Episode 3833

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is brought to you in part by:

- [Narrator] Some of our biggest checks have also made the biggest difference. The Tennessee Lottery, proud to have raised more than $7.5 billion for education. Now that's some game-changing, life-changing fun.

- [Announcer] Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made-in-Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsAndByways.com.

- [Narrator] The Co-op system in Tennessee consists of independently owned Co-ops, driven to serve farmer-owners, rural lifestyle customers, and their communities throughout Tennessee and in five neighboring states. More at ourcoop.com.

- [Announcer] Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts helps students explore the world, engage minds, enrich lives, and earn a living. More at MTSU.edu/CLA.

- This week, we'll investigate the healing power of art. We'll dive into the Mediterranean on Monteagle, find sweet treats that take the Triple Crown, and learn how a bad idea turned into a good brewery. It would be a bad idea to miss our show. I'm Laura Faber. Welcome to "Tennessee Crossroads." Art isn't just beautiful, it also has the ability to heal. Cindy Carter met a Franklin artist who uses her talent as therapy to deal with obstacles we all face on the road of life.

- [Cindy] Transformation, it is the driving force behind artist Keisha Lopez's art, her home life, her desire to help others heal, and her spirit. Inside her Williamson County home studio, Keisha works briskly, decisively, as if she'll just burst if she doesn't get her vision out of her head and onto a canvas.

- Sometimes, if a painting's not working, I sand over it and just start over. So I don't have like a preset date, and I really just embrace nurturing each painting to its full potential. Like, it has to be feeling right when I say it's done.

- Keisha admits learning to trust her process has developed over time, and it's a process that often has her designing, drawing, sawing, and ultimately painting a powerful vision she just couldn't shake. Now, several pieces of Keisha's beautiful artwork are on display inside her home. Like this piece right here. What can you tell us about this one?

- Yeah, thank you. So this piece, this one's called "My Mind is a Garden," and it was the first piece in this collection, and I actually got this idea in a dream. So I dreamt this monstera leaf and had the swirling colors, and then I immediately knew I had to start make that form somehow, some way.

- [Cindy] "Mind is a Garden" is Keisha's most recent series. The overarching theme is deeply personal and rooted in her own life experiences.

- But then my next layer is gonna be a little darker, kind of brambles and bristles. And that's kind of the first context I have in the beginning.

- [Cindy] Keisha's origin story as an artist wasn't quite as introspective. She enjoyed painting as a child and drawing art from life, a passion that continued as she studied art at Middle Tennessee State University. But while in school, everything changed. A cancer diagnosis turned Keisha's focus and her art inward.

- And I got diagnosed with leukemia, and I was 21, and all I knew was just go into my art. Like, that was the only thing I knew, to, like, keep doing it. And I was asking myself those, like, big questions, like why am I here? What legacy do I wanna leave behind? And I knew, like, it was the paintings and the messages that I learned through art.

- [Cindy] As Keisha's art and healing merged, her work and her mindset changed. Her art, she says, is now more meaningful, more daring, thought-provoking, an expression of all she's been through and continues to experience. Today Keisha is also a therapist and uses art to help others heal from trauma just like she did.

- And I love when a client's like, "I'm not creative," I don't know how to do any of that." So, I listen, but then I encourage them to kind of work in my therapy room and trust the process. And it's really beautiful what deeper feelings they can uncover.

- [Cindy] Deep feelings, certainly fuel Keisha's paintings and sculptures. She says her health journey, the birth of her daughter, and connecting to her mestizo heritage have inspired countless pieces and series, such as "Red, Flesh, and Blues" and "Ancestral Wisdom."

- Then I just got in my mind, I started imagining what were my ancestors doing in these spiritual rituals, ceremonies? What were they envisioning for my future? So, that series is me fulfilling the vision I propose my ancestors might have had for me.

- [Cindy] Keisha admits her vision isn't always crystal clear when she starts a piece.

- And I won't know the title of this work until it's done. Kinda once I sit back and take it all in.

- [Cindy] This artist says she has a lot of fun with what happens in between start and completion, but it's what she learns along the way that resonates not only with her but with the people and patrons who admire those truths and her work.

- [Keisha] When it's working, you get into this state of flow where everything else falls away and you just keep moving and trusting the process. So, not worrying about the final image, what it's gonna be, just trusting.

- Thanks, Cindy. If you exit I-24 at Monteagle, you could enjoy some great hiking at South Cumberland State Park. Or if you're hungry, you could turn right towards Sewanee and enjoy a surprising fusion of Mediterranean and American cuisine, as Joe Elmore discovered a few years back.

- Folks come up here to Monteagle Mountain a few miles from Sewanee for different reasons. Some come to hike on one of the many hiking trails; others come just to relax in a vacation rental. Still, others come here to eat, thanks to a place called La Bella Pearl's. La Bella Pearl's offers a fascinating fusion of Mediterranean and American cuisine, a combination that's attracting locals and visitors alike. The menu is the brainchild of chef and co-owner Tom Anderson, whose first food memories were a visit to a country club his grandmother co-owned in South Florida.

- As a child, I used to run through the kitchen and tasting stuff and getting smacked, so food has always been a part of my life.

- [Joe] A life dedicated to crafting gourmet dishes in restaurants throughout the US and the Caribbean. After several stints in Nashville, Tom moved to the area and partnered up with another local food veteran, Cynthia Krueger.

- He has professional training. I just have a lot of years on my feet.

- [Joe] In July 2020, Tom and Cynthia assumed ownership of this place, confident that they had the right stuff to make it work.

- [Cynthia] How you guys doing over here? Oh!

- How are you?

- [Cynthia] I'm good. Tom had a huge following when he came up here, and I had a huge following. And it's just we've really never lacked for customers.

- [Tom] We are both passionate about what we do, and, of course, you know, you have that little ruffling going on sometime, but it's all in the best interest of the business and maintaining that consistent quality in our food. We do it right. This is halloumi cheese from Cyprus. We cook from scratch. Everything is made up in-house from fresh ingredients. It makes you fall in love with food.

- [Joe] The restaurant has both lunch and dinner menus. We joined the Friday lunch crowd and the first stop for many folks is this colorful antipasto bar.

- [Tom] It's a Mediterranean antipasto salad bar.

- [Joe] It's beautiful.

- [Tom] It has all the favorites from the Mediterranean with inclusions of some American.

- [Joe] In the kitchen, chef Tom performs his culinary magic with non-stop precision, creating lunchtime favorites like garlic, shrimp, and pancetta with linguini, whiskey run, which is a chicken breast and baby bella simmered in whiskey wine glaze. Other favorites are the wild-caught snapper filet covered in lemon tomato sauce. Then there's the signature of flatbread pizza, not to mention assorted sandwiches, salads, and soups, including Mediterranean-style minestrone.

- [Cynthia] You have to love what you're doing. You know, if you're in the kitchen as a job, you'll never make it. You have to love and have a passion for food.

- [Joe] While La Bella Pearl's has a strong local customer base, word has spread to cities like Huntsville, Atlanta, and, of course, Music City.

- [Tom] We have a lot of business out of Nashville. We even have people who fly into the small airport just to dine with us. It's nice to see you guys. And one of the things I do, I manage to go out and touch base with my customers to make sure they're okay, they're doing fine, everything tastes great. And I think that's part of having a restaurant. You gotta touch base with your customers.

- We love Chef Tom and Cynthia. They're like family. It's like coming to somebody's home and just joining them for a great meal, a much better meal than we could cook at home, for sure.

- [Joe] And no restaurant family is perfect without a support staff that shares the owners' vision.

- We have such a good staff and people that can relate to them, and our staff remembers their names, remembers what they want.

- Everyone's really friendly, so it's like a party, isn't it?

- [Joe] A party for the pallet? Well, local customers seem to think so. And that's what it's all about for someone like Tom Anderson, a man whose craving for culinary perfection is a total way of life.

- [Tom] It's like a high, you know? You take the raw ingredients, you create this wonderful dish, your customers love it. What more can you ask for?

- Yum! Are you ready for dessert? Vicki Yates is. She stopped by the Triple Crown Bakery in Franklin and submits this story custom-made for folks with a sweet tooth.

- [Vicki] The first sound you hear when you enter Triple Crown Bakery is the whirring of mixers. But the first aromas you smell are freshly baked pastries. On this early morning, two of the 29 ladies who happily work here at Triple Crown are preparing for the day. Taking goodies out of the oven, icing and decorating them for the soon-to-arrive morning rush.

- What can I get for you?

- [Vicki] Triple Crown Bakery is the brainchild of renowned pastry chef Alena Vaughn, who was inspired to name and celebrate her business after one of the other loves of her life.

- So, Triple Crown is the best of three races, and so I grew up loving horses and riding horses, and I kind of had an epiphany when I was working at a horse ranch to go to pastry school. So I kinda wanted to infiltrate the love for horses into the bakery. And so Triple Crown's the best of three, so I figured, well, we do cookies, cakes, and pastries, so I'd like to say, you know, we do the best of those three.

- [Vicki] Something else Elena does very well is create atmosphere.

- Because we're in Downtown Franklin, I wanted it to be, you know, homey and inviting. It definitely has a, we call it, grandma chic vibe to it. I'm a maximalist, so I like lots of stuff around me. I collect lots of things, obviously plates and pie servers and little, you know, tea holders.

- [Vicki] As important as the cakes, muffins, and croissants are to customers, they're complemented by the tea room. Many customers reserve a table to enjoy high tea there.

- [Alena] Well, it's becoming really popular. We do what we call a casual tea service. So you get the pot of tea, you get the cup, we serve it with a little cookie on the side. You can get it for one or for two, and if you don't like tea, we have a coffee service, a French press service. We also have a hot chocolate service, so that's fun for the kids and people who just like homemade hot chocolate.

- [Vicki] Even though Alena admits she could use a little more room, especially for those times when the tasting room is booked, she loves the greenhouse location at 118th Fourth Avenue North in Downtown Franklin. It's the former home of John M. Green, who purchased the location back in the '60s. His daughter, Leonora Green-Clipper, is a steady supporter of this now sweet spot.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- Have a good one.

- You too.

- My father, John M. Green, bought this house in 1962. He paid $16,500 for it. It was an owner-occupied dwelling. It was just a house at that period of time. He had rented a space on Main Street, and they'd gone up on his rent, so he decided to buy this. He rented the back part as a house and ran his insurance business in the front for several years and then went into real estate also.

- [Vicki] But when Triple Crown began to expand its original business, Leonora thought this house would serve the purpose being a perfect location for a unique bakery. And she was right.

- [Leonora] I feel like it's so important when you have a property like this to think about who you're going to rent it to. It can't all just be lawyers and offices if we wanna keep our downtown vibrant.

- [Vicki] And Triple Crown, which opens its doors Tuesday through Sunday, certainly attracts a steady crowd.

- Great. Here you are. And the forks are right there.

- And even though there are croissants as big as your head and cinnamon rolls that will have you rolling your eyes with delight, there's something here for everyone, from gluten-free to dairy-free. Okay, Alena, say, I wanna go whole hog and wanna eat-

- Yeah.

- What should I get?

- I mean, I would get this brioche cinnamon roll. It's all butter.

- Oh, my gosh. But now if I'm watching my weight, where do I go?

- I would maybe choose one of our homemade macaroons. Those are light and airy and naturally gluten-free. And then I would maybe stick with our pavlova, which is a baked meringue with whipped cream and berries, also naturally gluten-free.

- And all of it great.

- Oh, absolutely.

- [Vicki] After all, Alena Vaughn has baked for the best, including cooking icon Julia Child.

- A couple times I got to cook for Julia Child. My previous boss, Zov Karamardian, she was really good friends with Julia, and we would do a lot of benefits for the James Beard Foundation, which Julia really loved to support. She was the best woman. You know, everything you ever wish, she would be.

- [Vicki] Stop by on the weekend, and you might see a popup or two on the premises.

- So I like to encourage other women who have budding businesses because I was there as well, you know, hitting the farmer's market circuits and stuff. So I encourage my friends or friends of friends to have a little popup in our yard. We have this beautiful garden space, and it's perfect location for somebody to just, you know, on a Saturday, sell their goods, and it's really fun. The customers love it.

- [Vicki] And what's the future wish for this already successful business?

- [Alena] I see us maybe having a separate event space, tea space. I do flirt with the thought of doing some mail-order stuff, maybe some, like, boxes that come once a month with goodies in it, a subscription service of sorts. I envision us just staying strong, and in this business, we see a lot of people that aren't making it lately, and I just hope and pray that we do.

- Thanks, Vicki. Our final story is for the farmers and beer connoisseurs in our audience. The two are partnering more than ever to create the perfect craft brew all made in Tennessee. The story began with a brewer and a hops farmer in Columbia. The craft beer is flowing in Columbia at Bad Idea Brewery. All over the state, craft beer breweries have exploded. Since 2010, the number has more than doubled. Three out of four Tennessee beer drinkers say they prefer craft beer and are willing to pay more for a local flavor.

- I kinda had my great beer awakening after college. We went to grad school in Memphis, and, you know, I was used to Bud Light, Natty Light, stuff like that, college beer, gas station beer. And had my first true craft beer at the Flying Saucer. And it was Dogfish Head's Midas Touch, you know, it has saffron and Muscat grape in it. And I thought, "My God, you can put all this stuff into beer, and it tastes cool?" And from then I was hooked.

- [Laura] Zac Fox, owner of Bad Idea Brewery in Columbia, Tennessee, is also the town librarian, a Master's of Science information professional. After his first taste of craft beer, Zac says he checked out every book in the library and started studying how to brew beer. It took 10 years of research, home brewing, and exhibiting his beer before Zac made Bad Idea the best idea he ever had, besides marrying his wife, Kassi.

- I've got an awesome partner, and we were sitting around, couples, you know, eating dinner, and we kind of flushed out a business plan. And my wife looked at it, and she said, "This is a really bad idea." There are a little few more expletives in there, but, you know, probably not public television-friendly.

- [Laura] The experimentation is the thing with craft beer, actually getting a taste of local culture and community. Bad Idea doesn't have a flagship beer; they've created 200 unique flavors so far.

- Usually hits me when I'm, like, standing in front of the refrigerator at 3:00 a.m., grabbing a snack or something, or when I'm in the, you know, junk food aisle at the grocery store.

- [Laura] The other good idea that was always important to Zac was to source ingredients locally as much as possible. His hops come from Eric Landis of Columbia's Tipsy Mule Hops Farm. Originally from Oregon, Eric knows that latitude is key to growing great hops, and at 35.6, Columbia is just in the right range.

- I bought six plants, just thinking, maybe, let's see what happens. The six grew; the next year I had 100, year after that I think I had 250, and now I'm up to 500.

- [Laura] Craft beer brewers are chemists, and both Eric and Zac love the scientific collaboration. So does the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild. Executive director Sharon Cheek says this natural partnership is actually an official state initiative called Farm to Tap.

- Beer from the very beginning was all about using local ingredients, going back thousands of years. And so I think, you know, we've seen that trend lately, in the last several years, especially since the pandemic. People wanna shop local; they wanna know where their money's going, and in our case, we wanna keep money right here in Tennessee. So if a Tennessee brewer can buy ingredients from a Tennessee farmer, and all of that money stays right here in our communities, it's better for our state, and it's better for our industries.

- [Laura] Beer is a personal thing, and the creativity with craft beer flavors is what drives the cult following. Okay, Eric, so this is what you deliver to brewers.

- This is correct. This is what I deliver to brewers, either in a dried state like it is now or straight from the plant.

- Okay. Now, there is a money part.

- There is a money part to this, and we can open this one, and is lupulin, which is inside each hop, and is the yellow... You see a yellowish powder in there, basically.

- [Laura] And why is that so important?

- [Eric] And that is where all of the oils and the acids are in the plant. So that's what the brewer is gonna extract. When they make their beer, they're extracting that out of the hop.

- [Laura] On this day, what is boiling in the fermentation tank is a special "Tennessee Crossroads" brew, made with products that the show has featured over the years.

- We're gonna be throwing in Moon Pies, Goo Goo Clusters, Willa's Shortbread, Kernels Popcorn, and then we're gonna be making a stout with that. Gonna be boiling that down, adding in hops from Tipsy Mule Hops Farm, and then the resulting product we're gonna be pitching Bootleg Biology yeast, that was propagated here in Tennessee as well.

- [Laura] Temperature is important. A change of one or two degrees can impact the mash.

- This water's going in at 170 degrees, and we're shooting for a target mash temperature in here for like 154 since we're making a stout today.

- [Laura] So what's in here right now?

- [Zac] So right now it's grain, there's Goo Goo Clusters, and there's shortbread in there right now. So you're gonna just-

- Whole thing?

- Whole thing. You're just gonna aim for the hole there.

- [Laura] Woo-hoo! It's this organic mashing together of two passions that gives everyone something to drink to.

- It's that connection. I'm not taking my hops; I'm not processing them into pellets and sending them off to a brewery I've never been to.

- You know, you're lifting up someone else in your community that's got a business that's, you know, helping your product, and you're, you know, kind of giving them a platform too, to say, "Hey, you know, I contributed to that, and, you know, we did something awesome together."

- Well, folks, it's closing time. But fear not, you can catch us anytime at TennesseeCrossroads.org or on the PBS app. And don't forget to tune in again next week. Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is brought to you in part by:

- [Narrator] Students across Tennessee have benefited from over $7.5 billion we've raised for education, providing more than two million scholarships and grants. The Tennessee Lottery, game-changing, life-changing fun.

- [Announcer] Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made-in-Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsAndByways.com.

- [Narrator] The Co-op system in Tennessee consists of independently owned Co-ops, driven to serve farmer-owners, rural lifestyle customers, and their communities throughout Tennessee and in five neighboring states. More at ourcoop.com.

- [Announcer] Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts helps students explore the world, engage minds, enrich lives, and earn a living. More at MTSU.edu/CLA.