Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen

Tupelo Honey Cafe is in Asheville, NC. My daughter and I had the pleasure of eating there a couple years ago when we attended the bread festival in Asheville. There are actually two of the restaurants in Asheville now. We had wanted to eat there since we saw it featured on Rachael Ray's $40 a Day show. As soon as I learned they had a cookbook coming out I put it on my wish list at Paperback Swap. When it was offered to me recently I was thrilled and even more excited when it arrived this past Wed. I immediately read it from cover to cover and started drooling and planning what to make.

I have already made Warm Pimento Cheese p.55 (very good), Bacony Egg Salad p.87 (nice), Sweet Potato Pancakes (p. 199) with Peach Butter (p. 40) and Spiced Pecans (p 200). Rachael ate these pancakes on her show and as she would say Yum-O. I plan to make their Ginormous Biscuits later in the week to use up that left over Peach Butter. They give everyone one of those biscuits before your meal. I have so many more recipes marked to try including the Tomato Soup Sarita ate while we were there as well as the fried green tomatoes I had. I just wish they had included their recipe for Rosemary Peach Lemonade.

The recipes are what are called New South Cuisine, southern with a twist. What ever they're called I call them good eating. Besides all the delicious sounding recipes the book is filled with gorgeous photos of the recipes and scenes around Asheville. Most of the recipes have a little note at the beginning telling about the recipe. There are also interesting facts about some people and places famous to Asheville sprinkled through out. Asheville has over ten microbreweries and NC also has many wineries. Included in the book are suggestions for Beer and Wine pairings for many of the recipes. Can you tell I love this one?