Summer 2021 Creek Dinner at Hachland Hills
Local food, music and drinks under the stars and in the creek where friends are made.
Chef Carter Hach's Tribute Cookbook to His Grandmother
Some of us are lucky enough to learn how to cook from our mothers or grandmothers. Some of us, not so much. (My mom barely made tuna casserole.) Chef Carter Hach is in the first category. He grew up cooking with his grandmother and food luminary, Phila Hach, who was the closest thing to Julia Child in Middle Tennessee. She opened and ran two restaurants, an inn, developed the catering manual for the airline industry and penned numerous cookbooks. Phila passed away in 2015.
While Carter didn’t plan it, when his grandmother fell ill, his life detoured and he found himself the proprietor of Hachland Hill, the family’s wedding and event venue in Joelton, where he had spent many a summer playing in the creeks and in the kitchen with Phila. He loved it instinctively, and Phila knew it. Upon finding a recipe note he had scribbled in one her cookbooks, (The 1982 Official World’s Fair Cookbook) before he was even old enough to write, on the page she wrote back, “To Hachland Hill’s next Chef.” And so his fate was sealed.
Today you can find Carter at the helm of his new restaurant, Streetcar Taps on Charlotte Pike, and occasionally cooking for a wedding at Hachland Hill. But in the meantime, you can savor his story and these recipes from his 2022 book, The Hachland Hill Cookbook: The Recipes & Legacy of Phila Hach (Blue Hills Press).
Check out two recipes from the book, for pimento cheese squash au gratin and corn kernel hoecakes, below.
Related Stories & Recipes
Road Trips: Roads Less Traveled
1. HACHLAND HILL
Sitting just 25 minutes from Nashville is Hachland Hill, 80 acres of rustic beauty with a charming historic inn and restaurant. BYOB for a drink on the porch and a great farm-t...