I think that's probably true for meat, but i don't think it's possible to have really high-quality produce that isn't local. Good tomatoes, for example, just can't stand up to the rigors of long shipping and are worse off for being kept in the cold to prolong their shelf life.

Yes, I am well aware of what happens to tomatoes when they go below 55 degrees and so does practically any agri-business. Nor are we talking about treks around the north pole in donkeys for the transportation either. Again you are comparing high quality to bulk crap.

Another reason to buy free-range meat from small farms if you can afford it is that it just tastes better. Seriously, try a roasted chicken made from a Tyson's and one made from a chicken raised on a small local farm, the difference is huge.

There used to be a great place on 5th & K NW in downtown DC called Arrow Live Poultry, where you'd point a finger at a particular live chicken, within a minute you'd hear its head being chopped off from behind the curtain, and within another few minutes you'd be handed a perfectly cleaned and cut chicken in a nice brown bag, still plenty warm. Best tasting chicken (and other poultry, too) that you could ever find.

And then of course sometime in the 80's the usual suspects had it closed down, and the chickens all lived happily ever after.

I've probably told this story before but I remember back around 2000 walking through the open air food market in Athens and coming across a stall with a cage full of baby chicks. My girlfriend at the time was like "ahh look at the cute baby chicks, goochee goochee goo". A lady walked up pointed at some chicks, the man picked them up went inside the building a few minutes later he came back with a bag. My girlfriend was devestated.

Oh and I used to work for a guy who had this big dream of opening a restaurant with a wall of live fish tanks. The diners would come up pick out their fish, the waiter would fish it out, take it in back and the cooks would kill it and cook it for you.

Of course that isn't what really happened. Instead what we got was something like 4 smelly tanks. The waiter would take the fish back, plop it into another tank, and the cook would go into the cooler and pull out a gutted and cleaned fish and cook that.

Ahh the restaurant business.

Yes, I am well aware of what happens to tomatoes when they go below 55 degrees and so does practically any agri-business. Nor are we talking about treks around the north pole in donkeys for the transportation either. Again you are comparing high quality to bulk crap

My point is that i've never had a tomato from a supermarket (gourmet ones included) that came close to one from a farmer's market. Now, obviously if I pick a great tomato from a farm in Califoria (or anywhere in the world really) and bring it home on a flight with me it won't be any different than the great tomato that's local and i keep in my kitchen for a day, but with most types of produce i rarely see very high quality that isn't local.

I've probably told this story before but I remember back around 2000 walking through the open air food market in Athens and coming across a stall with a cage full of baby chicks. My girlfriend at the time was like "ahh look at the cute baby chicks, goochee goochee goo". A lady walked up pointed at some chicks, the man picked them up went inside the building a few minutes later he came back with a bag. My girlfriend was devestated.

Whenever I bought a chicken at that Arrow Live Poultry store, my girlfriend was always squeamish and would wait in the car. And when I once told her that "you can still feel the chicken's heart beat," she freaked out and wouldn't even hold the bag in the passenger's seat. Women are terrific---but I'll give her credit: At least she only fell for that one once.

At a shrimp farm, we watched a dozen or more women lean into long tubs of shrimp, popping their heads off and saving the edible portion for further work.

They were throwing out an edible part!

When I eat sushi, I almost always finish off with amaebi, which comes in two parts. First , the tail portion, served as nigiri, followed by the heads, deep fried.

Deliciously fantastic!

I did a summer program in Thailand when I was 17, and we had a week long homestay. One day the neighbors of my homestay family came over to show me a duck they had. They then led me to the back of their house and put the live duck on a board to cut its head off, encouraging me to watch. I told them i couldn't and went away. They later came to our house with a plate of cooked duck. I kind of regret not watching it cause now i feel that as a meat-eater i should at least once actually see the animal being killed.

Man, I love duck.

EDIT-Not to be crude, but its late and this amuses me..
I almost posted "Man, I love dick"
damn typos will be the death of me

That is what I thought you wrote originally.

Ugh I've had chicken testicle before. It's not fantastic.

I almost posted "Man, I love dick"
damn typos will be the death of me

Speaking of which...some buddies and I were skateboarding in Wallingford during high school and stopped by Dick's for some burgers. One of the guys, Rob Wettleson gets a milkshape. Awesome milkshakes. Anyways, he sittin' there, goin' to town on the thing when he stops and says, 'Man, I love Dick's. They're always thick.' Classic.

I cut off the turkey's head on Thanksgiving when I was 7 or 8 at my grandparent's. Both sides of the family had big 'ol farms so I got exposed to a lot of that. They do run around. I s*** you not.

The ###### video doesn't work anymore! Goddammit

Youtube must have taken it down. Funny. You can watch Kimbo beat the crap out of somebody. Kids breaking their legs, setting themselves on fire, but two cacks going at it? Nope can't show that. Hell, they even put a Halal butcher behind a registration wall, people are pvssies.

I eat to have fun and I think most people do as well.

Most people are crazy. Eating is an aggravating chore.

Maybe the UK has more stringent free range standards, but there is a pretty noticable difference in the quality of free range chicken v battery farmed chicken. The battery farmed chicken is fattier and has a fish aftertaste, due to the low quality but cheap fish feed that is fed to it. I don't like my chicken tasting like fish. The free range chicken is much leaner and tastier.

I don't get chicken very much - it's quite expensive - but free range is definitely the way to go.

Clearly people willing to pay the extra $1.00 or $2.00 for their chicken have never worked for a Major League Baseball team. :)

the video has been taken off line.

anybody got another link?

Pedro's #### looked like it was dead, or at the very least on death's door.

Yeah, but his change up still looks good.

Not to interrupt the culinary chat, but isn't it the case that cockfighting almost always involves gambling? How does Selig not care about this? Sure, it's unlikely that Martinez is going to get in so deep with a cockfighting bookie that he'd be inclined to throw a baseball game, but I don't think it's any less troublesome than post-retirement Mantle and Mays working as casino greeters, and see what it got them

Please do not watch this disgusting video we've provided for you. No, really, don't do it. It's...DISGUSTING.

I don't get chicken very much - it's quite expensive

Really? Factory farmed chicken is dirt cheap in the US.

We also visited a meat-packing plant.

My dad said growing up in the Chicago suburbs in the 40s and 50s meant an obligatory field trip to the stockyards.

He said it was horrifying.

His signature dish from the time he was 20 till his quadruple bypass was a boned paté-stuffed capon. Mmmmmm...

And I am amazed to hear there are Mennonites in Belize.

Where the hell did Vidro come from?

Puerto Rico, looks like. How people feel about cockfighting there (personally, I'd say that anyone who participates in or for that matter condones it should be forced to fight another likeminded person to the death, but it's not like I get a vote or anything), I haven't the vaguest idea.

Fresh hot cornbread with butter and honey , hmm m m m mmmm, better then warm biscuits.

Anyone who would advocate or for that matter actually apply honey on cornbread should be forced to fight another like-minded person to the death, but it's not like I get a vote or anything.

Of course, I suppose it's not as bad as the concept of *shudder* making cornbread with sugar. A columnist at my old paper in Little Rock once posited that the actual cause of the Civil War was the Yankees' insistence on that barbaric practice. Sad to say, the carpetbaggers' alien practices made in-roads even down here in the first capital of the Confederacy, as the meat-&-three just outside the AFB where I work insists on serving sweet cornbread. *sigh*

Also, I've been wrangling with hyphens & such all day ("national-standards-based" or "national standards-based"?) in the umpteenth proofing of the organization's Annual Report to Congress, & if I were to have to actually have to decide on whether I was correct in hyphenating like-minded the 2nd time around but not the first just now, I'd probably have a nervous breakdown.

Of course, I suppose it's not as bad as the concept of *shudder* making cornbread with sugar.

I also prefer my cornbread unsweetened. I'm always disapointed when I get a cornbread roll and it tastes like yellow cake or something. Just give it to me warm with some butter, dammit.

One of the reasons I'm not religious, I think, is because we're not worthy of something that grand.

Funny... That's pretty much the basic premise of Christianity. :-)

One of the reasons I'm not religious, I think, is because we're not worthy of something that grand.

Funny... That's pretty much the basic premise of Christianity. :-)


Man, I'd forgotten I'd even wrote that. The feeling comes and goes. I miss the days when I had time to read Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard and torture myself with these kind of questions. Now I just work a lot and feel tired all the time.

Of course, I suppose it's not as bad as the concept of *shudder* making cornbread with sugar. A columnist at my old paper in Little Rock once posited that the actual cause of the Civil War was the Yankees' insistence on that barbaric practice. Sad to say, the carpetbaggers' alien practices made in-roads even down here in the first capital of the Confederacy, as the meat-&-three just outside the AFB where I work insists on serving sweet cornbread. *sigh*

We won the war we get to make the rules. Honey on cornbread. Though to be fair warm cornbread all by itself is very good. Whereas warm biscuits all by itself is not even close to being as good as warm biscuits with butter and honey.

damnit. now i'm hungry.

McCoy is right. Reconstuction was really about forcing honey on cornbread on all you Southerners. This, of course, goes a long way to explain why you were all so damned angry for like a hundred years after the war ended. Hence why you all enjoy #### fighting and making puppies kill each other...eureka. I've figured it out.

Which also helps explain why the south has spent the last 50 years trying to rewrite school history books. If they get enough people to believe their views then they will be able to get people to stop using honey on cornbread.

We must not let the sacrifices of our brethren to be done in vain we must rise up against the oppression of the bland cornbreadmongers.

McCoy, you can slather honey on my cornbread when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

Which also helps explain why the south has spent the last 50 years trying to rewrite school history books. If they get enough people to believe their views then they will be able to get people to stop using honey on cornbread.

But dude, I am, like, totally from California! Norcal at that. And I, like, totally, just want to say you dudes need to stop putting sugar and crap on the cornbread. Or like, you know, I don't even know.

McCoy, you can slather honey on my cornbread when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

Wouldn't want it then, your fingers will have made the cornbread cold. Eating cold cornbread is like eating brownies with frosting on it, just something you don't do if you can help it.

Heathen!

In the face of such devilment, I won't even bring up hot water cornbread, my favorite variety, which is so Southern you hardly ever seen it even here in the shadow of the first White House of the Confederacy.

Note to self: Be on the lookout for McCoy sneaking down to rape our women, unsweeten our iced tea & unfry our green tomatoes. (Actually, I vastly prefer my green tomatoes pickled, but there are certain stereotypes to uphold.) Next thing you know, he'll have the black people voting.

And I don't like biscuits with gravy!


It always blew me away when I lived in Dallas or traveled through the south that McDonalds and other fast food chains would feature biscuits and gravy prominently on their breakfast menus.

I go either way on biscuits & gravy, actually. Biscuits with jelly, jam or honey are perfectly fine. I have to be in a certain mood to use gravy.

And I don't like biscuits with gravy!

No way! What do you put on them? Butter?

No way! What do you put on them? Butter?

Fatback.

Yep I put butter on them.

Butter's a good choice. That's what I do now that I'm back up here. Never had fatback, it looks delicious though.

We used to use fatback in Clam Chowder, cheaper then bacon and you still get the little brown bits. Never was crazy for it though

And I am amazed to hear there are Mennonites in Belize.

I was on a boat in Belize once and there were a bunch of mennonites swimming around in the river in their full-body underwear. It was kind of awkward.

Cornbread is SUPPOSED to be slightly dry and crumbly. If it's moist and fluffy, it's not cornbread, it's corn cake. It's practically impossible to find real cornbread here in Maryland. It was much crumblier and less sweet in Florida, and much tastier at that.

The best chicken I ever ate in my life was in Peru. Almost universally, the chicken tasted like...chicken! Such a huge difference when you get a whitebread stock chicken in the US versus a gamey chicken in Peru. Best I could tell, they kept the chickens in large coops as well and didn't let them roam free, but I believe there's a big difference in the type of feed used (i.e. much better quality of corn, since the corn they use there tends to be much better as well). I suspect that the reason the free range chicken often tastes better is because they use higher quality feed, not because they're actually free range.

I love bisquits with gravy...mmmm. And I'm also much more fond of southern sweetened ice tea than it's less yummy northern (and western) cousin.

I love bisquits with gravy...mmmm. And I'm also much more fond of southern sweetened ice tea than it's less yummy northern (and western) cousin.

The South does a lot of food well, for sure. One thing though I can't stand, and I know I'll get flamed for this, is collared greens. I tried several varieties and recipes, but they taste like poison to me. Just really, really foul. Blech.

Best biscuits I ever had, I think, were in the early '90s of the little coffee shop of whatever cheap motel my then-gf & I stayed in outside Dallas before the first (I think) Lollapalooza. They were made with beer, & while I can't abide drinking the stuff, the biscuits were to die for. Diluting those babies' flavor with gravy would've been a sin. Same (except for the beer part) goes for the biscuits made by (quite counterintuitively) the food service at the Southern Arkansas U. cafeteria when I was living on campus in '77-'78. Excellent.

The South does a lot of food well, for sure. One thing though I can't stand, and I know I'll get flamed for this, is collared greens.

I'll one up you. BBQ, to me, is the worst thing you can do to good meat. I hate it, with the exception of good BBQ pork. BBQ chicken is deader than it's dead mother to me.

One thing though I can't stand, and I know I'll get flamed for this, is collared greens.

Nah -- not worth flaming over. Collards are an acquired taste, & I've only partially acquired it. I eat them more out of a sense of duty than liking, as it were, much as I do Brussells sprouts.

I'll one up you. BBQ, to me, is the worst thing you can do to good meat. I hate it, with the exception of good BBQ pork. BBQ chicken is deader than it's dead mother to me.

I was always partial to South Carolina's mustard base BBQ. Other than that, I like a subtle soy sauce based marinade or, if the meat was good, just a little bit of pepper. I ate my meat rare so usually the fat in the meat would supply me with all the flavor I wanted. I could eat the syrupy, thick red BBQ sauces, but it wasn't my first or second choice.

I'll one up you. BBQ, to me, is the worst thing you can do to good meat. I hate it, with the exception of good BBQ pork. BBQ chicken is deader than it's dead mother to me.

There is nothing better (period) in this world then fresh out of the smokehouse beef brisket. Nothing is ever going to better then that first moment you put that brisket in your mouth. Not sex, not the birth of your kids, not winning the lottery, nothing, absolutely nothing is better.

Brussells sprouts

With lots of better and swiss or parmesan cheese, downright delicious.

I was always partial to South Carolina's mustard base BBQ

Dry rubbed BBQ I think is the best.

"Hispanic men bet on #### fights. Black men bet on dog fights. White men bet on fights between hispanic and black men."

Sam Hutcheson, August 16, 2007

(Obviously in a Vick thread on Usenet)

I like it a lot. Not that it's changed my views on anything (I'll eat chicken, watch boxing or MMA and think various form of animal fights are properly outlawed. Though I still don't get a standard where Mike Vick's actions are seen as worse than Craig MacTavish or Leonard Little)

I look forward to the day that I find real smokehouse brisket and enjoy it. I'm in NY, so I think everything here has to be a pale substitute. What's the closest place to NYC you'd suggest?

A place in Philadelphia that closed 5 years ago.

The problem is that it is close to impossible to find real smokehouse brisket because places even places that might actually smoke it tend to reheat the brisket when they serve it. It isn't the same, brisket should be eaten right out of the smoker.

I know at the very least that in Dallas you could buy brisket and other such BBQ items out on the street from guys smoking in 55 gal drums. Never could bring myself to buy some of that but people loved it.

This gonna sound lame, but on the Food Network there's this dude, Guy who hosts a show: 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives'. He was in Queens (I think) at a auto glass place that apparently does amazing BBQ. That's just his word though. I've never been there.

I eat them more out of a sense of duty than liking, as it were, much as I do Brussells sprouts

Oh C'mon, Brussels Sprouts are awesome. Try them shredded and sauteed or cut in half and roasted. The worst thing you can do to them is boil them.

I look forward to the day that I find real smokehouse brisket and enjoy it. I'm in NY, so I think everything here has to be a pale substitute. What's the closest place to NYC you'd suggest

I haven't ever actually had real barbecue in the south, but Hill Country on 26th tastes pretty damn good to me.

Jeez, why do athletes like having animals fight for their own pleasure. If you ask me, they should either be Men and do it themselves OR be nerds and take it out in a game of Pokemon (which is, of course, Cockfighting/Dogfighting in a cartoonish form... dark stuff, those Pokemon games. Dark, dark stuff)

I haven't lived in the South for years, but to this day the greatest restaurant I ever went to was a cafe in Durham, across from the old American Tobacco factory on Blackwell Street, that featured an 85 cent lunch special of 2 pieces of fried chicken, 3 vegetables (and Brunswick Stew counted as a vegetable), all the cornbread balls you could eat, all the side butter you wanted, and a bottomless pitcher of presweetened iced tea. And for an extra nickel they'd throw in a 12 ounce bottle of Pepsi. I can't even imagine what a steady diet like that would do to me now, but for only 5 meals a week for a few years, it was heaven on earth.

It always blew me away when I lived in Dallas or traveled through the south that McDonalds and other fast food chains would feature biscuits and gravy prominently on their breakfast menus.

Come on out here, and get spam or portuguese sausage with your McDonald's breakfast.

I don't think they have a McDonald's Loco Moco yet.

Collards are an acquired taste, & I've only partially acquired it.

Try growing them yourself -- pick the young leaves, saute briefly at high temperature in oil and garlic, then cover and steam until tender. Delicious!

The ones you buy in the store are VERY tough and have to be cooked forever to be edible at all.

all the cornbread balls you could eat,

Would those be what are known in the vernacular as hushpuppies (though I guess those are properly served only with fried catfish, along of course with coleslaw, raw onions, fries & pickled green tomatoes)?

Otherwise, the very idea of cornbread balls makes me uneasy, especially since you posted right after #168.

all the cornbread balls you could eat,

Would those be what are known in the vernacular as hushpuppies

In Durham there was a great divide of sorts on that very question. 90% of the restaurants there did indeed call them hushpuppies, but since the place that served the best ones called them simply "cornbread" (even though they were ball-shaped), that's how I've always thought of them.

Brussels Sprouts are awesome. Try them shredded and sauteed or cut in half and roasted.

Since you brought up roasting Brussels Sprouts, how do you get them to be crispy all the way through?

My wife and I have tried all combinations of temperature and time and they still come out mushy in the center.

I cut them in half, or if they're big into quarters and roast cut side down at 450 until they're very brown at the edges.

I cut them in half, or if they're big into quarters and roast cut side down at 450 until they're very brown at the edges.

Thanks.. we'll give it a try.

Jumbo lump crabmeat, hushpuppies, and a spicy remoulade sauce, pretty darn good.

This is the best thread ever.

Now to piss off the northerners, I've never liked sauerkraut in my reuben. Hell I never liked sauerkrat in general.

Secondly the French Dip should be a mandatory food item on every single restaurant, diner, cafeteria, and food truck out there.

It was funny when the Marichal cockster took out that tiny bat.

I thought this above joke was very funny. But that's just me...


BTW, legend has it that Elvis Presley called his peni$ "Little Elvis."

In the Seinfeld Episode about cockfighting, Kramer calls his fighting c0ck "Little Jerry Seinfeld", so I guess the "in"
joke is that Kramer is so obsessed with Jerry he even names his own "c0ck" after him , and not himself, like Elvis would.

BTW, legend has it that Elvis Presley called his peni$ "Little Elvis."

That adds a whole new meaning to those Tiny Elvis skits from SNL.

I've had good collard greens twice and no desire to try to make it three.

In Durham there was a great divide of sorts on that very question. 90% of the restaurants there did indeed call them hushpuppies, but since the place that served the best ones called them simply "cornbread"
Where was this? (if you remember - as, who knows, they might still be open...)
Generally, put me in the cornbread should be moist camp.

FWIW, I'm reminded of what is decidedly the strangest order I've ever made from a restaurant with regularity:
I don't like sauerkraut in my reuben either, so I'd get them sans cabbage. So, I order one that way from my corner deli one day and the guy behind the counter (new to the place and not destined to stay there long) asks me what I want on it instead (not exactly how they normally worked). I go "surprise me." He plops on it a scoop of Pennsylvania Dutch style potato salad. Horrified, but intrigued, I don't protest, purchase, and eat the sandwich... which was awesome. So, I start getting it every other Tuesday until, one day when I go in, the guy working the meat counter says "look, it's potato salad guy!", which marked the last time I ever ate there (I don't like being a 'regular' and really am not into being the weirdo regular).
I don't know why it tasted so good - I rarely use/like mayonnaise or mayo-laced foods and, of course, don't add potatoes to my sandwiches as a rule. I got others to try my sandwich as well - all of whom claimed to like it, but none would likely admit as much in public.

dead link man.

Can't really think of any weird food combos that I enjoy, duck with maple syrup is pretty good but that isn't really weird.

dead link man.

Sorry, didn't actually click through to the video.

Best I can do to replace it is a transcript.

So a 30 second ####-fight is inhumane & barbaric, but a chicken living months in a factory farm sitting in its own caca with no room to move is not.

I went to a cockfight once. When I was in grad school, a Cajun friend of mine went to see his family in SW Louisiana, and I met him there. One of his uncles arranged to take us to a cockfight. It was way out in the country, in a converted barn. The sold (excellent) gumbo and cans of beer in one room, and in the other was a ring with a few bleachers around it. To bet, you just walked around the room and flashed your cash ($5 or $10 were standard bets) and yelled "I'll take the red!" (if you wanted the red rooster) until you found someone to bet with. You'd make your bet, then sit down, and it was up to you to find the guy you bet with after the fight.

It was gory, of course. But driving around rural southern Louisiana, you see little rooster houses in people's yards. The roosters have a little house to live in, and free reign to walk around. And when their number comes up, they die fighting. I don't condone it, but compared to the general way that chickens are treated by humans, I wonder if fighting c0cks have it better than most.

Now to piss off the northerners, I've never liked sauerkraut in my reuben. Hell I never liked sauerkrat in general.

It's ok not to like sauerkraut, but it's not that you don't like sauerkraut in your reuben, it's that you don't like reubens. Without the kraut, there's no way it's a reuben! Same with the Thousand Island Heresy - anyone passes that off, you defenestrate that sandwich immediately!

I'm not a northerner and I loooove reubens

In Durham there was a great divide of sorts on that very question. 90% of the restaurants there did indeed call them hushpuppies, but since the place that served the best ones called them simply "cornbread"

Where was this? (if you remember - as, who knows, they might still be open...)

The A.B. Morris Cafe (which was actually a cafeteria) was on the east side of Blackwell Street, maybe two hundred yards below Pettigrew in the Hayti section of Durham. It was directly facing the old American Tobacco Company factory, and just above the location of the new Bulls Athletic Park. It expanded in the late 60's but went under sometime in the early 80's. Durham in general was a hell of a lot better place to live and waste yourself cheaply and well back then than it is today---barbecue joints every other block, 20 cent drafts, the original Bulls' ballpark, and a dozen poolrooms within the city limits. Sheer paradise.

EDIT: The closest comparison I can think of to the A.B. Morris Cafe was a place in Atlanta called something like "Mary Mac's", which I think may still be around today. I went there every time I was in Atlanta in the 60's and 70's, and even though it was a far more genteel place that A.B.'s, it still had that certain defiantly local flavor to it that made everyone keep coming back. But the food itself couldn't touch A.B.'s with a twenty foot pole.

Don't let Eraser hear you say that, he'll probably post about fifteen links on racial atrocities in Durham.

Don't let Eraser hear you say that, he'll probably post about fifteen links on racial atrocities in Durham.

McCoy, I loved Durham like no other city, but one time when I went into another cafeteria (Harvey's) on Main Street with my black girlfriend, we got forced into a deserted upstairs seating area and eventually chased down the back staircase by a knife-wielding 250 pound manager. We took him to court and the judge threw out the case. I was 19 at the time.

On my 21st birthday I was living in Jacksonville (Florida, not N.C.), and got a birthday card from that same (now ex-) girlfriend. In it she enclosed a news clipping that wrote up that cafeteria manager's death. He had blown his own head off with a shotgun. Neither of us went to his funeral.

But I'd still give a lot of money for a time machine that could take me back to that city for about a month. You can have Paris or New York.

Neither of us went to his funeral.

I didn't think you were the type to hold a grudge.

Did you at least send flowers?

Neither of us went to his funeral.

I didn't think you were the type to hold a grudge.

I'm usually not, but in this case he evidently had wanted to attend my funeral first, and it would have seemed unsporting to one-up him.

Did you at least send flowers?

Nah, but my ex- and I sent up a toast to his memory the next time we saw each other. That should count for something.

Well here we go, hot cake dough
Jellybean, banjo, candy store
Polka dot backpack, microphone
Shamalama ding dong doggie bone
Chippee chippa chop, bust a flip-flop
Skateboard, tennis shoes, ice cream shop
Telephone poles, bakin' hot rolls
A '91 Pinto sittin' on Vogues
Bubblegum tick-tock, hound dog fleas
####-a-doodle doo-doo and some hog head cheese
Leap out the room, grab the old broom
Eat a watermelon and walk on the moon
Cherry Coke cantaloupe, little old maid
A big black berry inside the Kool-Aid
A bass guitar, a old fruit jar
A green canteen and a chocolate bar
Cannonball baby doll, football fan
I flipped a mad dog and a Japanese man
A double bunk bed, a 40 to the head
Now get up and watch me rap the cornbread, hey!

Well have ya ever killed a great white shark? Well I have
I was on a boat I built and sailed around the world, don't laugh
Yeah I was a crook an' met Captain Hook an' got tookin' a captive
Wrote a book in 31,000 chapters, yeah yeah, that's it
I seen the ghost of Augie Creek
I went to Fantasy Island, Gilligan's Island, and Pirate's Peak
And then to Napa Valley, rappers' alley and stayed a week
I met the queen of all my dreams and we danced cheek to cheek
And then we freaked
Had a fight with King Kong, Godzilla and Rodan
Johnny Socko's giant robot and wrestled with Conan
I jumped on a rocket with Davey Crockett headed for no man's land
And landed and seen a time bandit in the sand
I traveled with Gulliver and I'm a gullible hobo on patrol
Looking for the Acapulco pot of gold
He blazed, I raised, little bastard got me floated
Hit the road and had to hitch with the son of a ##### who turned into a toad
You ever slept on Blueberry Hill? Well i will
We'll have to connive and cook and clean for a meal and that's real
I planted three jolly green bean weed seeds in a field
A tree grew all the way up to the sky and I smoked it
Well I seen zig-zag as he was zooming in a Z
Looking zonked and zany like a Zulu zombie
He thought he was a zenith with a zebra ont he scene
he was a buzzing in the zone like he was zapped
########!
Well jingle bell, jingle bell, sugar on toast
The Fellowship shop is from the west coast
Hey hash and eggs, crocodile legs
I'll bring the chronic, you bring the kegs
Buckwheat and Stymie's down with Rodney Allen Rippy
While Tommy and Annika was beating up Pippi
Karate chops, snap crackle pops
You do the hip thing and I'll do the hop
Cough up a LOOGY, shake break and boogie
Cause I got a homegirl that's giving out noogies
Mr. George Bush was on my floor
Cracked out, butt-naked, watchin' The Cosby Show
Hey little rascals, Eddie Haskell
Black-eyed peas with a lot of tabasco
Chick-o-sticks, big fat chicks
Old reruns of the Jefferson hits
Eenie-meenie-miney-mo Larry and Shemp
Slide me some skin on the black side, pimp
Training bras, holey drawers
Vonte and D double E is breakin' all the laws
Double dutch afros, parakeet crap
Honey I killed the kids with my raps
Then my DJ Kiilu he came and said
'Yo i'll scratch the break, you rap the cornbread,' Hey!

See I'm a big old black man, a big old black man
A big old black wacky tacky black man
Born with my mama, arrived alone
And I'm alive and survive in a one-room home
Never take a hand-me-down, never dig a bone
I give and I live and I handle my own
Used to be a peewee, now I'm full grown
Not a shufflin' jigaboo, I'm hard like stone
I drink out the jug, I eat out the pot
I learn and I earn and I love what I got
My mama ain't a housewife, Daddy ain't a cop
I was taught to be a fair man, shoot your shot
Snake in the grass, livin' in the past
See nobody got my hindside, I'ma think fast
I'm the chugalug thug from Nicolet and August Street
A watermelon sellin', bailin', no good cheat
Not a lying, two-facin', a liquor jar tastin'
I'm a ebony-woman-chasin', got no time for wastin'
So bring in the news, singin' the blues
I don't shovel no #### and don't shine no shoes
I'm a big old black man, never had a friend
Sittin' on the roof top, listenin' to the wind
My life is on the end, my grin is pretend
I'ma die in my rockin' chair, sippin' on gin, hey!

See I'm a bad boy, I'm Aceyalone, I'm Aceyaloony
I'm Aceyalone a nigga from the boonies
I'm Aceyalow-edge, and whatta coupla booties devoted to zany, rainy rainy toppa gimme land
It's the same ol', same ol' thing baby, bubba
What you say, what you thought was really going on?
You don't know?
Right, right, but you got caught by
Aceyalone ranger, Aceyalone stranger
Willing to gimme a pound cause I'm just bound to lose you
So bamboozle out instead
Just remember that brother who spits the cornbread!

Aceyalone never really got the rap stardom he very clearly deserved.

It's ok not to like sauerkraut, but it's not that you don't like sauerkraut in your reuben, it's that you don't like reubens. Without the kraut, there's no way it's a reuben! Same with the Thousand Island Heresy - anyone passes that off, you defenestrate that sandwich immediately!

Offhand, I don't know that I've ever actually had a reuben prepared by anyone but myself (authorities believe years of veganism/vegetarianism were involved), which means I've never had one with any condiment other than brown mustard. I apologize to any & all I've offended.

(I spent most of my life hating the very thought of sauerkraut, but in, I guess, my 30s, I learned to appreciate it on hot dogs [again, I'm not sure if I've ever had it on a non-vegetarian dog] &, subsequently, defenestrable reubens.)

I haven't lived in the South for years, but to this day the greatest restaurant I ever went to was a cafe in Durham, across from the old American Tobacco factory on Blackwell Street, that featured an 85 cent lunch special of 2 pieces of fried chicken, 3 vegetables (and Brunswick Stew counted as a vegetable), all the cornbread balls you could eat, all the side butter you wanted, and a bottomless pitcher of presweetened iced tea. And for an extra nickel they'd throw in a 12 ounce bottle of Pepsi. I can't even imagine what a steady diet like that would do to me now, but for only 5 meals a week for a few years, it was heaven on earth.

I never tire of Andy's stories of the 1920s.

And, I hate catfish.

Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta is still open. In fact, they recently expanded. Amazing fried chicken and friendly service.

While neither New York or Paris are #1 on my cities of the world, between Durham, Paris, and New York, Durham is, um, third. And yes, I've been to Durham.

And, I hate catfish.

Do you also hate freedom? I can only assume you do.

JC,

Those prices were from 1967, not 1927. And they were exactly as I related them, 85 or 90 cents for the whole shebang, depending on whether you wanted the Pepsi. That's $5.28 or $5.59 in 2007 dollars, which isn't that much less than what you'd pay for a meal today at the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring or Bethesda. You have to remember that cigarettes were a buck eighty back then, too. For a carton.

And tuition and a room at Duke was barely two thousand a year. How many kids did you say you have?

Kevin,

I'm aware, believe me. Last time I was in Durham was in the early 90's. I'm sure it's a great place for high income vegetarians with advanced computer skills.

Son of Dorothy,

Good to hear about Mary Mac's, and that's kind of amazing that it's still there. Can you still just walk into the kitchen and grab a soda out of the refrigerator if your waitress was busy? Hearing about that little idiosyncracy was what got me interested in Mary Mac's in the first place.

While neither New York or Paris are #1 on my cities of the world, between Durham, Paris, and New York, Durham is, um, third. And yes, I've been to Durham.

Yeah, but like Kevin says, it ain't what it used to be. Of course, neither is New York after they shut down McGirr's. And my wife says Paris isn't, either, and she grew up there in the 70's. So it probably comes down to Brunswick Stew vs snails, or soft southern accents vs some indecipherable foreign language.

And, I hate catfish

Tyr it in pieces, dipped in cornmeal and salt and fried. Nothing better, my friend.

That's it, just cornmeal and salt? Fried in peanut oil?

That sounds about right. The restaurant here on base fries its catfish in a cornmeal batter, but that results in a breaded effect, which IMHO is far from optimal.

Catfish coated in cajun spices, under the broiler for ten minutes. Glorious.

Catfish dredged in "gunpowder" seasoning, cooked in skillet for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, put on a plate with a herb mayo and a jicama-pepper slaw. Then take that plate and throw it in the garbage and get yourself a dry aged 16oz KC strip grill to rare to med rare and serve with a gorzonola cream sauce and roasted garlic mashed potatoes with the skins.

Vegetarian, vegan or no, I've never been one for steak of any kind. We never had it when I was a kid (just as well, since my mother's main cooking implement was a can opener) & I never, ever developed any sort of liking for it. Never was big on beef (or pork, either), period, as opposed to chicken or fish.