-ex.org/body.html

The traditional media also has many racist, homophobic and sexist quotes attributed to Spriggs. While attitudes like this could probably be found at many church groups in Tennessee, we cannot support them with the purchase of products or services. People have a right to believe what they want, but we don’t have to give them our money.

Who knew that good bread and a good lunch could be so complicated? We even debated saying anything about this on the blog, since we certainly don’t want to promote a cult or damn someone’s choice in religion. We have always promised honesty with our readers and we will continue that pledge with this entry.

Veggie Eater: What happens when you take an atheist vegetarian to a restaurant run by Messianic Christians? Good food and lackadaisical service. I ordered ice tea, I got water. I then ordered the lunch special, which was spanakopita with a Greek salad. Salad, soup, and Meat Eater’s sandwich all arrived promptly. The salad had baby red leaf lettuce, baby chard, and some heartier greens. It was topped with sliced carrots, cukes, red pepper, tomato wedges, and red onion. It was then generously adorned with cubed feta and lots of kalamata olives. The dressing was light and allowed the veggies to shine. Lunch was off to a good start. And then there was the wait. We probably waited at least 20 minutes after we had consumed the soup, salad, and sandwich for Meat Eater before the waitress returned to confirm that I had never received my spanakopita. Thankfully, when it arrived, the spanakopita was wonderful. I don’t know if they make their own phyllo dough but it was flakey and sinfully buttery. It was chock full of nutmegged spinach. The spinach mixture appeared to have been made from fresh spinach given the lack of mushy texture. It was then loaded with cheese, not the standard feta; maybe provolone? We then asked for boxes to take our treats home with us. Another 20 minutes passed and Meat Eater went up to the register to ask for the box and check. Lo and behold, she had forgotten the box…a really interesting day finished by a really interesting lunch.

Thanksgiving Suggestion and Farm Fun

Nashville Restaurants and Food
Thanksgiving via Bosnia
We don't have the resources or time to offer up a comprehensive list of restaurants to eat out for Thanksgiving day. However, we do have one suggestion, thanks to Nashville Restaurants reader and intrepid food explorer Ed King. Sevala Kulovic will be cooking up Thanksgiving dinner at Cafe Bosna. I talked to her on the phone today and she is really excited about this...turkey, gravy with pecans, and cornbread dressing are just a few of the items on the traditional side. Lamb chops in a white sauce, stuffed grape leaves and smoked pork loin are a few of the specialties she will also be cooking up. She promises plenty for the vegetarian. Considering the down home atmosphere Cafe Bosna might be the closest you can get to having Thanksgiving at home...while not having to clean up. She will open at 11 a.m. Here's our recent review:

http://nashvillerestaurants.blogspot.com/2009/11/cafe-bosna.html

Farm Fun
Have you ever wondered how they make goat cheese? The good folks at Noble Springs Dairy are going to help you find out. This is a note they sent to us about a farm tour they have planned. We did this once at Bonnie Blue Farm in Waynesboro and it's both fun and eye-opening. Making goat cheese is a real science.

From their newsletter:
Friday, November 27, at 3pm. Visitors will be guided around the farm, getting to meet all of our goats and other farm animals (cows, chickens, horses, cats, and dogs) and we will allow visitors to try their hands at milking one of our goats. We will also have numerous samples of our cheeses and cheese available for purchase. Tour admission is $6 per person and we ask that people let us know they are coming prior to 12 noon on Friday, November 27. For more information check out our website, http://www.noble-springs.com/ email us or call (615) 481-9546. If it is raining on Friday we will have to reschedule, we will let everyone know if we have to cancel. Our address is 3144 Blazer Rd., Franklin TN 37064.

Midweek Odds and Ends

Nashville Restaurants and Food
Midweek Odds and Ends

The Nashville Farmers Market is still hopping, perhaps thanks in part to the warm November weather. The change in vendors is remarkable in the last couple of years. We counted five different farms selling beef, lamb, rabbit and pork. Chigger Ridge Ranch, Garrett Farms and Walnut Hills have a wide variety of choice in meat cuts and styles. We went with aged beef burgers from Walnut Hills. I threw them on the grill that night. Combined with sourdough from the Schrock Family Bakery and a fresh tomato from Smiley’s, it was truly an all-star, all-Farmers Market burger. The Veggie Eater wasn’t left out of the fun. She cooked up freshly picked shiitake mushrooms on the grill from a vendor whose name we have forgotten (sorry, they were located right next to Walnut Hills Farm). The next day it was fresh milk for breakfast from J.D. Country Milk from Kentucky. Charlie Tambellini is selling spices under the coolspringsspice.com label. And we met up with Justin from Noble Springs Dairy offering samples of his chevre to market goers. The goat cheese business is taking off, with many restaurants recently signing up. That creamy chevre was a standout during a recent visit to the Silly Goose restaurant in East Nashville.

Nuvo Thanksgiving

We make another visit to Nuvo Burrito in East Nashville this week. Why does a tortilla Thanksgiving lead to a family fight? Read our update and find out:
http://nashvillerestaurants.blogspot.com/2009/08/nuvo-burrito.html

Dee’s Q

Nashville Restaurants and Food
Dee’s Q
1000 Riverside Drive
Nashville
615-227-0024

Eating dinner under a carport doesn’t seem that odd when the beef brisket sandwich is smoky, tender and delicious. Or if the wings are crispy, meaty and sauced up in a sassy and sweet hot sauce. The surroundings are part of the charm at Dees Q in Nashville. It’s a true barbecue shack, painted bright yellow and red. There’s a little screened in area to wait for your order and Michael Jackson playing on the stereo. It’s an enjoyable vibe and Tracey Crowder has done a good job keeping the place going.

It was a dream of Reggie and Tracey Crowder to open the barbecue joint and it received rave reviews from the get go. Last February Reggie died of a heart attack. Despite the devastating loss Tracey kept the place open. The smoker has stayed hot and Dees Q continues to turn out good barbecue.

Tracey smiled and greeted me on one visit and after a nice chat she went back to the smoker to check on the sausage. They have a wind ranging menu for a barbecue joint: fish sandwiches, hot wings, barbecue chicken, rib tips, rib racks, beef brisket, and turkey legs on Friday and Saturday.

Of course the pork barbecue is the main event. They serve up a moist barbecue sandwich with plenty of bark pieces. The smoke is pretty mild on this visit, but it’s early in the day. The tomato based hot sauce is jumping-good and gives the sandwich a smoky, tangy flavor. The half rack of ribs is a real monster in size and comes slathered in a simple rub. I asked for the sauce on the side. This is not a set of carefully carved ribs: you get the whole slab and eating with plastic utensils is not a pretty affair. The meat itself has solid porky flavor. It’s really elemental pig. Grease runs down your chin and you have to work to pull the meat off the bone. It is early in the day and that may change order to order. The beef brisket packs tons of flavor and the wings are a real treat.

Tracey says the neighborhood has been really supportive and business continues to be good. The smoker keeps on puffing. I paid $14 for ribs and a barbecue sandwich on one visit and $8 for wings and a brisket sandwich for another visit.