5 to Try: Grunt, slump, buckle

It’s hard to read the title of today’s 5 to Try without going straight to that '90s classic “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.” (In fact, that may be the next hit song I write. Nobody tell Brooks & Dunn, please.) Grunt, slump and buckle are old-fashioned terms describing a certain fruity dish. But if you switch up the words, they exactly describe what happens to you when you taste that first spoonful (or forkful; no judgment) of the dessert better known as a cobbler or crisp: First, you grunt with porcine-like pleasure. Then, the intense rush of endorphins makes your knees buckle, causing you to slump into a chair, preferably mouth-first into that sweet pile of fruit, pastry crumble and, if you’re really lucky, ice cream.

Sweet 16th

311 N. 16th St.

sweet16th.com; 615-226-8367

Life is full of difficult choices: Beach vacation or mountain getaway? Soup or salad? Shirtless Putin or shirted Putin? It’s just too much. I don’t want to have to choose. Good news, fans of indecision! You don’t have to make a choice between a blueberry crisp or a blackberry cobbler at Sweet 16th. They’ve rolled it all up into one choice-inclusive, fruit-explosive, streusel-laden, pastry-based Black & Blue Cobbler Crisp. And just for the record, my choices are always beach, salad and shirtless Putin.

Sinema

2600 Franklin Pike, Suite 102

sinemanashville.com; 615-942-7746

There’s water on Mars, y’all. Bill Nye the Science Guy says that means we might all be Martians. Rush Limbaugh thinks it's just another leftist conspiracy. I don't know about all that, but I can tell you this: Honey Honey is definitely out of this world. A spiced baked Honey Crisp apple, cashews, sassafras, baklava and vanilla ice cream combine to make the sort of dish we should share with any aliens we happen to meet. It would induce instant feelings of joy and peace, two key Earthling emotions. Come to think of it, it might even get Bill and Rush to be friends.

McCabe Pub

4410 Murphy Road

mccabepub.com; 615-269-9406

Never mind “When Harry Met Sally.” The biggest hit this fall is When Apples Met Crunch, the moving tale of what happens when ordinary apples meet cake mix, butter and pecans. Things definitely heat up, and then they get all melty and crispy, and frankly their union makes them much better than they were before. They can’t help but share the love and expand their little family by adding a bouncing ball of ice cream. Your stomach will live happily ever after.

Acme Feed & Seed

101 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37201

theacmenashville.com; 615-915-0888

There may be no better friend to a warm peach cobbler than a cold scoop of vanilla ice cream. They can tell each other anything, like, yes, this outfit does make you look like you have a front-butt, or no, purple eyebrows are probably really not the way to go if you work for an accounting firm. Peach Cobbler knows she can ugly-cry in front of Vanilla Ice Cream; V.I.C. can count on P.C. to help her cyber-stalk her new crush. It only gets super-awkward when P.C. gets dumped and tells V.I.C. she wants to drown her sorrows in a pint of … uh-oh.

Kitchen Notes

Omni Hotel

250 Fifth Ave. S.

omnihotels.com/hotels/nashville/dining/kitchen-notes; 615-761-3700

Life is full of amazing little pleasures. Gifts, if you will. When we stumble across them, it is incumbent upon us to snap photos with our cell phones and share our good fortune with the world via Instagram and hashtag that sucker. If you knew you could go to a posh hotel with free valet parking and order a tiny skillet of blackberry cobbler a la mode perfection, how excited would you be? Hashtag blessed excited? Hashtag I-just-won-the-dessert-lottery excited? Or hashtag epic-instafun-yum-don’t-tell-mom-winning-instagood-dessert-of-the-day-i-don’t-hate-mondays-anymore-that-cobbler-life-live-authentic excited?