Alabama adventures -- The Yellowhammer and Castello di Oliver

While some of us were celebrating the Year of the Pig on Buford Highway, others took a detour to our own little backyard third-world country -- Alabama. Our travels to visit parents in East Alabama included tasty and surprising treats.

The Yellowhammer, Waverly, Ala.
We dined Friday night in Waverly, Ala., population 225, at a place called the Yellowhammer (map included on web site). Waverly is a five-building, uh... "town," about 15 miles West of Auburn. You have to look hard to find it off of the recently completed "bypass." The restaurant is in a remodeled early 1900s Ford dealership, that also once was a general store. Neat warehouse style decor -- concrete floors, brick walls, the whole works in that regard. Now before you start the Alabama jokes, there are two things you need to know.

1. There's no roadkill on the menu
2. Our waitress did speak passable English.

Our appetizers included fried calamari and bacon-wrapped dates. The calamari was fair -- but a bit overcooked and tough. The dates were pretty good owing to the fact that they had bacon, which may well be the perfect food.

Rachel and I both had pan seared sea bass on a bed of cauliflower/crab risotto. Whomped-up cauliflower substituted for arborio rice in this dish. It tasted like, well, ground up cauliflower with crab in it. Nothing special, but OK. The fish was perfectly cooked, tender and delicious.

Mom had duck confit with polenta. This was awesome. Duck was crispy on the outside, tender and flavorful inside. Dad won the Fred Flintstone award by ordering the lamb shank, served with asparagus. Also excellent -- rich, tender and not too lamby tasting.

Dessert was an average creme brule' and a trio of homemade ice creams, the best of which was pomegranate flavored.

Out-of-the-way location aside, this place could easily hold its own around Atlanta. Three out of four possums for this Alabama surprise because if you want some good food over in East-Central Alabama, you'd be hard pressed to do better.

Castello di Oliver
On Saturday night we cooked in at my parent's house. We recently splurged on a good bottle of Abbadia Ardenga 2001 Brunello di Montalcino wine that we'd been wanting to drink. So, we needed something hefty and authentically Italian to go with it. We decided to make a dish called Peposo, an peppery Italian beef stew from Impruneta, near Florence. We cooked ours for about 7 hours in a crock pot. We served it over polenta that we grilled. This was great with the wine, which was full bodied, nicely balanced, had good plum and cherry flavors and good acidity to cut the pepper of the stew. A really great meal to share with family and friends.