Nashville Sun-Mon

Sunday 10/27

On our first morning in Nashville the six of us were going to have brunch with Joe & Margaret's son and daughter-in-law, Michael & Tia. But first, when Michael & Tia arrived at the house they handed Joe & Margaret a card and gift bag to open. Inside was a little white onesie with a message How does Grandma & Grandpa sound? Joe & Margaret were positively thrilled with the news and we were glad and honored to have witnessed the disclosure. It is a long awaited and anticipated event!

After Ooh's and Aah's, laughter and hugs, and huge, huge smiles, we headed off to the downtown Nashville restaurant Biscuit Love with its claim of "100% homemade" and "Born in the South".

I've been an East Coast girl and a West Coast girl but never a Southern girl. To me, biscuit is synonymous with a spiral wrapped cardboard tube that says Pillsbury and shows an image of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Horrors, I know! (For more about the lovable and famous Pillsbury Dough Boy, see our 2018 trip to Minneapolis and the Mill City Museum). 

Nearly everything on the menu here was made from biscuits, even something they called Bonuts which are made from fried biscuit dough. I opted for a relatively tame French Toast entreé called Lily where biscuits are used instead of bread. It was a little heavy for my taste and I could not finish it all, but when in the South, eat – or at least try to eat – as a Southerner. Both Bonuts and the Lily are specially notated on the menu with small hearts as favorites. Other hearted dishes were 1) Pork and Pimento made from freshly fried pork rinds, 2) East Nasty which tops biscuits with fried chicken thighs, aged cheddar, and sausage gravy, and 3) Princess which tops biscuits with spicy boneless HOT chicken, pickles, mustard, honey.

The parents-to-be and grandparents-to-be were all smiles to be sharing an adventurous meal and such good news. We all were happy to be there with them and to start off out Nashville trip on such a high and unique note.

We had gotten a late start in the morning and we did not leave Biscuit Love until around 2:45 pm when Michael and Tia headed off to their home. We needed to find a low-key, half-day activity and so opted for a movie. Two of us couples, having been fans of the TV series Downton Abbey, wanted to see the recently released movie. Joe & Margaret, also fans, had seen the movie already but enjoyed it enough that they were willing to watch it again. We located a showing at a Regal Cinema associated with a mall 15 minutes south, The Mall of Green Hills.  We planned to get dinner at a nearby restaurant, North Italia.

We parked in one of two parking garages for the mall and walked along a lengthy corridor to enter the mall around Nordstrom's at a point at the southern end of the mall. We were confused as to where the North Italia restaurant was and, while we were studying a store directory and map, a friendly security cop asked if he could help us. We told him where we wanted to go and he said the route was quite circuitous and confusing (we agreed) and that he would escort us there. In my mind flashed visions of the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop but without the Segway and with the name Rickie instead of Paul. Rickie told us he just needed to do a few security check stops along the way. We followed faithfully on his heels as he whipped up one corridor and down the next, covering what seemed like every inch of both floors of the mall. The mall's Sunday hours are 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM and it was about 5:30 PM so I surmise we became part of his closing sweep. We eventually exited out a door at the north end of the mall where Rickie took us nearly up to the front door of North Italia, whose only entrance was external to the mall. Rickie even pointed out what our route would be to the cinema, just yards away.

The restaurant had a nice warm ambience, a point of pride in their self-description, along with the quality of their food. I enjoyed the wine display along the wall and the delicate, homey, copper and flower candlelit touches at the table.

At every one of our North Italia locations, our team is full of passionate and dedicated people who work hard every day to deliver the perfect handcrafted experience. We use only the best ingredients to create and serve consistently crave-worthy food, like our chef’s choice daily pizza and fresh pasta made from scratch daily. To us, nothing is quite as satisfying as sharing a dish of handmade pasta and savoring every bite, sip, and moment with the people who matter most. From the warmth that draws you in, to the vibrant energy letting you know you’re in for something special, the North experience invites you to indulge in not just what you taste, but what you feel.

We had our hostess take a picture so this time I am in it! Our food had not arrived yet but when it did we thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we waddled off to catch the movie at the neighboring movie theatre.

The plot behind the movie Downton Abbey is that the king and queen of England are going to visit Downton Abbey and the staff is in a flurry to get ready. Maggie Smith plays Violet Crawley the Dowager Countess of Grantham (although I will forever think of her as Professor Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter movies).

Dowager means "a woman holding property or a title from her deceased husband." It comes through French from the Latin word meaning "to endow" and is related to dowry.

 Penelope Wilton plays Lady Isobel Merton. I love the witty banter between the two of them.

And what better for a royal visit than a Regal Restroom? Alright... bad joke.

The movie was a bit trite, but enjoyable in a predictable happily-ever-after sort of way that is satisfying. It had been two hours long plus previews, so it was after 9:00 PM when we headed for home base. We needed to find our way back to our car. It was not in the parking garage associated with the theatre and the other parking garage was not connected. We remembered we had entered at street level in the other garage and that turned out to be at a level between the second and third floors. Only the makeup of a crew such as ours could intensely debate whether one should overshoot, going up to the third floor in the other garage and working our way downhill to the car, or exit the elevator or stairwell at the second floor and work our way up. Yes, seriously. This was a non-insignificant laughable discussion in which people took sides. Where was Rickie the mall cop when you needed him? We did wind up at the car eventually and it did start!

After reaching home base, we were in time to catch only the tail end of Game 5 of the World Series. It was just as well. The Astros trounced the Nationals 7 to 1, so exposure to the misery was minimal. The Nationals would need to win the final two games, and as visitors, not on their home turf.

Monday 10/28

Monday we planned a tour of Belle Meade Plantation. This plantation is not agricultural in nature but primarily a horse-breeding plantation. It was located about 6 miles or 20 minutes southwest of our home base. John & Sue and Joe & Margaret headed out via the rented car; Frank & I got a later start and took an Uber ride to catch up.

John & Sue and Joe & Margaret took the 10:00 AM mansion tour and began roaming the grounds. Frank and I arrived in time for the noon tour but it was booked so we bought tickets for the 2:00 PM tour instead. We looked around the visitor center (black arrows at upper center) and met up with John & Sue and Joe & Margaret for lunch there before beginning our own plantation tour in earnest.

We had brunch/lunch at Harding House

Elegantly nestled in the heart of Belle Meade Plantation, The Harding House offers a location for a delicious lunch to celebrate any special occasion or, to enjoy the ambiance of one of Nashville’s oldest homes.

The mural of the mansion on a wall in the stairwell in the Visitor Center just outside the Harding House restaurant was very captivating. Frank & I would see the interior of the mansion later. We would skip the winery tour at the tail end of the mansion tour, although John & Sue and Joe & Margaret had said it had been an enjoyable cap off for them.

Our entire group set off to see the carriage house and stables situated between the Visitor Center and the Mansion. Within we saw several multi-passenger sport and outing conveyances. The Roof-Seat Brake, also char-á-banc, which means carriage with wooden benches in French, was pulled by two teams of horses. We did ponder how the ladies would manage to get up into those high seats negotiating around the spoked wheels with their long full skirts.

The Vis-a-vis Sleigh was the most elegant of a non-sporting design and driven by servant or coachman. Its French name means face to face. The lighting in the carriage house was quite muted and so the displays lacked luster in my opinion. What did interest me and John was how they got each of those carriages into the confined space of a former horse stall through a rather narrow doorway. The conveyances must have been lifted up and over the walls with a crane or physical heave-ho of some sort.

What I did find very interesting was that Belle Meade has a singular reputation for producing horses, sired through the stud Bonnie Scotland, who are famous winners of the Preakness (P), Kentucky Derby (K), Belmont (B), and the Triple Crown as per the following radial chart.

The plantation gained the reputation of being the premier horse farm in the south, raising, selling and shipping stock throughout the country. In fact, Belle Meade was so influential in thoroughbred breeding that famous horses like Seabiscuit, Secretariat and Barbarro, and every horse to race in the Kentucky Derby since 2003 can trace their bloodlines directly back to Belle Meade!

Frank and I made our way to the front porch of the mansion awaiting our 2:00 PM tour. No pictures were allowed inside the home so this is all you get.

After our 45 minute tour, we found the rest of our group there to meet us as we emerged. Isn't this a handsome group of seniors in their rocking chairs?

Frank and I did a cursory view of the central part of the map (e.g, the Gardener's house, the Doll House and the Smokehouse) not venturing to the far southern boundary of the property where our friends had gone earlier.  There is a small notation in the upper left corner of the Belle Meade map that reads:

TREAT YOURSELF:
Did you know that our walking path is approximately 1 mile long? Walking it will burn most of the calories found in one scoop of our ice cream.

We did not navigate the walking path but we did indulge in the ice cream at the Coop 'n' Scoop ice creamery. We tasted their free fudge samples, too. Yum.

We relaxed that night with pizza. There was no World Series game. I broke out the jigsaw puzzle and began to sort for edge pieces but we did not begin to seriously attack assembling it until later in the week.