A note on our dinner last night at Tupelo Honey. I do have fond memories of it from my last trip in 2013. It is always crowded whenever we pass by. We both have colds now; with granddaughters in day care there is no avoiding it. And since neither my husband nor I has had a cold in about 20 years, anything going around is going straight for us. Back in Asheville last night we sort of wanted to go to Jack of the Wood, which is an Irish bar and we sort of wanted some sinus-clearing Indian food, as in Chai Pain, but they don't serve even beer, which my husband seems to think is beneficial for a head cold. So we opted for the closest place to get both beer and comfort food. The app was promising: fried cauliflower with some kind of plcklish white dip. Actually very good. Everything that came after was so salty it was hard to know what was what. The grits were fixed in that overindulgent creamy cheesy way, but the ratio of cream and cheese to grits was skewed so far in favor of the cheese that it almost wasn't grits any more. There's a lot of lily-gilding in southern restaurant food that tries to accommodate modern tourist tastes, as if adding ingredients makes it fancy and therefore worth extra money and long descriptions on the menu.
Yes, I know I'm picky about food, but the problem is I can make excellent grits myself. My husband makes a mean biscuit. I know how to cook string beans, so my standards are annoyingly high.. Today we are going to lay low and soak our heads in steam. My husband is off buying a NYT and to WF to get lox and bagels for dinner and some essential oils to add to the steam-pots. If there's one thing Asheville must have in abundance, it is essential oils. Breweries and wellness stores and esoteric teas are abundant. So esoteric that they don't carry English breakfast tea in any iteration. Dobra Tea in downtown is a trip, and anyone who really knows their way around Asian teas would have a field day there.
