Southern Food Run

Last week Kim and I drove to Fitzgerald, Georgia to pick up the trailer that he ordered.

He is a road warrior who can go for miles with his Sirius music cranked up, a giant cup of Diet Pepsi and a bag of peanuts. I agreed to ride shotgun and spell him off on driving, IF we could at least stop in Memphis to see Graceland, and eat barbecue somewhere along the way. And, I wanted to visit the some of the places that were the setting for Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind.” It’s one of my favorite novels.

Frankly my dear, Kim doesn’t give a darn about Elvis, or Scarlett O’Hara or old pre-Civil War plantations.  But barbecue….well, that’s a language we both speak.  And when you’ve got about 90 hours of driving, you need to take some breaks along the way. My column for the Standard-Examiner talks about the boiled peanuts and Vidalia onions we found in Georgia.  Here’s a brief summary of our Southern food run:

Our first break was mid-afternoon at the Moab Diner in Utah, one of Kim’s favorite haunts when he is dune buggying in the Moab area. I guess you could call it a local “greasy spoon.”

I had some Sweetwater Potatoes — potatoes that are sauteed with cheese and onions. I got the steak  version, which was covered with savory strips of beef.  You could have it smothered in “Utah’s Best Green Chili,” but I had the chili served on the side to add as I wanted. It was a hearty meal with generous portions — way too much to eat in one sitting. Kim, who comes here during dune buggy trips, really likes it.   It was good, and so was the green chili, but I can think of a few other Utah restaurants that might take issue with the  “best in Utah” claim.

We drove (actually I was behind the wheel at the time ) through a huge dust storm in New Mexico where I could barely see two feet in front of the truck.

Then it was on to Albuquerque where we stayed the night.

The next day, we drove through the Texas panhandle (who remembers the song, “Show Me the Way To Amarillo” ?). To stave off boredom I started listing all the country-Western songs I could remember about Texas cities : “Dallas” by Alan Jackson, “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind?” by George Strait, “San Antonio Stroll” by Tanya Tucker, “Galveston,” by Glenn Campbell, “Houston” by Larry Gatlin, “Lubbock or Leave It” by the Dixie Chicks — and reaching way back — “El Paso” by Marty Robbins.   Since I’m not a real country music fan, I’ve probably missed some.  Plano? Corpus Christi?

We also drove across the whole state of Oklahoma and spent the night in Fort Smith,

Arkansas.  The next day we drove about 7-8 hours across Arkansas, arriving in Memphis, Tenn. around 4 p.m.

We passed the destruction left by the tornado a couple of days before.

All the stores on either side of the freeway were destroyed, cars and trucks were mangled and trees were uprooted.

Graceland’s ticket office closes at 5 p.m., so we didn’t have a whole lot of time to visit.  But it was a real interesting romp through memory lane. When I was a kid, my Uncle Norman Koyen was one of my idols. He stayed with us occasionally, and he played Elvis music, drove a ’57 Chevy and even slicked back his ’50s-style hair with Brylcream.

So I think I learned  “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Love Me Tender” and other 45 RPM hit singles he played on our record player when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old.

I remember seeing some of Elvis’s hit movies with my family, and I thought he had the most fabulous voice ever.

Later on, the bands of the ’70s grabbed my attention as a teen-ager. But I was still saddened when Elvis passed away at the young age of 42.

So like the 600,000 other people who visit Graceland every year, I was curious about  his famous home.

Although we didn’t know it at the time, just two days later, Princes William and Harry toured Graceland while visiting Memphis for a friend’s wedding.  I’m glad we were able to get there first!

I was surprised that it wasn’t that huge or over-the-top elaborate, in comparison to some of today’s mega-mansions.

The decor is definite ’70s, when harvest-gold refrigerators, quadrophonic stereos and console TV sets were cutting edge.

It was fun to see Lisa Marie’s swing set and imagine her spending fun times there with her famous daddy and mommy.

And it seemed a little bittersweet to see Priscilla’s dress and veil and Elvis’s suit worn on their wedding day.

The rooms are lined with cases of of gold and platinum records from so many of his hit songs.

And there were cases filled with white jumpsuits  from his ’70s-era performances.

In the gift shop, you can buy your own white jumpsuit for something like $1,250.

But I don’t see that retro look replacing today’s  skinny jeans any time soon.

Kind of sad to see Elvis’s grave, and realize yet again the powerful destruction of drug abuse.

Then it was time for barbecue! We went to Corky’s, where I became an avid fan of the Memphis “dry rub” technique for barbecuing ribs. I also loved the fried catfish with a crunchy outer crust and moist, mild-tasting flesh.  We bought some bottles of barbecue sauce to bring home. Wish I could’ve gotten the cole slaw recipe to bring home as well; the dressing was sweet, with none of the usual heavy-mayo stuff.

The next day was another long day of driving through Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Every convenience store where we stopped along the highway had boiled peanuts for sale. Years ago during a chat with some Southerners, I was mystified when they talked of how much they loved “bald peanuts.” It took me awhile to figure it out. Boiled peanuts remind me of garbanzo beans, or chickpeas. I bought the Cajun-flavored version, and they were really spicy! But they’re also pretty messy. If there’s a trick to digging the nuts out of their soft, wet shells, I didn’t find it.   We got to our hotel in Cordele, a couple hours south of Atlanta, in time to get some much needed shut-eye. The next morning, Kim went to get his trailer.

After, I talked him into checking out the Road to Tara Museum, about 15 miles south of Atlanta, in Jonesboro. I called to get driving directions, only somehow we misunderstood each other. We ended up driving through Stockbridge during rush hour traffic; not so great when you’re pulling a trailer. But we found a quirky

produce stand where I bought Vidalia onions. We also found a few guys who looked like they stepped out of “Duck Dynasty.”

The next day, I talked Kim into looking for the Road to Tara museum again. This time we found it, but it was just as the streets were being blocked off to celebrate Jonesboro Days.  The museum was supposedly closed, but when the manager found out we had traveled from Utah (and probably realized we were the people who had gotten lost due to faulty directions the day before), we were allowed to go inside and view artifacts from the Battle of Jonesboro, and costumes and memorabilia from the movie and book, “Gone With The Wind.”

After that, Kim dropped me off at the Stately Oaks Plantation, while he went golfing. I enjoyed hearing the stories of the Southern life, the Civil War hardships, and the customs and traditions of the time.

For instance, there was a special celery-serving dish on the table. Victorian households had a lot of specific serving dishes, and the elaborate celery dish illustrates how expensive celery was and how highly it was regarded.

The docent, dressed in period costume from around the Civil War era, was so fun and informative. We learned about courting candles,  little bottles in which grieving loved ones saved their tears, and the rope-cinches mattresses that sparked the saying, “Sleep tight.” We saw a fly-catching jug . You put honey or molasses in the bottom, and the flies were lured in through a hole in the bottom. Then they were trapped inside; an eco-friendly, chemical-free way to keep insects at bay. I made a comment about my own ancestors crossing the Great Plains to help settle the West. Later, after the tour concluded, the docent (Ashleigh Roell) asked me if I was LDS (Mormon) and it turns out that she is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She first got involved volunteering at the mansion through her dad, a history teacher, and has been giving the tours for quite a few years.

Although Stately Oaks wasn’t featured in “Gone With The Wind,” it’s one of the few existing homes of that era. Of course, there was no actual Tara, the family home of the fictional Scarlett O’Hara. But author Margaret Mitchell might have envisioned the home that belonged to her ancestral family, the Fitzgeralds. (Yes, they were from Ireland, just like the O’Haras.)  There are paintings of this house, and it’s large and stately, but not the opulent mansion shown in the movie.

It was interesting to see the kitchen of the pre-Civil War era. It was outside the house, because it was too hot to cook indoors over an open fire. The slaves would have to carry the prepared dishes to the house to be served.  It seems that the whole plantation system was very labor-intensive to maintain, which was added incentive for forcing someone to do the work through slavery.

All through Georgia, we saw Waffle House restaurants at nearly every freeway exit. In the suburbs near Atlanta, we counted three Waffle Houses within several blocks of each other. So on our last day, we decided we’d better check it out. This is my waffle, studded with crunchy local pecans. Breakfast of champions!