A Mixed Bag – This and That

Continuing with our home town centric posts… In this edition there are a couple of local area photos, a bit of shopping, home cooking and a breakfast at a new local restaurant we hadn’t tried before.

I’d taken photos of the Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge across the Tennessee River at Loudon Tennessee but I’ve never taken a photo of a key bridge that everyone takes for granted as traffic flows north and south on US Hwy 11.  I think that it has a certain appeal to the eye. 

The bridge is relatively new, having been completed in 2004.  It is 260 feet long and it has a navigation clearance underneath of 78 feet.  That’s important as the Tennessee River provides navigation for both pleasure craft and tow boats with barges, all the way from nearby Knoxville to the Ohio River or, via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Located just downriver from the US Hwy 11 Bridge, this is the much older Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge.  I obviously borrowed this photo from the Internet.  I just don’t do a good job of filing and then finding my older photos.

This high level deck cantilever truss railroad bridge was built in 1963, so it’s recently celebrated its 60^th birthday.  Its main span is 375 feet long plus there are another 9 approach spans that serve to keep the tracks level as trains pass from one side to the other.

…now onto buying things we don’t need!

We have 3 destinations that are definitely ‘shopping weaknesses’.  They are Fresh Market, Costco and, in this instance, World Market.   World Market has so many weird and wonderful food items available that we never escape the store without more than we should have on hand at home.  My favorites in this assortment include the pretzel “Splits”, the “Beer Nuts” mixture and those Bahlsen cookies from Germany.  We do try to just have one or two of these treats open at one time…

To find a World Market store near you, just go to www.worldmarket.com.  This chain has roughly 250 locations…

Time to do some cooking!  Thanks to our handy and persistent friend, Morrie, our grill is back in business after a long hiatus.  The problem was the squirrels that kept eating through the hoses that supply the propane gas.  Morrie found a metal hose that hopefully will cure the problem for the life of the grill.

In any case, I recently re-baptized our Weber grill when I grilled these pork steaks, caramelizing and sealing in the moisture via the generous application of Famous Dave’s Rich and Sassy BBQ sauce.  We sided them with mashed potatoes and hunks of cantaloupe.  Of course I also added a bit of Famous Dave’s Devil’s Spit BBQ sauce to my pork steak.  This was indeed a happy meal for both of us!

These are Laurie’s special cranberry-orange cookies…special in that they are delicious and loaded with pops of sweetness and fruity flavor.  They aren’t easy to make.  Prep time per the recipe, is 2 hours and 10 minutes.  Then they need to be refrigerated for a minimum of 2 hours…or as long as 72 hours.  Baking time is only 12 minutes.  While the original recipe states that extra cookies can be kept in an airtight container for 3 days…we’ve learned that they do last longer than that.

You can find the original recipe…at least the one Laurie uses…on the ‘Mom on Timeout’ site on the Internet.  Check the recipe and instructions at Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies - Mom On Timeout.  Trish’s site has 20 pages of dessert recipes for your baking pleasure…

…and then it was time to try a new restaurant for breakfast.

This is Angie’s Kitchen in downtown Loudon Tennessee.  It occupies a space that has seen several other restaurants over the past 14+ years that we’ve lived in the area.  The restaurant the preceded Angie’s was abysmal at best. 

Angie’s holiday décor at the front of the restaurant was warm and very much ‘down home’.  The dining area inside has that very much small town ‘diner look’ and appeal.  We were eating a late breakfast so there were just a few other customers in the restaurant.  Angie’s Kitchen was clean and the servers were very friendly. 

 Both of us stuck to the basics when we ordered our breakfast.  Laurie ordered bacon, 2 eggs over medium (runny yoke), potatoes and a biscuit.  We do prefer hash brown potatoes but these fried potatoes were just fine.  The eggs and bacon were cooked perfectly.  Cost - $7.99.

For my breakfast, I ordered 2 eggs over medium, potatoes, sausage patties, and a biscuit with sausage gravy.  No Tabasco but they did have a hot sauce that worked for me… The biscuits were good and the sausage gravy was decent.  I was stunned at the amount of sausage that I was served!  Three large hand formed sausage patties made with quality sausage…Hooray!  Cost - $9.98.  We also shared a large orange juice and we both had coffee.

Our first meal at Angie’s Kitchen was a winner… We were quite happy as finding a consistently good breakfast near our home is a challenge.  Angie also serves lunch and the restaurant is open for dinner on Friday nights.  Angie’s Kitchen is located at 502 Grove Street in Loudon Tennessee.  Phone: 865-657-9727.  For more information and a lot of food photos, just go to Angie’s Kitchen Loudon, TN | Loudon TN | Facebook.

My current plan for my next post to my blog site is to resume recapping our family visit to the Delmarva Peninsula, which took place this past September.  Lots of history, architecture and food to come!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave