Nightout

Fine dining can be fun, and tapas are tasty, but sometimes a girl is hungry for something in a hurry. Food can be fast without lacking flavor or losing charm. Next time you are in the mood for something quick, grab your order to go at one of these walk-ups.

I Dream of Weenie

It starts with an engagement party, follows with showers, bridal teas, and bridesmaids’ brunches. Fine china, recipe exchanges, new linens, and crystal — it’s all so prim and proper until we get to the bachelorette party. Suddenly tradition becomes something old, something new, something borrowed, and something phallic? I don’t really understand the penis-themed bachelorette party.

Somewhere down the hill from Music Row, kind of caddy-corner to the Gulch, near Broadway and Division, but not quite downtown is the Nashville neighborhood known as Midtown. And in this hard-to-define area, there’s one restaurant that’s bringing an identity to this trendy and urban locale. It’s Miro District, and it’s probably the best restaurant you’ve never tried. Located in the Adelicia condominium building, across from the more colorful South Street, Miro District doesn’t really stand out like its  across-the-street neighbor.

When I moved to Nashville from Lincoln, Neb., I left a great group of friends behind. For the first time since kindergarten, I was around a completely new set of people, and it was terrifying. I wasn’t from the South, I didn’t say “y’all,” I had no loyalty to the SEC, I didn’t call Diet Pepsi “Coke,” and I definitely didn’t call Nashville “home.”  I felt like a fish out of water, and while I had spread my wings and left the nest, I convinced myself that Nashville was only a temporary place to land.

When I found out about the theme for this issue of Her, I thought of no better excuse to try a truly ethnic local restaurant. “No cheating,” I said to myself. I was going to try something new, meaning ethnic also needed to be authentic. You can hang as many pictures of the old country on the wall as you want, but if your servers are wearing skinny jeans and faux-hawks, it just isn’t the same. As I investigated, I decided that any restaurant with a website was out. I wanted to be surprised by the menu just like I would if I pulled up a seat at a table in a foreign land.

I try to lead a fairly healthy life. I eat my fruits and veggies, do the recommended amount of cardio, and avoid trans fats at all costs. However, every time I think I really have it under control, a study comes out and tells me that what I thought were healthy habits are in fact going to give me Ebola or make my unborn children have horns. That’s when I throw all of the fad advice out the window and get back to the basic health proverbs, all of which can be adhered to at one funny place.
   
Laughter is the Best Medicine

My poor shoes lie in a three-foot pile in the bottom of my closet. Pumps atop boots, wedges under running shoes, flats crushed by peep-toes, and a good 10 pairs I probably haven’t even seen for two-and-a-half years. When I’m getting ready for a night out, finding the right pair of shoes is literally a nightmare. I know my problem could be fixed if I bought one of those under-the-bed shoebox things they sell on infomercials, but then I’d never know if the perfect pair was in the box, in the closet, or on my kitchen table, but enough about my cluttered existence.

For years I desperately wanted her, but my better judgment (and my friends!) told me that the time wasn’t right.

“It wouldn’t be fair,” my friends said.

I love birthdays. I mean, really love them. Even more than the presents, what I really love is birthday cake. Cake with thick, white frosting ... the kind that everyone else says, “Oh, this is so sugary!” and leaves half of it on the plate. I’m the girl with the corner piece who then asks if she can have the frosting you scraped off of yours.

When my best friend, Kristin, drinks wine, she swirls her glass, sniffs the aroma, takes a sip and notes its flavor and texture. “This is full-bodied,” she says. I’m the one sitting across the table sipping my house red or some choice I picked based on its funky name. She picked up her sampling skills from her dad, which could explain why my knowledge of wine is less than “cellar” — my dad once called an $11 bottle of wine “too expensive.” Like father, like daughter, I love the $3.99 shelf at the discount wine store.