Sorry kids, I've been out crazy for the last couple of weeks. But now I'm back, bitches!
I started my day still drunk from the night before. We had been good guests and helped our hosts to finish the entire bottle of Jack, which led to the inevitable passing out. After some blissfully numb sleep, I finally roused myself and fought the remnants of hangover with the rest of the onion burger left over from last night. As the afternoon progressed, I decided it was time for the culinary highlight of the day: thick broth venison stew that one of our hosts had made, from venison he hunted himself. He had been hard at work on the stew when we first arrived the night before, and it smelled wonderful then. After sitting and the flavor infusing throughout all night, I knew this would be a treat today.
Now, a moment of culinary disclosure here: I have consumed venison probably a half dozen times, and I have never really liked it. I tend away from gamey meats, so I've never been a huge fan of game hens, duck, rabbit, venison....hell, I don't even like salmon. But the thing about me is that just because I don't like something several times, it doesn't mean I won't like it later. Besides, no matter my tastes, I always want to know what it is that other people are enjoying. So I persist. I try again. I didn't like lamb the first 6 or 8 times that I had it, but I kept trying and finally I passed my watershed moment and now I like lamb. Well, as long as it's actually lamb and not mutton, and as long as it's prepared and spiced well. That seems to be the trick with lamb with me. It can be spiced to not disguise but augment the natural darker notes in the meat. That's when I love it. But, I digress. My point is that I have had venison before, not really liked it at all, but that hasn't stopped me from looking forward to the time when I would have it and love it.
This moment came to me on my second day in Tallahassee, FL.
Wait, that's not a picture of the moment of my venison enlightenment, but that cat was pretty damn cute.
Back to the story at hand. The venison was fresh, tender and perfectly spiced. The broth was one of the strongest points, almost fork thick. The meat was cut down into thick but manageable chunks. It came out tender as hell. The veggies were about the same size and had picked up scads of flavor overnight. I heated up and ate a couple of big bowls and loved every second of it - we're talking burned my mouth and kept going, that's how much I loved it.
A couple hours later it was time for the band to get loaded into the venue for the night, a large boxy room with a low stage, a dance floor, and a bar down one wall. It was in a strip mall, along with another bar owned by the same folks plus a coffee shop and a boutique or two. Load in time was 6pm, and it went quickly. Once we were finished with that, we were shooed back out again so the pub could have an employee meeting and either birthday or going away party, I can't remember which. The upshot was that I had 2 hours to kill in a city I'd never been to before, with a couple of dollars in my pocket, nice weather for walking, and a yearning for some alone time and some exploration, which I hoped would end in food.
I chose a direction that looked like towards downtown Tallahassee, and I was right. But there weren't any little cool looking food places - so disappointing! Downtown was very pretty, though. As I was walking, there was a great sunset which I saw through the silhouettes of old growth trees covered in Spanish moss and surrounding the historic buildings of downtown.
I spent a little while in the park across the street from the vista, watching the sun go down and texting with folks back home about future meals. After a few minutes, I kept walking, keeping my eyes open for at least an indie coffee shop. By this time I was near the local college so I figured I'd be in luck. I finally saw a sign for a place called Atomic Coffee, which looked perfect!
Except that it was still under construction and wouldn't be open until 3 or 4 days after we left town. So I kept walking. Luckily enough, a few blocks further, right when I knew that I would soon need to turn back to arrive at the show on time, I found a little place that fit the bill. I got a big coffee and decided a donut was in order. The most interesting one they had was called a Twix donut, so what the hell? It was a regular donut, yellow cake (not uranium), but glazed like this:
I wish I could say it had an awesome and unique taste, and it did try to - it was alleged to be chocolate and caramel, but really it was just a stale donut with weak glaze that had a little chocolate flavor and not much else. But, hey, if you won them all, what fun would winning be anymore, right? The staff were nice, though, so I ate the whole donut, grabbed a lid for my coffee and walked the 45 minutes back to our venue where we played for a few hours to a growing crowd of people. Then it was a drunken walk back to our wonderful hosts' apartment, some more lovely drinking, and eventually passing outtttttt.
I started my day still drunk from the night before. We had been good guests and helped our hosts to finish the entire bottle of Jack, which led to the inevitable passing out. After some blissfully numb sleep, I finally roused myself and fought the remnants of hangover with the rest of the onion burger left over from last night. As the afternoon progressed, I decided it was time for the culinary highlight of the day: thick broth venison stew that one of our hosts had made, from venison he hunted himself. He had been hard at work on the stew when we first arrived the night before, and it smelled wonderful then. After sitting and the flavor infusing throughout all night, I knew this would be a treat today.
Now, a moment of culinary disclosure here: I have consumed venison probably a half dozen times, and I have never really liked it. I tend away from gamey meats, so I've never been a huge fan of game hens, duck, rabbit, venison....hell, I don't even like salmon. But the thing about me is that just because I don't like something several times, it doesn't mean I won't like it later. Besides, no matter my tastes, I always want to know what it is that other people are enjoying. So I persist. I try again. I didn't like lamb the first 6 or 8 times that I had it, but I kept trying and finally I passed my watershed moment and now I like lamb. Well, as long as it's actually lamb and not mutton, and as long as it's prepared and spiced well. That seems to be the trick with lamb with me. It can be spiced to not disguise but augment the natural darker notes in the meat. That's when I love it. But, I digress. My point is that I have had venison before, not really liked it at all, but that hasn't stopped me from looking forward to the time when I would have it and love it.
This moment came to me on my second day in Tallahassee, FL.
Wait, that's not a picture of the moment of my venison enlightenment, but that cat was pretty damn cute.
Back to the story at hand. The venison was fresh, tender and perfectly spiced. The broth was one of the strongest points, almost fork thick. The meat was cut down into thick but manageable chunks. It came out tender as hell. The veggies were about the same size and had picked up scads of flavor overnight. I heated up and ate a couple of big bowls and loved every second of it - we're talking burned my mouth and kept going, that's how much I loved it.
A couple hours later it was time for the band to get loaded into the venue for the night, a large boxy room with a low stage, a dance floor, and a bar down one wall. It was in a strip mall, along with another bar owned by the same folks plus a coffee shop and a boutique or two. Load in time was 6pm, and it went quickly. Once we were finished with that, we were shooed back out again so the pub could have an employee meeting and either birthday or going away party, I can't remember which. The upshot was that I had 2 hours to kill in a city I'd never been to before, with a couple of dollars in my pocket, nice weather for walking, and a yearning for some alone time and some exploration, which I hoped would end in food.
I chose a direction that looked like towards downtown Tallahassee, and I was right. But there weren't any little cool looking food places - so disappointing! Downtown was very pretty, though. As I was walking, there was a great sunset which I saw through the silhouettes of old growth trees covered in Spanish moss and surrounding the historic buildings of downtown.
I spent a little while in the park across the street from the vista, watching the sun go down and texting with folks back home about future meals. After a few minutes, I kept walking, keeping my eyes open for at least an indie coffee shop. By this time I was near the local college so I figured I'd be in luck. I finally saw a sign for a place called Atomic Coffee, which looked perfect!
Except that it was still under construction and wouldn't be open until 3 or 4 days after we left town. So I kept walking. Luckily enough, a few blocks further, right when I knew that I would soon need to turn back to arrive at the show on time, I found a little place that fit the bill. I got a big coffee and decided a donut was in order. The most interesting one they had was called a Twix donut, so what the hell? It was a regular donut, yellow cake (not uranium), but glazed like this:
I wish I could say it had an awesome and unique taste, and it did try to - it was alleged to be chocolate and caramel, but really it was just a stale donut with weak glaze that had a little chocolate flavor and not much else. But, hey, if you won them all, what fun would winning be anymore, right? The staff were nice, though, so I ate the whole donut, grabbed a lid for my coffee and walked the 45 minutes back to our venue where we played for a few hours to a growing crowd of people. Then it was a drunken walk back to our wonderful hosts' apartment, some more lovely drinking, and eventually passing outtttttt.
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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: www.theswaggeringrowlers.com/music
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