Georgia (Q) on my Mind

Originally posted on Posterous, September 2012

The Death of the Month Club guest of honor for September was my sister-in-law Jo's mother. The service was in Georgia, in the small town of Chatsworth. We stayed next door in Dalton. Founded in 1847, Dalton has a population of roughly 33,000 souls. The battle of Rocky Face Ridge and Dug Gap was fought here, during the War Between the States, ending when General Joseph Johnston withdrew from Dalton on May 12, 1864. Johnston's chiefly remembered here for leaving: the townsfolk erected a statue of him for having done so.

After the service and lunch with the family, we spent the afternoon hiking Rocky Face Ridge outside Dalton. A lovely place for a hike/climb in the woods, it must have been hell to attack. Ridges of rock set in place as battlements (twice attacked, and twice successfully defended) are still there, tumbled over now, and peacefully growing lichen.

After an afternoon in the woods, we were starving, and dinner south of the Mason-Dixon line meant barbecue. We chose Miller Brothers Rib Shack.

It's a cheerful little place that seats no more than 40, and seems to do a booming takeaway business as well. Red-and-white checked tablecloths cover the tables, and I noticed a Bible lying on one of them. Not a slick Gideon number, this was an old King James, so well-thumbed the cover was curling.

The walls were covered with Black-experience posters: B. B. King, Nelson Mandela, the Rev. Dr. King, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman—and we were the only white folks in the place. The waitress, a pretty girl of about 20 came over, a guarded look in her eye.

She asked what we wanted to drink, and brought it without comment. Returning to take our order, she asked if we were from out of town. Yes, we said; we were down from St. Louis due to a death in the family. Southern hospitality is no myth, and the people of Georgia are just about the most hospitable you'll find. No exception this young lady: the reason for our being in Dalton thawed her completely. After expressing gracious condolences, she did what generations of women in the South have done when succor and solace are required: she fed us—after detailed comparison of our tastes and the menu.

Miller's bills itself as a 'rib shack', but I'm not big on ribs. I can't eat bones; keep 'em, and just bring me the meat. We both chose the brisket instead: it was smoky, with a sweetish, lightly-spiced tomato-based sauce with a faint suggestion of vinegar. It could have been a little more tender, but the flavor was still fantastic. Sides were Brunswick stew, corn on the cob, and Texas toast.

I hadn't been to Brunswick stew  in 30 years. This one was beef-based, with  corn, a little tomato, a modest amount of okra, and a hint of onion. Faintly smoky and on the thin side, it was good enough I had to force myself not to lick out the ramekin after I'd gobbled the contents—I could have made a meal on this alone.

The corn on the cob (half an ear, interestingly enough) was fresh, not too buttery, and served upright in a ramekin to keep it chastely separate from its more influential plate-mates. The toast was likewise not too buttery; browned just right, it was just crisp enough to be perfect.

As we ate, my mind wandered back to the last time I'd found myself in the racial minority. I'd been working at the local middle school for a year or two. The African-American population in Webster is all of 6.6%; the African-American population of the district I work for closer to 24%. We all manage to live and work together without too many bumps and bruises, so I found myself horrified one day as I was working on the computers in one of the special-services classrooms. Most of the kids in the room were black, as was the teacher. The book under study was The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963, and I was listening to the conversation with one ear until the teacher said, "So what do you think Whitey's gonna do next?" Talk about sudden verticality, realizing that 'Whitey' was sitting in my chair.

The best remedy for uncomfortable memories, I say, is dessert. Pie, for preference, and Miller's offers Key Lime, chocolate cream, dark chocolate, and sweet potato—house made.

Tom chose the dark chocolate. He said it was good, but not spectacular. I must say (with a thoroughly unpardonable smugness) that my sweet potato pie was nothing short of a religious experience. Though the crust was indisputably an undistinguished boughten one, it was filled with a creamy custard. Neither too heavy nor too rich, it was satiny smooth, thickened with egg yolk. Lots of sweet potato flavor blended with just a hint of nutmeg, and a distinct caramel undertone—it was utter simplicity, Nirvana on a plate. The folks at Miller's know it, too: addition of a dollop of whipped cream might have been appealing visually, but would have made it too rich. They wisely leave well enough alone.

I made myself eat it slowly, and found I was doing so with my eyes closed when, last bite gone, I came back to reality with a bump. Grinning, the waitress took my empty plate, admitting she had had a piece of it for breakfast. As Harper Lee observed in To Kill A Mockingbird, there's just one kind of folks—folks. Sweet potato pie makes the whole world kin, and as she waved us out the door she sent after us that most Southern of open invitations:

"Y'all come back now, hear?"

You better believe I will.

Dinner: Porterhouse Reprise

Originally posted on Posterous, May 6, 2012

We'd take Porterhouse home to St. Louis if we could—lacking any good way of doing it, though, we content ourselves with another meal there. This time, we don't waste time on sampler-sized drink; Tom gets the Irish Red, and I opt for the oyster stout. The place is nearly full to capacity, so we're up on the third floor this time, at a table next to a huge copper still, which has been given a new life as a piece of furniture. The ceiling above it is also polished copper—incredibly beautiful. Through the window, we can watch a mother magpie feeding her nestful of babies, and watch the traffic about on Parliament Street.

The view inside is just as interesting: tonight, there's a female academic from Chicago loudly holding forth at a table otherwise full of students from the UK, who don't seem to have been to the US. This poses no problem, since the lady possesses the ability to chatter (loud, quacking voice) without any need to draw breath. She gives St. Louis a pasting, and pours scorn over Omaha—neither, according to her, is as stellar as Chicago...though I greatly wonder at her need to inform a tableful of intelligent people that Lakeshore Drive actually runs along the shore of Lake Michigan. I've nearly decided it would be worth whatever punishment assault gets, here in Dublin, for the pleasure of dumping my beer over her head, when we notice the two French girls (dark, exotically pretty) at the next table seem to think as little of Suzy Chicago as we do.

While I'm most sincerely sorry to note that the prettier of the two is drinking bottled Corona—surely a punishable offense here!—they're interestingly intense and expressive. Their conversation is fast and emphatic,and, while I haven't had French since high school, it doesn't take any doing at all to understand "Ce soir? Avec lui??? JAMAIS!!!"

Dinner arrives just about then: fish and chips for me, a Porterhouse pie and salad for Tom. The pie is a cute little thing, perhaps 5 inches across and1.5 inches deep, browned so dark its surface is nearly black. It's filled with chunks of very tender beef and a few veggies in a thick brown gravy. Fairly highly flavored with onion, it's delicious—so much so that the bite I do get I swipe while Tom is covertly eyeing the French girls. (Cherche les femmes, messieurs!) The beer for both of us was the Oyster we'd had the last time we were here.

My fish is a huge slab, elegantly enrobed in a golden batter. It's fried crisp, with no oiliness clinging to it, and the fish inside is moist, flaky perfection. It's perched on a huge pile of chips, thick-cut—gold-crisp outside, and mealy-good within. A full quarter of a lemon arrived with it, and, squeezed over fish and potatoes, it's the final touch required for dining delight.

There's a small pot of traditional British 'mushy peas' next the fish. These are the mushiest I've ever seen; perhaps the descriptor should have been 'mushed peas.' But they taste good, and I get around them in record time. I've also got a portion of salad—greens, garnished with slivered carrot and a splash of vinaigrette. The greens look alarmingly like dandelion leaves, and have a distinctive, spicy taste, and the counterpoint they make with the fish is stunning.

We have room to split a dessert, and opt for the bread-and-butter pudding. This is no dodge to use up stale leftovers—the bread is a challah-like triumph of the baker's art. It would be a proud addition to any Sabbath table, so, as a foundation for bread pudding, it has no rivals. Dense, sweet, and yellow with eggs, it's enhanced, rather than disguised, by caramel and chocolate sauces, cinnamon, and a handful of sultanas. A restrained scoop of caramel ice cream and halved strawberries complete the presentation, and it's so rich we can hardly finish it. Good? 'Good' describes this dish in the way a candle would be suitable metaphor for the blazing noonday sun. It was awesome, fantastic, magic.

Followed by a walk home across Temple Bar, it was perfect.

Dinner: Porterhouse Brewing in Temple Bar

Originally posted on Posterous, May 2, 2012

Tonight's feast was courtesy Porterhouse Brewing in Temple Bar. All-wood, graffiti-carved tables, with what looked like a painted tin ceiling, I loved the atmosphere—I wouldn't have been surprised to see either Johnson or Pepys walk in; instead, we shared the space with well-mannered tourists, college kids, and one heavy-set lady in a thoroughly incongruous Che Guevara t-shirt. The sound system was playing good vintage rock: early Beatles (Day Tripper), Stones (Satisfaction), Black Sabbath (Paranoid), and Alice Cooper (Lace and Whiskey).

We started with a taster round of three light and three dark brews, all house-made, and on tap.

Lights: 
An Brainblasta
Thick, almost chewy. Moderate hops, with a long, bitter finish. Nice, round maltiness beneath. This was GOOD, and I'll be back for more.

Turner's Stickelbract Bitter
Very hoppy, but just a little bitter. Not much malt evident, and it seemed a little watery. In fact, it disappeared entirely with food.

Porterhouse Red
Good aroma, nice creamy head, good balance between hops and malt. A little thinner than the O'Hara's we had two nights ago, but still good.

Darks:
Oyster Stout
Not much aroma, but a nice, velvety head. Smooth and creamy, and the malt comes in after, lingering on your tongue. It's light, but good; a little sweet, and held up to food best of the three darks.

Plain Porter
Fluffy head, bitter. Faint hint of coffee; lingering bitter finish. Good, but not as sophisticated as the Oyster.

Wrasslsr's XXXX Stout
Dark, fluffy head—VERY malty. Lingering bitterness, not as creamy as the Oyster, but very good all the same.

The accompanying meal was pork and leek bangers (that's sausages, to the uninitiated) with mashed spuds.

The bangers were crisp outside, moist inside—very good!—and the potatoes were real, with unabashed lumps. The whole thing was doused with a fantastic beer-and-onion gravy, and served up in a huge Yorkshire pudding. Best of the beers to go with it were the Red and the Oyster. I found, when I got down that far, that the gravy had soaked into the pud–so I ate that, too, faux pas or not.

Dessert? Irish coffee chocolate mousse, flavored with Jameson's. A whipped cream base, well-flavored with chocolate, coffee, and whiskey, it arrived garnished with strawberry halves, sticky chocolate sauce swirled on the plate beneath, and grated chocolate on top. Good? Try 'stellar,' and you'll be close. We followed it with a glass of Greenmore Single-Grain, eight years old. Very smooth it was, with a hint of caramel, and no peat—traditional in Irish whiskey.

I would have happily sat there all night, tasting my way through the 15 or 20 whiskeys listed on the menu, and maybe having a second dessert. Too full, though—we'll have to come back.

Dinner: Bull and Castle

Originally posted on Posterous, May 1, 2012

We've passed the Bull & Castle Gastropub in Lord Edward Street several times a day since we arrived, and, since it was between Christchurch and the flat, it seemed a good prospect for the evening. The interior is dark, with wood panelling, a dark wood back-lit bar, and lots of small tables, each with a candle. Very inviting, as was the bill of fare. We both opted for seafood: I chose the seafood pie, and Tom the mussels and chips. We ordered an 8-beer taster to start, and, since we were unfamiliar with the local brews, we let the waitress choose for us. What arrived was:

Galway Hooker
Never mind the name—it's a reference to a traditional sailboat, folks. This is an Irish pale ale, very malty, lightly hopped. No added chemicals, apparently, and they take something like 6 weeks for fermentation. I'm not generally a fan of pale beers, but this was good.

Buckleys Golden Ale
This one's from Carlow Brewing. It's got a reasonably malty scent and taste, and enough hops to leave a bright, bitter finish. It's drinkable, though unremarkable, rather reminiscent of lager, truth be told.

Carrig
Maltier than the IPA (see below), and not too hoppy—it's OK, but undistinguished. Mostly, this one brought to mind the old Hobgoblin beer tag line, "What's the matter, lager boy? Afraid you're gonna taste something?" It's better with food than alone, but I wouldn't go to the effort of crossing the street to drink it again.

Dark Arts
Disappointingly watery, for a dark beer. Fuggedaboudit.

O'Hara's Irish Red
Malty and caramelly—not too heavy, with an almost molasses-y bottom note. Sweet, toasty, and gloriously ruby-colored, this one was the pick of the litter, far and away the best of the evening. It's reasonably full-bodied, with a scent as good as its taste.

O'Hara's Stout
This was the last glass we got to, so it sat for nearly 25 minutes undisturbed. Nevertheless, it still had a good head to it—I definitely approve. Mild, but good, and nicely dark, it turned out to be even more malty in aftertaste than going down—bravo, O'Hara's, this is excellent! It's balanced, with an understated, mild hopping, and good body. If I can't find this in the States, I'm gonna cause the biggest uproar the local beer purveyors have ever seen!

O'Hara's IPA
Hoppy & a little bitter, but not aggressively so—lighter than I'd normally drink, but good. Almost spicy with food, and no longer bitter. This is one I'd definitely keep around for hot summer weather.

Metalman
This one was slightly malty, but watery—NOT a fan. It tasted a little sour with food, too. No, thank you!

There were two academics at the next table: chemists discussing thermodynamics, material science, chemistry, and a hapless grad student called Robbie. It seems Robbie should use Sean's code, rather than start from scratch. It really was hard to eavesdrop discreetly, so close to the bone was the conversation. Our older son, Christopher, also a grad student, has been fighting other parts of the collaboration to re-write some code that's so abysmal it actually impedes the group's research. No one wants to agree, because it's what they've ALWAYS used. Never mind that Christopher is willing to take the time to do the job better.....

Pity the long-suffering grad student, folks. He (or she) is expected to work 24/7/365, for a pittance, and make miracles happen for the profs.

Over beer and fish and chips, these guys argued their way through steady state, microscopic connections, and the eutechtic transformation. It was fascinating to hear their opinion of how their national labs work, compared with how ours do.

Though the fish and chips at the next table looked very good, I hardly know where to start about the humbly-named seafood pie. It arrived hot as the hubs of hell, a vat of it, under a blanket of mashed potato and cheese. The sauce was creamy, and contained mussels, salmon, smoked fish of some sort, and veggies. The lemon garnish, which I destroyed pursuit of its juice, was a perfect complement. Good? Folks, they serve this in heaven—I'm morally certain of it.

Tom's mussels were just as good—a stew-pot full of them—tender and sweet, with just enough sauce to enhance them.

Dessert was a white chocolate panna cotta, garnished with chocolate sauce swirled beneath if on the plate and some currants, accompanied by a small scoop of excellent strawberry ice cream skewered by a large shard of very good chocolate. The panna cotta was very suave and creamy, with just barely enough gelatin to retain its shape—PERFECT. We washed it down with another O'Hara's Red, at which point we were both comfortably full....and, for once, smart enough to quit.

Dinner: Brazen Head

Originally posted on Posterous, April 30, 2012

Husband still asleep; tea and time to think. Still full from dinner last night, which we ate at the Brazen Head—the oldest pub in Dublin, and possibly, as Marie so rightly points out, in Europe. According to the books, there's been some kind of pub/ tavern/eatery on the site since 1198—which beats Vienna's Gosser Bierklinik by a good 500 years.

We went out of our way to walk along the Liffey on the way—and had it to ourselves, since rain only deters lesser mortals. On arriving, you fend for yourself by poking your head into one after another of the warren of small rooms to find an empty table. We ended up in a cozy side room, at a small table against the an iron stove that looked as though it used to do duty as both heat and cooking. It was snug and warm enough without, thanks to the crowd, and the candle atop it was an inviting touch. A bit more disconcerting was the coffin against which I was leaning. Propped against the wall, it's apparently been there long enough to be part of the decor.

What to drink? Guinness, of course—and the books are right; it's an entirely different critter here than in the States. It's a great deal smoother, and far less bitter. No clue if it's less hops, or a different kind of them, but it was very suave, with a velvety head that clung to the sides of the glass like a cold egg to a plate as I drained it. If the gods drink beer, surely this is their choice.

The first glass done, we had another with the meal. Since the venue was so traditional, we went that way with the food, as well: beef-and-Guinness stew for me, and lamb stew for Tom. Mine came served inside the biggest Yorkshire pudding I've ever seen, and had chunks of meat half the size of my palm, tender enough to knock apart with the spoon it arrived with. Jostling with mushrooms, celery, carrots, and a few other veggies in a rich brown gravy, and topped by a double scoop of mashed potatoes, it was redolent of rosemary and thyme—indescribably delicious. Tom's Irish stew was nearly as good, though he had to twist my arm to make me honor my promise to swap plates with him halfway through the meal. I could only manage one slice of the excellent wholemeal bread that arrived with it, and dessert unthinkable. (Famous first....)

The ambience was friendly and low-key, with a blend of local and foreign folk. I caught French, Canadian English, and what I think was Polish in addition to the local accent, and conversation amongst tables was easy and companionable—hard not to be, considering their proximity.
The music was interestingly eclectic and not loud enough to impede conversation. I caught the Stones (Angie), Blondie (Heart of Glass), Dire Straits (Money for Nothing), the Beatles (All You Need is Love), and Dido (Two Little Gods).

The food was good enough to have carried the evening by itself—but the people made it an experience. Going back before we leave town? Hellz, yeah.