Episode 4011

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- This week on "Tennessee Crossroads," Vicki Yates travels to a deli in Munford, Laura Faber finds an artist in Knoxville who loves to share the work, Miranda Cohen takes us to Mount Juliet for fresh apples and donuts, and we'll go back in time with Al Voecks to the humble beginnings of a Nashville staple. So many great stories, so little time. Let's go. Howdy, folks. I'm Ketch Secor, welcoming you back to "Tennessee Crossroads." I'm sure we all have our favorite local deli, where sandwiches come out piled high with the freshest ingredients. Well, Vicki Yates traveled all the way to Munford to find a deli that the locals rave about, and the sandwich toppings at Angeline & Ernest are about as fresh as you can get.

- [Vicki] If you ever find yourself heading toward Home of the Blues, also known as Memphis, Tennessee, you might want to take a slight right before you get there. Munford, Tennessee is approximately 27 miles out of your way, but it's worth the detour because that's where you'll find the Angeline & Ernest Neighborhood Deli. Owner Angela Mason tells us about it.

- I named it after my parents. My dad will be 95 next month, and so we're excited to carry on a legacy of them. And so I started it. I actually was gonna make this place a Friday and Saturday night dinner 'cause we're steak people, steak and seafood. So I'm very particular about the ingredients that go into our recipes. I want the best, and I want it to taste the best. You know, I want something my family would love to eat.

- [Vicki] Meanwhile, the Neighborhood Deli has some of the best meat in town because her husband, Jeff Mason, is owner and operator of Tennessee Premium Beef in Covington, Tennessee.

- Tennessee Premium Beef, Well, we have always had cattle, small amounts, you know, and we've just kind of grown into a business there. We had a deer processing business for 35 years, and it just grew and grew and grew, and it just really was something that the community needed. So we started killing a few calves along, you know, and doing that. and that was in '89, And then we went into a nice company in '99, opened a grocery store in '98. Of course, we weren't bringing our beef in because we weren't federally inspected. Now we could sell custom, but in the last five years, we have opened this USDA plant. So we've got two feed lots there on our home place, and we raise black Wagyu, and we raise a premium black Angus.

- [Vicki] The couple who are practically newlyweds, having been married for the past six years, compliment each other, with Jeff making sure customers looking for exceptional meat find just what they're looking for.

- [Customer] Give me three of them.

- Three of them? All right, sir. I've got a bunch at the plant. I'll get us some more. I didn't realize we were selling that all today.

- I'll take them today.

- You know, there's no limit on this.

- There's no limit on it?

- No, you can get all you want.

- [Vicki] And not only is the great food courtesy of Angela and her mom's recipes, so is this cozy ambiance.

- [Angela] My husband says it has my touch all over it. I like vintage. I like antiques. I like the Victorian plates, the doilies. It's comfortable. It makes you feel at home. It feels like Grandma's house.

- [Vicki] The couple also likes and appreciates their customers, like this gentleman, a regular customer who just happens to be Dwayne Cole, the mayor of Munford.

- Yeah, we have a wonderful town. The people are so precious. They're so inviting. I don't know that I've been around many places like this in my life, and it's the sister towns here, Atoka and Munford, and they work so well together, a lot because of our mayor.

- [Vicki] Right now, Angela is in the kitchen preparing homemade banana pudding, while another sale is being made in the meat department.

- If that camera can zoom in on these beautiful rib eyes, I'm telling you. Just the meat here is fresh. You know what you're getting here.

- You can get all kinds of great things here, from delicious sandwiches to prime beef, and you can also get a lot of homemade goods, like these jellies, this salsa, and these pickles. But the piece de resistance is Miss Betty's homemade goods. And look who stopped by, Miss Betty and her sister of Betty Bakes.

- My sister and I, Cindy, we do all the baked goods. We do the sourdough bread, all the different breads you see. She does the brittles mostly and the cakes and the cookies, and we do the homemade ice cream, which is the biggest seller. We used to do a lot of markets, you know, here and there, where we'd sell our stuff, and we were at one that Angela was at. And then she called us and asked us would we be the baker for her store she was opening here. So that's how we started. And then I asked her one day, "Would you want to try homemade ice cream?" And she said, "Sure." So we just brought a little bit, and it went so fast.

- [Vicki] Since it's lunchtime, one of the dining rooms is occupied by members of the military. These women are known as the Memphis Belles Unit 151. They served in the military years ago and meet at least once a month for lunch. Kathy Desjarlais is president of the Memphis Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America.

- I'm a member of the Chamber of Commerce, so I've been here before. We were here for their ribbon cutting and for different things. So I told the ladies this was a good place to come. When we do a restaurant, we try to do a mom and pop type as opposed to a-

- [Memphis Belle] A chain.

- [Kathy] There you go, that's the word.

- [Vicki] So you never know who you'll see at the Angeline & Ernest Neighborhood Deli.

- [Angela] We've got construction workers. We've got linemen. We've got firemen that come in here. We have the local politicians that come in, our mayor. We have a variety of people. I am blessed. God has richly blessed us. I believe that He has His hand on every single bit of this. People from Memphis are coming up 'cause they're hearing about it. It blows my mind how far reaching we have become.

- [Vicki] And every now and then, you might even get a television crew from Nashville.

- Well, it's definitely worth the drive to Tipton County. Thanks, Vicki. Well, next up, with a vibrant palette and bold scale, a Knoxville artist has made a name for herself in pop art and portraits of icons, especially women. Jessica Ramsey has been a working artist since 2010, and as Laura Faber and the crew found out, Jessica loves to hand her paint and brushes over to the clients too. The more, the merrier.

- [Laura] Tucked into a little studio off Kingston Pike in the Bearden neighborhood of Knoxville, the neon sign lights the way into the artistic space of artist Jessica Ramsey.

- I am a contemporary artist that does abstracts and figurative-style paintings with deep rooted feminine energy.

- [Laura] Jessica credits her talent and drive to both her parents. Her dad is a developer in Knoxville, and her mom taught art classes. By high school, she knew she'd found her passion. With a fine arts degree from UT Knoxville, Jessica's career began with a bit of everything, commercial, residential, and commission work. Jessica has created logos, large scale murals, even faux finishes for a Nashville interior designer.

- I really just like to say yes. I feel like every artist is obsessed with something, and I think I'm obsessed with fun. I'm a mixed media artist, for sure, but I mostly use acrylic. This behind me, they have oil pastels and oil markers on top, but I also use charcoal because I love going back to my drawing days. I really just let my intuition go and what comes out is what it will be.

- This piece is called "Pretty Botanical," and this is kind of a newer lean for you, right?

- Yes, yes.

- Talk about that a little bit.

- Well, this is on linen, and I'll lay linen down and just let things happen to it. And then all these flowers have been emerging, like just these big botanicals and it's all mixed media, just radiating femininity.

- [Laura] The thing that launched Jessica, though, was Dolly Parton and social media.

- My first big Dolly that I did being recognized about it was at this hair salon Grow in town, which is the spot to get your hair done, and he wanted to use a statement from "Steel Magnolias" of, "I don't trust anybody who does their own hair."

- [Laura] Usually colorful, Jessica has also created Dolly in earth tones too. Either way, Jessica is a big fan.

- Definitely her feminine energy and just being in East Tennessee and loving her so much, and I've got three young girls, and we just idolize her and how she lives her life and giving back. I like to do that too and to different charities, and she's just a great role model.

- [Laura] Her most recent Dolly portrait will be displayed inside the East Tennessee Children's Hospital, but the icing on this cake? Actually meeting her idol.

- One day I got this call that said, "Do you wanna meet Dolly on Saturday?" And I dropped everything I was doing, showing up to DreamMore Resort, and I brought a painting for her, a butterfly 'cause she loves them. I was just in awe. She was just very complimentary of the '70s jumpsuit that I was wearing, and she was like, "I'm buying that right now." And she was so cute. And I said, "Are you okay with me painting you all the time?" And she said, "Yes, just always paint me pretty."

- [Laura] Jessica does love her some girl power.

- My hats and hoops goddesses since I love hats and hoops.

- [Laura] Her business has evolved to include painting parties, where people can create their own goddess.

- Our first step in painting our goddesses with all of these goddesses is that we're gonna take our big brush and we're gonna do our color blocks. So we're gonna do blocks of color, and then we're gonna use our roller here, which this is a tool that I use almost in everything that I paint, and I love this so much. It just blends and pulls the colors all together.

- [Laura] Using a combination of acrylic paint and oil sticks, the parties have been a hit.

- And then we'll come in, and we'll do our eyebrows and our nose a color. And then we'll come in, and we'll do our face and neck.

- [Laura] Jessica creates art for other tastes too. She started a car series that's been hugely popular and a little something for music lovers.

- So this over here is a finished records painting. So we got the Doobie Brothers, Foghat, The Eagles, The Cars, ELO, and the Beatles, all bands I grew up listening to with my dad.

- Okay, my goddess officially signed and that makes me an official Jessica Ramsey art graduate. Jessica Ramsey is grateful to be a working artist, and she treasures bringing beauty into the world one goddess at a time.

- [Participant] It looks good.

- Hats and hoops, it's cute.

- Yes, that's so cute.

- [Participant] She looks good.

- Yay, good job, Janie. And that's a wrap.

- Thanks, Laura. Great story, and it looks like you came away with a new skill. Well, next up, if you and your family are looking for ways to spend a little more time outdoors, then we have a place for you. Miranda Cohen travels to a beautiful orchard in Mount Juliet, where you can get your own fresh fruit, taste some amazing made-from-scratch goodies, and disconnect, all the while learning about the importance of Tennessee farmers.

- [Miranda] It is perhaps the most perfect way to spend a Tennessee day, walking the lush fields of a fruit orchard ripe with possibilities. This is Breeden's Orchard in Mount Juliet.

- It's one of the only orchards left in Middle Tennessee that still is a production orchard that does peach, apples, and some others. We have pears. We have some blueberry bushes.

- [Miranda] Once owned by the Breeden family, this 12-acre farm is now owned by Amy and Andrew Dorfman under the watchful eye of general manager, Michael Seale.

- It's a family-ran farm. It's a working farm. It's a place for families to kind of come out and just kind of spend all day and just kind of be out here to really kind of create a place where people can come during the springtime, the summertime, just kind of year round.

- [Miranda] You can pick your own fresh fruit or choose from a stunning array of colorful goodness from the country store. But the aroma coming from the scratch kitchen tells us these folks are in line for something else.

- During the weekends, in fall, it's crazy. You know why? Everybody wants an apple cider donut.

- Everybody wants an apple cider donut. They actually have apple cider in it, coated in cinnamon sugar, freshly fried, and make them daily. So that's the one thing I like to let people know. Like, you don't have to stand in line all day Saturday to get them. You could come on a Wednesday.

- [Andrew] Anybody who's from the north who has come here, it's a taste of when they were kids. And when we get the apple cider donuts come in, you can see the people bite and go, "This just reminds me of home." And then we also have all the fried pies here for all the people from the south, and you have the peach, the apples.

- We also do regular cinnamon rolls, and then we have seasonal cinnamon rolls. So right now, it's an apple butter cinnamon roll. In the summer, it'll be a peach cinnamon roll. We also have seasonal breads, so we have an apple bread, a pumpkin bread, a gingerbread, and then, of course, we have fried pies.

- [Miranda] The farm store is also stocked with fresh apple cider, chilled slushies, caramel apples, locally sourced honeys, jellies, jams, and much more.

- [Amy] Right now is like the best time because if you come in and say, "I need a crunchy apple, I need a sweetheart apple, I need this," we've got it. If you can't find an apple in there that you like, you just don't like apples.

- [Miranda] And at Breeden's Orchard, the history of farming and importance of food sourcing is all part of the experience.

- [Andrew] We've changed it from just an orchard to a teaching orchard. We teach them about sustainability. You can come up here, and you sort of get back to nature. You get to walk through, you know, the groves. We have the bee barn. They can see some animals.

- [Miranda] So how important are bees to the orchard?

- Well, we wouldn't have fruits without. We would have no peaches, no apples, no pears, no blackberries, no blueberries, no flowers without the bees. You know, it is the apex pollinator. Without bees, we would have no crop on all of our farms around the world.

- [Miranda] Hives of honey bees, goats, pigs, earth slides, a giant corn bin, even dance and story time.

- So how many of you guys know "Tennessee Crossroads"? Here, we have a real special reader with us who's gonna also do Tootie Time. Her name is Ms. Miranda Cohen.

- So we're gonna read "Pete the Cat's Groovy Imagination." It is all a part of the very educational agra adventure.

- If we lose a farm, they don't normally come back, and we're losing a lot of them, so people need to come up and learn about the farms and sustainability.

- [Amy] I see so many parents just come out, and kind of kids are no longer on technology. You come out here, and that's not here. We've got these walking paths now that can take you around. People can come out. They can walk by the flowers. In the summer, they can pick peaches. We've got a couple of slides. We've got just sort of all sorts of fun, get outside, stay outside, farm fun.

- [Michael] To just kind of unplug and come out and run around and just kind of experience the kind of lifestyle that a lot of us remember and cherish really the most part of our lives.

- I like to kind of give a shout out to all the farms that are everywhere, especially, you know, everywhere in Tennessee. Go support. It's an amazing blessing to have so many people come up here, and whether it's to grab a gallon of cider or grab some donuts or grab some apples or just come out here and experience and chill out, we love it. We love it.

- Hey, thanks, Miranda. And whether it's Pizza Night or Story time, there's a full calendar of events on Breeden's website, though, they may not all feature an appearance by Miranda. Well, finally, in our Retro Crossroads segment this week, we return to our 11th Season with a familiar restaurant. In 1997, Al Voecks went to the Germantown area of Nashville in search of some fine dining, and what he found was a place that reminded him of Sunday dinners at Grandma's.

- When it comes to going out to eat in Nashville, there are many places from which to choose. After all, there are 22 pages in the Nashville Phone Book devoted to area restaurants, ranging anywhere from the typical fast food to the ultra swanky and everything in between. Now, it's those everything in between places that sometimes turn out to be the best kept secrets in town. One such example we found in the Germantown area of the city. It's called Monell's, and from the first time you enter the restaurant, you know it dares to be just a little bit different. Michael King and Bill Monell opened this restaurant a short while back because they wanted something other than the traditional fare, which you can get all over town.

- A place that people could come together to communicate around the table again. I think it's so important. I think we've lost the dining room in the home. And I also come from a large family, so our conversations were around the table, and I wanted to create an environment, or we wanted to create an environment that was where people came to the house and really had an experience other than just food.

- [Al] Monell's is located on 6th Avenue North in Nashville, which puts it in a part of the city that is not quite as accessible as other parts and in an area of the city that has seen its share of economic problems, but perhaps that's part of the intrigue of the place.

- [Michael] It is in an old Victorian home. It's grandma-feeling where it's unique enough that people go, "Oh, this is an experience," but it's comfortable enough where they feel safe. But the thing that we have been working on for a good year and a half is the concept of on the other side of the tracks. I mean, just like in this room alone, we have a gas chandelier. It's one of the original gas chandeliers. We have the original mantle piece. Every room has something different of history. You walk through the door, and you feel it. You see the Italianate-style house, and you see the bricks. And you feel that old, and people feel comfortable. They feel like they're at Grandma's, and so that's really important to make something like this.

- So how is Monell's different? Well, for one thing, there are no menus, nor is there one of those everybody has one buffet tables. What you get is a family style dinner that will remind you of Sunday after church at Grandma's house. And if you leave hungry, it's your fault.

- [Bill] This is a very casual atmosphere. I mean, you'll hear us laughing all over the building. You'll also hear us screaming and cussing all over the building. The customers are very used to it. It's just like being at home, and whatever flows through the door is what comes through the door.

- [Al] But the family style concept, a lot of people don't like communal dining.

- [Michael] And yet there's more people that just love it than don't.

- [Bill] Yeah, about 98% of ours. We don't have but about a 2% that just won't have anything to do with it at all. And I figured that's their loss, not ours. We know most of our customers by first name. It's incredible the amount of repeat business we have. And they bring new people, and then they bring new people, and it's just turned into a-

- It's been word of mouth.

- [Bill] A small gold mine.

- [Michael] Yeah, I mean, word of mouth. I've done some advertising last year, and we spent some money on it, but for the most part, it's word of mouth.

- [Al] Who does the cooking?

- [Bill] I do.

- [Michael] I walk and talk. He does it all.

- [Bill] He does the walking and the talking. Imagine that if you can, and I do the cooking, yeah. It's whatever the market has fresh and available. We do everything fresh here. Actually, I cook what I feel like, all Southern-style cooking. I think that indeed Southern cooking got lost along the way somewhere because everybody thought it was all greasy and heavy, and it just doesn't have to be that way. So I kind of like to reintroduce the idea of good Southern cuisine.

- [Al] Fried chicken is Southern, but it's also greasy.

- [Bill] No, no, no, no, no. It doesn't have to be.

- [Michael] You haven't tasted his.

- [Bill] It doesn't have to be. We skillet fried all here in our skillets. I don't do anything in a deep fryer. I don't do anything in a microwave. I don't do anything fast and convenient. It's all done the old time way, and if it's done correctly, it's not greasy at all, not a bit.

- I can't eat anymore.

- We mentioned Sunday dinner at Grandma's house, well, this is as close as it comes to those good old days. But unlike Grandma's house, everybody sits at the same table. We don't see any card tables off to the side for the younger set. Perhaps in this day and age of fast food drive-throughs, none of this should work, but it does. And as long as the people will come, Michael and Bill will keep the doors open.

- [Michael] This is our recognition of believing in the belief of ourselves, taking the gamble and the chance, having a strong faith in our power, my power above, and also know that if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. It's the faith of God for me. It's the belief in myself on taking a chance and realizing I had everything to lose. I mean, I put up a lot of the credit aspect of it 'cause see, I knew his cooking. His cooking is superb, and it was worth me losing everything to support him in his cooking because people go around and eat food that isn't good. When I ate his chicken and stuff, I said, "Man, oh, man, what are you doing? You know, why are we selling tofu?" So it was a belief system in another human being, as well as my capabilities of creating an environment. There was no place around that I felt comfortable that created a space that people felt loved, welcomed, appreciated, enjoyed good food, good conversation, and left with a little bit happier than they came in.

- Well, it sure is great to see how far Monell's has come since that first spot in Germantown, and it's still an institution today. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week, but don't forget to visit our website, tennesseecrossroads.org, to find all your favorite segments, and be sure to join us back here again next week. See y'all then.

- Hi, I'm Norman. I want to say happy anniversary to "Tennessee Crossroads'" 40th anniversary. We watch it every time you're on and love your show. Thank you.

- Hi, I'm Juanita Himes, his better half, and I want you to know we watch "Crossroads" all the time, and we never miss it, and we love it. Thank you, and happy anniversary.

- [Narrator 1] "Tennessee Crossroads" is brought to you in part by...

- [Narrator 3] With the more than 100,000 tech skill grants that the Tennessee Education Lottery has provided, vocational students in Tennessee wear a lot of different hats, but it all starts with the same one.

- [Narrator 3] Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways, where adventure, cuisine, and history come together. With 16 scenic driving trails, you can discover why Tennessee sounds perfect. Trips can be planned at tenvacation.com.