When patron saint of Appalachia Dolly Parton recently passed away, the nation collectively decided that 9/25 would be the perfect day to celebrate her legacy. The City of Charleston in partnership with the Office of Public Art, Arts Amplified, FestivALL and Folklore Music Exchange created Dolly Day 9.25: A Tribute To Dolly Parton at City Center at Slack Plaza, featuring Crawford & Ashby, Holly Forbes, Brittany, Brenna & Justin, Unmanned and Emmy Davis. There was a Dolly Parton lookalike contest. Fife Street Brewing served their “Brawley Parton” Belgian Blonde Ale. FestivALL sponsored a free screening at Park Place Cinemas of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And, a portion of proceeds benefitted Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of West Virginia. But I was most excited about The Hideaway, which is an ever-changing pop-up restaurant and bar operated by MMDI — Morgan’s Million Dollar Ideas — the event production company founded by Morgan Morrison. The space rotates through immersive themes, with décor, food and drinks changing along with each concept. Over the course of just a couple days, the space went from green paint & pickles to sparkly pink walls & butterflies to launch The 9-to-5 Lounge. On Friday and Saturday, the lounge featured karaoke and Dolly-inspired drinks and Southern bites: PIMENTO PARTON -
Homestyle Pimento Cheese Dip & Crackers SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHEESESTICKS -
Deep Fried Mozz Cheesesticks TENNESSEE TATOR FRIES -
Bacon Cheese Fries BETTER GET TO CHICKIN -
Fried Chicken Bites & Fries The 9 to 5 Mocktail -
Pineapple, Lime, Sprite & Grenadine The Dolly celebration continued Sunday at The Hideaway for a special singalong brunch, which featured recipes from Dolly herself. Dolly’s Favorite Chess Pie — A classic Southern custard pie made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, cornmeal, flour, vanilla and a little vinegar. It bakes into a rich, very sweet filling with a lightly browned top and tender, almost gooey center. Dolly has publicly named chess pie as her favorite pie. Dollywood Broccoli Supreme — A creamy broccoli casserole combining broccoli with cream of chicken soup, sour cream, grated carrot and onion, then topped with buttery herb-seasoned stuffing. It’s a very traditional Southern potluck-style side dish with a creamy interior and crisp topping. Dollywood’s Famous Cinnamon Bread — The signature treat associated with Dollywood’s Grist Mill: soft yeast bread coated with butter and corn syrup, packed with cinnamon sugar and finished with a sweet glaze. The deep cuts in the loaf allow the cinnamon mixture to work its way inside, creating the bread’s characteristic pull-apart sections. Dolly’s Miracle Madness Salad — A decidedly retro salad of crisp iceberg lettuce and fresh tomato tossed in a creamy dressing made from Miracle Whip, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper. The sugar gives the tangy dressing a noticeable sweetness. Dollywood Macaroni Salad — A creamy cold pasta salad with macaroni, cucumber, green bell pepper, onion, sweet pickle relish and chopped hard-boiled eggs. The dressing uses equal parts mayonnaise and sour cream with a little milk, making it especially rich and creamy; it’s best chilled overnight. Dolly’s Southern Corn Pudding — A soft, buttery corn casserole made with Dolly Parton’s sweet cornbread mix, whole-kernel corn, creamed corn, eggs, sour cream and melted butter. It lands somewhere between cornbread and spoonbread, with a tender center and lightly caramelized edges. Dolly’s 5-Ingredient Chicken Casserole — A straightforward comfort-food casserole of shredded chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream and cheddar cheese topped with crushed buttery crackers. It bakes until creamy and bubbling underneath with a crisp, golden cracker topping. Dolly & Rachel’s Mac & Cheese — A particularly rich baked macaroni and cheese from Dolly Parton and her sister Rachel Parton George. It combines cheddar, Monterey Jack and Velveeta with eggs, whole milk and sour cream rather than making a traditional stovetop cheese sauce, resulting in a thick, creamy baked casserole. Dolly Parton’s Banana Pudding — A classic Southern banana pudding made by layering sliced bananas and vanilla wafers with a rich, homemade vanilla custard. It’s topped with fluffy meringue and baked briefly until golden. This version was published in Cooking with Country Music Stars in 1988 and was served at Aunt Granny’s restaurant at Dollywood. Dolly’s Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread — A sweet-and-savory cornbread made with Dolly Parton’s sweet cornbread mix, plenty of shredded cheddar and finely chopped fresh jalapeño. Butter and milk keep it rich and tender, while the jalapeño adds a little heat to balance the sweetness. Dolly Parton’s Stampede Soup — A copycat of the creamy soup served as the first course at Dolly Parton’s Stampede dinner attraction. It’s a velvety cream-of-vegetable soup made with chicken broth, finely chopped mixed vegetables and half-and-half, lightly seasoned with onion, garlic and white pepper. Dolly’s Cowboy Pork & Beans — A heartier take on baked beans that combines pork and beans with ground beef, onion and bell pepper. Ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar and mustard create a sweet, tangy sauce, turning the traditional side dish into something closer to a cowboy-style supper.

Trust is a Hillcrest restaurant known for seasonal New American small plates and live-fire cooking centered around a wood-fired grill. It is the restaurant that launched Brad Wise’s restaurant group and introduced the live-fire style that became his calling card. Trust has received Eater San Diego’s 2016 Best Neighborhood Trailblazer award and San Diego Magazine named it Best New Restaurant. The restaurant has a midcentury-modern feel, an open kitchen built around the wood grill and a substantial outdoor patio. When it opened, the interior was about 2,700 square feet with roughly another 1,300 square feet of patio. It feels polished but was deliberately conceived as a neighborhood restaurant rather than formal fine dining. The concept is wood-fired New American food, but the important part is the live-fire cooking. Wise became fascinated with Santa Maria-style grilling on California’s Central Coast, and cooking over flame became his signature. Trust’s menu uses that approach with seasonal ingredients and combines it with influences that range pretty widely—from Mexican and Mediterranean flavors to Asian ingredients and classic European techniques. Ultimate Sticky Bun — Trust’s oversized sticky bun, served warm with a glossy caramel-like sauce, a scoop/dollop of creamy topping, and chopped pecans.

Fried Rice — fried rice topped with two sunny-side eggs, with Korean beef, bok choy, furikake and chopped herbs. Furikake is a Japanese seasoning blend commonly made with ingredients such as sesame and seaweed.

Albacore Tartare — raw chopped albacore with black sesame, cilantro, avocado, sprouts, cucumber and trout roe, accompanied by taro root chips for scooping. Sampling all three made for a well-rounded brunch: the sticky bun was rich and indulgent, the fried rice was savory and satisfying with runny eggs tying everything together, and the albacore tartare provided a lighter, fresher contrast with creamy avocado, briny trout roe and crisp taro chips Grade: A

Cesarina is a handmade-pasta-focused Italian trattoria in San Diego’s Point Loma/Ocean Beach area, at 4161 Voltaire Street. It opened in February 2019 and was founded by three Italian natives: Cesarina Mezzoni, Niccolò Angius and Giuseppe Capasso. Mezzoni is the chef and namesake behind the restaurant. The concept is built around the idea of the Italian matriarch: “Cesarina” represents the grandmother/mother/daughter who feeds and takes care of everyone. That translates into a colorful, warm, slightly whimsical trattoria rather than a formal Italian fine-dining restaurant. One of the coolest features is its open-air pastificio — pasta factory — where you can actually watch fresh pasta being made. The restaurant has also received a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which Michelin uses to recognize restaurants offering particularly good food at a comparatively good value. Part of the menu lets you choose your fresh pasta shape and then choose the sauce. Shapes include fettuccine, spaghetti, pappardelle, paccheri, lumache, mafalde, rigatoni, gemelli and gnocchi, with sauces including Pomodoro Fresco, Bolognese, Funghi, Norma, Tartufona and Arrabbiatissima. There are also composed pasta dishes. The menu includes Lasagna alla Bolognese, made with hand-rolled egg pasta, Bolognese, béchamel and mozzarella; Paccheri Vodka and Scampi, with shrimp and a whole langoustine; and Gnocchi Salsiccia, Porcini e Tartufo, with truffle sauce, porcini and bone marrow. I had the "GNOCCHI, PORCINI, GAMBERI e TARTUFO" - Handmade Gnocchi, garlic, Peperoneino, shrimp, porcini mushroom, "crema al Tartufo", parsley, freshly shaved imported black summer truffle. This was easily one of those dishes where every ingredient sounded rich on its own, but somehow it all worked together perfectly. The handmade gnocchi were soft, pillowy and almost melted in my mouth, coated in a silky truffle cream that was earthy. Porcini mushrooms doubled down on that deep, savory flavor, while the shrimp added a little sweetness and made the dish feel more substantial. The freshly shaved black summer truffle on top made the whole thing feel incredibly indulgent. It was creamy, earthy, garlicky and ridiculously good — the kind of pasta dish I kept thinking about after it was gone. Grade: A

Le Petit Chef is one of -- if not THE -- most unique dining experiences I've ever had. Why? Because it's both dinner and a show. Le Petit Chef is an immersive dining experience where a tiny animated chef appears to cook your meal right on your table. Using 3D projection mapping, animations are projected onto your plate and table. Before each real course arrives, you watch the miniature chef “prepare” it — sometimes struggling with ingredients, making a mess, or going on a little adventure. Held in a Hilton Hotel restaurant, the room is specially set up with the projectors overhead, projecting onto each individual plate.
I was fortunate to experience this with my best friend Kaitee, and we made the trip all the way to San Diego to check it out. There's a little bit of wonkiness with my phone camera vs. the projector and trying to get the lighting correct, so the photos don't do it justice.

First Course: The Garden — Burrata Salad

The little chef starts out in his garden, planting and harvesting vegetables. He tends his crops, gathers tomatoes and other ingredients and begins assembling the first course.

Then comes the mole.

The mole starts stealing/messing with his vegetables, and Le Petit Chef tries increasingly ridiculous ways to get rid of it. He eventually resorts to dynamite, with the explosion sending vegetables flying around the table. The real dish: tomato compote, basil oil, rocket and balsamic vinegar Second Course: Under the Sea — Seafood Bisque

The table transforms into an ocean.

Le Petit Chef goes fishing and dives underwater, encountering sea life as he tries to collect ingredients. In one version, he uses a fish to lure a lobster, then rides across the plate/ocean on the lobster.

Eventually he gathers the seafood he needs and prepares a soup. The real dish: East Coast Lobster, shrimp, octopus and chive brandy cream Third Course: Deep Sea - Lobster

Le Petit Chef heads to the seaside in search of the perfect lobster, diving into an underwater world filled with colorful sea life. He eventually encounters a giant lobster, leading to a playful chase as the tiny chef tries to catch his much larger dinner. After wrestling with the lobster and figuring out how to get it back to the kitchen, he prepares it for the table — with the animation making the lobster appear to move right across your plate before the actual lobster entrée arrives. It’s one of the more elaborate sequences in The Beginning because the projection turns the entire table into the ocean, making the transition from the animated underwater adventure to the real lobster course feel like one continuous scene. The real dish: Lobster, pearl barley, caviar and beurre blanc
Fourth Course: The Grill — Beef

This is the big meat course.

The table becomes a grill/barbecue scene, with Le Petit Chef cooking beef over the flames. The animation actually emphasizes the cooking process — fire, smoke and the little chef trying to manage the grill. Other versions have a particularly funny sequence involving a giant bee that causes trouble around the barbecue.

At the end, the real dish arrives. The real dish: Filet mignon au poivre from Circling Hawk Farm, honey glazed carrots, broccoli yukon gold potato mash and peppercorn sauce. OPTIONAL: Birthday Cupcake

This is a sweet part of to Le Petit Chef's adventure.

After all of his cooking exploits, the scene shifts into a celebration, with Le Petit Chef preparing for a special occasion. A tiny cupcake appears as the centerpiece, and the animation turns the table into a festive setting as he puts the finishing touches on the dessert.

The celebration builds around the cupcake, with music, decorations and a birthday-style surprise before the real dessert arrives at the table -- but you only get the cupcake if you're someone actually celebrating something. I was so disappointed to just have an empty plate after that animation. FINAL COURSE: The Celebration — Crème Brûlée

This is the final course of Le Petit Chef's culinary adventure.

The table transforms once again as Le Petit Chef prepares a crème brûlée, working through the dessert-making process in his tiny kitchen. The animation builds toward the most important part — the crackly caramelized sugar topping — before the projection gives way to the real dessert arriving at the table.

At the end, the real dessert arrives. The real dish: Crème brûlée, with Tahitian vanilla custard, burnt turbinado sugar cust and fresh berries Grade: A