Spring!

Chicago-style hotdogs available at The Dog of Nashville

Chicago-style hot dogs are quite the hit, even outside the state of Illinois. The traditional Chicago-style dog is an all-beef hot dog steamed, boiled, or grilled and served in a poppy seed bun. The toppings, added in order, consist of yellow mustard, green relish, fresh chopped onions, two tomato wedges, a pickle spear, two sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt.

The Chicago metropolitan area boasts more hot dog restaurants than McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger Kings combined. While Nashville doesn't offer quite that many hot dog joints there is one place that serves up the Chicago-style dog along with a variety of others. read more...

Saving 101

For many, saving money is not an easy task. Everyday bills and expenses subtracted from income rarely leaves much left over for the average American family. For birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other special occasions a nice dinner out on the town is typically expected. By saving a few dollars on each meal out you can enjoy the occasional fancy meal without getting the silent treatment from your bank account. read more...

Looking for free Wi-Fi and a quick meal in Nashville?

Searches for free Wi-Fi hotspots in and near downtown Nashville are becoming more frequent. If you're looking to get work done, catch up on email, or surf the net for the latest on your favorite celebrity many places in town offer Wi-Fi while you're dining in. Here are a few of the best free Wi-Fi spots in popular parts of the city. read more...

Help me help her help them!

Ok, that may be the cheesiest post title I've ever used, but if you know me, what else were you expecting?

Here's the deal, my great pal Elizabeth (see a few posts below to meet her) is organizing a 5K in Alabama where she lives to raise money for a new dorm at the Janada L. Batchelor Foundation for Children in East Africa. From the JBFC website:

JBFC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating extreme poverty throughout East Africa by building self-sustaining, holistic care campuses, which primarily serve orphaned and street girls, providing them with safe refuge, nutrition, education, healthcare and hope for a new life.

Elizabeth visited these girls a few months ago and it's probably safe to say she left her heart there with them. Many more young girls are waiting for a spot at JBFC to get off the streets and find safety. A new dorm would allow for 16 girls to move in and have food, housing, healthcare, and education.

The 5K will be held on May 15, 2010. You can find more details on the event page on Facebook.

Elizabeth’s goal? $30,000 – the cost of one dormitory.

One way she’ll reach that goal is through sponsorships. I completely believe that there are enough people who know (and love) me (and I love you, too) to sponsor at least a half mile of the race. How much is that exactly? $500. Which really is just a small amount of money—especially compared to her goal!

Now, I completely understand that money is tight for pretty much everyone and most of you probably already give to a church, charity, or something else that tugs at your sweet, little heartstrings. I don’t at all expect you to give nor do I have a set amount for those willing/able to give. Other than this blog post (and a few cute reminder posts) I won’t directly ask anyone for money. I may growl at you or roll your house (yes, with toilet paper) for not giving, but I won’t ask you for money. Just kidding. :)

There are a few ways you can give:

1. Paypal. Send some money to Ashley.miller1@wku.edu. You can also use that email if you have questions, comments, gripes, or complaints!

2. Send a check/cash. Either mail it or pass it along next time I see you. If you send a check, please make it out to JFBC (it’s tax deductible). If you make it out to me, we can make that work, too! I just don’t want the IRS coming after me. 1002B Clifton Lane, Nashville, TN 37204

3. Pass it along to someone else to give to me. Really. I’m looking at you people in Bullitt County for this one! A lot of you reading this have known Elizabeth for several years, I’m just sayin’. If you’re not comfortable using Paypal or the unreliable USPS, feel free to drop it by my parents’ place or when you see them at church (granted, with mom’s chemo you may not catch them there too often). If you happen to see them sitting in a pew just drop the money in the offering plate. I’ll tell them to sort through the shiny bowl when it gets to them and pull out the ones with my name. And the big ones. Again, just kidding. :)

I’d like to collect the money by April–a full month before the race. This will help Elizabeth greatly in planning for the event. I’ll post an announcement about how much was collected unless it’s only $3.

Also, if you happen to have some crazy connections to things that would be great door prizes she’s looking for those things, too! Let me know or contact her directly at ekornegay@fbcpelham.org

Can’t wait to see what happens. Love all my readers! You are all beautiful. Can you tell I’m sucking up so you’ll give me your money? Once more, kidding. :)

Gwyneth Paltrow's quest for fried chicken in Nashville

Gwyneth Paltrow recently spent a few months living in Nashville filming Love Don't Let Me Down with country singer Tim McGraw. On her website, GOOP.com, she raves about the people, the music, and the food. Specifically, she went on a quest to find the best fried chicken in Nashville... read more...

(by the way, if you're the least bit interested in "cheap eats" in Nashville, you should probably subscribe on my Examiner.com page. Follow the link above or click here and hit the "Subscribe" button on the page. Thanks!)

MILLing about: Nashville (this time w/Kitty)

This past weekend my dear friend Elizabeth (I call her Kitty) came to town! You met her back when I was milling about Alabama. We spent the weekend, eating, shopping, and taking photos, which is typical when we get together. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the weekend:

Here's what happens when you head downtown (er, across the river) at night and have a tripod, a camera, two phones, and a skyline:

The Goose is Loose!

I've been published! This is both uber exciting and scary for me. This blog was scary when I first started it, too, but I've become pretty comfortable here. Hopefully I'll find the same groove as the Nashville Cheap Eats Examiner.

I wrote about The Silly Goose, a trendy, fairly healthy spot in East Nashville. If you haven't been you should definitely check it out. See the photos below if you need more proof that this is a place you should be eating at!

Here's the link to my first article: http://ow.ly/1oDee

Announcement: I'm a writer!

So I've never considered myself much of a writer. Until recently I've never enjoyed writing. In school I always struggled to get to the minimum word count for papers. I've never really been confident in grammar/punctuation. I like to use commas - probably more than they're supposed to be used. I'm not exactly sure how to use this: ; (A semi-colon, I believe). I don't feel like I have a very large vocabulary. I've always enjoyed telling a story in picture or some other means, but never in writing. I've tried journaling. I have several journals that only have a few pages in the front written on and the three or four entries that may be there cover a span of a couple years. At times, writing can be very therapeutic. Other times it seems to be more frustrating for me as I write and re-write to get the words right.

All of this babbling does have a point. I've just become an Examiner for examiner.com. Initially I wanted to do photography examining where you only write a little and tell the rest of the story with four or five photos. Somehow in the application process they ended up thinking I wanted to do Cheap Eats Examining - of the non-photography variety. In the end, I decided to do it rather than try to switch to photography. I can still post pictures, but won't always be forced to get photos which will be helpful when a last minute topic comes up. I'll be writing about local restaurants in Nashville. Ideas welcome!

I'm definitely not doing this for the money (there isn't much to be had), but of course that will be a nice bonus. I want to force myself to get out and take more photos and have always enjoyed food photography (strange, I know). What will happen to this little blog here is unknown, but for now I plan to keep it up. I'll at least post a little blurb about my articles with a link. It would help me greatly if you could follow the links and check out my pieces - even if you don't live in town.

My first article has been submitted. They'll review it and once approved I'll be able to freely post. Once it's approved and published I'll let you know. Then, I'll have two little spaces on the internet with my signature.

Here's a photo from the restaurant highlighted in my first article. Can you guess where it is?

Side note: If you think you might be interested in becoming an examiner yourself visit: www.examiner.com/refer. Be sure to include my ID# (41679) on the "Were you referred here by a current examiner?" part. I'll get a bonus, but it ends there. I promise this isn't one of those crazy pyramid schemes!

SEC Tournament Recap

So my beloved Wildcats are back on top - for now. We still have the tournament that matters to go, but the SEC Tournament was quite the win. I had a blast. A few highlights:

• Watching Rick Stansbury constantly stand near mid-court when the teams were on the opposite end. I have no idea how he got away with it the entire game, but when John Wall tackled him, justice was served
• Arriving at the first game anxious to find our seats. Turns out they were in the upper level, corner, and in the very last row. It was pretty nice actually and shows how close to not having tickets we were
• Woman's shirt on the street. The front read, "In Kentucky we love our cousins," while the back read, "In Tennessee they marry them." We Kentucky fans like to keep things classy
• Scalpers swarming me with their wads of cash
• Selling my tickets to session 5 for a cool $500. That's $250 per ticket. I only paid $275 for the entire book of tickets - six sessions
• Having the one and only Lang Leichardt in the seat directly in front of me in an arena that holds 18,000 people
• Running into the Eric Wilson on the escalator at the Fanfare. He was walking down the up one and frightened my friends a bit.
• Finding my uncle at Big River downtown. There were an estimated 180,000 fans in town and we choose the same place to grab some grub. Unfortunately, we were too late and no seating near a TV was available
• Passing Kenny "Sky" Walker on the street. He's a big boy

And finally, my favorite non-basketball related story from the weekend. Mid-way through the first session I decided to get some nachos. Five dollar and fifty cent nachos to be exact. I handed the gal a ten dollar bill and said, "Oh, I think I have the fifty cents." Turns out I didn't have the change and when I told her that her response was, "So that's like $4.75, right?" Nice. Turns out she was from Kentucky. Our reputation, unfortunately, does have merit.

With a humbled heart...

My mom will start chemo on March 10. I don't completely understand how it all works, but from what I gather she will receive treatment on the 10, 11, and 17, rest for 21 days, and start the cycle again. I've been so inspired by her courage, hope, and humbleness. She actually asked me what she did to deserve all of this and she didn't mean the cancer. She didn't understand why so many people had offered their support, meals, flowers, food, cards, etc. She claimed she was spoiled and didn't deserve all the love. Wow. If you know her then you know that she would give you anything you needed even if it meant that she went without. It's who she is. And I am humbled.

I feel like I have so much more to say, but with everything going on in my head these days I can't sort the words out. Please keep yourselves updated on Emmett's cancer battle (see the "Courage to Conquer" blog linked to the right) and I'll try and post updates on my mom's treatment and such as often as I can. Thank you for your continued support.