Frieday Night Bliss. And Pickles.

I have lots of friends. I think. But sometimes my favorite thing in the world is to chill out by myself. So that's what I did on Friday night.

I was walking along the sidewalk, laptop in tow, and stopped to look at the menu at Tapalaya. I have been there before and it was fabulous. As I was looking, the owner came out and offered me a housemade Cajun potato chip. Crunchy, spicy and perfectly seasoned, it lured me in.

I was there for happy hour, which means $2 fried pickles and $2 cornbread. And a bunch of other things. The waiter, long dark hair in a ponytail and a deep Southern accent was affectionate in his customer service. "All right, love, you want to hear the specials?" He rattled off a list of three things and after each one I was ready to interrupt him and say, "I'll take that." But I waited. Meatloaf was the last thing. "Pork and hanger steak through the grinder... green beans in the middle... puff pastry." I can't remember all the other things he mentioned that were in the meatloaf. Oh wait! Topped with a salad with bacon vinaigrette. Right. So no choice. I'll take the meatloaf.

Fried pickles, love. Cornbread, hun. And meatloaf, darlin'. The waiter was almost as good as the fried pickles. Which. By the way. Are better than any that I have had in Portland. And lest you think "Fried pickles? In Portland?" Yes, at least three places sell them. Probably more. And these are the best of the three.

I ate slowly, wanting to make it last a long time. I'm not sure if the pickles were housemade, but they tasted it. The thin sliced pickles were dipped in thick, peppery batter and then deep fried until golden and crispy. Served with a sweet tomato relish-y kind of sauce. I never would think that pickles would go with a sweet tomato relish, but served this way, they do.

Growing up, we always had moist cornbread, made with buttermilk and sugar. Here, the cornbread is a little drier and not sweet, which is good for the sweet butter that is served with the bread. The top of the cornbread is almost like poundcake - thick and crumbly and full of buttery flavor.

The meatloaf was packed with flavor into the puff pastry. The green beans in the middle tasted like they had been marinated - they had a vinegar-y bite. Refreshing with the subtlety of the pork and beef. The sweet tomato relish-y sauce was swirled on the plate and made a nice complete mouthful. The salad on top was dripping in bacon vinaigrette.

I was sad when it was over. Because I wanted to eat more fried things, more buttery things and hear more of that Southern accent.

Hey waiter, love, I'll be back.

At the Gristmill.

Our second and last night in Greune, we ate at the Gristmill Restaurant. The other guests at the mansion, who we had met over breakfast, were raving about it. It is huge - 10 distinct dining areas they said. We were taken through the maze back to the area with the boars heads on the walls.

I had heard a lot of great things about the chicken fried steak, so I decided to go with that. I also ordered a Caesar salad to start off. The salad was really great - hardly any croutons and tiny pieces of tomatoes throughout. The star of the salad was the dressing, which was not too heavy, but peppery and light and filled my mouth with intense flavor.

The chicken fried steak was really good - the fried crust was really perfect. It was thick and crunchy and even when smothered in gravy, stood on its own, not falling apart. The steak was tender and flavorful.

We ended up sharing the Jack Daniels Pecan Pie, which was warm, with melted chocolate chips throughout, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I'm glad we shared it - I was so full.

We walked back to our room and slept off the delicious fatty dinner.

Chad, Thad, Jeremy and a Slammin Screen Door

Chad and Thad were my next door neighbors in North Carolina. I was mostly in love with Thad and a little in love with Chad. They were twins. We went to school together. And in my head, I knew I was going to marry Thad. I was 7.

Maybe it's because I am just romantic in nature, but more likely it's because I started watching movies like Gone With The Wind and An Affair To Remember when I was still in a crib, that I wrote a love note to Chad and Thad when we moved. It went something along the lines of: "This paper is wet from the tears I am crying because I will never see you again." I'm not kidding - can you believe a 7 year old would spew such sap?

Chad and Thad were my first loves. Oh wait. I forgot about Jeremy. Jeremy went to church with me. I used to go over to his house to play and I remember one Sunday, we were sitting under the trampoline and we decided to see what it was like to kiss. So we did. I think I remember it being fun. I was sad to leave him, too, when we moved.

But it wasn't all about the boys. I had another love when I lived in North Carolina. Yes, the first food I really fell in love with was Southern food. The Pig Pickins we went to with the roasting pig, the potato salad, the black eyed peas, the fried chicken, the lemonade. Mmm. It was all so good. And I learned to cook from the Southern Living Magazine cookbooks that my mom had. All of my good recipes come from something that I learned in those books.

And even though I'm not technically a Southerner, I sometimes still find myself slipping into a little accent when I'm around people that are from there.

Planning an evening with my friend Ansley, who is from South Carolina, I thought it would be a great night to hit up Screen Door, Portland's headquarters for Southern cooking, while we were waiting for a show at the Doug Fir. I needed to give this place another try after having not such a great experience a couple of years ago.

We had to wait a while - maybe 45 minutes, which is really not that bad. And the staff was really friendly. The atmosphere just pulled conversation out of us and before we knew it, we were being seated. Our waiter bonded with Ansley over South Carolina and chatted with us for a minute while we were deciding on our food. I had Roasted Beet Salad, Collard Greens, Crispy Fried Pork Chop and a piece of corn bread. Ansley ordered Low-Country Grits and Crispy Fried Catfish.

It was all perfect - the Southern Hospitality, the perfectly cooked and flavored greens and the pork chop was seriously crispy and had tons of flavor. Ansley was pleased with her food, too - it didn't disappoint the true Southerner among us, so I knew we had done good.

It makes me think of this prayer we used to say in school in NC: God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for this [amazing, glorious, homey] food. Amen.

And thus ends my love note to Screen Door.

Bernie's Bistro (2904 NE Alberta St.)

The smell hits you right when you walk through the gate to the patio. Fried chicken, cornbread, and love that never dies. Bernie's serves Southern food - and does a good job of making it authentic. I mean I don't know if you went to a restaurant in the South that you would find beef brisket served with a blueberry sauce, but the point is, you believe it is authentic - every bite is like a hug from your mom - and isn't that the idea behind Southern food? Or at least the idea behind eating it.

I, trying to be healthy (in a Southern restaurant? Stop it.) ordered the black-eyed pea salad with blackened chicken. My sister and friend decided they were going to split the beef brisket and asked for an extra plate. "Oh you know what?" the waitress said with a lilting customer-service-oriented voice, "I'll just go ahead and split it for you. That'll make it easier for you." And no extra charge for splitting it, either. Nice.

We enjoyed the breeziness of the patio for a while, and then, another waitress passing by asked us if we were cold (we might have been shivering just a little). We acknowledged that it was a bit chilly. She sent over another server - a young hipster man with a cool colorful shirt and black framed glasses, slightly more aggressively hip than my own black framed glasses. As he worked to turn the heater on he chatted with us and then complimented me on my glasses, saying that they made me look smart. Ha ha - fooled him! He made me smile, though and I forgot for a minute that we had been waiting over a half hour for our food.

A half hour became 45 minutes. My friend was about to complain to our waitress, but as the waitress approached our table, she said, "So sorry - our kitchen got really backed up. Your order should be up shortly. I'll send you out some dessert, too - your food should not have taken this long. Sorry about that." True to her word, our food was out within a couple of minutes. The entree that was split between my two co-diners was perfectly split on two plates - beef brisket with blueberry sauce, asparagus and gruyere bread pudding, both plates presented beautifully with the smaller portions. I had a bite - heaven. My salad was crunchy and flavorful and melded flawlessly with the warm blackened chicken resting atop.

We ate quickly, due to our extreme hunger while waiting, (okay, we did devour a plate of fried pickles, so maybe we weren't extremely hungry) and also in breathless anticipation of what dessert the waitress would send out. Banana bread pudding with caramel sauce. It was like eating a perfectly cooked cinnamon roll, (you know, when the dough is just barely cooked through and it is chewy and moist) covered in buttery caramel. Despite our full stomachs, we finished off the bread pudding.

You can go to Bernie's assured that they have excellent food, excellent service and if it's not prompt service, they'll take care of you. Just like your mom would.

Bernie's is open Tuesday through Friday, 4pm to 10pm. Reservations recommended. Photos from http://www.berniesbistro.com/.

Bernie's Southern Bistro (2904 NE Alberta St.)

A while ago, my friends and I were in search of some good appetizers while wandering Alberta St. Bernie's Southern Bistro struck us as a good kind of appetizer place.

We had (each ordered our own): hushpuppies, fried dill pickles, spinach cakes, crawfish cakes and fried green tomatoes. Everything was fried. EVERYTHING.

It tasted really good (did I mention that everything was fried?) and I did not get sick afterwards (logically I should have).

Therefore I must give Bernie's a thumbs up. Oh and they also had a questionable picture of Tom Potter hanging right by the bathrooms. That was odd.

Screen Door (2337 E Burnside)

On their PBS cooking show, Caprial and John Pence often talk about what it is like to be a chef and the skills you need to be a chef, such as flipping food in a saute pan, mincing garlic sans a garlic press, and grabbing meat off the grill with your fingers ever so gingerly. One thing they talk about a lot is the ability that a chef should have to season food with salt.

Chelsea and I went to Screen Door, a restaurant boasting a Northwest twist on Southern food, this weekend - we were excited to go because we had read so many good reviews. The first thing we ordered, the mushroom beignets, were interesting - doughnut like on the outside, but filled with a mass of cheese, perhaps gruyere, and mushrooms. Despite the opportunity of such a combination, they were bland. We sprinkled salt on them, but it wasn't enough to fix the problem.

I was disappointed when my meal came to find the same problem with the spaghetti squash, flavored only with unsalted butter and my cornbread, though moist, was clearly made without any salt. The collard greens were excellent, though. (They were cooked with a lot of bacon. Salty bacon.) My duck hash was good, only after a significant amount of salt and pepper were added.

The service was flavored just right. Excellent, prompt service and a waiter that would even engage in a faux argument with a customer regarding the Civil War and the horrors of those damn yankees.

I probably won't go back to Screen Door - there's just something about food that's not flavored enough with the basic elements, like salt and pepper. I don't want to pay $15 for a dinner that is missing the base of all good food.