05.22.06

Road Trip USA

Posted in BBQ, Meats, On The Open Road, Sweets at 10:26 am by Administrator

I can assure you that most cab drivers on this planet do not take road trips when they go on holiday. It takes a special kind of mania for a man to drive 20+ hours during his vacation from a job that entails driving as much as 12 hours a day.

But I love driving. And the miles you put behind you on a road trip are of an entirely different species from the miles that creep by in the city. Cruise control for a cab driver is like sweet, slow sex.

My roadtrip to North Carolina this weekend was exactly what the doctor ordered. I left New York City behind, and, after my pit stop at Rutt’s Hut, I headed rapidly south and west. Waiting for me in his farm house was my best friend of 20 years: Ian.

Ian has had a disproportionately strong influence on my life. It was Ian who convinced me when I was ten to refrain from wearing shoes for an entire summer (the bottoms of my feet have never been the same). It was Ian who convinced me when I was 19 to shoot the swollen falls on my first time in a canoe at Little Falls on the Potomac River (we almost made it; three other guys died that same day at Little Falls but they were drunk, they’d stolen the canoe, and they did it at night). It was Ian again who convinced me when I was 22 that the Gobi Desert in Outer Mongolia would a great place to spend the high holidays (I got very sick on fermented horse milk, a theme that will reemerge in this post). And it was Ian who convinced me last summer to sail from Cape Cod to Bar Harbor on open water even though I had no idea how to be a deck hand (I spent about 18 hours of the journey incapacitated from seasickness).

(Leaning overboard left me in th pefect position to view the sea creatures; but it was the Guss pickles onboard that cured my seasickness)

Without Ian, I’d probably never make it outside my cellphone coverage. But I’d like to think that I’ve had an effect on his existence as well. I’m sure it was more my doing than his that drove us to ride our bikes to the Giant after school for months in 8th grade to eat french bread and artichoke hearts on the sidewalk. And I’d like to think that I had something to do with the fact that, during my trip to visit him in Maine a few years back, we spent a day finding the perfect live lobsters, playing with them while that ran around his bathtub, boiling them, and feasting.

(I was worried Ian had become too immersed in southern culture when I saw the bathtub on his lawn in NC, but I guess I was relieved when I found out it was a solar powered hot tub he built himself)

So when I arrived in North Carolina, Ian was ready for me. He lives in the middle of what the locals call “The Triangle” (the area between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill). Knowing what floats my boat, he took me (and our friend Nanda) in his pick up truck on a Three City Triangle Eating Tour On The Wheels Of Steel.

The first stop on the tour was breakfast. When Ian told me we were going to a franchised chain restaurant with almost 50 locations, I can’t say I was excited. I was happy to see that we drove past the spot on the white side of town and purposely hit the one in the black neighborhood because it had a reputation for cooking with more butter.

It is called Biscuitville, and it turned out to be exactly what I always imagined the south to be like. Their motto is “Biscuits the way your grandma made them, only faster,” and they only serve and are only open for breakfast. Everyone knew everyone there (at least they acted like they did), and the cashiers were so friendly I thought they must have known me. The biscuits, being made in plain sight by three honest to goodness southern black grandmas, were ridiculously good. They were all served hot, flaky, and buttery.

Biscuitville serves all the classic southern dishes, and they put them in a fresh biscuit. I had the chicken fried steak on a biscuit. Even after a day of debaucherous eating, I went to sleep thinking about my biscuit, dreamt about my biscuit, and woke of drooling over my biscuit. On my way back up I-95 the next morning, I pulled off for a biscuit with country ham, and I dreamt the same dream the next night.

But in the Triangle, barbeque is king. Ian had two bbq joints in store for us on the tour. The first was named, aptly, BBQ Joint. This being my first eating tour in North Carolina, I had no idea that NC BBQ is proudly distinct from the more common varieties you might find in Arkansas or Texas. NC BBQ’s main difference, as far as I could tell, is that it is made with a healthy portion of vinegar. BBQ Joint was mouth-watering:

but I must say the vinegar was overpowering. It was as if they were so proud of the vinegar angle, that they killed the pulled pork with it. When I tasted it, I was felt like telling the chef, “Okay, I get it. BBQ around here is vinegary. Point taken.”

The second place Ian took me nailed it. The bbq at Hog Heaven was a perfectly balanced blend of tangy bbq sauce, salty pulled pork, and almost sweet vinegar. And the hush puppies went so well it made me think I should have some fried fritters with every meal regardless of if I am in the south.

Ian concluded the eating tour, fittingly for a man living on a farm, on a farm. We pulled up to Maple View Farm feeling a little weighed down from the day of eating. But I found some room in belly when I looked at the bins of homemade ice cream just steps away from the Holstein cows who supplied the milk. We sat on rocking chairs and devoured cookies and cream, butter pecan, and vanilla ice cream feeling like true southern gentlemen with our southern belle.

Everyone was ready to go, but I hesistated when I caught sight of the refridgerator of fresh whole milk. Something about cold milk in a glass container is simply irresistable to me. I bought a half gallon glass jar, and tried to finish it on the premises because it was delicious enough to try to down in one gulp (and I’m a cheap bastard who wanted his glass deposit back).

As you might imagine, half a gallon of whole milk on top of buttery biscuits, chicken fried steak, two kinds of bbq, hush puppies, and ice cream left me feeling less than stellar. As I writhed in pain on the flat bed of Ian’s pick up truck while we bumped down the dirt road to the Eno River state park, I wondered how Ian would convince me to take the ten mile hike he had in store for me next.

Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a guffaw or to book an eating tour

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