How about an East Tennessee food tour?

A ham at Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams. There were 10,000 of them there.

It occurred to us a few weeks ago that when you visit Tuscany or Provence, you often go on a little food tour. You know, travel from one artisan food locale to the next, buying a few things at each. And then maybe you put together a dinner using all your new-found ingredients.

Well, thanks to the ingenuity and enthusiasm of our friends Dawn and Richard Ford, we did the same thing in East Tennessee. Basically, we turned the whole itinerary over to Dawn, who excels at these kinds of things. Alan volunteered to drive us around in his SUV. So we made a day — and night — of it.

Just wanted to share this wonderful day with you in the hopes that you will do something similar one day soon. We are not Tuscany or Provence (as our wine experience will attest!), but we have our own food treasures — some that are internationally known. Maybe we need to experience them as if we were tourists in order to fully appreciate them.

Richard Ford and Alan Carmichael at the Monterey Mushroom facility in Loudon.

We started our day at Monterey Mushrooms in Loudon. This is one of ten locations where Monterey Mushrooms grows fresh mushrooms. They sell two kinds of mushrooms to the public here: white mushrooms and cremini mushrooms. We bought some of each. To buy them, just pull up to the guard stand and discuss what you need with the fellow in the booth. We got our white mushrooms directly from him, but we had to pull up to the plant itself to get our creminis.

This is Bill in the guard shack showing us some white mushrooms.

Here is what mushrooms grow in. There is a clear explanation of how mushrooms grow on the company's website.

This is Linda bringing the cremini mushrooms to Richard in the lobby of the plant.

Next stop: Mayfield Dairy Farms in nearby Athens, TN.

Richard poses with the sign at the entrance. "All of this is mine!" he says. He wishes!

They have some beautiful murals on the walls at the Visitors’ Center.

I liked this one.

This was Richard's favorite.

Richard, Dawn and Alan with the huge Mayfield mascot

There's another cow for folks to pose with.

Hahaha!

The best part of visit to Mayfield? Inexpensive ice cream samples!

I opted for cherry nut surprise -- a flavor not yet available in stores. It was delicious!

Onward, of course, to world famous Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams near Madisonville.

For such a famous place, it is very humble in appearance.

We were told there were 10,000 hams there that day. When I put that on Facebook, one friend replied: "Make it 9,999 and bring me one!"

Dawn inspecting the meat.

Ha!

We bought bacon and prosciutto and breakfast ham slices. I made them stand in front of the sign, natch.

Then it was on to Philadelphia, TN, and Sweetwater Valley Farm for cheese.

We forced Richard out of the car to pose with the sign.

Here's the building that houses a large tasting room, which is where we headed, of course.

Dawn and Alan applied themselves to the task at hand.

We each bought several kinds of cheese. My favorite was the pimento cheese. When we left there, we were starving. We headed back to Loudon for lunch. But before eating, we wanted to make Alan pose in front of a very special establishment.

Our late lunch was at a charming little place in downtown Loudon called The Dwelling Place. Now, admittedly, I could have done without some of the fake flowers, ivy and other “cute” decor, but, my goodness, the food was fantastic. A blend of Italian and Southern comfort, if you can imagine. The proprietor is the cook and is always on-site. Everything is scratch-made. I hope I have a chance to go there again before too long. Highly recommend.

My lunch: French onion soup and half of a pimento cheese sandwich. The pimento cheese was made with pimento-stuffed green olives. Fab.

Next stop (and I admit it was my idea) was Tennessee Valley Winery near Loudon.

Alan and Richard with the winery's billboard in the background.

The "show" vineyard out front

Dawn hits the tasting room.

The website says this winery has won more than 800 awards in contests from New York to California. But I just can’t imagine that. I tried to like it. I really did. I tried about four different varieties. But it just wasn’t good. So I bought a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which I’ve used to deglaze a few pans. But this is just not drinkable wine. So, one failure out of all the places on our food tour. That’s not too bad.

On a positive note, I thought the wine barrels made lovely containers for flowers.

Whew! What a great day. So, here’s what we did when we got back to the Fords’ house in west Knoxville.

Dawn assembled a lovely cheese tray with four kinds of Sweetwater Valley Farm cheeses we had purchased.

Then, using a recipe from one of our favorite caterers, Holly Hambright, she made candied bacon with bacon we’d purchased at Benton’s.

Dawn brings on the bacon!

A close-up of that bacon

Next up: stuffed cremini mushrooms using proscuitto from Benton’s. They were delicious.

Yum.

Main course was creamed mushrooms on toast using the white mushrooms we picked up at Monterey Mushrooms.

Creamed mushrooms on toast

We ate that course on the deck by candlelight.

Finally, dessert featuring Mayfield ice cream!

Dessert time!

Dawn made frozen drinks called Creamsicles. They involved vodka, Grand Marnier (or triple sec when we made her mix another round and ran out of Grand Marnier!) and, naturally, Mayfield vanilla ice cream.

Dessert being poured!

Dessert served.

What a great East Tennessee experience. We plan to take visitors sometime soon for round two. Do you know of any other food stops we should make?