Nashville

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I may have found my new home. I love Nashville. The food, the people, the music...it's all great. Nashville was never even a city I was interested in seeing, it was just a far off place where country music is born and that's it. Until now, I've never even known anybody who lives here to consider it a place to visit.

I met Mark Smeby through one of my many journey's the last two years. He is very talented Christian/inspirational singer/song writer and also has a blog. He interviewed another widow friend of mine and me and wrote a great article about going through the holidays after enduring a significant loss (the articles are here and here).  As I was planning my trip home I thought it would be a great time to drive slightly out of the way and visit Nashville.  It was an awesome decision and I will definitely be visiting again…maybe for good.

Mark took me to the Loveless Café and I think it may have ruined Southern food for me forever. It was incredible. My mouth started salivating before the car even came to a stop. The aroma coming from the smokehouse was enough to bring me to the edge and my first bite of BBQ smoked pulled pork sent me over. The combination of the pork, hash brown casserole, creamed corn, and homemade biscuits with blackberry jam put this meal into one of my top 3 favorite meals of all time. It may not look like much, but in this case…looks are very, very deceiving. 

And in keeping with the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives spirit, we headed over to Bro’s Cajun Cuisine before our food could even settle to meet their 3pm closing time. This place definitely fit the description of a “dive” but we proceeded with caution.

We were still semi bursting from the seams from our BBQ but decided to share the 1lb platter of crawfish.  I’ve never had crawfish before, and I’m not even sure if we ate it right, but it was still a delicious (and spicy) taste of a true Louisiana traditional dish from a chef who definitively knows what he is doing. 

We met up with some of Mark's friends and enjoyed some brew at another local bar and grill with fried catfish, mac and cheese, baked beans, and BBQ pork nachos...another amazing meal. I'm beginning to think I need to throw in a salad or two here and there just to make sure I don't have a heart attack in the middle of nowhere on my drive. 

We ended the night hoping from one honky tonk to another listening to some great live country and rock music from the people who know how to do it right. Kevin would have loved everything about this place (especially the BBQ). Thank you Nashville (and my tour guide Mark of course)...I will be returning.