We are food lovers

This may be a little known fact to some but others know that we love some food and we both love cooking. We have what I will call "specialties" in cooking. For example, of all types of cooking, I love baking best while Chip seems to prefer using knives (in whatever cooking way possible) and cooking meat (grilling, etc). He really wants a smoker but we're holding off for now on that one. Well we received an awesome surprise when the mailman dropped off all of the 14 days of held mail the day after Memorial Day. Some of our most fabulous friends, Betsy & Jose, sent us a wedding day present. I know, it was super thoughtful and amazing. And what was it? It was Frank Stitt's Southern Table: Recipes and Gracious Traditions from Highlands Bar and Grill.

The short story is Betsy and Jose live in Birmingham, which surprisingly has a fabulous restaurant scene. During one visit, they took me to one of Frank Stitt's restaurants and I had a fancy hamburger with a fried egg on top (yum). And thus the amazing book which I quickly read from cover to cover. I don't think I mentioned that I love cookbooks, especially ones with stories and pictures. So anyways, the point is that we tackled a number of recipes out of the book this weekend: fried green tomatoes, skirt steak with watermelon and red onion relish, and lattice-topped blackberry cobbler with blackberries from a local farm. And they were all amazing. We can't wait to try more. Much thanks to Betsy and Jose for the awesome book!

Blackberry cobbler and the skirt steak and fried green tomatoes.
(forgot to take a picture of the relish)