Southern food

A quick guide to southern food from the January trip. The main point was to rediscover the glories of Pierce's Pit Barbecue in Williamsburg, VA; we used to eat there a lot in the dark ages. It's North Carolina style, lots of lean, smoky meat, not a lot of sauce, and not too sweet. And the smell around the place was even better than the eating. Some guy said that you can't go home again. Probably recreating your first barbecue love is impossible, too. And Pierce's has morphed into an actual restaurant, rather than the shack that I remember.

The Varsity, in Atlanta. Started in 1928 as a Georgia Tech hangout, it now bills itself as the world's largest drive-in. If you like grease, go there. The barbecue was just OK, but you should go for the scene.

Lek's Railroad Thai in Montgomery, Alabama. The food was good--it's rare to have a bad meal in a Thai restaurant, wherever it is. Of course, being a food snob, I was surprised. And, the bonus is that it's in the old railroad station, and you can watch the freight trains glide through, with exotic locations and long-defunct railroads a reminder of the days when trains mattered.

Capital Inn, in Montgomery, Alabama. Go for the breakfast with grits, biscuits, and bacon.

Sinclair's in Montgomery, Alabama, is supposed to be a place for generation x and y. Our family group, itself populated with generation Y types, ate without incident. I can't remember what we had to eat, except we drank lots of iced tea and coca-cola and the server had a lovely honey-sweet accent. When in Rome...

The Downtowner Restaurant, Selma, Alabama. If you want biscuits for breakfast, go early. When they're gone, they're gone.

St. James Hotel in Selma, Alabama. Go there. Please. It's a lovely gem that is in danger of going under. The main dining room appears to be closed, but the bar, a lovely wood paneled room, was open for the first time in several months the night we were there. We had all kinds of good appetizers, including onion rings, hummus, ceasar salads, and other stuff. The server was nice and attentive, even though the place was buzzing.

The Battlefield Inn, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It calls itself the best kept secret in Vicksburg. There may be a reason. Vicksburg establishments fight for the tourist dollar, and the Battlefield Inn was no exception. They provide two free drinks for overnight guests, two parrots in cages by the door who will talk occasionally, and an undistinguished dinner and breakfast at a reasonable price. Many of the guests on a Friday night appeared to be locals celebrating the end of the work week.

Ground Zero Blues Club, in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Like the Varsity, the Ground Zero is a place you go to experience, not to eat. The barbecue was so-so, the beer selection pedestrian. But they have a brownie that is quite amazing. The club, owned by actor Morgan Freeman and a local attorney, is dedicated to recreating the atmosphere of a juke joint for the upscale crowd. Interestingly, the band was white, as were almost all the customers. Only the bouncers and cooks were African-American. The night we went, a large crowd celebrating someone's 40th birthday was in attendance. 'Nuff said.

Sonic. Locations throughout the South. The onion rings at the Varsity are better, and that's saying quite a bit.

Civil rights history

When you go to Selma, Alabama, be prepared. Selma is a very poor place, full of derelict storefronts and a long strip outside of town full of junkyards, check cashing places and used furniture stores. There is a nicely maintained synagogue, but we were told that the Jews had all left. Apparently there's an endowment. There are lots of churches, many of which are of the unaffiliated ecstatic persuasion. There's a feed store and mill that also sells pecans for $1.00 a pound unshelled and $1.30 a pound if they run the nuts through the sheller. We bought five pounds.

There's a lovely jewel of a hotel in the midst of this desolation. Apparently city fathers acquired and renovated the St. James Hotel, at the Selma end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and near the National Voting Rights Museum. The museum has a labor-of-love quality that is kind of endearing. There is a small gift shop, and there are some great photos documenting the three attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery. Only after the death of Rev. Reeb, a Boston Unitarian minister, was enough national attention focused on the efforts of the civil rights marchers to allow the march to happen.

All this is rather depressing but inspiring at the same time. Change is possible, despite the odds.

The civil rights enterprise

On our trip to Atlanta, Selma, Montgomery and Memphis, we visited a number of civil rights shrines. Here's the executive summary of Memphis:


The National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis, Tennessee. This is the site of the assination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a monument to the civil rights movement, albeit with a steep admission price. This was the last museum we visited on our trip, and we had museum fatigue and did not actually go in. Rather, we looked at the balcony where MLK was standing when he was shot. We admired the 1968 cars parked in front of the motel. And we wondered about the makeshift tent across the street, where a women has lived for the last 20 years, protesting the gentrifiction of a still pretty gritty neighborhood and the desecration of King's memory by the museum. Jacqueline Smith was the last resident of the Loraine Motel before it was foreclosed in 1982. She advocates for spending the corporate dollars directed toward the museum on homeless women and their children, using the Loraine Motel as a shelter.

When we parked in a very close-in spot in the parking lot, an attendant came rushing out, asking us to move the car. The reason, we were told, was that it was a bad neighborhood and she couldn't watch our car properly unless it was in her sightlines from her perch under the eaves of the museum. The whole thing was somewhat surreal. We did not go to Graceland.

Journey to the southland

OLGS, the three Joes, and I had a post-New Year's trip to the south. This was not a trip where we lay on a beach and drank pina coladas. Rather, it was educational, like most of the stuff that goes on here at the headquarters of domestic tranquility.

The theme of the trip was Civil War-Civil Rights. We visited Atlanta, Tuskeegee, Montgomery, Selma, Vicksburg and Memphis. We also had a non-program detour to Clarksdale, MS, home of the delta blues. Finally, we visited Maxwell Air Force Base to collect some info. about my dad's unit in WWII.

We did all of this in five days. And I've had enough barbeque, bacon, biscuits, grits and sugary tea to last a while.

Happy New Year

It can only improve.

A recent Pew poll suggests that our long national nightmare may be over, or at least having insomnia. We'll see.

PS-The city of Minneapolis cancelled the fireworks last night--too expensive in this era of no-frills government.

Fruitcake

What's the deal with fruitcake? It's highly fashionable to hate fruitcake. However, bucking fashion trends as usual, I love fruitcake. An old friend sent two large hunks of homemade fruitcake, wrapped in cheesecloth to hold the brandy. It is excellent, and I've been adding more brandy. It can't hurt.

My mother used to make a fruitcake that was pretty much nuts, dates and raisins. It was close to black in color and quite wonderful. And in days gone by, when I was into the DIY style of domestic achievement, I would make a fruit cake, trecking all over New York to find real candied citron and other delicacies. My roommate and I would soak all the fruits in cognac for several weeks before we put the thing together. We ate a great deal of the fruit before we actually baked the cake.

So try it--you might like it. Just stay clear of the store-bought stuff.

Urban wildlife

Never let it be said that the inner city has no wildlife. In addition to feral cats, squirrels, raccoons, bats, rabbits, skunks and the odd deer, we have bald eagles and opossums. On Saturday, in the midst of a blinding snow storm, an eagle soared above the Lake Street bridge. As we stopped for the light, old Abe checked us out through the sunroof window, circled around a few times, and decided we were not appropriate prey and flew up the Mississippi in search of better grub.

Then, on Christmas day, we were headed out the side door to visit a neighbor. When we opened the door, there was a large possum sitting right outside . He didn't seem inclined to move, so we left through the back door. He followed us up onto the neighbor's deck, leaving those distinctive possum footprints in the snow. He had a nice coat, but his face and tail were something only a mother possum could love. Apparently, they are not the brightest of mammals. Wikipedia says they have a "small braincase".

If Tom the cat were still alive, he would have protected us from the visiting fauna. Guess we need to look for a replacement.

Christmas Cards

People don't seem to send Christmas cards the way they used to. Or maybe I have the wrong circle of friends and relations. But I seem to remember that in the old days people would send and receive hundreds of cards. Everyone they knew, even slightly, would get a card.

I'm not talking about the pre-printed business holiday cards that law firms, accountants and other personal service folks send. I'm talking about personal, signed-by-a-human-being cards.

When I was a child, I used to count the cards my parents received. It was a large number, and every day in December it would increase, necessitating a recount. And then we would save the cards, chopping them up to make labels for the presents under the tree.

There are other uses for Christmas cards. Some people make decorations from the cards, stringing them around the fireplace, over a doorway, or some other attractive spot. Others donate them to a non-profit that uses them in some way.

I myself send Christmas cards to friends that I don't see very often. I neglect neighbors, relatives in distant states whom I never see, and professional and work friends. I use the Christmas card as a way to stay in touch. Of course, I also chop up those I receive for gift labels. The habits of youth last a lifetime.

Green Christmas

I was trying to put a cap on Christmas gifts for the family this year--but that didn't work. So instead we have a new rule--every gift must be used. Joe College has already made several trips to his favorite store, Goodwill. There are tradeoffs--while we're buying used stuff, driving around to all those thrift stores uses more gas. But it encourages creativity and means that we don't have to fight the crowds at Best Buy.

OLGS bought a skimpy tree because that was all that was left on the lot and he didn't want to drive to a tree farm. He justified this by stating that land used to grow trees could feed millions. What he neglected to note that the land on which trees are grown is generally unfit for any other agricultural purpose.

But I've discovered a whole new dimension to shopping.

Swim Time

Here it is again. Minnesota Boys High School Swimming. For the next three months, Joe High School will be the long distance guy for Minneapolis South High. The first meet is Wednesday--stay tuned. Today there was no practice. Rather, there was a chewing out by the coaches. Apparently some of the swimmers are getting out of the pool before the end of practice to avail themselves of the YMCA sauna.

Being a high school athlete is tough. Joe had wanted to take a class at MCTC, the local community college, but it will be hard to get there during the school day and still have time for swim practice. We'll see. But he is remarkably determined to take calculus before he graduates from high school. The only way he can do it is to take pre-calculus outside of the normal school day or year. Summer school, anyone?

Snow--here it comes

It's snowing. The weather guys are very excited--could be as much as ten inches. Yesterday I was wishing for global warming as the prairie wind blew into the University of Minnesota. Students were bundled up in multiple layers, watch caps and scarves. The sun was shining and everything looked deceptively lovely from the inside of Andersen Library. But that walk to the parking lot? Don't do it. Stay inside and read weather blogs.

Job loss cliches

What goes around comes around.

I hate to think that such a cliche could possibly be true. But take a look:

I fired or convinced to resign five people in my checkered career. Then I myself was "laid off."

And now Kit Hadley, who was ultimately responsible for my layoff, has herself been reorganized out of a job.

Comforting for maybe two seconds. But, since it's a cliche, pretty meaningless.

And only slightly better than "Some things were meant to be" or "You'd be really good at...."

Brrrr

It's cold--18 degress at 10 PM. We are so unused to this, thanks to our inability to live any other way than we do right now. I read that daffodils were blooming in late October around the Twin Cities. They were clearly confused. Today's temps will certainly discourage any more of that behavior.

Bitter wind from the west

It's finally cold. Today the temp was 35 degres, with a howling wind that apparently topped 30 MPH. Certainly not hurricane force, but strong enough to blow the leaves around.
Minnesota Harvest Photo
At my place of employment, we sit under the SE approach to MSP airport. When the planes pass overhead, they are about two miles off the runway, and today those NWA birds with the red tails were bouncing in the gale. I thought of the pilots quickly needing to adjust to winter flying conditions--they've had it easy for so many months.

Medical miracle

There was an op-ed piece in the Strib the other day about the writer's encounter with the Chinese medical system. He marvelled at its primitive (to our eyes) nature, its ready availability and its cheapness. All true, no doubt, but I can top that.

In 2006, I fell and busted my nose on the High Street in Dalkeith, Scotland. I didn't think it was broken, but it wouldn't stop bleeding, and being vain, I was worried about scarring. It was a Bank Holiday, and the local clinic was closed. So, off I went in a taxi to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh casualty ward. The taxi was by far the most expensive part of the experience.

I presented myself at the desk, where the admissions clerk asked me my name and my age. That was it. Than I waited for about 45 minutes -- it was a holiday, after all -- and was then seen by a nurse, who asked me my name, my age, and whether I was allergic to anything. I then waited about 10 minutes more and was called back to a cube where I saw the great man himself, the head of the famous internship program. Apparently the most senior staff pull shifts on holidays. He was busy, trying to secure a place at some hospital in England for one of his students and kept darting in and out. But he was clearly tickled to have a Yank on his couch. "You're not from around here," was his little Scottish joke.

But here's the thing: he patched me up, lectured me about why stitches wouldn't work on a nose, and sent me on my way. It cost nothing except the cab ride. Think about the hours of paperwork saved. Why is it so difficult for us to even think about a system along these lines? The only people who benefit now are the insurance claim processing companies and their parent corporations. Do we care so much about them?

And the blood spots stayed on the High Street pavement for many weeks, despite the daily drizzle.