Advocacy Trip to Tallahassee, FL Nets Great Meals!

Every year we assist the Friends of our libraries in their advocacy efforts by joining them on a trip to Florida's capital city, Tallahassee. Although we certainly don't go hungry while we're there, as a college town Tallahassee is full of chain restaurants, bars, and pizza places. We're staying at the DoubleTree near the Capitol, and they have a restaurant, Jacob's On The Plaza, that leaves much to be desired. We told you about Jacob's in our post of Monday, February 15, 2010, "The WORST Restaurant Experience Ever!" Let's just say that Jacob's hasn't changed much in a year... Lisa noticed a restaurant right next door to the hotel...Avenue Eat & Drink. We decided to try it with the small group that was left here. What a terrific decision! Avenue has only been open about 6 months. The owner, Chris Clark, used to own what was (according to friends who live in Tallahassee) an excellent restaurant, Cafe Cabernet. Avenue Eat & Drink celebrates Southern Fusion cuisine that showcases many locally-sourced ingredients. We started with an Heirloom Tomato and Burrata Mozzarella Salad that featured both red and yellow tomatoes and soft, lucious burrata. For the unitiated, burrata is made just like the regular firmer mozzarella except that instead of throwing the formed balls quickly into ice water to firm up, burrata is formed into a pouch and filled with cream and scraps of mozzarella. It's a rich treat! Lisa had the Park Avenue Chicken Pot Pie as her entree, which was a different take on one of the most popular comfort foods. Avenue tops theirs with a corn souffle crust. Lisa thought there was more gravy (darker than any other chicken gravy we've had) than filling and would not order it again. Since we likely won't be back in Tallahassee until next year, we had to try other dishes. We tried the Anson Mills Grits with Smoked Cheddar and Stripling's Sausage. Anson Mills is an organic mill in Columbia, SC, and Stripling's is a family-owned sausage producer in Cordele, GA.. The grits were creamy, cheesy and rich, although they weren't very hot when they arrived. The small bowl of sausage crumbles tasted of sage, thyme, and mild pepper. Carol's entree was the Grilled Cheese and Pulled Short Rib Sandwich, served on sourdough bread with carmelized onions and horseradish mayo. Cheese was smoked cheddar. Short Ribs are the darlings of many restaurant chefs right now with their rich beefy flavor. All the ingredients in this sandwich work well together but again, it would have been better if it had been hotter. The side was sweet potato chips and they were good! A fun item that another diner ordered was chick pea fries...ground chick peas (garbanzo beans) blended with spices and formed into little logs before being rolled in chick pea flour and deep-fried. Dipped into Avenue's special ketchup, they were different and tasty. We HAD to try at least one dessert, and all shared the Bourbon Banana Pudding with Glazed Pecans. Avenue's version adds toasted angel food cake to the ingredients in the name. No one didn't enjoy this dessert! Strange as it might seem, we returned tonight for dinner! We had plans with our local friends to eat at another restaurant but we suggested Avenue since we knew they'd enjoy it and they also didn't know of its existence. We started with the Artichoke Spinach Dip with Tortilla Chips. Avenue changed the ratio of artichoke & spinach to creamy cheese sauce for a chunkier appetizer. The bowl was emptied pretty quickly! One of the reasons Carol wanted to return to Avenue was to try their appetizer of Braised Pork Belly With Cabbage. Yeah, she knows, pork belly is fatty...it's the cut used to make bacon. She thought having a small portion in a restaurant might prevent her from wanting to cook a whole piece at home. She decided to order it for dinner, along with a side of roast potatoes. The small chunk of pork belly was braised then deep-fried and served with spicy (VERY!) cabbage along with a vinegary dressing that cut the richness of the pork belly, although it was still unctious (Carol has always wanted to find a place to use that word!). Lisa's dinner was the Risotto with Boursin Cheese, Rainbow Kale, & Shitake Mushrooms. It was creamy and rich, but didn't have a lot of kale or mushrooms. On to dessert, again...tonight we had Mike's Reese's Peanut Butter Pie. Although not made in Avenue's own kitchen, it was delicious and surprisingly light, as the peanut butter filling was whipped. Before we close, we need to mention the service...at lunch we were served by Frankie and at dinner J.C. took care of us. Both gentlemen were extremely knowledgeable about Avenue's menu and were professional and pleasant. We're planning to return to Avenue Eat & Drink next year with our whole crew! Avenue Eat & Drink 115 East Park Avenue Tallahassee, FL 32301 850-224-0115 www.avenueeatanddrink.com

Smoking a Pork Butt & Brisket...YUMM!!

OK, I'll be honest...we actually smoked these meats a few weeks ago but have just gotten around to posting.

Here's a photo of the smoker we have, a CharGriller. We own two of these terrific smokers, which are really charcoal grills that have a firebox attachment added. This is the newer one; the older one is about 13 years old. (Yes, we know the firebox needs a new coat of paint).

We like to use fruitwoods such as apple & cherry for most of our meat and it always tastes great. Oak was recommended for brisket but we've found it to be too strong.

Here you see Carol applying rub to the meat. For the pork we use a rub Carol created that has a bit of sweetness, and the sugars create a nice bark (crust) on the meat. The beef rub has some spices that are also used for making pastrami.

We allow the rub to soak into the meat for about the time it takes to start the fire and get the coals ready to place in the firebox.

We spray apple juice on the meats while they smoke, spraying every 1/2 hour after the first hour of cooking. Here we've raised the cover to spray.

We loosely follow a method proposed by Adam Perry Lang in his book "Serious Barbecue" and it works great! Once the pork butt reaches 165 degrees and the brisket 175 degrees we place them on two sheets of heavy-duty foil and pour a sauce of melted unsalted butter, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar. Then we wrap the meat and place it in a cooler for about 30 minutes.
After removing the meat from the cooler we open the foil, pour out the drippings and mix a new sauce of some of the drippings and our homemade barbecue sauce. We brush that onto the meat and then wrap the meat in new sheets of foil. The wrapped meat then goes back in the smoker until the pork butt reaches 185 degrees and the brisket 195 degrees, and we remove the foil and allow a crust to form the final 30 minutes.