Here are a few food related links of interest for Wednesday. These are independently-owned businesses in Nashville, TN and Atlanta, GA.

The Pasta Shoppe
http://www.pastashoppe.com/
John and Carey Aron left the corporate life and NYC in 1993 to fulfill their dream of owning their own company. Pasta was their passion, and they thought they could make pasta unique and higher quality than the mass producers. They settled in Nashville where Music City Pasta (boot and guitar shaped pasta) was their first product. That inspired them to create more fun shapes for holidays, themes, and other occasions. Today, they offer the world’s largest selection of fun pasta shapes and create custom logos and shapes for other companies to use as promotional items.

Via Elisa Fresh Pasta
http://www.viaelisa.com/
After 15 years in Italy, CNN Field Producer Elisa Gambino couldn’t find the fresh pasta she loved in her new hometown of Atlanta . So, she returned to Rome and studied pasta making with one of Italy’s premier pasta makers. When she opened Via Elisa in Atlanta in 2002, she created a devoted following, with pastas made from organically grown flours, free-range eggs, imported Italian cheeses and whole milk ricotta. From her shop-a replica of a Roman store-Elisa prepares ravioli, tortelloni, cannelloni, gnocchi and cut pastas in small quantities, to ensure quality and freshness.

The Carmichael Inn Cafe and Hunter’s Bakery & Cafe are two great local cafes in Loudon and Sweetwater, respectively.  My wife and have eaten at both on several occasions and love the local diner atmosphere.  If you are ever in the Loudon or Monroe County area and want something other than a chain restaurant meal, I highly recommend either of these cafes.

The Carmichael Inn Cafe is located in the historic, restored Carmichael Inn.  Restaurant Chef Gregory Gross has developed an amazing menu of soups, salads, sandwiches, and now offers burgers, pasta, and plenty of daily specials.  The Carmichael Inn is a two-story log structure, circa 1810, that was once a stopping place for stagecoaches en route from Knoxville, Nashville, and Chattanooga.  Built by John Hudson Carmichael (1780–1840) as his family residence, the home also was a welcome stop for many travelers who stayed as boarders.  The Carmichaels ran a ferry and stagecoach operation, and travelers were ferried across the nearby river to spend the night at the Carmichael home and then to continue their journey by the next stagecoach.

Jack and Maria Cox opened the doors of Hunter’s in October 2002 after renovating the Scruggs Building in the heart of Sweetwater’s Antiques District.  The building was built in 1914 and played host to many businesses over the years.  After about six months of renovations, which included removing partitions and a dropped ceiling, the couple chose a classic forest green and maroon pain scheme to compliment the hunting themed decor.  Hunter’s Cafe offers both lunch and dinner menus consisting of steak, seafood, soup and salads, along with a delicious menu of baked goods, including cakes and pies, rolls and croissants, Danishes and breads, wedding and party cakes, pastries, cookies and more.  They even have low fat and diet items.

It amazes me the lengths to which companies will go to protect their secrets.

KFC shoring up security for secret recipe

Here are a few links of local interest for Saturday:

The Hatcher Family Dairy is a 400-acre dairy farm in the rolling forest and pastureland of middle Tennessee.  Since 1831, five consecutive generations have farmed the land God assigned to them in Arno, TN.  For decades the family sold its milk to cooperatives to be combined with milk from other farms.  However, in 2007, the Hatchers branded their own milk and started selling direct to the public.

Sweetwater Valley Farm is located between Philadelphia and Loudon in the heart of southeast Tennessee’s dairy-rich Sweetwater Valley.  Sweetwater Valley Farm is one of the few farms in the country producing fine farmstead cheese.  Meaning, they control the process from cow to consumer in order to create high quality cheddar cheese.  They offer a vast selection of cheddars as well as specialty gourmet cheeses such as Garden Blend, Jalapeno, Adobo, and Roasted Garlic Pepper.

When research began for the new Eat This, Not That! For Kids! book, David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding discovered vast dietary discrepancies between many of the places Americans love to eat most.  So to help you separate the commendable from the deplorable, they put 43 major chain restaurants under the nutritional microscope.  They judged restaurants by calculating the average number of calories per kid entrée, then rewarded restaurants for having healthy adult options that would appeal to the young palette, and for providing healthy vegetable sides and non-soda drink options.  Finally, they docked points for those restaurants still harboring nasty trans fats.

The result was a Restaurant Report Card that holds each eating establishment fully accountable for the fare they’re serving up to all of us — moms, dads, kids, teens, and twentysomethings — along with a survival strategy for making it through any meal unscathed.

Chick-fil-A, one of my favorite places to eat both breakfast and lunch, scored an impressive A+.  None of Chick-fil-A’s sandwiches break the 500-calorie barrier.  And, they use whole breast meat chicken in their sandwiches, Nuggets, and Chick-n-Strips, not pressed or formed meat.  The chicken arrives raw at restaurants and each piece is filleted and breaded by hand.  Of course, their research also suggests skipping salads with ranch or Caesar dressings, any sandwich with bacon, and all milkshakes.  Which is just wrong, because nothing goes better with a chicken sandwich than a good chocolate milkshake.

Sources:
Chick-fil-A - Wikipedia
Yahoo! Health Article