Wanting a way to replicate some things that we do at the store and bring some of my own ideas to fruition, I decided to purchase a new smoker for Christmas. After performing tons of research solving for questions like ‘how much smoking capacity do I need’ and ‘what fuel source is best for me (gas, charcoal, electricity)’ I finally pulled the trigger earlier this month and bought a 22.5″ Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker. Here she is in all of her glory right after I completed the easy-to-follow assembly process.

At just over 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide with a Weber-claimed 726 square inches of cooking space on two different cooking levels, she is quite the big girl. If it looks quite different than a ‘conventional’ grill, there’s a reason for that; smoking and grilling are two completely different cooking techniques. Where grilling is essentially cooking food directly over flames producing relatively high heat (a process best suited to quickly cooking smaller pieces of meat and veggies), smoking is an indirect cooking method generally utilizing temperatures in a much lower range than grilling, anywhere from 200-275 degrees F (with the 225-250 range being thought of as the ‘sweet spot’) for ‘hot smoking to 100 degrees F and under for ‘cold’ smoking. ‘Low and slow’ is a mantra embraced by smoking aficionados and it is this type of cooking process that can turn tougher cuts of meat like shoulders and ribs into melt-in-your-mouth tender morsels. During the smoking process, food is cooked via the heat generated by the smoker and flavored by the smoke generated from wood chunks or chips that are added to the smoker.

The hardest decision for me was choosing the type of fuel to use – electric, gas or charcoal. At work we use a commercial grade electric smoker that functions like an oven and it produces some really great products. It has a thermostat that controls the temperature and a small basket that holds enough wood chips to provide about an hour’s worth of smoke (which can be reloaded as many times as necessary during the cooking process). It’s a snap to use, allowing it to produce a very consistent product time and time again. However, the way I see it, there are a few issues with electric smokers. First off, they need to be plugged in to an outlet, a factor that limits their portability. Second, I was not very happy with the build quality of the electric smokers that were in my price range – they all seemed a bit flimsy to me. Third, as I’ve learned at work, while the quality of the food produced in an electric smoker can be very high, it doesn’t produce the same type of ‘bark’ (the dark, crusty and incredibly flavorful outer layer found on the cooked meat) or smoke-ring that a charcoal-fired cooker will produce.  Propane would’ve solved my first two issues but not the third and so in the end, I opted for a charcoal-fired smoker and a little over a week after placing my order, she had arrived and was ready for her first cook.

Initially, a charcoal fired smoker will probably have a higher learning curve than a gas or electric model because the user will have to learn the fine art of temperature regulation without simply relying on a thermostat or adjustable heat control switch. I figured that spare ribs would make for a good first cook in the smoker because I felt like they would do a good job of withstanding some of the wilder temperature fluctuations that a novice smoker like myself would subject them to. Additionally, I didn’t feel like I had to cook them to a specific temperature, rather, I was going to shoot for a 4-6 hour cook at 250 degrees F and see how good of a job I could do at maintaining that temperature for such a time period.

Here are the racks as they appeared when removed from their packaging – a little over 7lbs of meat.

The night before cooking, using a microplane, I made a paste of a few garlic cloves and a shallot and rubbed that all over the ribs, followed by a light sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Then I liberally applied a rub that I made from paprika, crushed bay leaves, ground cumin, ground coriander and white pepper.

I let the ribs sit in the ‘fridge overnight, uncovered, until the next day.

Firing up a charcoal smoker is a bit more complicated than just flipping a switch. I used a chimney starter to fire off a smaller amount of charcoal, about 20 briquettes worth. You may notice that my chimney starter is inverted – I had read a tip on the internet that said it was easier to light a smaller amount of coals in an inverted chimney (these things hold a lot more than 20 briquettes) – so I thought I would give it a shot. I formed a donut out of two pieces of brown wrapping paper (I’d normally use newspaper but I didn’t have any handy) and wadded that underneath the charcoal, then lit the paper and waited for it to ignite the coals.

While waiting for the coals to ignite, I took apart the smoker in order to add charcoal to its bottom section.

You can fit a tremendous amount of charcoal into this smoker – I’ve read that it can easily hold an entire 20lb of Kingsford charcoal, which could provide enough fuel for a 12+ hour smoke. Since I only wanted to smoke the ribs for up to 6 hours, I partially filled the bowl with charcoal – about 80 briquettes worth. In these pictures, you can also make out two of the three adjustable vents in the bottom of the smoker. It is these vents that allow the user to control the amount of air that circulates through the cooker; open vents introduce more air to the smoker which causes the fire to burn hotter while closed or partially shut vents restrict the flow of air, thus taming the fire (and heat) within.

I also added a few chunks of wood at this point – two each of mesquite and hickory.

This particular smoker also comes with a massive water pan. The purpose of the water in the cooker is twofold – the water supposedly helps to create a moist cooking environment while also serving as a heatsink that helps regulate the temperature in the cooker by minimizing temperature fluctuations.

The water pan sits in the smoker about a foot and a half above the charcoal. I foiled the bottom of the pan in an effort to minimize its post-cooking cleanup.

About 15 minutes later, the charcoal in the chimney starter was ready…

…so I dumped the lit coals over the unlit coals and next to the wood chunks.

Over the course of the next few hours, the lit coals would trigger the unlit coals to light, providing a constant source of heat throughout the cook. The heat from the coals would also cause the wood chunks to burn, unleashing their flavorful smoke upon the ribs. With the coals in place, I reattached the middle section of the smoker…

…then put the water pan in its place.

It is at this point where water would normally be added to the pan. The internet had also suggested that I could use a heavy clay saucer in place of the water in the water pan, which I did. Over the course of longer cooks, it might be necessary to replenish water that is lost due to evaporation – use of a clay saucer negates the need to add additional water during a long cook.

Note that I foiled the clay saucer to aid in my cleanup efforts but I failed to foil the part of the water pan that the saucer rests in, which wound up collecting a fair amount of drippings from the ribs and made for a difficult cleanup anyway.

With the water pan and clay saucer in place, the two cooking grates are put in place.

Finally, it’s time to add the meat. Note all the smoke that has already begun to billow out of the smoker.

The last thing to do is thread in the probe from my wireless thermometer so that I could monitor the temperature of the cooker from the comfort of the living room sofa.

After 5 1/2 hours, we have ribs! After taking about 30 minutes to reach ideal smoking temperature, I didn’t have too much difficulty keeping the smoker running in the ‘sweet spot’, though I did experience a few weird temperature spikes during the cook. I’m not exactly sure what caused those spikes – when they happened I either pulled the lid off for a few seconds to let some of the heat escape and/or closed the bottom vents to temporarily cut off the supply of air to the fire. Eventually, the temperatures dropped back down to the preferred range. I also wound up adding a few more briquettes and smoke wood a little later in the cook, a task made easy thanks to the massive door on the side of the smoker.

Look at that bark!

For my first attempt at using my smoker, I was definitely pleased with how the ribs turned out. They were moist and tender and had a good amount of smokey flavor. If I were to make one change for my next ribs cookout, I’d mop the ribs with a some kind of vinegar/mustard solution – the ribs are quite rich and I think they would’ve benefited tremendously from the addition of a little bit of acidity and a mustardy bite to help round out their flavor.

I don’t really have much of an excuse for yet another semi-hiatus from writing but I will say that I’m amazed at how much harder it is to write when you come home from work both mentally and physically exhausted. When I was first hired, I was working behind the counter five days a week. For the last few weeks, I’ve been mostly working in the store’s small kitchen, helping to prepare the daily lunch specials while also brining, cooking, smoking and deboning various beasts to be used for sandwich specials or to be sold in the butcher case. It’s been much more intense than my behind-the-counter experience, at times feeling much more like working in a restaurant than working in a retail store. The pace can be quite harried at times and I have a nice new collection of burns and random cuts but I feel like I’ve been holding my own while learning how to work at ‘kitchen speed’.

Over these last few weeks, I have also become quite adept at boning out a duck and smoking picnic shoulders and my knife skills have benefited greatly with daily use. Occasionally, in addition to my regularly scheduled sandwich-making and meat smoking duties, I get to play around with large cuts of meat, such as this 25lb ham.

This specimen was harvested from a happy hog raised on a Becker Lane farm in Iowa (for anyone that’s curious). The task presented to me was to trim the ham so that it could be placed into our display case and sold to a happy customer. In order to accomplish this, first I’d have to remove the leg. I used the boning knife to trace around the circumference of the leg, slicing through the skin and meat until I reached the leg bone.

Next, using a hacksaw (those tools in the first picture are not just for show), I sawed through the leg bone, freeing it from the rest of the ham.

There is a bone that needs to removed prior to certifying the ham as ‘ready for sale’. The ‘H-bone’, as it is commonly referred to, is a large and irregular shaped bone that connects the back leg to the rest of the hog via a beefy ball joint.

I used a boning knife to begin separating the meat from the H-bone. By holding the boning knife sort of like a dagger and taking small strokes with it, it is possible to essentially peel the meat away from the bone, using the knife and your fingers to trace the outline of the bone.

It’s hard to make out here, but roughly in the dead center of this photo below is the ball joint. The ball part of the joint will remain with the leg bone in the ham while the socket part of the joint will be removed as part of the H-bone.

After a few minutes of poking, prodding and scraping, the H-bone has been removed. The thing that looks like an eye in the center of the picture is the ball joint at the end of the leg bone. That bone will remain in the ham until we decide to ‘bone it out’ (aka debone it).

There is also some miscellaneous debris that was removed from the ham – the last remaining vertebrae and whatnot – which are visible in the above picture in the bottom-right corner of the ham.

With all bones removed, I tied the ham up using a few doubled lengths of string. In my tenure at the store, I have gotten quite good a tying a mean slipknot. The ham is tied so that it will hold it’s shape during cooking, thus helping to promote even cooking throughout the roast.

Here she is, all ready to be placed into the store’s display case.

Yes, we put out the trotters along with the ham and yes, people do buy them. On more than one occasion, I’ve been asked to cut large trotters like this one in half for customers. Doing things like this makes me happy that I am no longer sitting behind a desk creating pivot tables for people. I certainly never got to use a hacksaw or handle pigs feet in any of my previous jobs.

Over the course of a few hours, Frank shared his sausage making know-how and enthusiasm with the class, going over the sausage-making process in depth and allowing students to try their hands at sausage stuffing. After the hands-on portion of class, the students, Frank and his partner Marilyn sat down and enjoyed a traditional Italian style family dinner featuring many different home-made sausage creations and some excellent red wine. You can find more information about the class by checking out their web site but I will say that both the wife and I left the class feeling like we were eager to try making our own vareities of fresh sausage at home and would highly recommend taking one of Frank’s classes if you can.

Good sausage begins with freshly ground meat.

Frank begins by slicling a small section of boneless pork shoulder into strips. He then feeds the strips into his industrial-strength meat grinder, which makes quick work of the pork. Pork shoulder is a great cut to use for sausage making purposes because it contains a fair amount of fat, which is just what a good sausage needs.

After coarsely grinding the meat, the seasoning mix is added.

Here Frank is making a batch of his tasty linguisa sausage. The next step is to mix everything thoroughly by hand.

For some sausage recipes, it is customary to pass this coarsely ground mixture of meat and seasonings through the meat grinder again, this time passing the mixture through a finer die. This optional step obviously makes the meat pieces in the sausage smaller and also helps to mix the meat and seasonings together. Satisfied by the coarse-grind obtained in its first pass through the grinder, Frank didn’t pass the meat through a second time. As a side note, Frank also let the pork/seasoning mixture sit in the ‘fridge for some time before embarking on the next steps in order to let the let the flavors marry a bit.

Now comes sausage stuffing time.

The meat is loaded into the sausage stuffer (which is actually bolted down to the counter), the sausage stuffing tube is screwed into place, then the pig intestines are threaded onto the tube.

While not necessary available at your local megamart, pig intestines are available from a number of speciality retailers. The ones that Frank purchases have been thoroughly cleaned and packed in salt as a preservative method. All they need is a rinse and an hour-long soak in cold water (to wash away the salt and make them pliable) before they can be used. Yes, I can totally appreciate the fact that pig intestines might make some folks squeamish and yes, I will admit that they are a little slimy, but really, handling them is no big deal. They’re totally clean and no more slimy than something like raw chicken or a fish fillet.

A few cranks of the machine is all it takes to actuate the piston that forces the pork/seasoning mixture into the casing and viola, we have sausage.

This particular operation is best performed in teams of two; one person cranks while the other person helps to control the speed at which the casings move off of the sausage stuffing tube while also helping to form the emerging sausage into tight spiral.

This process definitely takes some getting used to. It is important to not turn the crank too slow or allow the casing to move off of the tube too quickly or else the resulting sausage will be full of nasty air pockets. Conversely, it is also important to not turn the crank too fast or restrict the free flow of the casing or else the sausage will burst as the casing is strong but also somewhat delicate.

A nice, tight sausage spiral.

Freshly stuffed sausage makes everyone giddy!

In addition to being quite the sausage maker, Frank also dabbles in curing his own meat. Here is some of his homemade prosciutto that he let us sample.

It was quite tasty. He’s got another one hanging in a small, climate control wine room along with coppa (basically, cured pork neck meat) and some other salumi.

The happy couple after stuffing about 50 lbs of fresh sausage.

There were five people total in the class and we each got to take home about 10 lbs of sausage. For us, that means a freezer full of both hot and sweet Italian sausage ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. Many thanks to Frank and Marilyn for letting us in to their home for a few hours, feeding us an incredibly delicious meal and for showing us all some really cool new things. Well, not that there’s anything really new about sausage-making, but at least now I have a much better understanding of the process and I look forward to crafting my own sausage-based treats sometime soon.

In addition to learning general operating policies and procedures, new Fatted Calf team members have also had a staggering assortment of tasty products to become intimately familiar with. This sampling of products in the display case from last Saturday night doesn’t fully represent the countless varieties of fresh sausages, cured meats and custom cuts that are on display in a given week.

It is not uncommon to rotate in new products throughout the day, so what’s available in the case can change over the course of a few hours and we are required to be able to discuss the finer points of just about everything on sale. It’s a lot to digest but so far I think I’m enjoying working at the store (I’m not just saying this because my employers may be reading this). In a departure from my previous jobs,  I’m really enjoying being in a position to talk all day about something that I love – meat (really good meat) – and get paid to do so. Not only do I enjoy talking about meat, so do all of the customers that come to the store. We’ve been receiving great feedback from both Fatted Calf regular customers and residents of Hayes Valley (and the entire city of SF for that matter); people are really excited that we are in the neighborhood. My SF friends are excited too and some have been kind enough to visit me at the store to sample our meats.

Part of our on-the-job training includes lots of product tasting and to say that I’m also really enjoying all of the Fatted Calf goods would be a huge understatement. Here are three different varieties of large-diameter cured salumi. From left to right we have sopressata (spicy), finocchiona (fennel) and al’Arancia (anise and orange).

In addition to my daily responsibilities of answering customer questions, fulfilling customer orders and breaking down cuts of meat for customers, there is a lot of general ‘shop-upkeep’ that occurs during the day. Depending on the shift I am assigned to work, I am expected to either help open or close the store. The biggest part of those tasks is setting up or putting away the contents of the display case. During the day, I can also expect to periodically restock the case, sweep, help make sandwiches, set up some of our non-meat retail items (olives, salads, cheese etc), and adjust the blackboard to accurately reflect current display-case selections and prices.

Behind the retail space of the store, there is a small kitchen housing the dish room, some space to prep various food items, and the walk-in cooler. The cooler is home to all sorts of goodies, including a very large collection of salumi in various stages of the curing process.

As of Saturday night, there was also a very nice selection of beasts awaiting further processing, including a whole pig (from Hudson Ranch in Napa), a whole lamb (from Bellwether Farms in Sonoma), and a quarter steer (from Magruder in Washington, I believe). You can also make out a section of bone-in ribeye from Magruder between the pig and the lamb – this has been dry-aging for approximately two weeks.

I was sorry that I was not scheduled to work on Sunday as that was the day that pig was broken down. On Monday morning, I saw that the pig had been cut up and processed into many different and delicious cuts, including some tasty shoulder sections and a lovely looking 15 pound porchetta. By Tuesday morning, we had the pig’s head for sale, nestled between the slab bacon and the prepackaged bacon and pancetta in the case.

Customers seemed pretty excited to see such an offering. Alas, by the end of my eight-hour shift at 4:30pm, there were still no takers.

Here’s another shot of the salumi.

At some point, I hope learn the fine art of butchering and crafting all these treats. Until then, the idea of talking about meat every day with throngs of hungry and enthusiastic customers has made me content.

See, I’m actually smiling while on the job!

Beginning next week, I will be working in the Fatted Calf’s new San Francisco store. I am thrilled to be saying that. The Fatted Calf is a charcuterie shop that’s been operating out of the Oxbow Public Market in Napa, CA (and at some Bay Area farmer’s markets) for the last few years. They specialize in producing many different varieties of fresh sausage, pates, and salami using the freshest and highest quality ingredients available, including organic and hormone-free meats and natural/organic seasonings. Products are made in small batches in a kitchen located behind the retail counter at the Napa store. With an expansion into San Francisco comes a need for new staff. A few weeks back, I saw an ad on craigslist titled ‘Meat Enthusiasts Wanted’ and after learning more about the Fatted Calf, which included lots of tasty hands-on research, I knew I wanted to be part of their team. After two interviews, one of them being a six hour, hands-on ‘stage’ at the store in Napa, I got the good news last weekend. In-store training begins this Saturday afternoon, followed by a staff party early next week, serving as a celebration of all the blood, sweat and tears that have no doubt been shed in order to make the new location happen.

People that really know me know how excited I get when talking about meat, so this opportunity in many ways actually makes perfect sense. I’ve always considered myself to be a carnivore, only recently making ‘friends’ with salad and other non-animal based foods. In addition to being an emphatic consumer of meat, thanks in no small part to my culinary training which increased my technical ability and knowledge, I now have much more faith in my cooking skills. This allows me to cook with more confidence and seek out dishes with higher ‘degrees-of-difficulty’ than I had previously attempted to prepare. As a result, a lot of my home cooking exercises have involved experimenting with different cuts and parts (lamb’s heads, pig’s feet, and pork belly) that I wouldn’t have dared mess around with prior to my culinary awakening. Throughout culinary school, I was also exposed to a totally new world, one filled with delicious artisinal products prepared by talented and creative chefs that seek inspiration from long practiced techniques making use of any and all parts of whatever beast is available to them. From one chef, I sampled a terrine made from pigs ears that had been slowly braised over the course of 36 hours and knew that I was tasting something special, something that bridged centuries old, time honored techniques with a flair for the modern. It’s also right to credit culinary school with making me, first, more appreciative of something like pig’s ears, and second, showing me that there is a real art and craft to charcuterie. Having had a chance to explore different parts of the country this year, including a trip to Seattle and New Orleans, I’ve also discovered that people around the country have also had similar ‘awakenings’ and are producing some exceptionally delicious cured-meats and sausages of their own. Check out Salumi in Seattle and Cochon Butcher in New Orleans and do as my friend Brad recommended, buy anything that they will sell you – you won’t regret it. It’s a fascinating craft, one that takes lots of time and training in order to produce at the same high level that these folks do and I want to learn as much as I can about it.

There’s a lot more to this story, but I will conclude now by saying I’m more excited for this opportunity than anything else in recent memory. I’m really fired up over the chance to learn charcuterie from people that are clearly passionate about what they do and who also happen to make damn products. To be in a position that will allow me to talk about meat, sausage, and salami all day long is also great and quite a shift from my previous day jobs spent talking about Excel spreadsheets. I want to tell you about the books I’ve been reading, the other research I’ve been doing and the class I’ll be taking towards the end of the month, but that will have to wait for another post. I think I’ve found my focus – my ever so elusive end goal.

Being a huge fan of all foods Cajun and Creole influenced, I had extraordinarily high expectations heading into our visit to New Orleans. I’m pleased to report that these expectations were met (and exceeded in some ways); we ate really well during our day-and-a-half in the Crescent City and I left the city feeling thoroughly inspired to replicate some of our more memorable meals. Prior to our arrival, the wife and I generated a lengthy list of places and dishes to eat, which we supplemented with suggestions from two friends of mine that have close ties to the city. In some instances, we were so well prepared for our meals that we knew what we were going to order before even seeing a menu. That was definitely true for dinner at Mr. B’s Bistro on our first night.

My friend Brad raved about the specialty of the house, barbecued shrimp, a dish I had heard good things about through my own research, but there are no words that do it justice. First off, this is not BBQ in the traditional sense; rather the shrimp are cooked with an ungodly amount of butter and some other ingredients familiar to the region like onion, celery, garlic and Worcestershire sauce. Adding to the dish’s flavor and experience, the shrimp are enormous and served in their shells, with the heads still attached. There is no place for a fork and knife when eating this dish. Our server was wise to provide me with a bib; I wish he had given me a tarp to drape over myself as I was completely drenched in sauce by time time I had finished my first shrimp. The three pieces of bread that were served with the dish were not adequate for sopping up all of the wonderful sauce; by the end of it, I was eating the remaining sauce like soup. Incredible is all I can say – this remains one of the best things I have eaten in a long time.

 While no match for the sensory assault that was the barbecued shrimp, the chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, deep fried oysters and crawfish ravioli that we also ordered were all excellent.

We saved just enough room for dessert at Cafe Du Monde, a spot famous for their beignets.

I imagine that it’d be hard to find a sub-par beignet in New Orleans. With that said, these beignets were fresh out of the fryer, topped with about a half-inch of powdered sugar, and were absolutely delicious.

We made some good progress that night, but the next day, our only full day in New Orleans, we’d have to resort to drastic measures to really feel like we’d make a dent in our list. We opted to have multiple small lunches throughout the day with long walks in the sweltering summer heat between meals. Our first stop was at Parasol’s Restaurant & Bar for their infamous roast beef po’ boy.

A po’ boy is to New Orleans what a hoagie is to Philadelphia but one of the things that makes the po’ boy uniquely New Orleans is the bread. It looks like French bread, but it’s much lighter and ‘airier’. The braised, thinly sliced and gravy-bathed meat is so unlike what you’d find in a supermarket’s deli case, it might make you rethink your definition of roast beef. Like last night’s barbecued shrimp, this sandwich, ‘dressed’ with lettuce, tomato, and shredded lettuce, makes for a messy and incredibly satisfying meal. I also wish we had ordered a shrimp or oyster po’ boy, but I didn’t want to overeat during our first meal.

For our second lunch, we headed to Cochon Butcher, a small shop specializing in artisanal meats and assorted charcuterie.  

I was immediately and completely overwhelmed by their menu; I wanted to try everything. I tried to recall what Brad had told me about this place. His words of ‘buy anything that they will sell you’ were most unhelpful in terms of narrowing down our choices so we tried to order things that were varied and wouldn’t be too filling.

Where do I even begin? The boudin, a fresh, uncured sausage made from various pork parts and rice that is one of the region’s signature culinary offerings, was unreal. The blueberry hoe cakes (think pancakes made with cornmeal instead of flour) would have been good on their own, but served with foie gras infused butter topped with coarse sea salt, they just felt sinful. We rounded off our meal with a charcuterie plate that included duck prosciutto, two kinds of salami and pork rillette. I’d be in danger of eating at Cochon every day if I lived in New Orleans – the food is that good.

As good as our first lunches were, our third lunch might have been the best. Brad said that the charbroiled oysters from Drago’s Seafood Restaurant were not to be missed. I’ll admit to being a bit skeptical, but he implored me to resist the natural urge to order them raw as I normally prefer.

Here’s another case where the picture does no justice to the food and also where more butter is certainly better than less butter. I’m not totally sure what goes in to making these but if I were to wager a guess, I say it all begins with an oyster on the half shell sitting in a pool of it’s own juices that is then topped with a very generous pat of butter, lots of Parmesan cheese and a healthy dose of finely chopped garlic. The oyster is broiled just until it’s barely cooked through and the cheese begins to brown. While the barbecued shrimp from last night’s dinner might have been the best meal I’ve eaten in a long time, each oyster was the best single bite of food I’ve had in a very long time.

After eating three incredible lunches that day, I’ll admit that I was not entrirely clear-headed when it came time for dinner at Jacques-Imo’s Cafe, a funky, neighborhood establishment located far from the touristy French Quarter. It’s not that the meal was bad – far from it – it’s just that I think my stomach and brain were still busy processing and savoring all of the great food that I had consumed in the previous 24 hours.

We started our meal with another bowl of gumbo and an order of fried green tomatoes topped once again with some of the largest, freshest shrimp I’ve ever seen. The crawfish etouffee I ordered for dinner was good as was the wife’s perfectly cooked stuffed pork chop. I’m sorry that I don’t have a picture of this dish – the pork chop was massive; I was quite certain that it came from a brontosaurus as opposed to a pig. I’m actually quite impressed that the chop was cooked so well – I thought that its size would make that feat nearly impossible. It was also stuffed with mushrooms, ground beef and shrimp (trust me, it worked) and covered with a dark brown and very flavorful gravy.

There are so many other places that we had hoped to go but short of eating two dinners each night while in town, we did the best that we could do. Sorry Commander’s Palace, you’ll just have to wait until our next trip.

As a side note, we had arrived in New Orleans with open eyes, curious to see if we could spot the effects of recent hard times that have hit the city, specifically, lingering effects from Hurricane Katrina and any impending encroachment from the Gulf Oil spill. While we weren’t exactly on the frontlines and didn’t spend any time in the areas hardest hit by either of these disasters, it’s easy to see how the city can be so susceptible to damage from these types of events. Much more so than any other U.S. city I’ve ever seen, parts of New Orleans appear waging a constant battle with Mother Earth. All throughout the Garden and Uptown districts, one can see huge trees with roots that are literally ripping apart the sidewalks and branches that engulf everything in sight. As far as the spill goes, I was expecting to have a much harder time finding fresh shellfish in town. We had no real issues until we arrived at Drago’s where we wanted to order a dozen raw oysters to accompany or charbroiled ones but were informed that the restaurant didn’t have the ‘inventory’ on hand to allow that, in part because their oysters were no longer being sourced from local waters, rather they were imported from Florida.

The first summary covered our first few days on the road up until Charleston, SC (which by the way, is an excellent place for food lovers). From Charleston, we made the short drive to Savannah, GA and spent a few hours at beach on lovely (but brutally hot) Tybee Island. On the way to the beach, right after we crossed the Georgia border, we couldn’t help ourselves – we stopped at the first roadside fruit stand we could find and bought some peaches.

Yes we were totally ripped off but yes, they were absolutely delicious. Speaking of all things delicious, we enjoyed one of our most memorable meals that night at a restaurant called Sweet Potatoes Kitchen. Not only was the food incredibly tasty, the entire meal including drinks cost us only about $20 with tip. My cornmeal crusted catfish was cooked to perfection and was served piping-hot, right out of the fryer. The wife’s BBQ chicken was one of the better cooked chicken dishes I’ve tasted in a while; even the breast meat was juicy. The walnut and brown sugar butter that was served with the accompanying baked sweet potatoes was also a really nice touch. Thank you Yelp for finding this place for us!

The following day’s meals were a bit unexpected. Being in the South, I was really looking to gorge myself on Southern and Soul food classics. We would have eaten at Mrs. Wilkes’ Dining Room, a restaurant highly recommended by both friends and Yelp, but it is unfortunately closed on weekends. We were also really looking forward to our first BBQ meal of the trip, but Walls’ BBQ, our intended lunch spot was also closed due to a long-term catering event, thus putting our BBQ dreams on hold for the time being.

Luckily for us, Yelp pointed us towards Zunzi’s, a mercifully short walk from Walls’ (have I mentioned yet that our trip to the South coincided with one of the worst heat waves in recent memory). Menu choices at this tiny cafe reflect the South African, Swiss, Dutch and Italian heritage of the owners, including the curiously spiced boerewors, a type of South African sausage seasoned with lots of black pepper, coriander, cloves and nutmeg that the wife ordered for lunch. It is served on a roll with mustard and a side of dark brown gravy and was totally unlike any other sausage we’ve ever tasted. I ordered something called Gabrielle’s Zesty Chicken, which indeed was quite ‘zesty’ thanks to its fragrant, tomato based sauce. Overall, we were pleased with our lunch and can see why Zunzi’s has earned so much praise from Savannah natives.

In desperate need of cooling off after spending a few hours walking off our lunch in the sweltering heat and humidity, we grabbed a quick snack at Leopold’s Ice Cream, a Savannah institution since 1919.

We met some new friends for dinner that night and expecting to be taken out for Southern food, we found ourselves sitting down for dinner at a British place called Churchill’s Pub. While not my first choice for place to eat dinner (I was hoping for something more ‘traditional’), the atmosphere was fun and laid-back and the wife and I were both surprised by how much we enjoyed our meals of ‘bangers & mash’ and traditional roast beef & yorkshire pudding.

The following day we drove the 630 miles from Savannah to New Orleans, but I’ll save that for another post – after all, the food of New Orleans is in a class all by itself.

On Tuesday, our first day on the road, we drove about 450 miles to the resort town of Nags Head, NC, located in the slender chain of islands and barrier reefs known as the Outer Banks. Passing through Maryland on our way to NC, a mandatory lunch stop for blue crabs was required. The crabs we had at Crabs To Go, located on US 50 just west of Ocean City, were remarkable for their freshness (they were cooked alive, right before our eyes), flavor (just the right amount of Old Bay seasoning) and messiness (I mean that in the best way possible).

We bought a dozen small-sized crabs (each measuring about 5″ across), and a pair of wooden mallets, helped ourselves to some butcher paper and took a seat in their roadside picnic area. Not surprising due to the 103 degree temperature and 100% humidity, we had the area to ourselves. Oppressive is the only word I can think of to describe those conditions, but once we took our first bites of crab, it didn’t matter. Nearly an hour later, after sweating through all of our clothes, we had finally savored the last bites of these famous Chesapeake Bay treats and were in agreement that our first meal of the trip would set a high standard for the ones to follow.

Our second day began with a great breakfast in Manteo, NC at a place called TL’s Country Kitchen. Incredibly friendly waitstaff – check. Ridiculously inexpensive yet absolutely delicious sausage/egg/biscuit sandwiches – check. We had actually set out to eat somewhere else but had a change of heart when we saw their empty parking lot. A driveby around the neighborhood revealed a full lot at TL’s. Let that be road trip meal lesson 1; restaurant reviews mean nothing if the place is empty.

Our lunch stop in Wilmington, NC was also quite enjoyable. We happened upon a little Southern cafe in the downtown area (only after we discovered that the place we had originally set our sights on had just recently closed its doors for good) called The Basics. To begin, we split an order of fried green tomatoes garnished with caramelized onions. For the main event, I ordered an Oyster Po’Boy which, with its perfectly fried oysters and creamy jalapeño aioli, was quite a delicious sandwich. It was served with collard greens and a mini-biscuit.

We arrived into Charleston, SC later that day after another long day on the road, eager for some more Southern food, specifically, shrimp and grits. I’ve experimented with this dish on my own but I was eager to try a more ‘authentic’ (read: not prepared by a Yankee) version. We had heard good things about Magnolias, a somewhat-upscale, Southern food joint located in the historic section of downtown and decided to give it a try.

While the food was presented well and looked appetizing, I’m sorry to say that the wife and I both left the meal feeling a bit underwhelmed. It’s not that we had a bad meal or had lousy service, I just think that something was missing from the meal. I found my appetizer of fried chicken livers to be the best thing I ate all night. The wife’s blue crab bisque was heavy on cream and a bit lacking in crab flavor.

For $30, I really wanted to be blown away by my shellfish and grits. Sure, the grits were tasty, as was the creamy shellfish sauce served with the dish, but the grits were quite lumpy and congealed into a solid mass almost immediately. The scallops and little pieces of lobster were a nice touch but the shrimp were a bit lacking in the flavor department. The wife’s fried chicken was good, but not great; the chicken was moist and juicy but was also in need of some flavor augmentation.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Hominy Grill. Wanting to erase the memories of the previous night’s lackluster offering, I opted for the signature breakfast dish of the city, shrimp and grits, and this time I was not disappointed.

The grits were creamy and much smoother than the previous night’s version. The shrimp had also apparently been sauteed, providing them with an appealing color, texture and flavor. The little bits of bacon, mushrooms, and green onions mixed in with the shrimp were also a nice touch. Like the sign says, ”grits are good for you”.

Lunch at the Amen Street Fish & Raw Bar included this dozen Gulf oysters that we devoured so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to take a ‘before’ shot.

Last night’s dinner at Fig, (an acronym for Food Is Good) was truly great. Specializing in all things local, fresh and seasonable and led by a recent James Beard award winning chef, the food was incredibly well executed and damn tasty. For appetizers, I ordered a crispy trotter cake topped with an over-easy egg, all served over succotash. Our server recommended that we order something with tomatoes because they were at their peak ripeness; a suggestion that we were both thankful for upon sampling the tomato tart served with a light and airy whipped goat cheese that the wife ordered for her appetizer.

For dinner, I ordered sweetbreads served with bacon, baby leeks and a carrot purée while the wife ordered flounder served over creamed spinach, stone crab, tiny mushrooms and capers. Our plates were nearly licked clean.

I enjoyed yesterday’s breakfast so much that I insisted upon returning to the Hominy Grill this morning to sample their biscuits and sausage gravy (which were excellent, by the way) before hitting the road. With full bellies, we packed and gassed the car and made the short trip to Savannah, GA, where we’ll be for the next two nights and then on to New Orleans, LA, the stopover that I am probably most excited by based on what I hope to be eating.

Since I’m a big fan of visual aids, here’s a rough idea of what our road trip will look like, all 4700 wonderful miles of it:

I’ve been to a few of the places on our trip (Bryce Canyon and New Orleans) but most of it, including the entire first half of the trip up until we arrive in “The Big Easy”, is all new mileage for me.

The wife and I are besides ourselves with excitement and are looking forward to hitting the road and taking a bit of a vacation after an incredibly challenging (yet equally important) two years in Boston. As we always do, we’ve got some good meals planned for our time in NJ, including a visit to an all-you-can-eat-BBQ joint and a trip to one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Pig Heaven in NYC, a place that I documented and reviewed last Spring.