NATIVE | ISSUE 80 | NASHVILLE, TN by Native

ISSUE 80 CHAATABLE

8 C1TY BLVD

Living + Design

Nashville, TN

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THE SHAY

Meet The Shay: Nashville’s premier apartment residences within oneC1TY, featuring a modern collection of studio, one, and two bedroom floor plans. The Shay encourages an engaged, healthy, and mindful lifestyle that fosters a true sense of community, like no other - empowering and motivating our residents to “live their best life.” Our neighborhood’s proximity to and integration of nature and open space, our residents’ interest in self-discovery and shared experiences, and our community’s sustainable ethos create the ideal place for you to live in balance. Every inch of living space is intentionally designed to bring peace, comfort, and relaxation. And best of all, it’s all done before you even move in, so all you have to worry about is bringing your fabulous self. Rest, recharge, and rediscover timeless design at The Shay, where style is the starting point.

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Contents ISSUE 80

THE GOODS 11 Beer from Here 15 Cocktail of the Month 18 Master Platers 60 You Oughta Know 64 Just Cause

FEATURES 22 Southern Grist Brewing Company 32 Chaatable

44 Artist Spotlight: Rachel Growden 54 Literature Spotlight: Loie Rawding

54 NATIVE NASHVILLE

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Behind the Issue:

Chaatable

If you’ve subscribed to the NATIVE newsletter (which we’re sure you’ve already done through our website, native.is), you probably already know about our mixed feelings toward Valentine’s Day. A short airing of grievances against the “love” holiday: its history is rooted in violence and general awfulness, it fools couples into spending exorbitant amounts of money, and—perhaps worst of all—it makes a whole lot of people feel lonely and inadequate. While pointless bloodshed, boundless consumerism, and alienation are 100 percent not cool, we don’t want to throw the proverbial Cupid out with the rose water either. At its best, Valentine’s Day (and the gooey, chocolate-covered hangover it seemingly casts over the entire month of February) can remind us of something we could all use a little more of these days: love. We’re talking about that elusive emotion that exists beyond the confines of DMs and “wyd” texts—an emotion that changes lives and careers and transforms the way you see the world. It defines who you are and makes life a little better every day; it makes you say, “You know what? Maybe everything isn’t that bad”; it makes you thankful to be here, in this moment, with that person. If you don’t think this kind of love exists anymore—or maybe never existed in the first place—we can’t blame you. After all, things are pretty bleak. But, even though it may not change your mind, we’d like to offer some evidence to the contrary via this month’s cover story on celebrity chef and restaurateur Maneet Chauhan and her husband/business partner, Vivek Deora. The couple constructed their fourth restaurant, the newly unveiled Chaatable, with real, non-DM love at the forefront. As a matter of fact, one could argue that every inch of the space and every dish on the menu is an homage to love. Because we don’t want to spoil the story, which you can read on page 32, we’ll leave it at that. But before we go, we’d like to give a special shoutout to our favorite NATIVE valentines, Jonah Eller-Isaacs and Emily Dorio. Thanks for giving us the best V Day present of all—a good story and photo shoot.

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ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES:

WRITERS:

KYLE COOKE JONAH ELLER-ISAACS

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

DANIELLE ATKINS EMILY DORIO

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EXPERIENCE MANAGER: HUNTER CLAIRE ROGERS ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE/ ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR: PAIGE PENNINGTON PRODUCTION MANAGER:

GUSTI ESCALANTE

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YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ALL YOUR NASHVILLE PIECES

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WITH HUNTER CLAIRE ROGERS Experience Manager at NATIVE Beer Name: East Meets Weisse Brewery: East Nashville Beer Works Style: Berliner Weisse Sour ABV: 5.2% Food Pairing: White chicken chili Appearance: Light yellow Aroma: Clean and citrusy Where to Find It: On tap at East Nashville Beer Works Overall Takeaways: Lately, I’ve been craving warmth. I know we all have—this cold won’t quit. January crept by, and the cold settled into my bones, making February seem like it exists just to mock and remind us all that winter is still here and it’s in no hurry to leave. So on a recent below-freezing night, I found myself in Inglewood in search of an alcoholic blanket. What I found was the perfect beer, one that’s likely the closest I’ll come to tasting summer this winter. East Meets Weisse reminded me of humid, 90-degree days. It’s no surprise, considering the first iteration of this sour, which was released back in June, was blended with a summery Creamsicle Oolong tea from the coziest of places— Nashville’s own High Garden Tea. But this new winterized version is brewed with Earl Grey, and it’s by far my favorite sour in town. Next time you’re after a warm-up, I recommend pairing a growler of East Meets Weisse with a nice, hearty bowl of homemade white chicken chili. The spice will counter the beer’s tartness and complement the earthy hints of Earl Grey tea. Don’t forget to garnish with plenty of fresh lime and cilantro for a final touch of brightness! Spring may be a long way off, and though this combo won’t make the sun come out, it’s the next best thing.

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The official

@hifibooth

photobooth.

hifibooth.com NATIVE NASHVILLE

Clover Club

BY SETH WEINBERG HEAD BARTENDER AT BOURBON SKY

PHOTO BY LISA DIEDERICH

THE GOODS 2 oz Beefeater Gin 3/4 oz lemon juice 3/4 oz raspberry syrup 1/4 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth 1 egg white 1 raspberry

DIRECTIONS Add all ingredients except the raspberry to a shaker and shake. Add ice and shake again, then double strain into a cocktail coupe. Garnish with a skewered raspberry.

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3431 Murphy Rd - dosenashville.com

TEA

COFFEE FOOD

@DOSENASHVILLE

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MASTER PL ATERS

BY CLAIRE MENEELY OWNER AT DOZEN BAKERY

PHOTOS BY DANIELLE ATKINS

Dozen Bakery Blood Orange Galette

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YIELD: 4 personal sized galettes FOR THE GALETTE DOUGH:

FOR THE FRANGIPANE:

FOR THE GALETTE ASSEMBLY:

THE GOODS

1 1/2 cups flour 1 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 4 oz cold butter, cut into small pieces 4-6 tbsp ice water

DIRECTIONS

In a bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender or fork (or a food processor), cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the butter is cut into pea-sized pieces. Add the ice water and mix just until the dough comes together. Press the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes or up to 2 days.

4 oz almond paste* 2 tsp sugar 1 1/2 tsp flour 2 oz butter, softened 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 tsp almond extract

DIRECTIONS Using a mixer, combine the almond paste, sugar, flour and butter. Add the egg, vanilla and almond extract and mix until smooth, increasing the mixer speed if necessary. The frangipane can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to use. Before using, warm it up just until spreadable.

galette dough frangipane 2–3 blood oranges, peel and pith removed and sliced into slices laterally 1 tbsp butter, melted 1 tbsp sugar

DIRECTIONS Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cut the dough into four equal pieces. On a floured surface, roll out the first piece of dough into a circle about 1/4 inch thick and about 5 inches wide. Repeat for remaining pieces. Spread about 1 ounce of frangipane on each dough round, leaving a 1 1/2 inch border. Layer 3 to 4 blood orange slices on top of the frangipane. Fold the border of the dough over the orange slices, leaving the center of the galette exposed and folding the dough onto itself every couple of inches. Brush the crust with the melted butter and sprinkle the entire galette with the sugar. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling and crust are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Enjoy warm or store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days. *To see Dozen’s Almond Paste recipe, visit native.is.

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DEERHUNTER w/ FAYE WEBSTER - CANNERY BALLROOM MYYLO w/ MOKITA, NI/CO - THE HIGH WATT MY SO-CALLED BAND - MERCY LOUNGE SHE'S A REBEL V - CANNERY BALLROOM THE KOOKS - CANNERY BALLROOM AN EVENING w/ Y&T - MERCY LOUNGE MCQUAID - HIGH WATT DREW SCHUELER, JARED MINNIX, MICHAEL MCQ DAUGHTERS w/ WOLF EYES, HIDE - MERCY LOUNGE GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS w/ NATIVE HARROW - HIGH WATT HAILEY KNOX - HIGH WATT BLACK LIPS w/ THAT'S MY KID - MERCY LOUNGE THE WERKS - HIGH WATT BLOOD ORANGE - CANNERY BALLROOM NINA NESBITT - HIGH WATT CHRIS LEE W/ YONAS, RIZK, CAMM, & SOUND PROOF - HIGH WATT STRFKR - CANNERY BALLROOM MIYA FOLICK w/ BARRIE - HIGH WATT WET & KILO KISH - CANNERY BALLROOM

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Dealing in Disruption by KYLE COOKE

photos EMILY DORIO styling HANNAH MESSINGER

Southern Grist uses mango purée, eighty thousand cereal marshmallows, and cacao nibs to create some of the weirdest—and best—beers in town

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ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I SAY TO KEVIN ANTOON IS

“Oh my God.” We’re sitting across from each other at the Southern Grist Brewing Company taproom in the Nations, and I’ve just taken a sip of their Mango Upside Down Cake IPA. It’s one of the brewery’s fifteen beers currently on tap. A lot of tropical IPAs are lucky if they have hints or notes of the fruit they’re named after, but flavor is Southern Grist’s raison d’être, and they knocked this one out of the park. The IPA is brewed with actual mango purée, which gives the beer an extra smooth consistency. Add the lactose and vanilla bean to nail down the cake flavor and aroma, and you’ve got yourself one of the best beers on tap in Nashville. Southern Grist turns three in February. When they first opened their taproom on Porter Road in East Nashville, they had a five-year goal of opening a second location with more brew space. They exceeded their own expectations. On their second anniversary, they opened the Nations taproom, as well as the tenthousand-square-foot warehouse next door, which is where they do their brewing. Antoon is one of Southern Grist’s three cofounders. A transplant from San Francisco, he moved to Nashville in 2007 to help open a tech office branch for a company called ServiceSource. Antoon and fellow cofounder Jamie Lee, who also worked at ServiceSource, moved here with ten other employees to open the new location on 4th and Church. A dozen years later, that group of twelve has grown to six hundred, but it no longer includes Antoon and Lee. The two of them worked for ServiceSource for about ten years. For the latter five, they were home brewing in Antoon’s garage, with varying levels of satisfaction. “It wasn’t great,” Antoon says of their early batches. “But it was good enough to bring to parties and people would say, ‘Oh, this is pretty good!’” One day Antoon and Lee decided to turn their

hobby into a career. But first, they needed to find a head brewer, one that wasn’t “just making pale ales and blondes,” Antoon says. Little did they know, Jared Welch was right under their noses at ServiceSource. “We always saw [Welch] walking around the office with craft beer and peddling his home brew around the office, and one day we asked him what kind of beers he made and he just started rattling off the craziest stuff— more than any home brewer we’d met before. He was souring beers in his oven overnight and handpicking raspberries from farms to make fruited sours. I tasted a few beers and immediately knew this was our guy.” Antoon and Lee didn’t quit their day jobs immediately (Welch did; brewing is too time consuming). For one, the ServiceSource job provided them with some security as they made their transition to brewing full time. Antoon thinks they did so in a smart way, though “some would argue it’s crazy.” For about six months, he and Lee worked at both businesses, consistently turning in twenty-hour days, hardly seeing their families. Luckily, they had support at home and at ServiceSource; it was their boss who taught them to home brew in the first place. “It went from a hobby to a dream, and now we’re a company,” Antoon says. “We live and die by this place.” I ask Antoon if it was daunting joining the beer scene in a city that already has over twenty breweries. The short answer, he says, is no. The Southern Grist cofounders were friendly with some of the other brewers in town before they opened, and Antoon says his biggest surprise to this day is how supportive those brewers were in helping Southern Grist get off the ground. “It’s almost a weird feeling how friendly everyone is and how helpful all the other breweries are,” he says, laughing. “And I’m not just saying that because it’s getting published.” Once they were open for business, Antoon and his team made it a goal to distinguish themselves from

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Nashville’s other breweries, and that started with offering the most variety. If you go to Southern Grist once a month, Antoon says, the menu will be different every time. “A lot of people like that, some don’t,” he says. “Some come in and they want their favorite pale ale on tap all year round, and that’s not our business model. We constantly want to be evolving.” That is something Antoon carried over from his days in Silicon Valley: the ideas of paradigm shifting, “disruption,” and other buzzwords that make venture capitalists salivate. “We wanted to challenge the craft beer market in a few different ways,” he says. “But yeah, I would say it stems from disruption, always thinking about the next thing coming.” Southern Grist’s reputation as one of Nashville’s most creative breweries has inspired a loyal following, as well as collaborations with local businesses. For beers brewed with coffee, Southern Grist only uses coffee from Barista Parlor (“[Welch] is more of a coffee snob than a beer snob,” Antoon adds). And if they’re using chocolate, it’s only ever from Olive & Sinclair. Most of the brewery’s employees—there are currently twenty-three—originated as fans, including their general manager, Brandon Cox. Cox was born and raised in Nashville. He worked on the Nashville Sports Council, but as a home brewer, he knew he wanted to make the switch to a career in

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beer. An early supporter of the brewery, he often found himself at Southern Grist’s East Nashville location and eventually picked up a night or two a week as a bartender. “The first three or four months they were open, it was the owners, the owners’ wives, brothers, sisters, in-laws,” Cox recalls. “People they could leverage to be like, ‘Hey, I need you to help come get this business started.’” A few years in, Cox says, Southern Grist has a lot of regulars, especially at their Porter Road location. “We’re a neighborhood bar slash brewery that just happens to make some of the best beer in the Southeast,” he says. “It kind of keeps us humble internally.” No one would blame them for not being humble— Southern Grist has established itself as one of the most acclaimed breweries in Nashville. Untappd gives them over four out of five “bottle caps.” Beer Advocate designates the brewery as “exceptional.” When Southern Grist had their monthly bottle release in January, around two hundred and fifty people lined up outside the taproom doors like it was a Supreme drop. But it wasn’t always like this. Cox remembers when there were only a handful of breweries in the city. “I have a ton of respect for the OG people in town,” he says. “Yazoo, Blackstone, Boscos. For a long time it was just kind of those three.

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“I remember when the tides really started to turn. You’d go to a place like Edley’s Barbecue and eighteen of the twenty beers on tap were some local offerings,” Cox says. “That’s wild, because you didn’t get that five-plus years ago. Maybe if you were lucky you’d find Guinness or Sam Adams. It’s almost the opposite now, like where can I get a Guinness on draft?!” Looking at the range of flavors on tap, it’s easy to imagine the brewers at Southern Grist as a bunch of frat bros dumping whatever they can find in their dorm into a Gatorade cooler and calling it craft beer. I mean, they did once brew a beer called Marbits that used eighty thousand cereal marshmallows. Antoon says it’s not that simple. “A lot of people think we just want to get as crazy as possible, but it’s more calculated than that,” he says. “It’s constantly, maniacally tinkering with the ingredients to make sure we have something for every palate that comes through the door.” And trust me, they do. Over the course of a week, I tried seven different Southern Grist beers, including Antoon’s current favorite, a super crisp, hazy double IPA called Process Control. I generally prefer citrusy IPAs, but a pleasant surprise is Chop It Up, a rich brown ale with hazelnuts, toasted coconut, and cacao nibs. Another standout was the Neapolitan Complex, an imperial that tastes like its namesake ice cream. Then, for fans of sours—and wine—there’s the Sangre Roja, which was brewed in collaboration with Southern Prohibition Brewing. It’s a sangria-inspired sour ale made with old vine Zinfandel must. Of course, all these recommendations are probably for naught. By the time you read this and go to one of the taprooms, there will be fifteen new options waiting for you. And then you’ll have an “Oh my God” moment of your own.

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Southern Grist Brewing Company’s East Nashville and Nations taprooms are open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

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Journey to of the

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the center Palate by JONAH ELLER-ISAACS photos EMILY DORIO styling HANNAH MESSINGER

With Chaatable, Chef Maneet Chauhan and her husband and partner, Vivek Deora, have brought the street food of their Indian childhood to the streets of Nashville

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THE FIRST THING I NOTICE IS: EVERYTHING. A RUSH OF COLOR

and light. Intoxicating, bright, sharp spices. Geometric ornaments across walls of vermillion and turquoise. Stained glass in a hundred colors. Parasols made from a rainbow array of textiles. Tens of thousands of bangles. And what appears to be a miniaturized front end of a minibus? All my senses are pleasantly challenged at the entrance to Chaatable, the fourth gem of a restaurant in the expansive culinary crown of restaurateurs Maneet Chauhan and Vivek Deora. Like walking into a bazaar, stepping into Chaatable floods the mind with a delirious variety of images, textures, scents, and sounds. That immediate impression was their intention, as Deora explains. “That sensory overload is critical. You walk into the restaurant and you’re blown away by the colors, hopefully, and that was what we wanted to achieve.” Like any long-lasting partnership, Deora and Chauhan break into each other’s sentences with supporting evidence, addenda, points of clarification, the rare I-told-you-so. “We wanted it to be—” Chauhan starts to say. “Colorful kitschiness,” her partner completes. “Kitschiness! Yeah,” she agrees. I’m surprised to hear that Chauhan and Deora did ever y thing—from the hand-painted stained glass clerestory windows to the countless (well, forty thousand) bangles and the floor-to-ceiling images of Indian life that decorate the wall behind the bar— themselves. Though friends and coworkers did lend a hand, Chauhan proudly states, “Vivek and I literally rolled up our sleeves.” She gestures around the dining room. “All of this has been done by us. All the stained glass has been done by us.” When I ask why they didn’t bring in contractors, Deora exclaims, “What’s the fun in life otherwise?” Chauhan points out, “I also think that the passion that has gone into this place—that has led to the success. People see it. People feel it. The older you get, you start realizing that the personal touch is very important.” Chaatable is the newest member of a family that includes three much-lauded sibling eateries (Chauhan Ale and Masala House, Tànsuŏ, and Mockingbird), along with breweries in Franklin (Mantra Artisan Ales) and Murfreesboro (Hop Springs). As is the case with any family, Chauhan and Deora aren’t supposed to pick favorites, but they struggle to deny that Chaatable is their most dearly beloved. The concept has been on their minds since their 2014 arrival in Nashville. “There was nothing in terms of what we were planning for Chaatable,” Chauhan recalls.

“So we knew that it was going to be a niche. People, at least out of initial curiosity, will come in. And we were confident enough that once they come in over here, we’ve got them.” She claps her hands for emphasis and flashes a sly smile. Chauhan and Deora have dedicated this temple to chaat. It’s the Hindi word for lick, but it’s also used to describe the savory snacks served roadside throughout the subcontinent. As the menu helpfully points out: “[Chaat is] a generic term for the essential hand-held bites of Indian street food.” “Chaatable has been nothing but a journey of our lives,” Deora waxes poetically. “Twenty years of association together, and ten years of marriage together, then that transforms into Chaatable.” With a wide smile, Chauhan shares, “If you point at anything on the menu, we’ll be able to tell you why it’s on the menu and the story behind it. “Growing up in India,” she continues, “for both of us, we weren’t allowed to have street food, because it was questionable where the water was coming from. But that was the most delicious food ever.” Parents: Want your child to love a thing? Forbid it. The verboten is almost certain to become an obsession, as it did for Chauhan and Deora. And now, Chaatable diners can enjoy the couple’s decades-long love affair with chaat. The restaurant is both a celebration of Chauhan and Deora’s shared lives and a high-water mark in their portfolio. They’re making food that’s deeply meaningful to them—and Chaatable has been packed since day one. The duo recognizes that commercial success and culinary integrity are not guaranteed, even less so in tandem. “The fact that we can offer foods that we grew up with, that we are passionate about . . . We feel very excited that in a way we are pioneering, or being one of the first few people to show this Indian street food in America . . . We’re proud of representing a cuisine which has been around for centuries.” Chauhan’s restaurants are built around stories. Tànsuŏ reevaluates Cantonese cuisine, winding back the clock to explore traditional recipes before their Americanization, and Chauhan Ale & Masala House certainly holds a special place in Chauhan and Deora’s hearts as their first restaurant. But Chaatable reflects a comfort in its own skin, a confidence without arrogance or ego. Deora speaks rapidly, with great enthusiasm and lots of dramatic hand gestures. “When you prepare something, if you know that you’re doing something which you think is good, you want to go ahead and let others enjoy. And when people feel good about coming

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into your restaurant and having a great cocktail, having a great food item, and they’re happy about it, it gives you a sense—at least to me—it gives me eternal joy.” Inside Chaatable, there are a handful of representations of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu deity, but there’s another elephant in the room: Maneet Chauhan is a badass superstar celebrity chef, far beyond her local reputation as a successful restaurateur. However, you’d never know. It’s not like famous people sport badges featuring their IMDb profile, and Chaatable displays Bollywood posters, not a trophy case. But I wouldn’t fault Chauhan for honoring her staggering achievements. Her role as a perma-judge on the televised cooking competition Chopped earned her a Broadcast Media Award from the James Beard Foundation. She’s the only Indian woman to appear on Iron Chef. When The View wanted to teach their many millions of daytime viewers about Indian cuisine, they called on Chauhan. She continues to be an in-demand public figure and one of the faces of Indian cuisine in America. Once she established herself as an authentic culinary voice, Chauhan started looking for the right place to launch her own restaurant. Offers came in from New York, San Francisco, Chicago, all the capitals of fine dining—a list that now includes Nashville. At the time, Music City wasn’t exactly on the couple’s radar. “We had never been here,” Chauhan admits. “We’re like, ‘Who the beep goes to Nashville?’ We didn’t know it! Not only did we fall in love with the culinary landscape, because it was just taking off at that time, but I think what really fascinated Vivek was the business opportunity that this landscape offered us.” You can find all that on Wikipedia; the stories that appeal to me are a bit more intimate. Take, for instance, when Chauhan and Deora learned they were expecting their second child, a brother and playmate for their then-three-year-old daughter, Shagun. This was 2014, when the couple was living in New York City as they planned Ale & Masala House. The timing was supposed to fit beautifully: restaurant opens mid-November, baby arrives late January. But Karma must have been excited to taste his mother’s cooking. Chauhan planned to serve her first customers at 5 p.m. that November afternoon. At 4:30, she delivered her child—three months premature. “Three months early,” Deora tells me, “means three months in the NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit]. Means three months of going over life in general.” Of course, Karma was in no shape to travel back and forth to New York, so the family stayed in Nashville. As an ex-New Yorker myself, I can attest to both the allure of the city and the revelatory space you find, mentally and physically, upon saying goodbye to all of that.

With room to breathe and reexamine their priorities, the couple recognized the good thing they had going. “Hey, it’s beautiful,” Deora remembers thinking. “We love the South, we love the people, we love the hospitality, we love the culture, the traditions. The kids could do with a little bit of non–New York attitude.” In an early front-runner for understatement of the year 2019, Chauhan describes the period immediately following Karma’s birth as “interesting.” She adds cheerfully, “What doesn’t break you just makes you stronger!” The husband and wife team has wasted no time investing in their new hometown, but with four restaurants, two breweries, caring for two children under seven, plus media appearances, plus whatever secret parties all the famous people go to, I have to wonder: When do they even see each other? They both smile, sigh, and lock eyes. “The two of us,” Chauhan answers, “we thrive under this chaos and craziness . . . That’s why I think both of us work so well together, because we get the urgency of it.” Deora adds with a sincere sweetness, “You make this all fun.” It helps that the pair truly, deeply love what they do. Just as Deora gets his eternal joy supplying customers a positive experience, Chauhan finds great satisfaction in her work. “This is one of those few jobs,” she offers, where “you cook, you send out, and you get instant gratification. I think that is absolutely amazing.” Our conversation is winding down and the restaurant is coming to life. The smells intensify. The clang and clamor of a busy kitchen echoes from the back. I’m getting hungry. I return a few days later for dinner. It’s a miserably wet, wintry night. I’m desperate to get there. But it’s my third loop around the packed parking lot between an apartment complex and Chaatable’s home at Charlotte and 40th. I roll down the window to get my bearings in the rain, and I can already smell curry in the air. The clever menu is stuffed like a turkey with puns and wordplay. If we’d had the time, I’m sure Chauhan and Deora would’ve told me the story behind each and every dish. I’m left wondering—and laughing— at offerings like The Okra Winfried Show (fried okra), O.M.Ghee (cashews toasted in ghee, or Indian clarified butter) and Papadum Preach (crispy papadum crackers). We start our meal with Build-a-Bhel. Bhel is essentially rice crispies for grown-ups. It’s like Snap, Crackle, and Pop discovered yoga, moved to Jaipur, and opened a food cart. The bhel is served in a tiffin, the ubiquitous metal boxes used for food storage and transport across India. We choose a few additions to the base ingredients, and our server assembles the bhel table-side. She gives the box a vigorous shake, which fills the air with a delicious aroma.

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Our march through the menu continues, stopping off in cold appetizers like P uf f P uf f Pass (semolina puffs filled with sweet and sour yogurt) and moving to hot, like Street Ballin’ (a potato fritter served on a buttered roll with chutney and chili). For our centerpiece, we choose Go Shorty!, a Mangalorean ghee roast strongly recommended by our hosts. When I ask the couple to choose one item to highlight, Chauhan shakes her head. “If you ask me for one dish, it’s like asking who my favorite kid is, and I will never tell you—it’s my son.” She and Deora howl with laughter and she adds helpfully, “I’m just kidding!” The ghee roast is unlike any Indian dish I’ve ever experienced. It’s a confit beef short rib with a gheebased sauce emphasizing ginger and coriander. It’s magnificently rich and flavorful, bringing to mind the depth and complexity of the legendary Mexican molé. Freshly baked puffed poori and turmeric rice are the perfect accompaniment to soak up the mahogany roux. By the end of the meal, I’ve encountered so many spices, flavors, and colors that I somehow feel exhausted from travel—and that’s the point. Through Chaatable, Chauhan and Deora have created an experience that speaks to their love for their jobs, their family, each other, and their new and old homes. As fellow Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian aptly put it in Chauhan’s award-winning cookbook, Flavors of My World: “It is extremely difficult to have a knowledge of one cuisine, let alone many others, but in the hands of someone as knowledgeable, gifted, and refined as Chef Maneet Chauhan, the culinary world becomes yours, and your palate will thank you for the journey.” I know Nashville is certainly grateful to her—and her beloved husband, Vivek Deora—for the trip.

1013 Fatherland St. 6592 Highway 100 Suite 1

EAST NASHVILLE BELLE MEADE

Chaatable is open Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. NATIVE NASHVILLE

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Artist Spotlight:

Rachel Growden photos DANIELLE ATKINS

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Rachel Growden is a Nashville artist who has been working in miniature for the past five years. After coming across a series of YouTube videos showing how to sculpt tiny replicas of fast food from polymer clay, Growden, who has long had a love of fake food, was instantly hooked. She began making her own 1:12 scale miniature foods and eventually branched out to decorating dollhouses and creating full dioramas to photograph the food in. Miniatures fall in line with much of Growden’s past work in photography and sculpture, as she has frequently dealt with the subject of artificiality. Though previously her work examined the constructed personas of classic country music stars, she is now exploring her interest in fabricated scenes of the everyday—from store displays and museums to theater sets and theme park attractions. She is intrigued by the real versus the constructed and the ways in which artificiality often makes things more compelling. In miniature, something as mundane as an electrical outlet becomes thrilling—it makes a scene feel significantly more realistic and that much more satisfying. Because the scenes Growden creates are primarily meant to be photographed, things are often unfinished and designed to be altered, adding to the artifice. Common materials like foam core, clay, and paper are transformed into believable facsimiles of daily life, but Growden is also drawn to the imperfections that can break that facade—an object may be slightly out of scale, a window may be missing its “glass,” the kitchen sink could actually be devised from a McDonald’s sauce container. Noticing these details can be just as delightful as falling for the illusion of authenticity.

Rachel Growden’s work will be included in the PLAY show at Julia Martin Gallery, which runs from February 2 through March 30.

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Literature Spotlight: Loie Rawding illustrations COURTNEY SPENCER

Loie Rawding is a writer and mixed media artist from the coast of Maine. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, The Ekphrastic Review (Toronto), SAND (Berlin), The Wanderer, and Map Literary (nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize), among others. She is a teaching artist with The Porch Writers’ Collective, freelance editor, and mother of twins in East Nashville. For more, check out loierawding.com I’ve been thinking a lot about the impermanence of things that we have long been tricked into believing are the opposite. Landscape, memory, family, the human body. These are fluid concepts, caught in an often violent tide, as stubborn and as fragile as a toddler. So I wrote this piece to get at a better understanding of what it means to create something that we hope (or fear) will be forever: a child, a tattoo, a piece of art. Also, exploring how women can reclaim autonomy and substantive power by making big choices with less guilt, shame, or sacrifice to others and the consequences that we so often wake up to. —Loie

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“OOTTAT” The first time it occurred to me I might want another child, I got a tattoo instead. I could have another. The possibility pulsing behind my eyes, slow and hot. It was evening. The child was sleep-twisted round three stuffed animals and his blanket. The “Are You My Mother” nest, we call it. My brain churned like an offbalance washer and I felt sick hungry. It had been such a good day. The sweetness of my boy’s gummy bear arms mashed tight around my neck. Sun incubating the backyard, inviting buds to unleash from the branches, then into his tiny mitts, then into his mouth. Even the Easter candy-colored drool staining his last clean shirt was delicious. “I deenosore, Mama. Arrgh num num,” his language so close to aligning with mine. I could hear quiet laughter from the guys giving our neighbor’s trim a fresh coat of white and I welcomed a bloom of pride. He took a solid nap and didn’t stick his foot in my glass of water, not once. A good day. Enough to make me fantasize a repeat child, but with dusk came fussy dinner refusals and a tearful bath which involved that repeat promise to not turn on the shower monster. These tests of wills like throwing my body against the privacy fence over and over again, hoping that I might splinter through to the other side. As I sat, mourning the velocity with which the child was evolving and wondering how I might ever help him grow into not just a man, but a good, decent man, I felt the uterine twinge which I had been warned about. “Right around two,” They say, “You’ll see. You might start thinking about trying again.

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“You’ll miss that baby smell. The days of him loving you unconditionally are numbered, sweetie.” That’s what They say. My left eye twitched at how domestic I had become. Once sleeping, the child almost always remains so and the husband would be tinkering in the garage all evening. His own making up for lost time. I grabbed my credit card and a house key, told the dogs to keep watch. I left. I think I locked the door. We live in Tattoo City. How hard could it be, like riding a bike. Or making a baby. As I drove downtown, a rat darted in front of my car, then jumped over a pile of roadkill. Possum, I think, and I swear I could taste the dirt-iron smear of it at the back of my throat. Those pregnancy hormones already honing my mother-body into its best survival mode. Tattoo City smiled just above the dashboard, coming closer, whispering Another. Sure have another and another. The city is dependable if only for its temperature, a never-cold pile of scrap metal and peeling paint. Balmy electric as if the whole town is sleepwalking forever. The story goes that someone, somewhere is always getting a tattoo. That night, half past nine o’clock, it would be me. I turned onto Fourth Ave and picked the first parlor I saw. Parked, too close to the only other car in the lot. Didn’t hesitate at the door nor did I jump at the sprang of jingle bells wrapped around the inside of the knob. I went straight for the glass bar on which were stacked black binders of plastic-wrapped images. The options. I fingered each thorny rose and arrow-pierced heart

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with a diligent nostalgia, as if I were fingering the curlicue ears of a newborn daughter. I let my still doughy stomach hang over the counter. Smiling at the sensation of cramping that precedes labor, knowing that I was about to produce a thing from which I could never retreat, unless I cut off a part of myself. I had long forgotten how sensitive I am to pain, how my nervous system croons at a mere hangnail. And now, here I am. Begging for it. I circled an image with what I hoped was a flippant sexiness. My tongue pressed against the inside of my cheek. “Do your worst,” I sighed at the twelve-year-old attendant with gauges in his earlobes the size of my leaking nipples. He sat me down in an old dentist’s chair, its crusty, gray vinyl peeling back from the seams. “Where do you want it, Lady?” I liked his bad attitude, told myself there was respect behind his gracelessness. As with the first kid’s birth, the location of the event mattered as much as the thing I was to bring forth. For a brief moment, I gawked at my exposed knees and wondered if I was becoming a cliché. “This is not a midlife crisis,” my voice only a smidge too loud. “I don’t want to have another baby. So, this is just —,” He blinked several times in the direction of my hairline, then turned his 58

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trucker hat back so that the visor bowed into his hairy neck. I raised my right middle finger and guided his eyelashes into my left palm. “— an alternative,” I whispered the truth and he treated it like an afterthought. He prepped the ink and I caressed the virgin spot one last time. The first prick was a bee sting. The second was a cherry Life Saver bursting in my mouth.

“Mama! Oottat? Oo ttat, Mama?” Six o’clock the next morning, my husband’s head is lodged between two pillows. The boy straddles my stomach, cradling my left hand, a kind of sinking ship desperation held tight in his pink pursed lips. Every little thing carries the weight of the Titanic with him. I feel hung over, an addictive distance between my body of the previous night and this morning. “I don’t understand, little man. What are you trying to say?” “W h a t ’ s t h a t ,” his father’s face threatens mine, like a snake caught off guard, and then four cold hands are squeezing too tight, making the gauze pad and plastic wrap wrinkle, then itch against my palm. “He’s asking, what the fuck is that?”

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YOU OUGHTA KNOW:

Future Thieves

There’s just something about the oblivion of the desert. In everything from the book of Exodus to Dune to Oliver Stone’s deliciously awful Doors movie, the barren landscape serves as the backdrop for some serious spiritual and metaphysical awakenings (hell, Waylon even got sober in Arizona). Such was the case for Future Thieves, a local indie pop outfit who recorded their second full-length in 2017 at the Sonic Ranch in El Paso. As they told NATIVE back in December 2017: “We had fun challenging ourselves and working in a way that involved whatever felt great to us and [then] just recorded it . . . We just set up all the old synths we could find—like the good Junos—and just got weird.” The result was a self-titled album full of blissfully chorus-laden guitars (think the Police’s Andy Summers driving down Route 66) and big pop hooks that nod to the kind of heartland anthems we’ve come to expect from The War on Drugs and other Don Henley heads. Who says you have to take peyote or melange to have a life-altering experience in the sand? Now, over a year removed from their proverbial arid awakening in El Paso, Future Thieves are picking up right where they left

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by NATIVE STAFF

photos EMILY DORIO

off. Propelled by DX7 synth chimes, chunky staccato guitar stabs, and vocalist Elliot Collett’s ever-impeccable rasp, “Always Something”—the quartet’s latest single—is perfect for pensive midnight drives that make you reevaluate your life. It’s Future Thieves at their moodiest and grooviest, and it’s a comfortable, sure-footed pocket we hope they stay in from here on out (even if it does get us in our feelings). When the band isn’t in the desert, their oasis here in Nashville is the Nation’s flagship sandwich shop, 51st Deli. Says Thieves bassist Nick Goss: “[Guitarist] Austin [McCool] and I moved into the Nations a year ago with our tour manager, Luc. Since then, we’ve come to the Deli every other day because everything on the menu is so good—and to top it off, it’s a family feel behind the counter. We are the last to be picked up before leaving for most tours, so we hop in the van with Deli to-go for everyone, and we start our journey. Safe to say we may even be dead without this place. Reuben with a fried egg . . . do it.” “Always Something” is available now.

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COFFEE BREAKFAST LUNCH OPEN DAILY 7AM-3PM 700 FATHERLAND ST. 615.770.7097 SKYBLUECOFFEE.COM E S TA B L I S H E D 2 0 1 0

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JUST CAUSE:

with Cale Tyson by NATIVE STAFF illustrations COURTNEY SPENCER

In Just Cause, NATIVE checks in with musicians, artists, writers, chefs, and pretty much anyone else who has appeared in the magazine to see what they’re up to these days. We also ask about their favorite local nonprofit or charity. This month, we’re checking in with Cale Tyson, who appeared on our cover in July 2017. “It all begins with a song.” Whether you became aware of that phrase via a bumper sticker, social media post, or last year’s award-winning doc It All Begins with a Song: The Story of the Nashville Songwriter (or if you’re hearing this phrase for the first time here), we think it’s a good reminder that sometimes less is more. Sure, obsessing over pedal settings or spending hours crafting the perfect synth patch is respectable (and even often very necessary). But that attention to detail is all for naught if there isn’t a great song at the core of what you’re working on. We’re talking about a song that can stand alone, without the overdubs and effects and expensive gear—a song that is moving regardless of any sonic window dressing or genre restrictions. We think that’s what past NATIVE cover feature Cale Tyson is focusing on with his latest release, narcissist. The EP finds Tyson—who found prominence as a (perhaps involuntary) member of

Nashville’s “trad country” movement—stripping away the lush horns, strings, and reverb that carried 2017’s Careless Soul. What’s left is a collection of unflinchingly honest songs presented in their purest form, with overdubbed vocals and scant acoustic guitar doing nearly all of the heavy lifting. Think Nebraska meets early Sufjan, with a touch of Mark Kozelek’s heartbreaking hyperrealism thrown in to seal the (sad) deal. Here, the mundane—checking Instagram, going to therapy—is presented as what it really is: a series of wayward distractions that, though meant to ease the sting of modern life, ironically often make us feel even more isolated. Something that might help with that isolation? Dogs, obviously. Tyson picked one of the oldest charity orgs in town, Nashville Humane Association, as his favorite local nonprofit (they have roots that go all the way back to 1887). “What they do is amazing and so incredibly important,” Tyson says. “Every so often, I’ll swing by and walk a few dogs, then leave heartbroken because I can’t adopt them all. I highly suggest dropping by to love on some animals, especially when you’re having an off day. You need the love too.” And if you’d like to give and receive that love for more than just one visit, you can adopt one of the 4,020 animals Nashville Humane sends to loving homes each year. Learn more at nashvillehumane.org, and check out narcissist now.

2316 12th Ave S - (615) 292-7766 @josephineon12th - www.josephineon12th.com photo by Michael Sati

G E R M A N TOW N - F R A N K L I N - E . N A S H V I L L E - S Y LVA N PA R K - T H E G U L C H | W W W. S C O U T S BA R B E R S H O P. C O M Sweethearts: @srymymomsaidno + @peninsula_nashville | Photographer: @dredrea