Check Out Raven & Lily Restaurant In Collierville Tennessee

Some people can flat out cook. We are all not created equal. Some people are just gifted when it comes to cooking. If you live anywhere near Memphis you have to try Justin Young’s cooking at his new Raven & Lily restaurant on the town square in Collierville. Justin is an amazing chef and his food is outstanding.

Justin isn’t an overnight success. His culinary training combines a wide array of experience. He grew up cooking. He went to culinary school in at Johnson and Wales in Charleston. He worked in several white tablecloth restaurants between South Carolina and Memphis. He spent a year working at a 3 star restaurant in Lyon France. Justin has also worked on and off for Erling Jensen in Memphis for years.

Yes I am biased, Justin also worked with me at Kraft Food Ingredients. At Kraft, he was our executive chef and I got to see Justin combine the art and science of food. As stated above, the guy can flat out cook.

Justin opened his first restaurant in Oakland Tennessee a few years ago. The restaurant was a success, but the location was a bit of a challenge. The new location is on the square in Collierville and closer to a much larger customer base.

The menu at Raven & Lily is eclectic, it ranges from sandwiches to steak and seafood. Every nuance will delight his customers. Justin describes his menu as Modern Southern. Everything is very innovative and outstanding. I like to ask Justin for a tasting menu and just sit back in enjoy. Another reason why the tasting menu is great is that I wind up trying things that I would never order and wind up loving them. For example, his shrimp and grits are great. For me, shrimp and grits are cliché and never my favorite. Justin’s shrimp and grits are really special.

Justin makes a bordelaise sauce that is to die for. He gave me the recipe many years ago and I make it every year around the holidays. It is a production to make, but boy is it good. In Justin’s words, it is like candy for a kid, you can’t get enough of it. You could put this sauce on anything and it would taste great. It is worth a trip to Raven & Lily just to try the sauce.

Check out the Bordelaise Sauce recipe

One other thing about Raven & Lily, it is very affordable. They don’t have a liquor license yet so it is BYOB. Bringing your own wine keeps the cost down. Everything is reasonably priced. Look at this way, you can get the best white table cloth restaurant quality food at about half the price. Go there soon before and I can influence my former student on how to price.

This reminds me of an unrelated story:

I was playing golf with my buddies a few years ago when my friend Jim hit a bad shot and went into a rant cursing himself and the golf gods.
His playing partner Newman waited for Jim to regain his composure and encouraged Jim to not get so mad saying: “After all it is just a game”.
Jim came back explaining that the piece Newman was missing was the fact that he was a “very, very good golfer”.
After a more than pregnant pause, Newman countered with:
- “Ah-hah! That is the data I didn’t process

Again, the “Ah-Hah moment” story is completely unrelated, but I saw Newman today for the first time in years and I love the story.

For supper clubs, if you are up for a bit of work, try the bordelaise sauce. Otherwise, check out Raven & Lily in Collierville. The chef can flat out cook.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

Fueling For An Ironman

Not every Impromptu Friday Night is a culinary event. We had a dinner party before my son, Brian Kenny and his best friend, Eric Brown, competed in the Ironman 70.3 Boulder. The keys to the menu included:

High carb
Low fat protein
Simple/bland
Fueling an arduos endurance test

The resulting menu included:

Cheese Gougères
Pasta With Mama Agata Sauce
Grilled Chicken Breast
Grilled Focaccia
Green Salad With Mom-mom’s Vinaigrette
Mango Sorbet With Fresh Berries

(From top left clockwise: Grilled Chicken, Pasta with Mama Agata Sauce, Salad, Grilled Focaccia, Gougeres)

The party was fun, but fueling for an Ironman is serious. Unlike many runs, an Ironman is serious stuff and anyone that completes one is a real athlete. The Ironman 70.3 Boulder consisted of:

1 mile swim
56.1 mile bike race
13.2 mile run

The cool thing is that preparing for the Ironman has kept these two friends close. Brian and Eric have been best friends since they were three years old. When Eric and Whitney moved from Memphis to Colorado Springs last year we wondered how the friendship would evolve. Preparing for the Ironman has kept them in close contact. And yes, they are competitive.

(Brian and Eric at 3 and after running the Boulder Ironman. Note the cowboy boots and shorts on Brian. Always the trend setter)

The Boulder event seems like more exercise than many of us will have in a summer. For Brian and Eric, it was just training for Ironman Florida that is 140.6 miles in November:

2.4 miles swim
112 miles bike
26.2 miles run

The Boulder Ironman was tough. There is the Boulder altitude and 95 degree heat that was a challenge. To test the guys even more a straight-line wind of 30 to 40 miles per hour kicked up as they were running the last mile. Of course the wind was blowing right into them. Did the guys have enough fuel in their system from the pre-race dinner? You know they did.

(Brian, Eric, Whitney and Lauren)

Trying to develop menus that are lower fat has become the norm. High carb on the other hand was a bit of a twist. Keeping everything relatively bland was a bit of a challenge for me, but the results were tasty enough.

Gougères have become a staple of entertaining at our house. These cheesy puffs are always a crowd pleaser. They are definitely high carb and high protein with lots of egg and cheese. Not exactly low fat, but they are a tasty starter for any meal. Baking at over 5,000 feet altitude did present a bit of a challenge. I added an additional half-cup of flour to add structure and eliminated bacon (Boo-Hoo) and shallot. The result was more of a cheese pancake than a cheese puff.
Pasta With Mama Agata Sauce There is nothing better than a simple sauce with great ingredients. Susan and I spent the day on a hillside farm in Ravello Italy with Mama Agata. It was truly a great culinary experience. One of our many takeaways was a great tomato sauce that has become a foundation for many supper club menus. If you need a simple, quick tomato sauce that will be a crowd pleaser, this is the answer. It is also low fat and uncomplicated, two things that were key to our pre-race strategy.
Grilled Focaccia. In place of a high fat garlic bread, I made this grilled focaccia that worked well. We found a crusty French country loaf at Costco. I sliced it open lengthwise, brushed on a light spread of olive oil and then grilled it for 1 to 2 minutes on high on each side. After taking it off the grill I sprinkled with kosher salt and rubbed with raw garlic. The result was quite tasty as well as lower fat and high carb.
Green Salad With Mom-mom’s Vinaigrette. The meal needed something green and this was easy and always a favorite. My mother’s vinaigrette is quick, easy and probably the most copied recipe from anything I have published

Check out the Facebook Live video from the event. https://www.facebook.com/Pkhedge/videos/10156624816699675/

The meal was great. The guys did well in the Ironman. They had no gastro issues (yeah). While they had planned to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Gatorade endurance energy gels during the race, they didn’t. They finished the Ironman in 7.5 hours and burned off over 4,000 calories all fueled by our Ironman Supper Club.

Comments on the Feature Image: I love this one for several reasons.

It shows two friends living a dream together.
Great attitude
The magnitude of the swim behind them (distance, throng of competitors)

Do Want To Entertain Your Friends? Tell A Good Story

Everyone loves a good story. Particularly one that will make you laugh. Somehow, in today’s world, the art of story-telling, isn’t what it used to be. There is nothing more engaging at a dinner party than a good story. And, as my wife accuses me of quite often, you don’t need to let a few facts get in the way of a good story.

The best stories are about people. Stories about people that other people can connect with. The following story is about a guy that had self-doubt. At one time or another we all have had self-doubt. It is also about how sometimes self-doubt snowballs in your mind. Amazingly, with a little, very simple, good advice, something that seemed insurmountable can become insignificant.

Several years ago, Ron Iles, my college roommate, called me up and said he knew someone that I had to meet. He told me that he coached his daughter’s softball team with this guy and that my father had changed his life. Well that certainly got my attention.

My dad was a college dean and had the chance to make an impact on quite a few people. I remember thinking at his funeral where lots of people attended, that as an educator my dad was lucky to have touched so many. Me on the other hand, being in business working for Kraft Foods, I doubt there will be many to show up at my funeral. What are they going to say about me: “I remember Paul Kenny, he was the guy that screwed me out of few cents a pound on the price of Velveeta”.

A few months after Ron’s call, I was in NY on business and made arrangements to meet with Ron and his friend Bill Robinson, who my dad was able to help out. After ordering dinner I asked Bill how my dad had changed his life. Bill explained that he was freshman in college and was on the verge of flunking out. It was during the Vietnam Nam era and Bill was questioning his ability. Whether he was smart enough to be in college.

After flunking a class, Bill was required to meet with the dean, my dad. This was where my dad gave the life changing advice. After introductions my dad asked Bill what course he had failed? Bill told him History 101. My dad laughingly said, the solution is simple, take the class again. Well Bill did take it again and did well and went on to a successful academic and business career.

The irony of the story and maybe the reason my dad laughed, was that I was a history major in college. If his slacker of a son could pass History, anybody could. The ironies abound as my dad once advised me that whatever you do in life don’t go into education. Complaining that “Everyone in this family is a teacher. Someone has to make money”. As a dean at a business school he told me that: “I see all these business guys who aren’t that smart, making all kinds of money”. His point, even you can do well. I went on to get an MBA, did ok in business, but my dad will win the funeral headcount competition.

Dad was also the master of dinner party Story telling. He could also tell a good joke. Back in the day, before the internet, when people actually told jokes, dad was a master. He also had a rule that he never used profanity. He would have loved jokes like these:

A man called his mother in Florida. “Mom, how are you?”  ”Not too good,” said the mother. “I’ve been very weak.”  The son said, “Why are you so weak?”  She said, “Because I haven’t eaten in 38 days.” The son said, “That’s terrible. Why haven’t you eaten in 38 days?” The mother answered, “Because, I didn’t want my mouth to be full in case you should call.”
A Jewish man said that when he was growing up, they always had two choices for dinner – Take it or leave it.
 A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he has a part in the play.  She asks, “What part is it?”  The boy says, “I play the part of the Jewish husband. “The mother scowls and says, “Go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part.”

A good story that people can connect with will always be a hit at a supper club dinner party. Throw in a little humor and a bottle of good wine and you will have good evening.