Just like you like it®

There's a file on my desktop called 'food'. It contains the notes I typed in the car to keep track of the nicest places we ate at. It goes something like this:

Swamp John Catfish in Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Where hush puppies and I first met.

Charlie Vergos Rendez-Vous, Memphis, Tennessee
We went to Charlie Vergos Rendez-Vous after hearing about it in Theme Time Radio Hour, Bob Dylan's radio show. If you've never heard it, get it now. It was our best travel companion. We heard that you can smell the smoke all the way into the Peabody Hotel's lobby and that's no lie. They pump that smoke out into the streets just to drag you in by your nostrils. The dining room is beautiful, packed with sports memorabilia and presidents' autographs. The menu's pretty simple, you can get a 'first thing' (a starter you won't need), a 'main thing' that comes in different sizes (racks o'ribs) and some 'things on the side'. One rack is enough for two. It comes with sweet and smoky baked beans with bacon and orange coleslaw. Our waiter was a big man full of sound bites. We watched him pour our tea saying something like 'Oh yeah that's right'.

Gus's Fried chicken, Memphis, Tennessee
We were ready to go back to fried. The lady in our hotel said that she felt frustrated after discovering Gus's because of all the years she'd spent eating fried chicken from other places. We waited for our chicken for a while, which is surprising in a joint that only serves fried chicken but it was well worth the wait. Enter generous portions of moist and tender chicken in the crispiest and tastiest batter this side of the galaxy. It was delicious and our bill came to $12.

Boudin King, Jennings, Louisiana
We went on bit of a detour on the way to New Orleans to go to Boudin King in Jennings, Louisiana. Ollie felt brave and had the boudin, which is supposed to be the best boudin in Louisiana. I couldn't gather up the courage to order it due to years of being force-fed the stuff and, instead, went for a plate of fried seafood. Fried oysters are good! And the crawfish came in its own little fishcake. I tried the boudin, which was very different to the one I had as a child. It was just a big bit of hairy gut stuffed with rice and cayenne. It looked a bit like a big grey pregnant slug or a giant ring worm.

Maria's Taco Xpress, Austin, Texas
The first thing you see approaching Maria's Taco Xpress is a giant statue of Maria raising the roof. According to the numerous newspaper clippings tacked to the walls inside the restaurant, Maria's slightly loca. I'm not sure you can be loca and produce such delicious breakfast tacos. Or maybe you need to.

Trailer Park, Austin, Texas
More Dulwich Park than Trailer Park. Nice Po Boys!

Whataburger
What a burger!

Texas Chili Parlor, Austin, Texas
Good meat-only hot hot chili. No beans, just raw onion sprinkled on top. Man food.

Dairy queen
It's hard to find somewhere to spend your money in Marfa. Everything seems to be closed in the afternoon. We couldn't find Food Shark on the first day so walked into Dairy Queen and had some delicious burgers and deep-fried jalapeños.

Cochineal, Marfa, Texas
It's very pricey, the food is mediocre but it's worth a visit just for the lovely waitress.

Food Shark, Marfa, Texas
He drove in, set up, and sold us the most awesomest falafel eh-vah!

'Who you gonna call when your belly hurts, y'all? Egg Busters!'

This is a real quote from a real sign outside Waffle House somewhere in Tennessee.
The last few days have been quite unreal. We're now officially in the South. People's accents have thickened and they call each other 'y'all' like we're in a very big TV show.

While eating bananas around milepost 250 of the Blue Ridge Parkway, we had a quick chat with a middle-aged man. He heard our accents and said 'Doesn't it look like the hills of Scotland?'. We replied 'Yes. But bigger' and he replied with what has become the motto of our trip: 'Ain't nothing bigger than America!'

Reflecting on his comment, we pulled out at a café.

Bluff's café is not especially nice-looking but the waitresses are worth the trip. I won't describe them. All I will say is that they started working there between the café's opening in 1949 and 1952.

We got off the parkway after spending the night in what could possibly be called 'The best friggin' hotel in the world'. All the cabins had balconies with the most amazing view onto the widest sunset I have ever seen. The fact that we made the manager let us have the room for half the price helped too. We got up at sunrise and drank coffee on the balcony, waiting for the sun to come out to play.

Stumbling upon a Palin lookalike competition on TV, we realised it was Halloween and thought that visiting Ghost Town in the Sky would be an excellent thing to do. It wasn't. Well I guess it made us glad that we could now say we had been to the worst theme park in the whole wide world. If you drive past Maggie Valley, North Carolina, do not go to Ghost Town in the Sky. It sounds like the best place on Planet Earth (a theme park atop a mountain) but it is crappy and a little depressing. The only good good thing about it is that you have to get onto a chairlift to get there.

I have to stop typing. I feel ill from eating too much really really good fried catfish from Swamp John's in Muscle Schoal, Alabama.

Roadside attractions.

We've left New York. We went to pick up the car at Newark Airport. It's a red Dodge Avenger. It has a drink cooler above the glove box, several cup holders and hidden compartments.

We got out of the car hire and had a look in an excellent book for ideas on where to go. We decided to head to Roadside America. Here's what the website says:

ROADSIDE AMERICA is an unforgettable panorama of life in rural United States. The exhibit spans more than two hundred years in time and lets you see, in exquisite miniature, how people lived and worked in pioneer days … through the years since then … right up to the present.

In newspapers and magazines, ROADSIDE AMERICA has been acclaimed as the
greatest known miniature village—the most unique and detailed masterpiece of its kind in the world. Actually, it is not one village, but many—really the American countryside as it might be seen by a giant so huge that he could see from coast to coast.

It's one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. You pay for your ticket in a roadside gift shop, an old lady shows you to a tiny door, you push the door and enter a gym-sized room entirely filled with models of American villages throughout the ages. There are buttons to push (we chuckled at the inuendos) and a show every half hour. For the show, a man in a box dims the lights. A slide show about America and Jesus Christ plays and "God Bless America" comes out of the speakers. It is magical and Roadtrip USA weren't wrong when they said we'd find it hard not to shed a tear (well, I did).








This morning, we visited Dinosaur Land. Another roadside wonder. It's again, hidden behind a door in a souvenir shop. The whole backyard if filled with very old and tatty paper-maché dinosaurs. The epic battle was the best bit.

My amazing steak.

On our last night in New York, the girls invited us for some steak. We suggested Strip House on E12th. I had walked past Strip House almost everyday on my way to Jason's and it look real good. First, you can't see the inside from the outside. There are heavy curtains blocking the view and I'm a sucker for secret places. Secondly, it's called Strip House.

We ordered the porterhouse for two. The first bite was unbelievable. The best meat.

Strip House
13 E 12th St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 328-0000

Here is a quick list of some of the places we enjoyed eating and drinking the most in New York:

Dirty Bird – Posh fried chicken.
204 W 14th St
New York, NY 10011
(212) 620-4836

Westville East – Niman Ranch hotdogs rule.
173 Avenue A
New York, NY 10009
(212) 677-2033

Lombardi's – Pizza pizza pizza. Hardly needs toppings, the tomato sauce is something else so nice.
32 Spring St
New York, NY 10012
(212) 941-7994

Blue 9 – late night filthy burgers. The heart-burning Firecracker burger is really tasty.
92 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 979-0053

99 miles to Philly – disgusting Philly Cheese steak, but Ollie liked it. Eat one and hate yourself.
94 3rd Ave
(Between 12th and 13th st)

Liquiteria – Terribly overpriced disgustingly addictive juices
170 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 358-0300

Lil' Frankie's – Bring your ragu to my house now!
21 1st Ave.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 420-4900

So let me get this right. My GRANDCHILD is a CAT?

Last weekend was twee. We went to Vermont for a wedding.

The nature in Vermont is amazing. We were there just at the right time and had a really nice walk in the woods to get to the Deer Leap overview which is a big rock on top of a mountain. You can sit on it and look at miles and miles of red trees, it's quite something. We even saw a snake on our way up there.

The rest of the State is basically a giant pot-pourri. All the shops are maple-syrup-scented gift shops and the roads have names like 'rustic drive', 'coffeehouse road', 'cream puff lane' and 'chipmunk alley'. The two first ones are real. Talking about chipmunks, we saw some in the City and they are cute! They didn't sing to us or try to help me get dressed which I found disappointing. We stopped at a gift shop to try and find a fridge magnet (don't ask) and all we found was a festival of miniature cushions embroidered with philosophical nuggets such as 'The one who dies with the most shoes wins' and my personal favourite 'So let me get this right. My GRANDCHILD is a CAT?'. I know it's supposed to be about modern couples settling for pets instead of human babies and middle-aged ladies being really sad about not having grand-children but those of you who are familiar with Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job will understand why it took me a while to try and understand what they were about.

I was going to insert the video here but I can't find it so download the whole show, watch it and when you get to the bit when Tim turns into a cat, boom! That's it!

Hey how's it going?

First post in America. We've been here for about 2 1/2 weeks and I've been so busy eating pizza and watching TV ads that I literally haven't had the time to update this. The main reason is that I keep thinking that no one reads this blog. But a couple of comments about how lame it is have made me realise that people actually stare at it for weeks waiting for something to happen.

In the last 2 weeks, we haven't done anything cultural. All we've done is walk around trying to buy as much stuff as possible. We've also been to Little Italy for the feast of San Gennaro to look at big men eat sausage and peppers and an evil clown say to a 4-year old Chinese boy something like 'Ching ching chong'.



We attended Pickle Day and waited in line for big gherkins on a stick and gave up.

We ate a lot of Lombardi's pizzas.

We went for an express visit to the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo.

We went to see the new Coen movie.



We went to a wedding in Vermont and bought a tent for our trip to Vegas.

Look, the Venice Biennale.

We also stopped in Venice to meet up with my mum and visit the Biennale. Here are a few of my personal faves:

El Anatsui beautiful woven bottle tops draped over the Palazzo Fortuny. Inside the palazzo was an amazing curio cabinet with elephants' ears, stone age sculptures and taxidermy freaks mixed with the odd Picasso. I couldn't take pictures of that but it was definitely the highlight of our stay in Venice.


This is the Jan Fabre show in a beautiful palace by the Canal. The view was dreamy.






These were hilarious, they're the skeletons of Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny made by a Korean Artist called Lee Hyungkoo.






This was put together by a group of Brazilian children called the Morrinho Project. It was great because it was right by the café and it had children playing in it and birds living in it.




This is a wall covered in dart boards in the Nordic Pavillion. Fun!



And of course Nikos Alexiou (see previous post)


And this is where we stayed.






Quite nice.

Look, a summer holiday.

Ollie and I took the car to Italy. We ate pasta everyday, it was great. Here are some pics.
This is Cinque Terre where we had a lovely lunch of spaghetti a la vongole and a really long walk with a rocky swim in the middle.





After camping around Cinque Terre, we stayed in James's old house for a while.






We went to a bean festival and had some Faggioli con le cotiche, which is a delicious bean stew with bits of pig fat in it.



And to a gnocchi festival.





We also went to Rome for a day.



And Bologna. How rude!