This year for my very strange sheltering-in-place birthday celebration, I treated myself to a very real treat: locally made jigsaw puzzles and locally baked cookies! You can treat yourself to the same option if you live in Athens, by the way, through the collaboration between Very Good Puzzle and the subject of this week’s #MeatetarianEats post, Sun Cat Sweets!

Though I did purposely order a puzzle and cookie delivery combo, what I did not expect was how amazing these companies are! I made mention on the socials that this was my birthday treat to myself, and they sent me a birthday card, a second puzzle AND a knitting bag! OK, maybe they didn’t know I am weird and love using tote bags as knitting project bags, but still. I got a little emotional about the whole thing and it was the greatest surprise!
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But y’all aren’t here for the emotional gushing over puzzles, right? You’re here because this is a post about cookies. 

I honestly have no recollection of how I found out about Sun Cat Sweets other than one day randomly discovering them on Instagram. It’s a home bakery here in Athens. And fun fact, they will ship you a box of cookies if you live in Georgia or, if you ask nicely, the Eastern coast. I highly recommend this.

Y’all know I call #MeatetarianEats my “Very Occasional Food Blog,” right? This post is the prime example. I had a few different experiences with White Tiger Gourmet back in 2016 and 2017, and really wanted to write about it, but for various reasons I didn’t.

Once I wasn’t impressed with the photos I took. Once I was with a group that made fun of me for taking pictures of everything I eat. That was back in the days when it was harder to talk myself into being myself/doing my thing, so I gave in to peer pressure and chose not to photograph or take notes.

So, if there is any bit of silver lining for the foodservice industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that I could get White Tiger Gourmet delivered to my front door and take my own damn pictures and food notes without feeling any sense of judgement. *insert smirk emoji here* My delivery experience with White Tiger was the first time I ate there not at brunch, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect except dang good barbeque. 

Yep. I know. I just wrote about barbeque. Sue me; it’s my food blog. 

My favorite thing about White Tiger ‘que is that the meat itself has almost a vinegar tang to it. It’s earthy and moist and the bark is just sweet and fatty and dissolves the moment they hit my tongue. That’s true for brunch; that’s true for lunch.

I guess my overall feel about White Tiger’s atmosphere in-house and food in general is that, to me anyway, it’s RUSTIC. Authentic. Like I cannot tell you the last time I hand intentional crust in a barbeque sandwich or barbeque plate. Most places trim and toss, but to me the burnt ends and bark are a delicacy.

What’s BBQ bark? SO GLAD YOU {probably didn’t} ASK!

Bark is primarily the result of the Maillard reaction, which, as a meat science student who very much sucked at chemistry, is the only chemical reaction I nerd out about. As the dry rub on meat heats up, some of the salts penetrate deep into the cut, but the rest of the spices essentially melt to become a glaze. The type of smoke — hickory, applewood, you get my drift here — can alter the flavor and color of that glaze as particles stick to it. As water evaporates from the meat and the “glaze” begins to dry, the Maillard reaction kicks off as the amino acids (aka baby protein building blocks) in the meat and the sugars in the glaze interact. They form those crusty bits that become known as bark on the surface of the meat. The Maillard reaction is where a lot of the colors and rich flavors come into play when cooking pretty much anything with protein, but it’s especially noted for pork, beef and lamb. 
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Anyway. I don’t know what White Tiger does to get its bark to be pulled pork candy, but it is DAMN GOOD OK. 

Independent Baking Co., has a fresh, crusty smell to it. It’s flour-dusted and seemed lightly toasted.
You know how people say pastas like penne are great because the sauce gets all up in the little tube? That’s how this bread carries this sandwich. All the sauce and the juices from the pulled pork, and even some of the moisture from the mozzarella just kind of like, absorb into the porous innards of the bread. The outside remains crisp though, so every bite is a burst of flavor.

I couldn’t tell that there were two sauces on the sandwich — the menu says it’s red and white BBQ sauces — so that may have been a delivery fluke or I was just starving and didn’t notice. But sauce or no, this is a HUGE portion and I was able to get two meals out of it, even though I was super hangry when I ordered it.

At the moment, White Tiger has limited hours for to-go and delivery, and I cannot recommend them enough. This was my “eat local” purchase this week and it was way worth the splurge. So grateful these folks are able to keep some of the best food in Athens going right now! Plus, with all this stuff about “Tiger King” — which I have not watched; calm down guys — going around, it seemed a most appropriate time to post.

I’ve been procrastinating writing this for a full week now. It’s been A Long Week. A long two weeks, really. Two Thursdays ago I was helping set up a catering event for one of my restaurant partners and the event hosts brought in extra hand sanitizer to have in the banquet room. The next day all Hell broke loose and that’s about the time I started losing track of days.

Last Thursday was my birthday, and it was the strangest birthday I’ve ever … celebrated. I was panicking about my friends who were un- or under-employed now because of COVID-19. I was worried for the newest restaurant I do a bit of work with — they chose to close their doors due to the uncertainty. I was worried for my hair salon that I do occasional photography and graphics for, as they, too, shut down for the safety of their team and customers. I was worried, a little bit, for me too: What happens if my main restaurant accounts close?

So my 31st birthday was one I’d rather pretend not happened at all. And in times of stress, I tend to stress-eat. Not over-eat, per se, but when I’m stressed I specifically want comfort food. That’s something different to every person, but to me … it’s barbeque and French fries. Y’all knowI can eat some barbeque. And there’s only one place in Athens that has my comfort-style of sauce-drenched pulled pork on a fluffy white bread bun that’s served up with a side of hot, salty crinkly fries.

I’m talkin’ Butt Hutt, fam.

My history with Butt Hutt takes us back almost a decade, when this little BBQ shack opened up across the street from The Red & Black, where I basically lived my junior and senior years of college. When I wasn’t at a sorority event, I was there. In my cubicle. Usually writing or doing homework, or often bugging my co-workers and shaking the vending machine in the hopes it was lying about all the Mr. Pibb being gone … again.

We ate at Butt Hutt a lot. Jimmy John’s, my other now-comfort craving, was right next door. Those were the places we frequented, but Butt Hutt was locally owned and had an even bigger special place in my heart. I remember illegally running across Baxter Street with a paper bag of pulled pork in one hand and a giant Styrofoam cup of sweet tea in the other. I’ll never forget when Daniel, Carey (my editors at the time) and I went together and learned they changed their fries, which was a travesty they later fixed.

When I moved to Macon and later Atlanta and Sandy Springs, Butt Hutt was a constant food source I missed. Maybe it was so many memories made there; maybe it was the ‘que. But “the Hutt” was my Athens comfort food. 

These are strange, scary times. I don’t want to induce a panic and make folks think they need more toilet paper, but it’s a fact. Every single one of us faces uncertainty in some way or another, and if you already battle any sort of anxiety or mental sh*t it’s even worse. Add to that owning your own business and having not only your livelihood, but the lives and financial circumstances of your employees in your hands … hot damn, y’all. 

So it’s up to us. Those of us able to have an income still, we are the ones on whom it falls to do everything we can to lift up our small businesses. I encourage you to donate to fundraisers, community funds and nonprofits if you are able. Shop your favorite boutiques online. Purchase a gift certificate that you can redeem for your next hair appointment or brow wax. Find out which of your favorite places offer delivery or to-go services.
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Whatever you can do, do it local. Support these small businesses and restaurants now, because Lord knows I’m going to need some fun places to go eat at and write about when all this is said and done.

Kombucha, a probiotic fermented tea, has a distinctively tart taste. It contains a negligible amount of alcohol, and can be enjoyed alone or in cocktails and mocktails. The beverage isn’t new, but it’s only beginning to gain traction in the Classic City thanks to Erika Galloway and Jason Dean, co-founders of Figment.

“Budweiser is not like a pastry stout, and there’s that much variety in kombucha, too. Some are really crazy vinegary, some are super-carbonated, some are light, some are heavily flavored,” Dean said. 
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Figment kombucha is available by the glass or in growlers, which are a glass jug-style vessel. Unlike beer in growlers, live-cultured kombucha will continue to naturally carbonate inside the container, allowing it to stay crisp and drinkable longer.

after the beer brewery Dean originally planned to start.
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“It costs a lot less to get into kombucha. There’s a lot less barrier in entry into market. There’s a lot of potential there, so I thought it’d be better to go that direction than spend $2 million on a brewery that may or may not make it,” he said. “I just liked the fact that [Figment] is a name that’s kind of strange and doesn’t mean a whole lot to anyone specifically, and it’s kind of an ethereal word that anyone could bring their own meaning to.”

>> from figment of imagination to reality

Kombucha is fermented by a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast — also known as a SCOBY. SCOBYs tend to look like flat discs or mushrooms that take hold at the top of a container as the bacteria and yeast huddle together and create a physical form. The SCOBY, along with additional “starter liquid” that contains the bacteria and yeast, is added to water, sugar and tea to get the process going. When Galloway first became interested in kombucha, she read online that it was possible to purchase a container of GT’s plain kombucha, and as long as it had a small piece of SCOBY in the bottom, it could be cultivated into a larger colony. 

Galloway and Dean have produced starter liquid so strong that they no longer add the physical SCOBY to their brews. 

It takes anywhere from 10 to 30 days to finish a batch of kombucha, depending on the amount being produced. After a period of primary fermentation, where the unflavored tea reaches the appropriate sourness and yeast turns the sugar to alcohol, the SCOBY and starter are removed, and what’s left is flavored and undergoes a secondary fermentation process. During secondary fermentation, kombucha naturally carbonates itself as the bacteria digest the alcohol. Figment’s owners also chose to add additional carbonation at the end to ensure product consistency. All in all, brewing kombucha isn’t much different from brewing beer.

“It’s still the same principle and it’s based off of that because both [Dean] and I were into beer,” she said. “All the equipment that you use is the same as if you were brewing beer. We have to use a hot water pot, which is the hot liquor tank for boiling water. We steep, which is the same thing as using your mash tun with your grains. Then we add the additional sugar once you take the tea out and we cool it down, so you’re still chilling it like you would with beer, and then we go into fermentation.”
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Figment’s owners prefer to use a blend of black and green teas for their kombucha. Galloway said white tea also works well, but the main thing is to ensure the tea is caffeinated: “Your bacteria need the caffeine for an energy source.”

>> farm-fresh focus

Dean said Figment’s focus is on taking advantage of the seasons and fresh, local ingredients as often as possible.

“It’s going to be a little more time-intensive and expensive to use seasonal, local ingredients, but I think it’s better for the economy. It’s better for the farmers,” Dean said. “It’s going to taste better; it’s going to be more interesting. There’s a story behind it.”
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Farmers markets play an integral role in Figment’s business model. Not only are they a way to source raw materials, but the exposure there has been unparalleled. 

He wants to look at kombucha brewing more from a restaurant focus.

“I’m very influenced by kind of culinary things,” Dean said. “I like to think of brewing, even beer brewing, as it cooking. You’re thinking of ingredients and how those ingredients go together and not necessarily like, what’s going to sell or what are kind of popular flavors that everybody else is doing. I want to think of different things you don’t see on the shelf.”

The two found out the hard way that there are some flavors harder to capture than others. Ambrosia — coconut, pineapple and cherry — didn’t turn out so well, and neither did root beer.

“We thought we’d make a full-on natural one using the roots and trying to duplicate the flavor of root beer, but it just tasted like roots,” Dean said.
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Galloway agreed, saying it was one of those things you might taste and ask if there are supposed to be health benefits from.

allergies and treating vaginal and urinary tract infections.

However, NIH cautions, “benefits have not been conclusively demonstrated, and not all probiotics have the same effects.”

“There’s a lot of argument as to what exactly is probiotic and what these things are really doing inside your body and how they really work,” Dean said. “It’s just now, surprisingly, starting to be studied. This thing that has been done for thousands of years is still not fully scientifically understood, like, what does happen to kombucha in the actual gut and what’s specifically going on here? Right now we’re just still kind of going on anecdotal evidence that people feel better.”

The NIH piece goes on to say that “strong scientific evidence” to support probiotic use for most health conditions is lacking, and the US Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any probiotics for preventing or treating health problems.

The first thing I saw on Instagram this morning was an on-point quote from fellow University of Georgia graduate Olori Swank, now a celebrity fashion stylist and entrepreneur: “Achieving your goals is a slow process; but quitting won’t speed it up.”

Yes. Let’s talk about that.

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time these past seven months, you may remember that in January, my skincare + cosmetics company announced an opportunity for consultants and directors to earn an all-expenses paid trip to Miami and Bahamas cruise. You may also recall that I really wanted to earn it. But on June 30, the last day to finish qualifications and get myself on the boat … I fell short.

And I fell short because I learned a really, really powerful lesson the hard way.

way I would ever achieve the goals I set was by doing the very thing I was refusing to do. I didn’t quit, exactly, but I definitely closed myself off to this side of the business. That was … selfish.

“Selfish? How is it selfish?” you may ask.

It’s selfish because of what I am able to do and accomplish with this as my full-time job. Yes, I knit and photograph and do some freelance storytelling work. But I have the flexibility to do those things because of what I have in my company. Most people who have full-time or side-jobs within the realm of direct sales (which is what my company is) or network marketing are the same way. They are able to have lives outside of the cubicles they are/were once chained to 40-plus hours a week because they took a chance on something crazy that they probably rolled their eyes about (like me!) and actually worked that opportunity until it paid them back tenfold. 

It’s selfish because when I quit/was fired from (still not sure) the job I had at a brewery, I was able to quickly cover my bills and rent by getting over myself and holding appointments. Again, there are actually quite a large number of people in companies with similar structures to mine that are doing this daily because they are working.

It’s selfish because I became so singularly focused on not being pushy, but needing to have the finances to pay my bills, that I chose to only make money instead of share the wealth.

At the end of the six-month qualification period to earn this cruise, I sold more than $10,000 retail value in skincare and makeup. Bills paid; rent paid; even able to stick some in savings and that kinda thing. Let me tell ya, that’s a load off my back and my mind! My customers who use our skincare look and feel fabulous and don’t have to wear makeup. My customers who use our makeup love their colors and are digging our new foundation especially. Oh, and lipstick. Always lipstick. 

But imagine if I’d taken the time to focus on sharing more about my company with those customers.

My customers who are on payment plans with me for their skincare … could have started their own business and gotten their skincare at a steep, 50 percent discount, not to mention they could have begun building a customer base of their own and started making profits. Those profits could go toward things like rent and bills, or a vacation for their family. One of my customers — who has the dang cutest house in Lexington! — dreams of owning a bakery one day. Even as a hobby consultant, I could have helped her strategize and make that happen. Another customer, who runs a daycare center in Athens, expressed to me once that she’d love to own a campground. 

It is crazy. 

But I did. I have. Team-building has been my biggest desire and biggest self-imposed struggle because I was too selfish to share. Too selfish to recognize potential in people and then tell them, “Hey Lisa, did you see my post last night about how my business covered my rent last month, and I did that by holding x-number of appointments in x-number of hours? I would love to help you and your husband buy that rental property on the lake by showing you how to do what I do.”

Maybe it’s not makeup or skincare you’re jazzed about, in which case my company may not be right for you. Perhaps it’s health and wellness; or fashion; or jewelry; or cleaning supplies. The Direct Sellers Association has a plethora of members and you can pull up any of their compensation plans and business models to find out more. It’s not for everyone, but I feel like a shabby friend and consultant for hiding my opportunity for so long.

In full transparency, the time is nigh for me to enter what we call “director in qualification,” or DIQ (pronounced dee-eye-queue, not like Dick Cheney) on Aug. 1. Selfishness in sharing stops here. I’m looking for at least five future consultants to work with me, whether it’s for that deep discount on their own skincare and makeup or for something bigger. I let the cruise sail on by because I ignored the process.

I’m not letting anything else do that again.

For this week and next, we’re going a few miles north of the Classic City for Meatetarian Eats: Nashville edition.
 
At the end of March, for my 30th birthday, I was given the gift of a trip to Nashville, Tennessee!

Upon finding out where I were going, my mother inundated me with a list of places to go and eat and do. We made it to most of them, actually, but there were a few that will require a return visit. Which I am totally OK with. 

Being the planner that I am, I took my mom’s list of must-eats to map out our itinerary. Like for real. We had this on a color-coded, numbered Google map. 

After a failed attempt at visiting Loveless Café, which is so dang popular there was more than an hour’s wait, and Burger King for supper at the Opry Mills mall, I was determined not to miss out on any more food souvenirs! We were GOING to make it to the rest on my list.

people down the street next to it. This was no hidden gem. It was a very well-known sparkling topaz gem and every non-Nashvillian in Nashville was on that sidewalk. My stomach was growling, but I was not giving in. We were waiting this out. 

Standing in a line like that made me wonder what I was in for. What did the place look like inside?! How tall are these stacks of pancakes?! What is cinnamon cream sauce and why do I want a bottle of it?? Can I get a latte?

The anticipation was insane! I, truth be told, still do not know what it is about Pancake Pantry that has it as a must-eat place! Is this what it is like to be a sheeple?? To blindly go stand in a line for a restaurant that your mother said was good, without doing any further research about the restaurant, its history or barely glance at the menu before plugging the address into the GPS??

I digress.
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Forty-seven minutes after our arrival, we were finally swept inside. I’ve heard my mother talk this place up since I was a kid, and I was … a little let down. It’s kind of plain. It’s kind of homey. It’s a big open room with tables and (thank goodness) booths with cream-colored tabletops and wood accents. I would hazard a guess that nothing much changed since it opened in 1961. Our waitress did not seem to care that it was our first time. In case y’all can’t tell by the usual length of these posts, I can chatter a. lot. She was not having it, and I felt a little judged for asking if they had iced coffee drinks: “It’s coffee and it has ice in it.”

When my stack arrived, it was bittersweet. I’m not talking about how my tastebuds reacted to the Santa Fe pancakes, but rather, how my eyes reacted. Call me a snob, but I got it in my head that all of these ingredients (the green chiles, bacon, cheese) would be chopped up and blended into the batter, then tossed on the griddle. Not so: it looked more as though the cornmeal batter was put on the griddle, flipped once, then big strips of bacon, some cheese and a few chiles were sprinkled on top. 

cream. I normally don’t like sour cream, but WOW! With these, sour cream made the cornmeal cakes melt in my mouth and it became a very smooth bite.

Our waitress did recommend adding, believe it or not, the cinnamon cream and syrup to these pancakes. Y’all know I am all about mixing sweet and savory anyway, so I dove right in. When your pancakes arrive, the syrup arrives in a hot bottle and the cinnamon cream chilled. That one is less viscous than syrup and neither are as sweet as say, a Crackerbarrel maple syrup. They work together to minimize the kick from the chiles.

Blame it on my dancing at the Opry the night before, but I was so hungry I ate all three of these. And they are not small pancakes! 

Pancake Pantry is one I’ll wait in line again for. And also possibly show up at 5 a.m. for. I say this entirely because I want to try the buckwheat pancakes. Or maybe the Georgia peach pancakes. There's also a stack called Chocolate Sin ...

​Anyone up for joining me on my return trip? :D They let you take bottles of cinnamon cream home.

Sounds like how any good Southerner would order her hashbrowns at WaHo, doesn’t it? Well sheesh, now I’m hungry and it’s not even a #MeatetarianEats post!

Tonight I’m not writing about food. Instead, what I mean by scattered, smothered and covered is — and y’all get ready, because I don’t think I saw this one coming either — spiritually scattered, smothered and covered by the grace of a higher power. Now before y’all go and scatter yourselves because I’m writing a little church-y today, let me assure you I’m not going to try to convert you to anything. OK? OK.

I did recently start attending Cornerstone Church in Athens, Georgia, and though my reasons for doing so are mine alone, I will share that it’s been a really good experience thus far. I am a firm believer that an individual’s relationship with the higher power they believe in, if they believe in a higher power, doesn’t necessarily need to take place within the confines of a specific building with a steeple. That being said, it is nice to be in that environment once or twice a week.

I relate that back to my skincare + cosmetics business, and perhaps that’s why I needed it. In my company, we have two large business events and smaller weekly or bi-weekly local business meetings. Your success as a beauty consultant doesn’t require you to attend any of those, but when everyone is sobusy and there are so many distractions, it’s easy to re-enter life after the big events and forget everything you were so driven to do. Those more regular, smaller meetings to me are just as important as the big ones, because they remind me what I am working for. They keep me in the zone, so to speak. 

Right now my unit doesn’t have weekly meetings, and it is very easy to allow myself to get off-track. When I get off-track, I get moody and anxious and stressed and snappy. Combined with a season of life in which I am responsible for every penny I earn, it’s even more stressful when I am off-track! I feel this is why I was led to seeking an environment where I am reminded of what my purpose is.

This Sunday the lead pastor at Cornerstone discussed the Biblical book of Hosea, who was a minor prophet. At the time Hosea reportedly lived, the region known as Israel was in a bit of disrepair: people were worshipping idols, leading lives that were pretty shady, and God reached out to Hosea and told him that Hosea will now lead a life metaphoric of that of the process he’s about to undertake with Israel to wake them up. You’ll have to read the book and draw your own conclusions, but here’s what was spoken to me through the service and the subsequent reading in my own time afterward. 

Step 1: Scatter.
Yep. You see where this is going already, doncha! 

Before there’s any kind of spiritual awakening … I needed a reason to have a spiritual awakening. My life had to go all sorts of kerfluffle. Looking back, there’s been quite a few times of “scatter” since I began to realize what I ultimately desire and am ultimately appointed to do. There were breakups of relationships. There were difficulties in job settings. There were opportunities for me to seek better, higher, more! But I managed to um, usually not do any of those things. I would start to do them, then be tempted or distracted away.

Step 2: Smother.
So your life’s a shambles. You are THE definition of hot mess express and someone can just go ahead and order tickets to your sh*tshow, right? I definitely feel that way a lot, especially recently. One step forward, two steps back. I had (thankfully I can now use the past tense here!) a number of days where I was smothered in those feelings of anxiety and stress and lack that I mentioned before, because I was so scattered and all over the place. And so far from what I know I am supposed to be doing! 

Step 3: Cover.
This step is interactive. It requires you to pull your weight. Pastor Scott, talking on Sunday, mentioned that God’s love is forever if you choose to seek it. We do have free choice, but DANG if those first couple steps aren’t encouraging me to change my course!

If you’re cool hanging out in step two, feeling a little woeful and sorry for yourself and victimhood-y, hoping someone or something will come into your path and lift you out of your misery, that is your choice. Or say, maybe you’re not feeling like a victim, but perhaps you work your tail to the bone and are fiercely independent and think you can do it all by yourself, so you shut everything else out and become so caught up in busyness you forget why you’re busy in the first place … and then get overwhelmed and start questioning what the heck is happening. (Hi, hello, it’s me.)

But if you decide to sit down and have a little meeting with yourself about all those feelings and stress, and if you do believe in a higher power, there’s a chance you’ll be inclined to do what I did, which is finally accept that ol’ saying “I’m doing this FOR myself, but not BY myself.” When you do that, God does a little happy dance and suddenly he’s hanging out as your new partner. Covering you in love, in acceptance, in guidance. Like a therapist, but always there and it doesn’t matter whether or not your insurance covers it. Which is great, because mine does not!

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Y’all. It took me a LOOONG time to get here, and “here” is not the end point. I’ve got a lot more ground to cover. My smother phase lasted entirely too long because I rejected and resisted the concept that I needed a God-filled environment like Cornerstone. But the more weighty all the negativity got, and the more I seemed to dig myself deeper into a mental hole, the more I realized what I needed was a BIG change. A shock to my system. 

I’m as shocked as anyone that I decided to peep into a church setting. I’m grateful I listened to those little guiding whispers though, telling me to stop being stubborn and do what is right for my mental health, spiritual health and business health. Are you also feeling scattered or smothered? Overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and depressed? Then perhaps it’s time you explored options to shock your system, too.

For 30 years, nearly every time I introduced myself as Dallas, I was asked if I was from Dallas or Texas.

“Nope, I’m from around Augusta, Georgia.”

“Oh! Augusta! That’s where the Masters is, right? Do you golf?”

I do not. I barely Putt-Putt, and I never found myself caught up in the hubbub of the golf tournament that calls my hometown its own. Growing up, Masters Week was also our spring break, so though I’d occasionally watch the final hole with my family, it’s never been the sport I drop everything I’m doing to put on TV {read: Georgia games}. But when you grow up surrounded by something like that, that even non-golf fans know about and think is a big deal, it’s hard to escape the lore of the course.
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Even our local baseball team is called the Augusta Greenjackets — a play on the prestigious green jackets that winners of the Masters earn and that are also worn by members of the Augusta National. No one but members know how to become members, and most of the membership list is hush-hush (although I did find this 2015 one on Bloomberg), so it’s kind of like the Masons … except with significantly fewer really cool movies, books, History Channel documentaries and an order to protect the Holy Grail. 

lottery for the first-ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur tournament. The first few days of the tournament were held at another area golf course, Champion’s Retreat, but the final was held at the Augusta National. JE and I were given the tickets as part of my 30thbirthday present, and I could not wait to get my hands on a pin for my collection … and my mouth on pimento cheese and egg salad sandwiches.

The recipes for these, especially the pimento cheese, remain 1) an actual mystery and 2) a closely guarded secret. A man named Nick Rangos created the recipes for these two sandwiches and made the pimento cheese mixture himself. In the early 2000s, Augusta National executives decided to have the local restaurant Wife Saver {personal note: I promise I’ll write about this place too; it’s a hometown favorite} make the sandwiches. Well … Wife Saver makes some damn good fried chicken and sides, but its initial pimento cheese sandwich was not up to par — hey look! A golf pun! -- with Rangos’ original recipe. Rangos wasn’t tellin’ nobody his secret recipe, especially the owner of the business that now had his business, so the Wife Saver folks spent a hot minute getting things right. Rangos passed away, and his original pimento cheese recipe died with him. According to Newsweek, the National eventually moved all concession-creation in-house, so I cannot be sure how accurate this year’s sandwich was to the one Nick Rangos developed more than 40 years ago. 
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But I am very accurate when I say it was good. Like, went back and got seconds good. Rivals my Nanny’s pimento cheese good.

There was a tense moment when JE claimed he liked a particular brand of store-bought pimento cheese better, but I think that’s sacrilege. Personally, I think I have more expertise than he does in this situation, because I have tried numerous pimento cheeses over my 30 years and this is top three, for absolute certain. No. 1 is my Nanny’s, the No. 2 spot belongs to Proper Pepper out of Sandersville, Georgia. 

Pimento cheese, for all intents and purposes, is a blend of mayonnaise, cheeses, pimiento peppers and seasonings. Fun fact though, a lot of commercially made pimento cheeses use red bell peppers, not pimiento peppers, in their mixtures because it’s cheaper. Lame sauce, y’all. You gotta have the real thing. Improperly made pimento cheese can also be overly creamy and mushy, so having the right ratio of mayonnaise-to-cheese is muy importante. Especially when enjoyed in sandwich form, a soppy and liquid-y pimento cheese mixture can seep into the bread and cause it to be as great as that PB&J that got squished at the bottom of your lunch box that one day in first grade. The other way improper way pimento cheese can be made is too dry, either because there wasn’t enough mayonnaise to balance the cheese, or the cheese itself was poor quality and winds up with a mealy texture. Gross.

Whether it was Rangos’, Wife Saver’s or some sweetheart in the Augusta National kitchen’s recipe that was lovingly spread between two slices of soft white bread this Saturday, it was the perfect balance of all ingredients. There was texture from the cheeses — definitely some type of cheddar involved, and possibly a white cheese as well; my palate is sadly not that distinctive yet — but it was still creamy and light. The peppers themselves had a nice bite to them too, and the flavor wasn’t exactly spicy, but you could tell there was seasoning added other than salt. 
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Oh, and did I mention these bad boys are like, less than two bucks each? Yeah. Not a joke. That’s less than half the price of a bottle of water at a Georgia football game.

mamas and cooks make on the reg; and there’s nothing pretentious about them, even though they’re sold at one of the most exclusive sporting event in the world. But the simplicity is almost an illusion.
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Think about it. Pimento cheese and egg salad are two very Southern things that you can find in a gazillion places and a basquillion different forms anywhere below the Mason-Dixon. The Augusta National could have hired the freakin’ Kroger across the street to commercially produce enough egg salad and pimento cheese to spread on enough Wonderbread slices for a cheap-enough price for multiple thousands of people to enjoy. Instead, they found a local man, then a local restauranteur, then their own staff to create, re-create and re-re-create Southern classics using ingredients so pristine and perfectly balanced that it adds to the grandeur of the experience of being one of the Chosen Ones to attend an event during Masters Week. I bet there’s not a stale piece of bread within three miles of Washington Road the week leading up to and the week of Masters.

between Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, the two leaders going into the tournament final. And you get caught up in the beauty of the course, the pinks and magentas and fuchsias of the azalaeas contrasting with the taupe sand-traps and perfect shades of green grass. Even, as my daddy pointed out, the pinestraw is manicured. You get caught up in clapping when everyone else does and gasping when everyone else does, and you wonder to yourself, “Is this what a football game is like for non-football fans and way too many freshman girls?”
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If you have the chance to go, go. Don’t scalp your tickets, those coveted passes that grant you entrance through the heavily guarded gates. Do eat the sandwiches, and the peach ice cream sandwiches they ran out of, and maybe the barbecue too.

​And if you think about it, make a dumb nerd joke about whether or not there are sarlaccs at the bottom of those pesky sand traps. 

​Remember how when I wrote about Chops & Hops I said it was something I’d been meaning to do for ages, just didn’t prioritize?

WELL. Here we are again, this time a few miles away at a little place called home.made.

I’d been meaning to go in here for absolute ages, and if you don’t follow them on Instagram, you’re missing out on some seriously good food photos. It says a lot about a place’s social media when that’s what entices a complete stranger so much to come in and check it out, so props to whoever runs that.

My chance to dine here came about a week ago when I was invited to join an exclusive outing and celebration for my skincare + cosmetics business. After a jaunt through the new Children’s Garden at the Botanical Garden of Georgia — which is really fun even if you are not a “children” — we traipsed to home.made for supper.

There are a few things that the word “supper” brings to mind. Supper is when your whole family is gathered around the table, you say the blessing together and you enjoy a home-cooked meal. I was fortunate to grow up with a mama who loves to cook, so it was rare that our supper wasn’t actually home-cooked in some form or fashion, and for the most part what we ate was influenced by our Southern roots. Ingredients are fresh. They’re local {we do lots of farmers market shopping in our family}. They’re hearty and filling and … truth be told … not always the healthiest thing on the planet, but Southern food is the envy of chefs everywhere.
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home.made meets every single one of these expectations when I think about the word “supper.”

into what the difference is … because I hadn’t had either of them. I know, shame on me, I went to Nashville last weekend and didn’t have hot chicken. Guess I’ll have to make a return trip, OK? Per the ONE non-Wikipedia page I found that wasn’t a rating site or some obscure travel recommendation where the “best restaurants” are the ones that paid for ad placement … there are some key components to make a traditional hot chicken.

1. Really salty, spicy, tender fried chicken, preferably seasoned to have a slow, lingering burn
2. Pickles — dill pickles, specifically, if we’re talking Nashville-style
3. Bread

I do not know this to be true, but upon this investigation I’m inclined to think that home.made called this dish “New Orleans” because of what constitutes the pickles and the bread here. Let me explain.

Hot chicken is to Nashville as beignets are to Nawlins.
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The most famous beignets are found at Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. Introduced to the state of Louisiana by the Acadians, these delicacies are square pieces of choux pastry dough fried to the perfect light golden brown and covered with powdered sugar. I have never had these beignets, but my mama has, and she raves about them to this day and also gets mail-order coffee from the shop. 

As a child, I assumed this had some obscure reference to the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. Like, these people escaped religious persecution, got on a boat called the Mayflower and in the month of April they weathered a lot of storms to land in North America. Not quite. I then figured the adage prophesized the month of April as the rainiest of the year, and thus all the flowers would bloom in May. This is probably closer to the actual origin of the saying.

Now at the ripe ol’ age of 30, I find “April showers bring May flowers” to have a different meaning. 

I was able to spend some time recently centering myself, which I am sure sounds hippie-dippie-trippy, but I’m being serious. March was, for whatever reason, not my best month in a lot of ways, particularly when it came to achieving some pretty lofty {but hear me, completely doable} goals in my skincare + cosmetics business. I had quite a few wins and high moments, but when March 31 rolled over to April 1 at midnight, I realized what Cinderella must have felt like as her glitter carriage morphed back into a pumpkin. On the plus side, I still had both shoes on my feet.

I digress.

Let me explain. You’ll typically be able to find a weekly or daily sudoku puzzle in your local newspaper. There are nine big squares of nine little squares each, and the goal is for each of your nine big squares, each row and each column to contain the numbers one through nine once each. For most of my life I never bothered to try because I told myself the story that “I am bad with numbers.” Granted, math is not my strong suit, especially in the realm of a classroom, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. I also, fun fact, spent about 15 years calling it “soduku,” pronounced like Count Dooku. So I extra was telling myself a story here.

Tonight as I did my “focus practice” as I’ve been calling it, I pulled out a recent puzzle from the local Athens independent newspaper, Flagpole. My method is to examine each square in detail and see, based on the numbers that are already put there, which numbers could be in that square. I do this for every open square. Then I go back through: Is there any square that could onlybe one number? Over and over again, then crossing out possibilities in other squares. 
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I’m sure someone out there has a different way to do sudoku, but this is my way and I’m cool with it, so calm yourselves. 

I fill one square in — yes! A win! Then spend a few minutes going back over the entire puzzle, looking for the next one. Crossing out the ones that won’t work. Back and forth, up and down, over and over until suddenly, YAAAS! All the pieces start coming together. One number goes in that clears four squares that clear six more and it keeps going and going until the puzzle is completed.  Such a feeling of accomplishment!

Isn’t it interesting how momentum builds, and then all of a sudden everything just comes together?

I could have easily put the puzzle away when it was frustrating. And trust me, when I have gone over rows and columns and squares and can’t seem to find either my error or the next clue, I want to ball the dang paper up and hurl it across the bathroom and open up a book. But because I focused, because I didn’t even let my very cute cats distract me, because I did the work to set the things up and I didn’t stop following up on my work until the thing was done, the thing got done. 

Y’all, I spent two straight days in March at a conference for my company and heard about a dozen entrepreneurs talk about building momentum, and it took a dang sudoku puzzle and a silly old wives tale to hit my mindshift. The teacher appears when the student is ready, amirite?

Last May through this March I was planting seeds. I wasn’t particularly focused about it all the time {hello, last August, October and this January and kind of March}, but I still trudged forward. And now that I’m aware of what a truly focused mindset looks like, I’m going to make it rain all over those seeds in April. That’s called momentum. 

And those showers? They’re going to bring May flowers.