Ragweed Season Has Arrived In Tennessee, And It’s The Worst Pollen Of The Year
Allergies can strike at any time, and Tennessee has seen a recent increase in ragweed allergies, but Teammates Pizza in Mountain City offers a delicious way to feel better.
Allergies have a way of turning the best kind of days into the worst kind of days, and there's no warning as to when they might strike. For some, the sniffles are relegated to the end of the summer season. Their runny noses die away with the departure of summertime heat. But others are not so lucky. Allergies can flare up at any point during the year, and for folks in Tennessee, there's been a large uptick in ragweed allergies in the last few weeks. Grab some medication and get ready to hunker down, folks. We have a few surprises in store this winter!
The ragweed pollen season tends to end by mid-November, but the warmth of the season has extended symptoms well into the wintertime. For some, November was the best month for outdoor allergies, but for others, ragweed reared its ugly head.
...because December is the time of year that real trees are cut down and brought into people's homes in the name of Christmas. And real plants bring all sorts of fungi and mold spores.
Before bringing your tree inside, make sure to leave it in a garage or perhaps on an enclosed porch for a week or so. Shake it every so often to get rid of spores and any hint of allergy triggers.
Good luck this winter, folks. That ragweed season is a chore, and Christmas allergies are nothing but lame. Take good care of yourself, and stock up on allergy medication throughout the winter season! You're worth it.
There's no better way to feel on the top of your game than with some yummy food in your belly. Check out Teammates Pizza in Mountain City, and indulge to your heart's content!
I love those adventures that take you away from the busy common places, and you find yourself in a new charming little town. That is what you will find with Loudon, and right in the heart of this community is some good ole classic southern cooking in Tennessee. Angie’s Kitchen may be fairly new; however, a trip there will make you feel like you have been there a hundred times. With a warm, welcoming atmosphere and comforting familiar foods, you will feel right at home in this little restaurant.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one perfectly summarizes what to expect when you enter Angie’s Kitchen. The staff knows how to have a good time, and they are there to ensure you do, too. Time and time again, when you ask locals and visitors about this small-town restaurant, they will tell you that the staff is very friendly and welcoming. I would completely agree. One of the biggest draws to Angie’s Kitchen is the people, and equally important is the delicious food.
The staff and owners simply embody the Southern hospitality we all know and love. They often refer to their guests by name and make sure you feel at home while enjoying your meal. Expect to laugh and feel known whenever you stop for a dish at Angie’s Kitchen.
This restaurant is all about delicious comfort food, mostly homemade and perfect for a true Tennessee experience. Seasonal treats like soups on a chilly day will warm you up just as much as the staff's friendly smiles and excellent service.
The portion sizes are very generous, so you won’t leave feeling hungry. Just looking at this juicy Bar-be-qued beauty, I feel like I could sink my teeth in it right now.
The interior is bright and colorful, indicative of the vibe in the dining area. With its pops of yellow and black, it reminds me of sunshine, which is very fitting to the overall experience. Food brings happiness when it is this good, and I can’t help but smile every time the owner greets another customer.
Everyone wants to be known and feel loved and you might not get that everywhere in this world by you are sure to find it at Angie’s Kitchen. Sink your teeth into some true Southern cooking in Tennessee and find your way to the small town of Loudon. If you want to browse the menu and see the latest happening at this restaurant make sure you check out the Angie’s Kitchen Facebook page.
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The whole Loudon area is such a great part of Tennessee to visit, it may be off the beaten path but well worth the trip all by itself. Make your stay a little bit more memorable by staying in this tiny home and spending the next day exploring history at Fort Loudon State Park.
When I recently met a long-time friend in my old hometown of Music City, it was quite the reunion. For this much-needed, in-person check-in after more than four years, we decided on The Butter Milk Ranch, a popular bakery and brunch restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, along the buzzy 12 South neighborhood thoroughfare.
We both loved the mid-century look of the building and the thoughtful blend of vintage and modern finishes inside that made the atmosphere feel more classic than dated. As we expected, the place was packed for Sunday brunch - as most places in this neighborhood have been for years. The infamous angel-wings mural is a stone's throw away, as are dozens of cute shops, coffee spots, and other restaurants that lure as many or more tourists as locals.
One of those other restaurants is Urban Grub, a casual-yet-upscale dinner destination that opened in 2012. Its ownership group opened The Butter Milk Ranch in 2021, a year after my friend and I last saw one another. She'd moved to another state when a massive tornado outbreak decimated parts of my (and our friends') East Nashville neighborhood on March 3, 2020, and returned to help with cleanup. Needless to say, this meeting was under much better circumstances.
Thankfully, she'd secured an early spot on the waitlist, which is only available during business hours (you can't make reservations). We had a nice spot in the front room with plenty of filtered sunlight coming in through the building's glass front, through which we could see the busy street scene. The warm wood and generous greenery made the space feel cozy, even when full.
As for the meal, we started with breakfast cocktails - a blueberry lavender mimosa for me and a BMR Irish coffee for her - and the most light, flavorful beignets with brown butter, lemon curd, and brown butter "snow." I ordered a seasonal salad with mixed greens, beets, and tomatoes, while she ordered the Avocado Benny with hollandaise - a take on eggs Benedict using a cube croissant foundation. We shared generous side servings of cheesy stone ground grits, fresh fruit, and bacon.
We were pleased with our meal, grateful for the time together, and hugged before parting ways, neither realizing we'd been dining at a place we'd both frequented decades before. We even made small talk about it as we ate, pondering exactly what business had been in the building before and its location in proximity to the building that once housed Katy K's Ranch Dressing. Katy K's was a custom and vintage western clothier shop that was a hipster hotspot from the late '90s until 2015, when it closed due to rising rents.
Owner and designer Katy Kattelman was a noted figure in New York City fashion, music, and art circles of the 1980s, where she launched her fashion brand before moving and reestablishing it in Nashville in the early 1990s. She operated a shop in Midtown before moving to the 12th Ave. South location, where she long predated the slew of trendy shops you see there today.
As for us, it turns out we were sitting there eating scrumptious food, chatting away, while mentally trying to orient our location around the Katy K.'s landmark we both knew well from many years ago... while sitting on the site of it. If that's not indicative of people who lived through Nashville's growth boom and leaving, I do not know what is.
While The Butter Milk Ranch clearly took design cues from the original building, the façade is much larger in scale, with replicated rock wall details. Aside from a large portrait of Dolly, there were few if any other hints of cool, country kitsch that defined the vibe at Katy's - and really, much of all that was cool about Nashville in its early days of growth. Not to say it isn't now, especially to people who are delighted by different things. As for when I arrived in 1998, you just had to be there!
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Despite my nostalgia, I've got nothing against this delightful bakery and brunch restaurant. To the contrary! The service was great, the food fantastic, and the atmosphere lovely - surely even more so to those who do not know or yearn for a Nashville that was.
I will certainly be back, and I might just sneak a Katy's button, a Bettie Page figurine, a kooky belt buckle, and a pair of fuzzy dice onto one of those shelves for posterity.
We'd love to hear about your visit to The Butter Milk Ranch when you go. You can check out the full menus on The Butter Milk Ranch website and keep up with the latest news on The Buttermilk Ranch Facebook page.
If you're looking for a luxurious stay in the heart of downtown, consider the highly-rated JW Marriott Nashville. Located adjacent to Music City Center convention center, it's almost exactly three miles north of The Butter Milk Ranch.
