A Mother's Day Made of Food

My Mother's Day was actually a weekend full of eating!  My mother, sister and grandmother came into town to visit.  I shall take you on a journey of amazing food...it's worth reading simply due to enjoy dreaming about the deliciousness of what we savored.  We indulged...we were gluttons.  I confess.

Saturday we decided to go for what I consider to be one of the ultimate places for lunch in our joyful little town. Hammon Trees.  This is a locally owned restaurant in downtown Fayetteville.  It's all Dickson Street.  That means you will see all that this precious city offers.  The quirkiness of the city...people who are silly, people who cool....  You can sit outside on the patio on a gorgeous Northwest Arkansas day and enjoy the breeze, drink a Boulevard and eat!  We didn't enjoy a beer Saturday...but we did the next best thing...we...ate...the BLUEBERRY GRILLED CHEESE!   Let me explain. 

First, I ate my usual turkey salad.  Yes, I am easy to please for lunch.  I want their turkey salad with their homemade ranch.  It's yummy, simple and fresh.  But, I want to convince my sister (who is a chef) and my mother to order one of their amazing, gourmet sandwiches. I've had most of them at one point and time on the menu.  They both chose the caprese.  My grandmother had the ham and cheese.  Starling had a cup of black bean tortilla soup and Virginia nibbled on a classic grilled cheese.

The menu at Hammon Trees is super cool.  Here's a link!  http://hammontreesgourmet.com/ They have funky sandwiches, but their claim to fame is their grilled cheese.  You keep seeing a common theme...the word cheese?  It's on purpose.  Check out their menu. 

We all shared a blueberry grilled cheese for dessert.  I got two teeny bites...TWO I TELL YA!  It went lickety split before I could reach for more!  This dessert is layered with buttery pound cake, honey, blueberries, cream cheese and mascarpone cheese.  It's so good.  We should have ordered two...maybe three.

That evening my sweet husband grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for us.  What a guy! 

Sunday morning was the best meal of the entire weekend. 

My grandmother is one of the reasons I love to cook.  She is a gem in the kitchen and can just add a little dab of this and a little dab of that and it all just comes together. She got up Sunday and made us homemade biscuits and chocolate gravy.  If you've not ever had chocolate gravy, don't gag at the thought.  It's not an acquired taste, it's amazing...give it a try.  Unfortunately, I can't share the recipe with you on here, because I don't know hers.  She just tosses this and that in a small pan and makes it work.  The times I've tried to make it, mine has turned out to be more like warm pudding than gravy.  I'm convinced she just holds a secret Billie cooking power.  (The same thing happens when I try to make her fried chicken.  I follow the recipe, but it NEVER tastes like hers does.)  I do know that it's mostly made up of cocoa power and sugar. 

Her biscuits are heavenly.  They're made with self-rising flour, by hand and she uses an old soup can to cut them out.   They're light and fluffy, but crunchy on the outside.  I always go for the ones in the middle of the pan. 

The photos are of her and my girls making biscuits together.  I hope her love of cooking rubs off on them.

Since we had a big breakfast, we ended up eating a late lunch/early dinner. 

We splurged!  It was Mother's Day.  I'm milking the event for all it's worth. 

Our last stop for the weekend was Noodles Italian Kitchen.  http://noodlesitaliankitchen.com/ Noodles is locally owned in Fayetteville.  We've been coming there for years.  It opened back when I was a sophomore in college.  (I'm really telling my age here.)  My girl's love it because they can color on the table tops and eat bananas foster.  My husband loves it for the fettuccine alfredo.  I love it for a few reasons...my number one reason (I sing loudly here) THE HOMEMADE LASAGNA...the other is the artichoke spinach pasta.

The lasagna is made fresh every day and it shows.  Enough said.  Nothing more to say.  The meat sauce is perfect.  Not spicy, not too tangy or sweet.  It's perfect. 

I am not a chef.  I am not a food critic.  I like to eat. I like a place with a great atmosphere where I can sit back and laugh. 

I just wanted to share what we ate so you might go there if you are ever in Fayetteville. 

Do you have a hometown restaurant you savor?  Noodles and Hammon Trees are just two of Fayetteville's gems.  There are tons more.  Gosh I love this town!