Fish Fry, Dollar Coffee & Easter Brunch at Stomping Ground

Lifestyle
Written By Nicole Jones

To be as scattered and unorganized as I am, I am a person who relishes ritual and tradition. One of the reasons COVID was so troubling is that it stripped me (us) of annual events or even weekly habits (like my Thursday SoulCycle trips). Just as I was adjusting to life without, I had a baby, and any sense of the every day was really, really gone. 

Stomping Ground has held annual events every year. I’ve always looked forward to them and was excited to come up with new ideas to make them extra special. Maybe it is because the weight of pregnancy is behind me (see what I did there), and we are all enjoying a respite from pandemic hysteria, but I feel very, very jazzed about our April promotions. They feel routine in a positive way. So, here’s to April, or for me, events that create familiarity for the first time in a very long time. 

Annual Fish Fry

In the past, we usually held a Friday Fish Fry on Good Friday. This year, we are offering our crispy fish every Friday in April. We marinate catfish in buttermilk for two days, cornmeal batter, and fry ‘til crispy. It’s served up with tartar sauce, lemon, house chips, and slaw. Insider tip? Order in advance - we sell out every year. We have crispy beers and mineral wine for pairing too. 

Easter Brunch “Baskets”

The menu at Stomping Ground feels like a Southern Easter every day, so it makes for a natural fit for the actual holiday. Enter our Brunch Baskets: Virginia Ham, Buttermilk Biscuits, Smoked Gouda Grits, Whipped Sorghum Butter, Spring Frittata, and Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice. Our greatest hits are a no-brainer for brunch or dinner on Easter Sunday. 

Dollar Coffee

Don’t you miss the days when everything didn’t cost a small fortune? Yeah, me too. You’re welcome.

Nicole Jones

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Head Janitor, Chef, and Proprietor | Modest Bread

Nicole’s cooking style is rooted in, but not limited to, her love of southern biscuits and her diverse culinary upbringing. A military brat, she spent her childhood in the Chicago suburbs enjoying her great-grandmother Mae’s Lithuanian cooking. As a tween, she moved to Paulding County, Ga. where she begrudgingly fell in love with the charmingly perplex small towns of the Deep South. She fondly remembers grubbing on Martin’s biscuits, late-night Waffle House debauchery and cooking with her family. 

After graduating from the University of Georgia, Nicole started a marketing career at an art nonprofit in Atlanta. At 25 years old, she became the youngest executive at the local Atlanta NPR affiliate. Chasing her dreams, she moved to Alexandria, VA where she took a short post in the Whole Foods marketing department. Realizing that cooking had been her true love all along, she began night courses at L’Academie de Cuisine. She completed her apprenticeship at Blue Duck Tavern where she was promoted to a line cook after graduation. From there, Nicole worked as a private chef for busy Washington D.C. executives and their families.

As grown-ups tend to do, Nicole realized something about her childhood -- the best parts were enjoying small town communities, cooking with her great-grandmother and sharing meals with family and friends. She opened Stomping Ground (now Rubia’s) to build a safe and welcoming community around yummy, handmade food from local sources. As her first foray running her own kitchen, she has shamelessly hired better, smarter cooks to fill her kitchen and your bellies. 

Modest Bread is a collection of idiosyncratic neighborhood restaurants devoted to hospitality in Northern Virginia and includes Rubia’s, Bagel Uprising, Mae’s Market & Cafe, and Virginia’s Darling.

www.modestbread.com

2309 Mt Vernon Avenue

Alexandria, VA 22301

703.664.0445

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