By One week. SEVEN DAYS. The final countdown. The week that every piece of the last seven years has been building toward. The week where the Waffle House and the dental office and the step stool and the recipe box and the sunflower and the napkin and the $200 kitchen and the $1,800 storefront all converge into a single point: Thursday, June 1st, 11 AM, the door opens.
Monday: final inspection. Health department. Passed. (The inspector said: "This is one of the cleanest kitchens I've inspected." CLEANEST. Because I'm a dental hygienist at heart and hygiene is LITERALLY in my professional title and no kitchen I run will ever fail a cleanliness inspection, not in this life or the next.)
Tuesday: menu finalized. Printed. Chloe designed the physical menus — laminated cards with the logo and the items and the prices and, at the bottom: "Recipes from four generations of Mitchell women." Four generations. Earline, Lorraine, Sarah, Chloe. On a menu card. In a restaurant. The four generations reduced to a line of text at the bottom of a lunch menu and the line of text contains: everything. A farmhouse. A Kroger. A Waffle House. A dental office. A KitchenAid named Ruby. Everything.
Wednesday: Mama came to the restaurant. She brought: Earline's cast iron skillet. THE skillet. The one that's hung on every kitchen wall since I was a child. She took it off her wall, wrapped it in a towel, drove it to Gallatin Pike, and hung it on the restaurant wall next to Earline's photograph. The skillet and the photo. The woman and her tool. Together on the wall of the restaurant that their food built. Mama stepped back and looked at the wall and said nothing. She just looked. Then she turned to me and said: "Now she's really here." Now she's really here. The photograph was the face. The skillet is the hand. The face and the hand. Earline is really here.
Thursday: prep. All day. Wanda, Patricia, and me in the kitchen from 5 AM. The chicken brining. The pork in the smoker. The cornbread mixed and ready for the oven. The display case cleaned for the last time before it holds food that people pay money for. The last quiet day. The last day before the door opens and the quiet ends and the noise of a restaurant begins. The noise is the goal. The noise is the people. The people are the whole point.
I stood in the empty restaurant at 10 PM on Wednesday night. Alone. The lights were off except the display case light, which cast a golden glow across the counter. I stood behind the counter and I looked at: Earline's photograph. Earline's skillet. Chloe's menu board. The six stools. The sign in the window. The door that opens in twelve hours. I said — out loud, to the room, to Earline, to the cornbread, to the ghost of every woman who ever stood at a stove and said "I feed people, that's who I am" — I said: "We did it. We're here. The table is set. Come eat."
Tomorrow. The door opens. Sarah's Table. Open for business. Come eat.
Thursday was the day we made everything real — chicken in the brine, pork in the smoker, cornbread batter resting in the bowl — and this broccoli chicken salad was right there in the rotation, one of the lunch counter staples Wanda, Patricia, and I put together in those quiet pre-dawn hours before the world showed up. It’s simple enough to make in volume, sturdy enough to hold in a display case, and good enough to stand next to Earline’s photograph on the wall and not embarrass anyone. Four generations of Mitchell women didn’t do fussy — they did good, and this is good.
Broccoli Chicken Salad
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 0 min (use pre-cooked or brined chicken) | Total Time: 20 min + 1 hr chill | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 3 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded or chopped
- 3 cups fresh broccoli florets, cut small
- 1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/3 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 3/4 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, honey, and garlic powder until smooth. Season with salt and black pepper. Set aside.
- Combine the salad. In a large mixing bowl, combine the shredded chicken, broccoli florets, red onion, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and cheddar cheese. Toss gently to distribute evenly.
- Dress and fold. Pour the dressing over the salad and fold everything together until all ingredients are well coated. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
- Chill. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. This allows the flavors to meld and the broccoli to soften slightly while keeping its texture.
- Serve. Serve chilled on its own, over a bed of greens, or as a sandwich filling on toasted bread or a croissant.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 380 | Protein: 27g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 16g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 410mg