The Loveless Cafe -- A Restaurant Review

What can I say?  This classic Nashville Restaurant is one of the most popular dining spots in town.  You almost always have to wait for a table.  So who am I to say anything derogatory about this establishment?  So therefore I can only agree with everyone else—the Lovelesss Café is a unique Nashville Treasure.

It has been at least two years since I have dined at the Loveless and that was an early evening dinner meal.  This time our party arrived for a late breakfast at 10 am on a Monday morning.  They would not seat us until all of our party of eight had arrived, which is understandable.  Everyone had arrived by 10:15 and there was a 16 to twenty minute wait before we were seated.  Everyone chose a breakfast entree.  The young folks chose the pancakes. My wife had the two eggs and bacon and I chose the garden omelet.  There’s not much you can say about breakfast food like this.  My omelet was good but nothing to get excited about.  What can you say about scrambled eggs and bacon?  Everyone else had similar food and no one complained.

So what makes the Loveless Café breakfast so special?  Well, it’s those darn biscuits.  The waitress brought out two plates stacked high with their world famous biscuits, served hot right out of the oven. There were three choices of jams served—strawberry, blackberry and peach.  You have to try each of the flavors and it is hard to say which is best.  I sat next to my 4 year old grandson and had to cut open his hot biscuit and put on a sample of each jam.  He had to blow on the biscuit to cool it down before he could put it into his mouth.  But the smile on his young face after eating that biscuit showed that there was a new and everlasting fan of the breakfast at the Loveless Café.

Time Goes By, but People are the Same

Recently I was looking through some old family photos that were taken almost 100 years ago.  I happened to stumble upon one photo which was taken in the early 1920’s.  It was taken more than 20 years before I was born.  It was a family photo of my grandparents and their children and grandchildren.  My grandfather and my grandmother each held one of their younger grandchildren in their laps with the other grandchildren standing around them.  In the back were my grandparent’s older children and their respective spouses.  There was my mom and dad, my aunt with her husband, my one married uncle and his wife and my one single, at the time, uncle.  Here they were, my grandparents with all their family surrounding them.   The photo was much like a similar photo that my family now takes, at least every six months.  In fact, the latest photo was taken just a few weeks ago. There I was with my wife, with each of holding one of our youngest grandchild.  Surrounding us were our other grandchildren.  Standing in the back was our married children with their respective spouses.  These two photos taken almost two hundred years apart show the meaning of family—and it never changes.  Time may pass, but we the people are the same.  The two photos are presented below.

Perhaps the difference is that we just don't dress up as much these days.

Breakfast at the Loveless Cafe

Kentucky Homeland Visit with the Barrs

At the Old Family Cemetery

A Family Selfie on Main Street

 

Enjoying "Pigtown"

In Front of the Birth Place

The Monument

The Reason Grandchildren are so Grand

The Cadiz Restuarant -- A Restaurant Review

It’s been more than 20 years since I last visited the Cadiz Restaurant in Cadiz, Kentucky.  We actually ended up there because our restaurant of choice that night was closed for a private event.  When first entering the Cadiz Restaurant, you suddenly realize that not all states have banned smoking in their public restaurants.  This old restaurant still had a section that catered to the smoking diners.  However, there is a large separate banquet style room where smoking is not allowed and is fine for family dining.

                This restaurant is noted for its country buffet.  In fact you have to request a menu as it is expected that you are probably headed for the buffet.  Well I have been on a diet for the last two months and there is no better place to take a vacation from that diet than the Cadiz Restaurant country buffet.

                It is called a country buffet and sure enough everything is country orientated.  There was a choice of three meats; fried chicken, breaded fish and what appeared to be country fried steak. There was a wide selection of home cooked vegetable, none of the healthy kinds like broccoli or cauliflower.  Mashed potatoes, highly season green beans, whole kernel corn, sweet potatoes and green peas were all represented.  There was also sauerkraut and sausage as one of the vegetable choices Oh yes, there was a full salad bar with the usual fixings.

                I chose the fried chicken as my entrée and found it to be a little dry, but yet tasty.  My selection of vegetables was very good.  The green beans were especially good.  The sweet potatoes were creamy and I almost went back for seconds just for the sweet potatoes.  The tossed salad from the bar was very fresh, but nothing unusual.  A basket of fresh cooked biscuits and corn bread was also served at the table.  The biscuits were outstanding and some of the best bread I have tasted in some time.  Now you need to save room for dessert which included an assortment of pies including lemon meringue and pecan.  I chose the pecan pie and was literally blow away. It was the best pie I have tasted in a long time.  My wife chose a strawberry shortcake which she shared with me.  It too, was delicious.

                When traveling in Western Kentucky and you want to experience the fun of southern cooking, then the Cadiz Restaurant is a place that should be on your list to visit.

The Fresh Cooked Biscuits and Cornbread

Pecan Pie to Die For

Family July 2017

Summertime Family

Family Gone Wild!

The Dees Do Disney World (Sorta)

Selected as the Family of the Day at Chef Mickey's Restuarant

Fun at Disney Springs

Stopping in Georgia

Road Trip Time

Ellie Sneaks In

The Barrs Do New Mexico

At the Visitor Center for White Sands

On top of the world

 

Just like being in Snow

Hiking in the New Mexico Mountains

 

Dining in the McDonald's Space Ship in Roswell, NM

Who Really Wrote that Book?

I like to read popular fiction and have my favorite authors, John Grisham, Stephen King, etc.  There is one author who always seems to have a book on the best seller list.  That is the prolific James Patterson.  I’m not a fan of James Patterson and don’t read his books.  I read some of his earlier-books and they didn’t intrigue me.  Now one thing interesting about Mr. Patterson’s books is that many of his bestselling books seem to always have a co-author.  He rarely seems to write a book alone.  Now my question is how much of the book is written by the main author and how much is written by the co-author.  It seems that the name James Patterson on a book almost guarantees that the book will end up selling thousands of copies.  So I always wondered if a novice author wrote 99% of the book, then James Patterson wrote a few lines and bingo—it is published with Patterson’s name and the co-author and everyone wins big.  Now I don’t know that any of this is true.  But it is something that I have often wondered about.

One of my other favorite authors is Jeffrey Archer who penned Kane and Abel and the series of books known as the Clifton Chronicles.  Archer is an English author and his books usually take place in England and one of his trademarks is that there is usually a strange twist in the story he is telling.  The books are very British, through and through.  But recently, I found one of his older books, called The Eleventh Commandment.  It was all about the CIA and American spies.  I know that Mr. Archer would easily have the knowledge to write such a book, but the book was so “unlike him”.  Although, I enjoyed the book, I just didn’t feel like it was written by British author Jeffrey Archer, whose many other books I have read.  That made me wonder, did Archer really write this book or did someone else write it and it have the Archer name because he was a well known bestselling author.

I don’t know the answer to my inquiring mind questions above, but they have made me wonder.  I’m just saying…

Oh, anyone wanting to ghost write any of my blog entries is welcome to do so.  Just use my name.