Mae - Monday Meat & Three

Chef Maya Lovelace's goal is to celebrate southern Appalachian hospitality and cooking with ingredients from the Pacific Northwest.  Her supper club, Mae is definitely one of the more memorable dining experiences I've had.  It's difficult to get an accurate idea of it, without actually experiencing it.  Last spring, I attended the Wednesday night "10-course southern bacchanalia", in the rustic backroom of Old Salt Marketplace.  It's a family style meal that left me overwhelmed, and so stuffed, I thought I might never need to eat again.  It's also super popular and I was only able to attend after some last minute cancellations moved me off the waitlist.  The Wednesday night meal is only available by getting on the email mailing list and responding very quickly to the email sent out every week announcing the next meal.

Mae also does a Monday night meat and three dinner featuring fried chicken and sides.  After I recovered from the 10-course meal and found a free Monday evening, I thought, maybe that would be about right, and I bought tickets.  It's also much easier to attend the meat and three dinner, it's available by ticket and doesn't sell nearly as fast.  

The first course was cornbread with honey butter and Benton's country ham.   The cornbread was really good, it's crispy on the outside and finely textured and I ate two of them, even though I knew there was lots more food coming.

The first of the "and three" part of the meal was salad:  iceberg lettuce with sourdough croutons, pecans, pickled ramp buttermilk dressing and watermelon radish.  It was a good salad, I enjoy a good creamy dressing and it was a nice combination with the nuttiness of the pecans and crunchy croutons.

And then the main course came out, fried chicken and the rest of the "and three".  The buttermilk brined chicken is fried in three fats and is pretty rich and flavorful.  The coating is relatively thin and crispy.  And along with the fried chicken, pimiento mac 'n' cheese and collard greens.

To finish it off, we had banana pudding, which was creamy and satisfying and a good end to the meal.