Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2015 - 30

Left: The Pink Pig puts a
southern twist on their
garlic salad by topping it
with home-made
barbecue.
Right: Clayton Cafe
offers every Southerner's
must-have Sunday
morning favorite,
blueberry pancakes.
out, and then you start getting spices. I could swear
there's pineapple there. And then a deeper sweetness,
a very kind of almost primal sweetness that comes
out at the end. It makes you very glad you're a carnivore.
So fruity, nutty, buttery, meaty, and, heck yes,
salty."
For the satiated return trip home, in the restaurant's
shop there are jars of apple butter and green
tomato relish, the latter a surprisingly good topping
for hot dogs. Another recommended purchase from
the shop that will last long after the jars are empty is
"The Dillard House Cookbook and Mountain
Guide." I have the fifth edition. This book is a rich
compendium of mountain cookery. And not only do
its recipes reflect the Dillards' long-standing love of
their homeland, so do the many additions you would
rarely find in a cookbook, such as a map of area wineries,
a list of suggested day trips and a directory of
hiking trails. Sidebars on North Georgia history and
Dillard family lore are interspersed with recipes that
are, indeed, honest.
Dillard House Broccoli Casserole
3 cups chopped, steamed broccoli
1 finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper
1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese
½ cup buttered bread crumbs
Put broccoli in a greased 2-quart casserole dish.
In a sauté pan, cook onions in butter until tender. To
the onions add heavy cream, sour cream, salt and
pepper. When hot, stir in 1 cup grated cheese. Stir
continuously until cheese melts. Pour over broccoli.
Top with ½ cup grated cheese and bread crumbs.
30 | BlueRidgeCountry.com
Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees until lightly
browned. Yield: 6-8 servings.
From The Dillard House Cookbook and
Mountain Guide, fifth edition. Copyright © 2012
by The Dillard House, Inc.
The Dillard House
768 Franklin Street
Dillard, Georgia
1-800-541-0671
dillardhouse.com
RUSTIC WITHOUT TRYING
Across Rabun County is another eatery deeply connected
to the land and water of the region. In fact, the
Lake Rabun Hotel and Restaurant is a major reason
why Rabun County is called "The Farm to Table
Capital of Georgia."
"Ninety percent of everything we source comes
from within 20 minutes of here," says restaurant manager
Josh Addis, a proud former employee of the
Dillard House. "Most within 10 minutes," he adds.
The Lake Rabun menu lists some 15 featured farms
on the menu, which had changed to a fall focus the
week we stopped in. Joining perennial favorite North
Carolina rainbow trout encrusted in pecans was a pork
shoulder terrine, bordered by mashed sweet potatoes,
scattered with more Georgia pecans and crowned with
local apples cooked with rosemary from the restaurant's
herb garden. Blalock Meat in Rabun Gap supplied
the pork, from a farm in operation now for over
50 years.
Addis says Lake Rabun is the last remaining mountain
lodge on a lake in Georgia. It dates to 1922, when
German immigrant Augustus Andreae gave up on
making silk and undertook another entrepreneurial
venture, buying land. Georgia Railroad and Power was
in need of a reservoir to hold water for hydroelectric
JOE FINGULIN
SAMATHAN CALLIHAN
http://www.dillardhouse.com http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com
Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2015

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