There are quite a few cabbage recipes in Great Aunt Lillian’s cookbook. It’s the end of the “spring” season cabbage weather here in the south and we won’t get any more in our local Farmer’s Market’s (I’m partial to the Five Points Market that takes place right outside my museum door!) until fall.
I’ve been meaning to make the interesting… Continue reading
Dan and I spent a week recently traveling in Maryland and Virginia visiting family and friends. Along the way we found some great places to experience unchained stores and restaurants.
We’ve been to Meadows of Dan, located along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Southwest Virginia many times since Dan’s brother and wife live there. It’s a very special place and we are fortunate to have access to… Continue reading | 1 Comment
Wow! What a great concept. Between the dates of November 14 and November 21 if you shop at the following locally owned stores in Cleveland you will not only get a discount on your purchase, but that discounted amount will be donated by the store to Montessori Kinder International School! Awesome! We all know how important it… Continue reading
It’s the tick’s fault actually. That would be a bug tick, rather than some nervous tic that I might have developed since going chain-free. About a month ago while beginning to care for the puppy we are fostering, I got bit on the back by a tick.
Being Yankees, my husband and I are still not… Continue reading | 6 Comments
We just returned from a chain free vacation in Williamsburg and Jamestown! We were wondering if we could travel and do it chain free for a number of reasons. One – travel can be hard to do chain free when your on the road. Two – we were traveling with two other people – our friends Kathy and Janice. Both knew we are spending the year chain free and they… Continue reading | 2 Comments
I’ve gone for 3 months now without using a chain, but now that “chain” has been broken. And all for some makeup! For as long as I can remember I’ve used Almay for my eye makeup because my eyes are so sensitive. I’ve tried other brands but my eyes itch and swell.
So, when my Almay mascara dried up I worried, but gamely tried something new. I went… Continue reading | 2 Comments
Which means Perkits. Weird name for our only non-chain store and it sells soft serve yogurt. Perkits used to be a big chain, but the chain went out of business and the owner only kept the original store here in Cleveland.
I really miss the soft serve ice cream stands that every town has in the Northeast. No idea why they aren’t popular in the South where its so… Continue reading
One of the first things people ask us when we tell them we are going for a year without chains is “How will you grocery shop?” Here in Cleveland (that’s Tennessee) we are fortunate to have a family-owned grocery store, health food store, and upscale organic market. And if we go to the next town, Chattanooga, we have a very large health food store. So with all four options we… Continue reading
Taco Mamacita, on the Northshore of Chattanooga, was a new find for us. Located around the corner from our favorite organic grocery store, Greenlife, Taco Mamacita is a different kind of Mexican restaurant. Everything is made fresh on the spot and our food didn’t have the usual heaviness you often find in Mexican food.
I had the Peruvian Chicken, a wonderfully broiled chicken with a great flavor… Continue reading
The first week of January I proposed to my husband, Dan, that we try going for a whole year without shopping or dining in any chain. And that we chronicle the year in a blog and later in a book. Can we, normal middle class people living in a town of 30,000 in Southeast Tennessee actually do this? What would we have to give up? Would we end up spending… Continue reading | 2 Comments
