Dover sole,Braised Leeks, and Mashed Potatoes

My plan for Saturday night dinner was Sole Meuniere, a dish that would not only cost me $8.78 a pound , but 20 miles in gasoline. I tried to buy Dover sole at my regular favorite grocery store just up the street, but the fillets looked tired, and when I asked to smell them, they smelled old. I do not live in what one of my old work friends called " the money side of town". My suburb is plain middle-class, and most people here live in apartments. If they buy fish , it will be at Kroger, or Sam's Club, or Walmart, and they will not pay $8.78 a pound.

I had to drive to Whole Foods in Green Hills on a a Saturday night, something no sane person would ever do. My excuse is that a migraine was looming, and it affected my brain.

Green Hills is what this city's boosters would describe as a "premiere shopping destination". Its Mall has a Louis Vuitton, an Abercrombie and Fitch, and a Tiffany's. Up Hillsboro road , and south, is the Hill Center and Whole Foods. I was struggling to describe the Hill Center, getting only as far as "faux". Instead, I will let the people who developed it describe it. They call it a "mixed-use life-style center".

I have been to the Hill Center many times, and I fail to see what uses it has other than eating and shopping. Perhaps the developers meant walking along the narrow sidewalks under the bulbous street lamps. Perhaps they meant the adventures one has finding a parking spot. Or- perhaps "mixed use" is used historically , since General John Bell Hood , and what limbs he had left at the time, used this ground to fight the Battle of Nashville to try to win back a city held by Yankees. That the battlefield is reduced to one marker at the corner of Hobbs and Hillsboro is a tribute to the people of Nashville and their reverence for history.

I found my Dover Sole at Whole Foods. It was fresh, and three fillets cost three dollars. The store was crowded, but there were no lines. People were sitting at the Wi-Fi stations, but they were watching. Everybody was watching everyone else. An unpleasant looking older woman smirked at me. Twice. Perhaps she thought I was there for the promenade, and ought to be disqualified because I was wearing dog hair. I saw then that Whole Foods on Saturday night is Nashville's answer to an Italian piazza. A place to see and be seen. Who does not want the privilege of ignoring the famous actress standing in front of you in the checkout line?

At home and ready to cook , I found that I needed a lemon I did not have. James Peterson's recipe in "Glorious French Food" required it. I took a left turn instead, and went on on my own. What would New Orleans do? I mixed flour with some Creole seasoning and sea salt and dipped the fillets in it. I cooked the fillets in melted butter mixed with the juice of half a blood orange. When the fillets were lightly browned and done I saved them from the pan. I added two tablespoons of dry white wine to the pan juices , and reduced them . Over the warm fillets they went. I must say that the sole was sublime, and it went well with leeks sauteed simply in butter and with mashed potatoes. The meal was worth the money, the gasoline, and the traffic.