I hope you have the kind of friends I do, the kind who make things not break things. Mine never cease to amaze me with their creativity, generosity and resilience, with the things they dream up and then bring to life.
One of my oldest and dearest, Crystal De Luna Bogan, opened a cafe inside the beautiful Frist Art Museum here in Nashville and this morning I had the great honor of attending the grand opening! It’s called Cafe Cheeserie, a sort of fancified version of her original food truck, The Grilled Cheeserie.
We tried a lot of menu items— arugula salad with pear and gorgonzola, a brown butter chocolate chip cookie, really incredible french fries (they use a special variety of potato), the vegan “fauxcuterie” board, and what Crystal calls a cheese schnitzel, which is essentially a giant mozzarella stick over roasted tomato and calabrian pepper sauce. Does it need to be said? I’m very full and uninterested in cooking dinner.
Luckily I planned for this exact scenario when I prepped on Sunday. I’m not gonna lie, the soup I made may or may not be considered posole, but it has a lot of the right elements— jalapenos, onions and poblanos from the yard, tomatillo salsa I bought at Trader Joe’s, and prepared hominy. I’ll top it with Greek yogurt and pumpkin seeds, and get this!! baby micro cilantro from the growlight nursery in our basement! Cute!