Peace Out.

Hi! It's been a long, long time, I know.

Because of certain health issues, I have (rather reluctantly) made some temporary adjustments to my diet, and to be perfectly honest, a food blog chronicling all of that would be so boring I almost fell asleep just thinking about it. So, farewell, beloved food blog...I have had so much fun with you.

My new blog is not so much about food, although there will be food there. It's really more of a place for me to keep up with my friends, long-distance, little letters to the people I love. Like you! So come say hello. 

Love, 

Rebekka

Help?

Good evening, friends.

I'm freshly back in town, tired but positively swollen with satisfaction from the trip. Not only did I get to nerd out on audio-animatronics and everything Walt Disney, but I also got to spend time with some very missed friends. Over Moroccan food and under Spanish moss, with brownies and ice cream, a cozy breakfast in a tent of broken rain clouds. The sun hasn't bothered to come out today, so I'm washing a thousand loads of laundry and tending to the honey whole-wheat bread rising on my countertop. 

But I have something to talk to you about. 

Manley and I have recently decided to save a certain large amount of money in a certain number of months, namely ten. This is going to require extreme...I mean, extreme budget adjustments. For the next ten months, we will not be traveling, going out to dinner, throwing elaborate parties or any parties for that matter, and our food budget will be very, VERY small. 

I am terrified. But kind of excited. How do you eat beautifully and well on a teeny tiny budget? Can it even be done? Friends, do you have any advice for me, any resources? I know I need a system in place: I need to be organized, creative, and ruthless. And well-supported. So I'll probably be here a lot, with frustration and disaster and maybe even glorious triumph, who knows? 

Back in a bit

Good morning. I'm sitting here with my early coffee looking out the window at cotton-colored skies, wondering if it's going to rain. We're packing up in a minute and driving to Birmingham to meet my parents for a week-long vacation.

To DISNEY WORLD. Embarrassingly, still one of my magic places.

On the way back, Manley and I will be splitting off from my parents and driving up the Eastern coast of Georgia to visit our friends in Savannah, the birthplace of Flannery O'Conner. 

In the meantime, if you live here, go to Cupcake Collection and grab a sweet lemonade cupcake and chicory coffee. Sit on the porch and enjoy it. Have such a time. 

Thinking...

I'm thinking about Blackberry Farm right now and how it was one of the most inspiring places, food-wise, that I've ever been a part of. Most of what was served to eat was grown or raised right there on the premises, and everything else was sourced from very close by. There were heirloom tomatoes doused in truffle vinaigrette, fuzzy yellow peach tomatoes and pretty speckled butterbeans. Golden raspberries and sunset-colored peppers that we ate straight from the vine, watermelon with bleu cheese salt, purple okra sauteed with lamb bacon. 

Yeah, lamb bacon. 

But what I really can't stop thinking about, what I keep returning to is a simple plate of perfectly salted Tennessee figs and wedges of hard sheep's milk cheese from the Blackberry Farm sheep. I literally can't stop thinking about those figs and that cheese. It was one of those "ah-ha!" moments that we all have with food, a turning point of some sort, even if you aren't sure exactly what you're turning to or where you came from. 

But you're thinking.

Holiday

At Blackberry Farm.

So much to tell you.

Don't even know where to start. 

Market Pasta

This is how it happens:

Every Saturday morning, no matter how exhausted I am or how late I've stayed up the night before, or how particularly dreamy my bed looks in the slanting morning light, I go to the Franklin Farmer's Market.  Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty about driving so far or not supporting Nashville's market, but the guilt fades somewhere between I-65 and the rolling hills. It's just better, ya'll. Plus all my special friends are there: West Wind Farms and Hatcher Dairy...Kenny's. 

I buy everything. Cheese, soft wheat bread, peaches and green beans. Raw honey, milk, and cream. Amish pasta that looks like it would taste like wet paper bags but is actually chewy, nutty and delicious.

Usually I'm with my friend Mary and we buy things for our husbands...treats, like miniature cheesecakes and honey-oat squares with bee pollen. We watch the old men playing bluegrass and talk about how cute they are.

Every week I buy sage sausage from West Wind Farms...sometimes chicken, bacon, and sandwich meat too. And on Saturday nights, I make Market Pasta. I saute everything that's sautee-able in a skillet with olive oil: onions, peppers, garlic. And then I throw in whatever else: sliced zucchini, diced tomatoes, shredded cabbage, whatever. I crumble the sage sausage into the "sauce" and cook it all down, adding fistfuls of basil from my backyard, and serve it over the paper bag pasta. 

And it's a feast. At the table, it's served with a dusting of Parmesan or Pecorino-Romano, and cracked black pepper. Lots of wine. Bread with butter. And, if I'm really lucky, dear old friends like this one here named Sarah Cooper, who I've known so long I barely remember not knowing. Wouldn't really want to. 

The Winner and The Consolation Prize

Well, I used the random number generator, and it randomly generated the number 10. So, Elizabeth, that's you! I was so pleased that Elizabeth won...we have been blog friends for a while now and I KNOW she will use this book. I can't wait to tie it up with string and send it off to San Francisco. 

And from the goodness of the bottom of my heart, I thought I'd give you a recipe from the book as well. Did you, my readers who grew up in other places than the Southeast, have the ubiquitous breakfast strata haunting your refrigerator every time overnight guests came? It would be right there, next to the fresh pitcher of sweet tea, resting while you sleep, ready to bake in the morning into something puffy, golden and delicious. Sometimes dear friends or relatives made them for you when you were expecting company, which I always thought the ultimate in Southern generosity. 

I made this tomato, basil, and cheddar one for my guests this weekend and served it with fresh fruit and hot coffee. It was splendid. Make this using your most beautiful summer tomatoes. It will make such a difference. 

Tomato Breakfast Strata

contributed to the Birmingham, AL junior league 

cookbook by Shaun Davidson Gray

1 cup milk

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 baguette, sliced

1 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped

2 T olive oil

2 cups shredded cheddar/jack cheese

3 large tomatoes, thinly sliced

1/2 cup basil pesto

4 large eggs

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 cup heavy cream

Mix the milk and wine in a shallow dish; the mixture will have the consistency of buttermilk. Dip the bred slices in the milk mixture until coated and arrange in a single layer in a lightly greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with the parsley and drizzle with the olive oil. Layer the cheese, tomatoes, and pesto 1/2 at a time over the bread slices.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl until blended and stir in the salt and pepper. Pour the eggs over the prepared layers and then carefully pour the cream over the top. Chill, covered with plastic wrap, for 8 to 10 hours. Remove the strata from the refrigerator and let stand, covered, for 1 hour or until room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the plastic wrap and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until puffy and brown. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.