History in the Making

What a cheesy title. Well, get over it. I think there is a certain degree of cheesiness required in life. The reason I chose this cheeeeeesy title is because I had a lot of rad 'firsts' this week. I know, the cheesiness is just amplified now because if you dig deep enough, everyone has or does a 'first' something every day. Is that history? I guess so. But I live in the south, people. So my firsts are cool. And now I am blogging about them.

1. Went to the last Harry Potter midnight showing of my life.

And was tired enough (and had to work soon enough after) that I didn't even dress up.

Notice the cool shirt. Haha I love TN.

2. Went to my first Baseball game! And I loved it. I just felt like saying Gooo Amurrica the whole time. My friends here all tease me for my slightly extreme patriotism and general over-enthusiasm for life. Well I was excited, needless to say.

The Nashville Sounds beat the Albaquerque Isotopes (I know! And I thought I was nerdy!) in a double-header.

And I had to have a picture with the lovely David!

3. Went Canoeing on the Harpeth with all of our friends from the Program. It was soo fun! Bola and I pretty much rocked it (once we got the hang out how to row and steer).

And what you can't see is my knee gushing blood after I hit it pretty hard on a rock...

So Bola carried me back from the parking structure. What a good teammate.

4. We even stopped at the very southern Cracker Barrel for lunch afterward.

And we didn't forget about Goo Goo Clusters and Moon Pies, both made in TN!

5. And today after church I made some delicious basil grape Focaccia Bread with a recipe adapted from the recipe on this food blog.

The grapes burst a little bit when they cook. Good touch. Next time I'll try Olives.

And it was delicious.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Gooder'n Grits

If only I had the accent to go with this southern phrase. Well, accent or not, until yesterday I did not know what gooder'n grits meant, because I had never had grits. But let me tell you, they are GOOD! These grits tasted like corn butta and salt and they had super good texture. Yummmm...

The grits were from the cutest southern cafe and country store outside of Bellevue called the Loveless Cafe. Never was an old country cafe so quaint, food so fried, and biscuits so crispy and amazing as at the Loveless Cafe. I have the nicest postdoc in my lab, he and his wife took me for out for this southern experience.

Southern Fried Catfish, Fried Okra, Hushpuppies and Grits

Perhaps the best homemade preserves and definitely the BEST biscuits I have ever had!

So if you didn't know before, you realize now I am a food enthusiast... Ok, I am kind of obsessed with food. I love trying new foods and trying to make new foods too. Lets be real, I very often browse foodgawker in my spare time. Best website ever.

Anyway, so for the fourth of July me and my friends from my program went to Broadway (Nash Vegas) which was closed off for the Music City 4th of July Festival. There was great music, including Darius Rucker and some really good a capella group. It was great fun. And the best firework show I have ever seen.

Oh, and SOO MUCH FRIED FOOD. Southern cookin' for ya.

Buuttt... don't worry. I still miss California sometimes, so I drive out to Nolensville Pike where the Mexicana tiendas are. I can't go a whole summer without tostadas con queso fresco and Tapatío!

Small Beats Big Any Day

Today is the best day of the week. Today was the farmer's market at Vanderbilt. Yesss. If you know Kristin Trone at all, you might be thinking to yourself, but isn't Kristin like most fiscally conservative.. cough cough cheap... person I know? And aren't farmer's markets expensive? You are wrong twice. For one, buying local and in season really doesn't cost very much more than from the grocery store.

Also, there are two things I like even more than saving 75 cents here and there; supporting local small businesses so we aren't eaten up by low-quality commercialism, and farm fresh milk. This creamy, rich, deliciousness is proof enough that small beats big any day! Its just so much better than the nasty white water you buy in the store. Oh man, I am getting so spoiled here. But it comes in a glass jar. I just love that.

My loot from the Farmer's Market for the week: Note the brown eggs, farm fresh cheese and milk, oh yeah and peaches, tomatoes and strawberries from the south. So very good.

Some of my other favorite small/local businesses to support:

So you wanna buy a new shirt. You could go buy some generic T-shirt from Target for $15 or $20 that was made with no love by a machine in China, or you could spend $6 extra and get this shirt or other rockin' original creations by a cool mother of two, made with love, sent to you. Check out Adri Apparel.

I am a little biased on this one. I love my home city, and I love this huge but local used and new book store. It just has Portland written all over it and its the best place to go read cookbooks at 1am. I say this from experience. Go to Powell's Books when you are in Portland, Oregon.

I love the milk from this local Tennessee farm, and there are so many great ones around here!

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

So far it seems like the South (I know a pretty large landmass to generalize for) has a lot of heart and soul. In fact, I have seldom met as many nice people anywhere as I have met in a couple weeks in Nashville. People in Oregon are nice. They are like genuinely, "I miss you, lets get together next week I really want to catch up!", nice. But people here are like, "I just met you and I want to meet you for dinner TONIGHT, oh yeah and you are welcome in my home any time, in fact just come over right now and I'll make you some sweet tea," nice. Yeah, that's pretty nice. So, southern hospitality really does exist. In fact, some of my new favorite things in the world are here in the south.

Nashville's Top 3 (As discovered by Kristin):

Southern BBQ. Perhaps the best meat experience I have ever had. That's right, it rivals my mom's elk roast. There is just something about it. Its like... inherently smokey. Its not just all from the BBQ sauce. But that part is very delicious.

FIREFLIES! So I read this great little kid's book in my childhood about fireflies in jars, the whole shebang. Yeah, well we don't have those lightening bugs in Oregon, so naturally I thought they were fictitious. Come on, bugs don't light up. But then in High School I had the embarrassing realization that lightening bugs really do exist and I wanted nothing more than to see them. You can imagine my excitement when I saw a little green light the night I got here. More humorously, you can imagine the reaction of every person in this city watching me chase them and catch them when they really aren't anything to write home about to anyone else here.

I think I will love them no matter how many times I see them. So there.

Oregon's got nothin' on Nashville's Summer Storms. Hey Portlander, you think you know rain? Yeah try this little statistic on for size; Portland's average rainfall: 37.26", Nashville's: 48.11". Portland probably beats Nashville by a landslide if we were measuring hours rained because it rains for about 5 minutes here what it rains in Portland in a day. Its amazing. Its sunny, then all the sudden it gets dark... and before you even make it the 5 minute walk to your apartment you are soaking wet and thunder rolls and lightening lights up the sky. I love it.

Annnnnd... The Bottom Three:

Its actually 98 degrees here. Like consistently. That's really hot, people. And, oh yeah, 80% humidity. Granted, almost everywhere I go freezes me out with the AC within seconds of walking in. But the heat still goes in the bottom three.

This is a cicada. They are big huge bugs that fly around and make lots of noise. They are dying off now, and they only come out every 13 years in Nashville, but bugs in general go in the bottom three. There are just so many more bugs here it seems. Saw my first cockroach the other day. I guess bugs like heat and humidity. I don't care too much for it.

For those of you who are unaware, this is a shrine of Nathaniel Forrest. He started the Ku Klux Klan. And for further ornamentation, he is surrounded by a plethora of confederate and KKK flags. Classy, I know. Well, that happens here in the south. In fact, this particular shrine is on private property right off a main highway in Nashville. Come on peeps, racism and southern uprising is no good. Go equality. You go in the bottom three southern redneck.

But I still like all you other southerners a lot, especially those with a little twang. That means you too, nice lady on the airplane who wanted to be my mom before the ride was over and gave me your number in case I ever got into trouble in this Nash Vegas. I like you.

Hello from Nashville

For nearly my entire life of computer literacy, I have thought that blogs were silly and should really only exist for two reasons. 1) To look at pictures of food and find new or share old recipes and 2) To show pictures of your kids and brag about how they are obviously the cutest, funniest, smartest kids - or very possibly people - in the world. That really takes me out of the blogging pool because, although I love nothing more than cooking, all I have this summer is a tiny kitchen with a pot, a pan, and a wooden spoon. Oh, I also do not have any children (although mine will undoubtedly be the cutest and smartest!).

But alas, this summer I am living thousands of miles away from school, homework, home, and friends in what seems like a new country. So not only do I have more free time than usual, but I feel like I am also living through some quirky southern culture that is pretty fun to think and talk about. So here we are. Reason number 3 for blogging, to make a cute background for telling stories about the south to my mom and sisters. Yeah, Mardi and Erica you better read this.

I am an Oregonian through and through and when I am not there I talk about how much I love it every day. Unfortunately, I live in California most of the year going to school (although I love the people there), but I will be back in Oregon for good someday. I am studying Biochemistry in school, I love to cook, hike, play sports, and talk about how much I love my niece (the current cutest child on earth).

I know, she is cute.

So there you go, I am Kristin, and I live in Nashville. I hope I have some twang by the time I leave.

PS- Mom, thanks for all the help editing my papers in high school and college, but I am out of GER's now and a chem major, so no edits are required on this blog! Well, they are needed I am sure, but unwelcome.