Southern Fun

NEED I SAY MORE?

San Sebastian part III

So we spend a few more days checking out Bordeaux and the surrounding area. It’s kinda of overwhelming as there is so much to see and do. We go to Vin Expo one day and that was unreal. Like I said before it is the largest wine convention in the world, everyone and their brother were there. We tasted lots of good wine, I am sure. Met lots of nice people, I’m sure. We also went back to St.Emilion for dinner one night. We went with our roommates and with their knowledge of wine we were able to try wines we will probably never see again. Bordeaux was fun, I’m glad we went and I’m ready to move on.

So it’s off to San Sebastian. Never been there, I have no idea what to expect. I had learned a little bit about the Basque and their struggle to hold on to the culture. It makes sense to me, these people have one of the richest histories that survives today. At this time the world was a more peaceful place and you could drive from country to country and never stop at a boarder crossing. We went through what looked like a toll gate each time, but no one was there to collect money or look at passports. Stacey and I were the first to arrive and we had no idea where we are going once we hit San Sebastian. We end up on a road that is on jetty that sticks out into Bay of Biscay. Lots of water sports going on even though it’s kinda cold. Funny thing is we hardly park and right behind us are our roommates. And we have parked right across for the hotel Parmma. So we check in as we have no rooms reserved anywhere else. Then we head up the street to the Bar at the End of the World. That’s the name of it and it sits almost in the water, at the end of the road that we had just happened to park on, where we just happened to meet our friends and where we just happened to get a room for the night. I have no idea how we got so lucky, but on top of that about an hour later the other half of our party showed up. They end up right where we are and are able to get a room as well.

Do You Know the Way to St. Emilion? part II

So we have checked into our horse stable and if the guy had not told us so we really never would have known. It’s more like a ground floor garage apartment with a beautiful view of row after row of grape vines.

Our roommates show up the next day, following in our path. They flew to Barcelona and drove to Bordeaux. But, they didn’t need to stop at a truck stop and sleep like us. They found us with no problem. I am amazed that we can pull this off. You fly for about ten hours, then you have to drive for another three or four, from one country to another. Your in a place you have never been to before and with directions on paper you find a vineyard run by a man you can not communicate with and your friends do the same thing the next day with no problem.

So the rest of the group shows up later that night for dinner. We have moved the large dining table out to the court yard and have prepared a meal to share. I can’t remember all we had, but I do remember we prepared chickens with a stuffing made with the figs we bought the day before. We had a great time as you can imagine. There was about ten of us from different parts of the Southeast and here we were sitting across a dirt road from a field of grapevines having dinner. I remember we had trouble with the stove, it would not get as hot a needed to cook the bird in a timely fashion. No problem we had tons of good, fresh, local wines and no where to go any time soon.

The next day Stacey and I are on our own and we decide to drive to Saint Emilion. Saint Emilion is a very old city where the Romans planted grapes in 2 AD. It is about 40 miles from Bordeaux and is practically carved out of the limestone cliffs which surrounds the city. Saint Emilion is tiny and tight. Narrow roads and alleys and it all goes straight up, or down depending on where you park. Stacey and I spent the day just walking around and checking out the sights. The small city center is at the bottom edge of the cliffs. If you start at the top, like we did, you walk down and down and around and twist and turn and end up at the bottom of the city looking up at the huge church carved in the cliffs side. The city is really built on this cliff side and if you find the right place the views are great. Vineyards for as far as you can see.

That was all we did that day and that was enough, it is a special place in this world. We have plans to meet our friends back at our place to go to dinner. We were on our own that day because the couple we were staying with had to attend Vin Expo, as in, they had to work. So our plan was to meet about dark and find someplace really cool to have dinner.

Well Stacey and I got lost going home. It’s all small roads around these parts, no highways and not many signs. So after about thirty minutes of knowing we are lost Stacey is getting a little restless. I just laughed and said , yea were lost in Bordeaux, France. This did not suck.

Southerners in Spain part I

I have been thinking about Spain, as in San Sebastien, lately. Reason being is that I am working for a client who pays me in room and board at her house in France. What you say, France? You’re thinking Spain but your writing France. Thing is her house is in the Basque region of France, on the Spanish boarder. The Basque region stretches through both France and Spain. Her home is in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains, where the hills meet the Atlantic Ocean. It is a beautiful rugged part of the world, we really enjoyed our first visit and can’t wait to go again.

My friends house is in a village called Soca. It is very close to St. Jean de Luz, which is a vacation town on the French side of the Pyrenees. It is also very close to San Sebastian, which is on the other side of the Pyrenees. And if you have ever been to San Sebastian you know what a good thing that is. Especially if you like to eat, there is no other place on earth like San Sebastian when it comes to food.

I think I will back it up and take a few days to tell you how we came to visit this ancient city I had hardly ever heard of. It was years ago, maybe seven or eight, when a friend in the wine business invited us to meet him in Bordeaux, France for Vin Expo. Vin Expo is the largest wine gathering in the world. Wine makers come from all over the world come to show off their wines for the world. We just went along for fun and it was fun indeed.

As we planed the trip we split into two groups and each found a place to rent in or around Bordeaux. Our group was smaller than the other, it was just Stacey and I and friends who were in the wine business in Alabama. We found a place to stay in the Graves region, at Chateau Lacoste.

So this is the first leg of this trip and man was it a trip. The nearest to Bordeaux we could fly direct from Atlanta was Barcelona, Spain. Another city I really, really love, but we had no plans to visit this trip. We were gonna land, take a cab to the train depot and get a train to Bordeaux. No problem, yea right. We flew first class, get to Barcelona and because we flew first class I was probably drunk. They just don’t know how to say no in first class when it comes to more wine , please. I usually drink all night on these trips and pay for it for a few days. Anyway we land, get the cab and he rips us off for about $30.00 on the fare. That never happens now that we are savvy travelers. Inside the train depot we realize that we calculated the time change wrong and we have like twelve hours to wait for the train. Then we have the ride to Bordeaux and then we have to get to our rental house. We decide to rent a car and drive. The car rental is at the airport, so back in a cab and it only cost half as much to get back to the airport, go figure. We rent a car and get a map and hit the road. Now at this point we have not slept for more than twenty four hours and we are gonna try and drive about four hours to Bordeaux. NOT. We hit the brick wall about an hour on the road. I didn’t see any Holiday Inns or Motel 6 or 5 or whatever. We did figure out that the gas stations/restaurant/truck stop was the place to get a room, so we pulled over for the next one and got the one person running the whole operation to show us a room. Clean, small, warm and dry, we’ll take it. We lay down and of course can’t sleep. We go downstairs to the restaurant and eat a little food, still can’t sleep. So we get in the car and go for a little ride. We are in a small village, there seems to be no commerce of any kind until we find a small bar. We go in and it’s just us and the guy running the place and neither of us can speak the others language. We manage to order something to drink, we drink, get tired and go back to truck stop and fall asleep.

Next morning we head out and have a lovely drive through the Pyrenees, into France from Spain. We stop at a roadside produce stand somewhere in France and buy a few things as we are to cook dinner for the whole group the first night and them the next night. We find the largest figs I have ever seen in my life, they are a purplish black and about the size of a baseball. We continue on and find our rental without much problem. We are staying at a Chateau that has converted the horse stables to a carriage house and it’s right nice, if not a bit musty.

Tortas, taco, goat and oxtail on the southside

Chef is without a job momentarily so we have been trying to get together for lunch once a week. Understand that lunch with Chef is not a normal lunch outing. It’s probably that way with most chefs. They are never happy unless they have tried about three or four items from the menu and they want you to have three or four thing from the menu so they can try those dishes as well.

So Chef shows up at my house with some food he has already picked up. We had talked about doing a taco crawl. We were gonna hit two or three taco joints in the neighborhood and than we wanted to check out this place I had found that looked like a cross between a used car lot and a Bar B Que shack. The sign out front read Tootsie Produce and Pig Grill, how could we go wrong?

Well like I said Chef shows up and he had a sandwich, four tacos and one tamale. The sandwich or torta if you will, was made with al pastor, beef marinated with pineapple. Tortas always seem to be on the large side and usually the bun is steamed. This one had all these qualities and was very good.

The tacos are the thing, I could eat a million of these and at the usual price of $1.50 per, you can afford to have as many as you like. We had one pork, one chorizo, one carne asada and one tongue. They were all good but I do have a problem with the texture of the tongue, it’s to chewy for me.

The tamale was great, it was typical of Mexican tamales except this one had a red gravy on it. I have seen this in Mississippi but not in Atlanta. Tamales are good and I could eat them like tacos if they were not so filling, all that corn ya know.

We had planned to hit another taco joint but decided we had had enough Mexican food so we got in the truck and headed for Tootsie Pig Grill. We get there and I go in the place for the first time ever. It’s a convenience store and the guy running the place tells us he has Bar B Que almost everyday except Fridays. That’s when he has to work and can’t get someone to look after the grill. And that’s today damn it. So I get some info from him and tell him I will see him soon to try his Que.

So Chef and I decide to try a place we passed that had a sign in the window offering curry dishes. Goat, oxtail, and chicken curry, sounds good. So we tell the little man with the Caribbean accent, working the counter, that we would like a goat and a oxtail. The soup Chef ask for is not available today, maybe next time. The place is cold so we get the food to go and in typical island style they are in no hurry. So about 20 minutes later we are on our way back to my house to eat.

Both dishes are good, they both come with rice and black-beans and a couple slices of plantains. The goat is the best and not greasy or gamey as I have had before. The oxtails are small and not what I am used to getting from the local soul-food restaurant. We both agree that our lunch was a success and make a plan for next week.

bunch a paintings and cigar box cabinet

I got a lot of work to do these days. Usually I would have to be out in the streets, doing markets on the weekend to stay this busy. Maybe after ten years I won’t have to do so many markets, the phone rings and rings. I get a call almost everyday about work. It’s nice to pick and choose a little. I have been turning down furniture jobs that don’t interest me, that’s nice. Used to be I said yes before a person could get the question out of their mouth. I said yes to most any furniture job, not so much anymore. I want to do more painting and less furniture, seems it’s gonna work out for me.

Right now I’m doing about five paintings, some are orders, some are for events. Tomorrow some friends are part of a wine event at their doggie boutique. That’s right wine at the doggie boutique. I have a couple of pieces hanging there and will hang more for this event. They tell me they sell a thousand tickets for this “wine crawl” so maybe I’ll sell something.

I am also working on a cabinet for the crazy client that had me make a coffee table from a old pickup truck tail gate. This time I have built a cabinet that is 40″ wide and 30″ tall and 24″ deep. I have finished the building of this project and am now covering the whole thing in cigar box lids. It looks great. This lady has collected about a million cigar boxes and didn’t know what to do with them. I like it, think it’s a good idea.

Even with all this hard work to do I will make time today to have lunch with Chef. Our plan is to hit 2 or 3 taco joints in my hood and then head a little further south and check out a place I have spied lately. It has a sign out front that says something like “tropical market and pig grill”. Sometimes I see a lady cooking at an outdoor grill, sometimes I see no one. I got to check it out and Chef is just the guy to do it with. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Dinner in NYC without leaving the South

The other night Stacey and I had dinner in NYC and never left Atlanta. We joined some friends for an early evening of music and then started looking for a place to eat. Chef had told me of a new place in midtown and we were in the area so let’s try it.

Top FLR is located in an elevator shaft with a kitchen the size of a walk in closet. I am constantly amazed at the food that can come out of a place this size. It is not unusual to find a place like this in NYC, they’re a dime a dozen. And for some reason most of the time they are really good. I don’t know if it’s because of the size and that allows for the chefs to focus on each dish more than usual or maybe, and this is what I like to think, but maybe it’s small because of the start up budget, that this is all they could afford. What I’m trying to say is, that a group or a chef or whoever, opened such a tiny space and made it work, it is a mark of their passion for the restaurant business.

Top Flr is tiny but has it all, a nice size bar, with three 2 toppers on the ground floor. To get to the restroom one must walk between the bar and the kitchen. The kitchen looks to be about 15′ square. The dining room is upstairs which we never made it to because we had no reservation. It’s Saturday night about nine o’clock, the three small tables in the front window have a couple sitting at the middle table. So we start moving tables and chairs, sit down and realize we are blocking the waitrons path from the kitchen to the rest of the restaurant. The four of us kinda act like we don’t know what to do, which was easy for us. Finally the couple said they would move to one side and lets us sit together. He wasn’t real pleased at first, she was cool. We bought him a glass of wine and he chilled out. We even got to talking to them, she was from NYC so I ask her write down some of her favorite restaurants in the city. Which she did, which was nice of her.

Anyway we settled in, ordered and watched people come in the front door, go up the stairs and come right back down and leave. The place was full and no one was going anywhere fast. There was a really nice pace about the place and the meal.

So the food? It’s real good, it’s not to expensive and it’s fresh. Free form ravioli was prepared with shrimp that night, corn and other vegetables were added. Stacey had a pizza I can’t remember the details, but it was very good. I remember there was mac and cheese and it was baked and it was good. Someone had a hanger steak that I had a bite of, perfect, I will order that next time.

They are open really late, 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. weekends, that’s so NYC ya know. That’s about as much as I can remember, I wasn’t driving so………….