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Feature article
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Tasty tidbits: Jonesborough eateries dying out
By Fred Sauceman
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LOCALLY-OWNED EATERIES DIE OUT IN JONESBOROUGH
The year 2008 brought several troubling restaurant closures to the Tri-Cities Tennessee/Virginia region. In Jonesborough, Tennessee, for example, doors closed at Dogwood Lane, a popular gathering spot next to the Washington County Courthouse. Out on Highway 11-E, the Longbranch, a fledgling steakhouse, ceased operations, and a “For Lease” sign marks the property. Meanwhile, the “chaining” of Jonesborough continues, with the opening of a new Bojangles.
After-church diners will miss David Phillips’ Italian-seasoned meatloaf on Sundays at Dogwood Lane, and its closure means one less home-cooked breakfast option in our region. I’ve always felt that Jonesborough, which promotes itself as Tennessee’s oldest town and the epicenter of storytelling, should have a restaurant that celebrates our regional cuisine. When it opened in the 1970s, Jimmy Neil Smith’s Parson’s Table did just that, serving up slabs of locally cured country ham and an array of country vegetables, boardinghouse style. New owners later abandoned farmhouse food altogether, in favor of sea scallops and filets.
ANOTHER SIDE OF COACH BELL
Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia lost a brilliant coach, a caring teacher and a dedicated Christian when John Robert Bell died on Christmas Day at the age of 86. But we also lost a good cook. Every Halloween, Coach Bell and one of his grandsons enjoyed making oatmeal cookies. They’d start with the recipe on the oatmeal box and embellish it with pecans, raisins, chocolate and butterscotch. They’d put two large cookies and an apple in a sandwich bag for each child. Word soon spread throughout their Johnson City neighborhood, and the Bells had to make enough cookies for about 100 trick-or-treaters every year.
When John Robert coached football at ETSU, he and his wife Anne often hosted players in their home. It was common for them to feed four or five at breakfast and dinner.
“If someone was running low on funds, Anne would say, ‘Bring him home,’” Coach Bell once told me. “Those players didn’t eat; they inhaled.”
One of the dishes the Bells would serve the Bucs was a microwaved omelet, and here are the coach’s instructions: Fill the bottom of a “grip-it” bowl or microwave container with cheese croutons or cheese bread. Pour in milk to cover croutons or bread and allow time for milk absorption. Add three eggs, along with diced ham, cooked sausage, or cooked bacon. Mix thoroughly and place in microwave on high for five minutes.
A CHRISTMAS CARD RECIPE
I was asked by a couple of magazines this fall to review “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue” by Kingsport natives John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed. It’s one of the finest books on barbecue history and culture I’ve found. Not only that, but the Reeds will tell you how to build a pit in your backyard.
It’s part cookbook, too, and one of the recipes the Reeds share is this one, for Cheerwine Cake. John and Dale point out that North Carolina Piedmont-style barbecue was created by families of German immigrants. With its flavors of chocolate and cherry, this cake is reminiscent of a German Black Forest Cake. Cheerwine, a cherry-flavored soft drink, has been made in Salisbury, North Carolina, since 1917.
Instead of one of those letters that recounts the events of the past year, we’ve taken to including a recipe in our Christmas cards, and this is the one we chose for 2008, slightly adapted from John and Dale’s book.
RECIPE
Cake:
1 box devil’s food cake mix
3 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
1 1/3cups Cheerwine
1 teaspoon almond extract
Icing:
1/3 cup Cheerwine
½ cup butter
¼ cup cocoa
2½ cups powdered sugar
¼ tsp. almond extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9- by 13-inch pan. Combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, Cheerwine and almond extract. Mix well. Pour into the pan and bake as directed on the cake mix box. Cool slightly and then ice.
For the icing, combine the Cheerwine, butter and cocoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour the hot mixture over the powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Stir in the almond extract. Cool and then spread over cake.
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, the author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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