Road Trip. Skipping Ahead To Day 5. Dinner Theater, Or Rather, Breakfast And A Show.

Yes. You read correctly. I'm skipping ahead. I'm foregoing the Day 3 and Day 4 trips to Biltmore Estate since those will be looooooong posts and I need to get my facts straight and check my notes and do some more research before I even think about posting. I'm going straight to Day 5: Thursday morning breakfast. And what a breakfast it was. This breakfast was FREAKIN' AWESOME! Sometimes my posts just write themselves and this was one of those times. Upon the recommendation of Miss Phyllis, a loyal reader of my blog, the Hawthornes jauntily headed off to The Early Girl Eatery, in downtown Asheville, on Wall Street, for breakfast.

We parked on a side street and walked to the Eatery. But first, we ran into a Giant Iron. A Giant Iron in the Middle of the Sidewalk.

And here's the Flatiron building, designed by Albert C. Wirth and constructed in 1925-1926. It's a rather elegant Beaux Arts styled 8-story office building with classical detailing, faced with limestone, and created to fit the irregular lot. The Beaux Arts style combined classical Greek and Roman architecture with Renaissance ideas and was a favored style for grand public buildings and opulent mansions. This is fashioned after the Flatiron building in NYC,

And here's our destination - The Early Girl Eatery. Check out the menu:

You gotta love it when the menu tells you to choose one "protein" and two veggies. It's MEAT! Who calls it protein?

I chose the Early Girl Benny and Mr. Hawthorne ordered the Local Sausage and Sweet Potato Scramble.

I immediately liked this place. It's open. It's airy. There are hanging plants. There are locals and tourists.

It's friendly and comfortable.

Mr. Hawthorne graciously offered to take pictures of the artwork on the wall behind me.

He especially liked this one.

Now, for the drama. What unfolded was freakin' unbelievable. I told you, it was dinner (breakfast) and a show. It was sublime theater. OK. We're sitting right next to two gentlemen about 2 feet away at the next table. See that couple in the background above? On the left. The woman stumbled over to the table next to us and told the guy in the striped shirt on the left, next to Mr. H., that she'd just had a seizure in the bathroom and it was his fault. Striped Shirt looked only at his plate. She ambled away and crumbled into the arms of her partner who caught her and put her in a chair. A few minutes later, she composed herself, kinda, and walked back to the table next to us and confronted Striped Shirt again. And this is where it went BIZARRO. And that would be an understatement. The woman pulled up her long sleeves and exposed all manner of intravenous crap going into her body, all of it automatically induced into her system. Maybe 4 or 5 different insertions pumping medications into her. She accused Striped Shirt of ruining her life. She informed him she was suffering from an infection in her brain brought on by the stress Striped Shirt had inflicted upon her. Apparently, she was in the process of losing her house and her children, all because of Striped Shirt. She tossed out lots of the F-word and SOB and Bastard and everybody in the restaurant was staring at this confrontation.. She was extremely unstable. (Imagine that.) After venting on Stuffed Shirt, all the whilst he was a ball-less wonder and never once looked at her, staring at his plate the entire time (this happening 2 feet from me), she finally walked away and again collapsed and her companion caught her and set her down in a chair. I had my camera with me and was so awed by this performance that I didn't think to video any of this. And I'm thinking that if I'd had the good sense to video it, I wouldn't post it on my blog since it was such a raw, painful, salt-in-the-wound experience for the poor woman. Striped Shirt said nothing to the distraught woman. He just stared in his plate. After this last confrontation, Striped Shirt said to his companion, "Shall we adjourn now?" Mr. H. and I figured that Striped Shirt was probably Crazy Lady's Ex's divorce lawyer. By the way, Mr. Hawthorne noticed Striped Shirt had dirty fingernails.

Early Girl Eatery is eclectic, Bohemian, and full of Latter Day Hippies.

I loved this place.

What the hell is Celtic Sea Salt? Apparently, it's unprocessed, Kosher, whole salt harvested from the most pristine coastal regions of Brittany, France, using a farming method that preserves the purity and balance of ocean minerals.

Here's Mr. Hawthorne's breakfast: Sausage and Sweet Potato Scramble.

I had a glorious fried grit cake with spinach and poached egg and tomatoes with "tomato gravy" and avocado slices with wheat toast.

I loved it.

Bohemia. Personified.

I noticed lots of tats, lots of piercings in painful places, and lots of weirdness. All in a truly wonderful sort of way.

Oh. And they proudly support local purveyors.

A wonderful experience. Thanks, Phyllis, for the heads up on this eatery!