Will makes us breakfast most mornings, of fresh rice, eggs over medium, and sausages for the boys (I can't have sausages because they give me a migraine). This morning I was working away on a chapter that is due tomorrow and Ben started singing as he made up his plate. "I bring home the sausagggggge/Fry it up in a pan." Without missing a beat, Will chimed in "Eat it with some turtlessss/And a guy named Hungry Dan."
So we always have a wonderful breakfast. Even when we are being "healthy", Will cooks up steel-cut oats and I have it with fruit and milk. And the day always begins with really good coffee.
Here in Memphis we are eating well at every meal. Maybe too well. We had originally planned to stop in Memphis only briefly, on our way to Shiloh, Tennessee, the site of an important Civil War battle. But I found a really nice campground only six miles from Graceland, and then there is Beale Street, and Sun Records. And the National Civil Rights Museum, based in the motel where Martin Luther King was shot. I wrote a post for the last that was up for about an hour, but it was so negative I pulled it. I think I need to process for a while before I try writing about that again. It was incredibly moving and distressing.
So here we are still in Memphis a week later, and the idea of leaving tomorrow is killing me. I wonder if we are going to fall in love with every place we stay? I told Will that it feels like I start to put out little rootlets wherever we are, then it's time to move on and it's wrenching. It takes me a couple of days to recover. The boys are good to go for the next adventure, but I'm still pining for the last place. With Mom and Dad's place of course it's worse, that feels like I got pulled by my taproot. (Is this getting too weirdly biological? I'll stop now.)
I wanted to write about the food here, because I have had some of the best meals of my life in Memphis. Specifically, Gus's fried chicken and Cozy Corner ribs. Plus some other good stuff in between.
We knew that Memphis barbecue is world famous, but coming from Kansas City with it's terrific barbecue, we weren't too worked up about it. I had a long list of BBQ places to visit, based on friends' suggestions, Chowhound posts and reviews (here's a great one from a Memphis newspaper).
Will gets cravings for fried chicken, so the first place we visited wasn't barbecue, it was Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, right off of Beale Street. It was a funky old diner and it took forever for the chicken to get to us, but I drank a whole lot of sweet tea (I love sweet tea! I love the south!) while we waited. It was worth the wait - the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. It's kind of spicy and Ben didn't really like it. Will said it was almost as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken (!!!!). The thighs were the best by far; I guess I'm no longer a breast woman, they just get too dry. I also ordered a piece of sweet potato pie, but couldn't finish it. I haven't had enough sweet potato pie to figure out whether it's just not my thing (not worth the calories) or that theirs wasn't great. I would have liked to have gone to the original Gus's in Mason, Tennessee, but I still give these guys five stars out of five. A definite "must visit" if you are in Memphis, especially because they are so close to Beale Street.
Our first BBQ place was Payne's, because EVERYBODY who lives in Memphis says they have the best BBQ pork sandwiches, chopped or shredded. This was quite an experience. The park we are camping in (T.O. Fuller State Park) is on the southern edge of Memphis, in a very rundown part of town. But I have never seen such a scary area as Payne's is in. The reviews called this part of town "sketchy" and said not to go there after dark. Over half the shops were boarded up and lots had weeds growing in front of them. I took comfort in the observation that our car was as old as most of the cars we saw there.
We pulled up to Payne's and the front of the store was unprepossessing; some dusty plastic flowers and old newspapers in the front window. We walked in to a shop that, honestly, I am amazed hasn't been shut down. Big chunks of the ceiling were missing as were pieces of flooring. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in about forty years and it *certainly* hadn't had new furniture or fixtures in that long. An old TV sitting on a chair was broadcasting an episode of Judge Judy.
A guy walked slowly up to the counter from the back of the shop, which was completely dark. Before we could say anything he said "I don't have no ribs." That was okay, because we were there for the sandwiches. I asked for a diet coke and he said "I only got Coke." Ben asked for a Dr. Pepper and he repeated "I only got Coke." Ben tried one more time (he can be a bit slow) and asked for root beer and was told "I only got Coke." I felt like we were in the Monty Python cheese skit or the Saturday Night Live hamburger shop skit "No Pepsi, Coke".
Turns out he only had Bubba Cola, which we nursed while waiting for our sandwiches. We couldn't see what was happening, since it was so dark in the back, but we heard loud chopping then silence then more chopping on and off for about ten minutes.
It was worth the wait. The sandwiches came on huge buns loaded with chopped barbecue pork and a mustardy cole slaw. I think the cole slaw put the sandwich into the realm of godlike, but both of the boys scraped it off theirs before eating. They still thought it was great.
I was disconcerted by my nervousness at being in this neighborhood. I thought about white people being killed by black people in ghettos (we hadn't seen another white person for miles) and I figured the number was probably ludicrously low, even when calculating it by person-hours in a ghetto. I wondered if I would have been as nervous in a white neighborhood that was this rundown, and I realized that I haven't ever seen such a thing. Which tells you something, doesn't it?
Next post: Cozy Corner and Central BBQ. Dyer's burgers and fries cooked in 100-year-old grease. Miss Cordelia's for breakfast and groceries.
WOOOH! wonderful post for a foodie :D :D
ReplyDeleteI love Will and Ben's song xD
oh and btw i really like the header's at the top of the posts, that was genius. I always wondered who it was posting certain things, and would go around checking, but now it's right there as soon as i start reading!