Defending the Sacred Honor of The South

Crystal Grill
423 Carrollton Ave.
Greenwood, MS






“The Mississippi Delta is the most Southern place on earth.”
-- James C. Cobb


I have lots of reasons I love the South.

Warm weather. NASCAR. College football. Great music. Ole Miss sorority girls.

But as great as all those things are, it’s Southern cooking that gets me most excited.

The Crystal Grill here in Greenwood on the outskirts of that “most Southern place on earth”, is one of the best places to discover the delicacies of the old Confederacy such as catfish, tamales, turnip greens, gumbo and -- most important of all -- pie.

Southerners have been coming to the corner of Lamar St. and Carrollton Ave. to eat for nearly a century.

At one point during the heyday of the locomotive, railroad workers and tourists alike would come over to the Crystal Grill from Greenwood’s railroad depot across the street at all hours of the night.

“Never sleep.” That was the mantra of the old Crystal Grill when it stayed open until 4am.

Here in the 21st Century, Amtrak’s “City of New Orleans” (immortalized by Steve Goodman, Arlo Guthrie, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash) only makes one stop per day, so the hours at Crystal Grill have reverted to conform to the more normal schedule of Southern diners.

While the hours may have shrunk over the years, the restaurant has expanded, taking up a whole city block of connected rooms filled with locals chatting about Greenwood gossip.

As an out-of-towner, you get the feeling that every last resident of this city knows the Crystal Grill is a world class dining destination -- and they all take full advantage of their good fortune.

The food options here are vast and a bit overwhelming.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the beer selection.

Coors Light. Bud Light. Miller Lite.

Yuck.

I opted for the Coors version of watered-down, tasteless, mass produced yellow fizz.

Unfortunately for me, Mississippi is one of the last holdouts in the craft beer revolution.

But nobody comes to the Crystal Grill to drink beer. Folks come here to eat!

I began my feeding frenzy with that quintessential Delta snack, the hot tamale.

Nobody knows exactly how a Mexican food originated as a staple here in the Delta. Most folks here are black or white.

Mexican? Not so much.

But it is safe to assume that some Mexican migrants may have found their way into the Delta to help with the cotton crop over a century ago -- and brought a recipe along that black and white Southerners have perfected into their very own Southern specialty.

You’ll find little roadside shacks selling tamales all over the Delta.

But the tamales here at the Crystal Grill are the best I’ve ever tried.

Wrapped snuggly in their corn husks, unrolling a steaming tamale is more exciting than Christmas morning.

Soft sweet corn meal gives way to a piping hot center of tender shredded beef. The entire concoction is marinated in a peppery broth, lending these tamales a subtle spicy bite that made my Coors Light taste better than it deserved.

Next came a cup of gumbo loaded with shrimp, crab meat and even a few Mississippi Gulf Coast oysters. Chock full of okra, spice and goodness, this is one of the best cups of gumbo I’ve tried in the Magnolia State.

Of course you can’t have gumbo without bread. The Crystal Grill brings out two varieties -- both equally fresh and warm from the oven -- and addictive.

The soft yeast rolls come from a decades old Greenwood recipe.

The firm but sweet corn muffins melted my pat of butter on contact.

By this point, my hunger was long gone. But my Chrystal Grill lunch was just getting started.

Classic Southern lunchroom style, the menu lets you choose a meat and two vegetables.

I opted for fried catfish, crisp and seasoned to perfection.

My dining companion scored some of the best fried chicken either of us had ever tried.

But the vegetables were the stars of the show.

Turnip greens, earthy and bitter yet sweetened with Southern love and pig fat.

Southerners love to cook their vegetables in pork fat or deep fry them, under the theory that there is only one way to make healthy food taste good -- make it less healthy.

As a devout follower of that school of vegetable thought, I had to try something called “fried broccoli”.

Even world renowned broccoli frowner President George H. W. Bush could eat this stuff.

It turns out that fried broccoli doesn’t involve much broccoli after all. More like a breaded and fried cheese stick with a few bits of green vegetable matter stuffed inside.

In other words, fried broccoli is delicious!

Under any other circumstance, after consuming this much food, I’d ask for the check and be on my way.

Not at the Crystal Grill. Because when you dine here, you get pie.

It’s compulsory.

I’m not saying they’ll lock you up in the Leflore County Jail if you refuse to indulge, but it is included in the price of your meal.

And it indeed would be a crime against man and nature to skip out on dessert at the Crystal Grill. This place has earned a well-deserved decade’s old reputation for the best pie in the great state of Mississippi.

You get three choices: chocolate meringue, coconut meringue or lemon ice box.

You really can’t go wrong.

The lemon ice box pie was cool, sweet and tart with a refreshing lemon zest.

The chocolate meringue was a mile high tower of goodness. The meringue was delicate and sweet and elegantly yielded to my folk as it slid down toward the cool chocolate below.

If you are a chocoholic like me, you will not be disappointed. Trust me.

If ever there were a dining destination that needed to be immortalized in my vast t-shirt collection, the Crystal Grill was it.

This place represents everything I love about the South. Great food. Downhome charm. Friendly hospitality. And a patient deliberateness to appreciate the finest life has to offer.

I couldn’t help but notice the irony that as I was appreciating all that is wonderful about the old Confederacy in the form of a single meal, a controversy was raging on the news about that ultimate symbol of the South, the Confederate Flag.

Southerners everywhere are being forced by a mob of Leftists and uppity Yankees to make a choice -- abandon the symbol that has represented their homeland in some sort of futile peace offering -- or stand to defend its honor in the face of unprecedented hatred and bullying.

While it seems like most of the politicians across the South have chosen to reenact the surrender at Appomattox, it is left to the silent majority of Southerners to articulate the value of their heritage.

For many Southerners, the flag is simply an iconic symbol of home -- and everything it stands for. From sweet tea to SEC tailgate parties.

For others, there is a deeper meaning.

The flag represents resistance to an overbearing federal government that now injects itself into every nook and cranny of our lives.

Am I the only one who noticed the irony that during this same week five unelected, unaccountable robed jackasses in Washington DC just changed the 10,000 year old definition of marriage by federal fiat?

If Sherman and Grant could see what the Federal Government they fought for has become, I’d like to imagine they’d be so ashamed they’d strip off their blue uniforms on the spot and joint the “Lost Cause”.

But why is the burden of proof on Southerners to defend their flag?

Shouldn’t the debate be centered on why Leftists and uppity Yankees hate the South -- and want to stamp out everything it stands for?

To them it represents a reprehensible ideology and way of life -- one where folks get along with each other just fine over a plate of tamales and fried chicken.

Where people don’t see the need to depend upon the kindness of politicians.

Independence. Traditional values. Faith. Confident appreciation of what works.

Defiance.

That’s what they hate.

They hate that the South is superior to the North in every way that matters. From politics to economics to weather to football to fried chicken.

They are envious of a people that can get along fine without them.

And if you think throwing the Confederate flag into a modern day auto-da-fé in a sacrificial offering will appease them, you are wrong.

Dead wrong.

This is just the warning shot on a second Yankee invasion.

The Leftists and uppity Yankees won’t stop until everyone lives and thinks like they do.

Give up the guns and religion you cling to. Your future is food stamps, Obamacare, gay weddings and Dunkin Donuts.

That’s why places like the Crystal Grill are an endangered yet cherished reminder of what makes the South great.

And that’s why my flag is still hanging. And why I bought the shirt.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Bar-B-Que Authenticity Reaches its Limits in the Exurbs of Nashville

Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint
7238 Nolensville Rd.
Nolensville, TN





The name of this place is Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint.

So what do we know about this place right off the bat?

Right. It’s not going to be an authentic bar-b-que joint.

Because authentic bar-b-que joints don’t call themselves “joints”.

It’s kind of like the difference between my authentic redneck friends and the ones that call themselves rednecks.

My authentic redneck friends don’t even know that they are rednecks. In fact, they might even be mildly insulted if I referred to them as such.

So I don’t.

Of course my nouveau redneck friends would take it as a compliment.

Another reason I walked through the front door of Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint with a mind full of suspicion was the address.

Nolensville, Tennessee.

This is Exurban Hell, USA.

Twenty-five miles south of Nashville, Nolensville is one of those quiet rural towns that have the misfortune of being within commuting distance of a big city.

Exurbs like Nolensville are where white Republicans flee to when they tire of the indignities of urban and suburban life.

Or when they have kids. And they’ve convinced themselves that the government schools in the exurbs have vastly superior ability to shape their children’s’ young minds of mush, ignoring the fact that higher test scores are nothing more than a reflection of the demographics of the kids being tested, not any competence on the part of the government.

Yep. Southern exurbs like Nolensville are the types of places where the 22% of the registered voters who actually voted for Obama won’t admit it to the other 78%.

Where Republicans move to when they want the simplicity of rural living but can’t bear to give up Home Depot or Starbucks.

Drive in a circle 30 miles around any major Southern city and you will notice the trend too.

Cookie-cutter brick McMansions on three-quarter acre lots. Minivans and SUVs. Applebee’s and Panera Bread.

In my opinion, exurban living is the worst trend since heterosexual men started wearing jeans with those faggity ass swirls on the pockets.

My problem with the exurbs is they lack authenticity.

The whole point of rural living is to slow down and immerse yourself is a culture that is genuine and timeless.

Where everyone knows everyone.

Where the old man at the mom and pop hardware store speaks with such a thick drawl you can only comprehend every third word – but you nod your head anyway.

Where the local pitmaster runs a bar-b-que joint that really is a joint, has been a joint for decades, and he would be somewhat offended if you told him so.

But in exurban towns like Nolensville such remnants of genuine rural living quickly become displaced by urban refugees and relocated Yankees willing to commute two hours per day to get a taste of country living, no matter how inauthentic.

I mean it’s fun to claim you’ve moved out to the country as long as you don’t have to smell cow manure, ride behind a slow moving tractor or get your Range Rover repaired by some toothless yokel.

Situated in a modern suburban strip mall, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint is a perfect metaphor for the town in which it resides.

Or so I thought.

Sometimes you have to let the bar-b-que speak for itself.

The first thing I noticed is that there is nothing inauthentic about the smoke billowing out of the big black smoke pit smack dab in the middle of the restaurant.

That’s a smell, my friends, that can’t be faked.

Martin’s slowly smokes its pork and beef over hard wood for hours.

This place might be as polished as the granite counter tops in the custom homes popping up down the street, but the bar-b-que is strictly old school.

I ordered the “Redneck Taco” -- which in reality is neither.

While no authentic redneck would ever order it, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t delicious.

The “Redneck Taco” is a slab of corn bread with pulled pork, cole slaw and tangy bar-b-que sauce piled on top.

While Martin’s offers a variety of sauce, it chooses to ladle its thin vinegary tomato-based sauce on top of the cole slaw. The result is a tangy, crunchy condiment for the pulled pork below.

Meanwhile the base of this “taco”, the corn bread, soaks up the drippy tasty remnants from the pork, slaw and sauce.

The pork itself benefits well from all these complimentary flavors and textures. It was a bit dry and bland by itself.

The baked beans were top notch, spiked with green pepper and lots of brown sugar.

The walls of this exurban “joint” are decorated with Southern kitsch -- rebel flags, license plates, trucker caps and portraits of pigs and Hank Williams, all carefully staged in a deliberately haphazard arraignment.

A steady stream of kick-ass Outlaw Country poured from the restaurant’s sound system. You just don’t hear the authentic sounds of Merle Haggard, David Allen Coe and Loretta Lynn on the radio anymore.

This is the brand of music the Music Row suits 25 miles north of here banished from the light of day. These are the people responsible for shoving unartistic pop country crap down our throats and out across America’s airwaves.

And I’m quite sure many of these are the same people responsible for turning the dairy farms around Nolensville into house farms -- and after their long commute home from Music Row come to Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint where they can get themselves some authentic bar-b-que while listening to authentic country music.

For some people this is as authentic as they want to get.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Harris Crab House: More Fun than a Trip to the Shrink

Harris Crab House
433 Kent Narrow Way N.
Grasonville, MD






My Harris Crab House t-shirt sums it up perfectly:

“Group Therapy – One Bushel at a Time”

With a little waterman dude emblazoned on a big old bushel of freshly steamed Chesapeake Bay blue crabs.

(Spoiler Alert: I know I like to keep you in suspense until the end of the review, but…I bought the shirt.)

Some activities in life, like using a bathroom on a Regional Jet, man was meant to do alone.

But man is a social creature. We crave the company of other humans.

That is why other activities are best enjoyed in a group of friends.

Picking crabs is definitely one of those.

A crab feast is all about sitting outside on the water, passing around pitchers of cold beer, enjoying the sunshine and salty sea breeze and whiling away a lazy summer afternoon in conversation about matters simple or sublime, profound or frivolous.

Yeah, there is food involved. Sort of.

But a crab feast isn’t really about sustenance. It’s about the experience.

Group therapy.

Forget your daily routine, leave the laptop at home, power off your smart phone.

Get together with some friends you haven’t seen in a while, engage in dialogue that doesn’t involve thumbs on a tiny keyboard and hang out pounding away at bottom dwelling sea creatures with little wooden mallets.


The conversation, beer and sunshine provide the therapy. The crabs are just the excuse.

So for me, Harris’ perfect waterfront locale of its upstairs outdoor deck on Kent Narrows just over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Annapolis is justification enough to bestow upon Harris the title of quintessential Maryland crab house.

It just doesn’t get any better than this.

That being said, the tab for our group therapy (there were eight of us) came to $500.

Ouch.

So no matter how bucolic the setting, for that price, you better dump some decent crabs onto the table in front of us.

In the three or four times I’ve visited Harris, the place hasn’t let me down yet.

While the conversation at any crab feast usually remains appropriately light, controversy can erupt unexpectedly.

Our most contentious discussion on this Saturday afternoon dealt with this very subject -- critiquing Maryland’s famous crab houses.

One person in particular in our little party was aware of my alias as an internationally-known world-famous food critic -- and took exception to my panning of Cantler’s on the other side of the bridge.

Cantler’s is arguably the most popular crab house in Maryland, but my lone experience there left much to be desired. (Read about it here.)

My argumentative friend declared, “You can’t say Cantler’s has bad crabs. Nobody MAKES crabs! They just serve whatever is caught in the crab pot.”

While I conceded his point that crab houses don’t “make” crabs (a guy at a higher pay grade gets the credit for that), there are some important rules to follow when you make your living selling bushels of crabs that cost more than an early model Ford Focus.

First of all, the crabs need to be fresh -- as in still kicking and clawing for life when you put them in the steamer.

Second, you need to steam the crabs the exact number of moments that turn their shells from blue to red without transforming their delicate crabmeat into crabmush.

And finally, the steamed crabs should be served within minutes -- not hours or days -- after emerging from the steamer.

I’m happy to say, Harris has this process down to a science.

Our four dozen “large” crabs (Harris was out of the much more expensive “extra-large” and “jumbos”) were dumped upon our brown paper-covered picnic table in perfect condition.

Bright red, still warm and coated in Harris’ signature salty seasoning, these 48 crustaceans provided the table with an afternoon of picking, pounding and prying.

And even a little bit of crabmeat.

You’ll burn more calories than you consume.

But that’s why God invented hush puppies as well as crabs.

Harris serves excellent puppies, warm, doughy and sweet.

Even more sweet was the moist cake-like corn bread.

Of course the most important part of any crab feast is not the crabs. Or the hush puppies. Or even the conversation.

It’s the beer.

Harris has a decent selection of local craft beers available in the bottle.

My Lot No. 3 IPA from Evolution Brewing Company in Salisbury was a new one for me.

Of course you can never go wrong with a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA from just down the Delmarva.

But let’s face it, if you are going to sit outside in the August sun all afternoon eating salt-coated crabs, even the most devout beer snob should switch eventually to pitchers of lower octane, lower priced good old American lager.

And that is basically how the afternoon unfolded.


We left the suits at home, put on our flip-flops, passed around cheap pitchers of Coors Light, soaked up the salt air and retold those decade old stories -- some of which even have a bit of truth to them.

Group therapy.

Yeah, $500 is a steep price to pay for an afternoon of hanging out on the Chesapeake.

But it’s a hell of a lot more fun than an appointment with your shrink.

Rating: I Already Told You -- Bought the Shirt!

Overcoming the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

Moab Brewery
686 S. Main St.
Moab, UT



“Not to be a smartass, but…”

I realize that’s not the best way to begin a new relationship.

But other than bringing me a few brews and some food, my relationship with my waiter at Moab Brewery was going to be relatively short lived anyway.

You have to understand, I was just incredulous at what he told me.

“By state law, all the draft beer we brew is 3.2 percent,” he explained.

That’s 3.2% alcohol content by volume.

I mean, even your watered down puke American light beers like Miller Lite are at least 4.5%. Budweiser is 5%.

A good microbrew can approach double digits. Heck, I’ve got a bottle of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA I’m saving at home that touches 20% ABV. Definitely a special occasion sipping beer.

So who the hell wants to waste their time with a beer restricted to just 3.2?

Other than a few forgettable trips to Tulsa, Oklahoma, I’ve never run into this “three-two” beer crisis.

So I sure wasn’t expecting to confront this issue here – at a microbrewery, for Pete’s sake!

“Not to be a smartass, but what is the freaking point? I mean, why bother building a microbrewery if you can’t brew real beer?”

I think I offended my waiter.

Something about the look on his face.

He explained that he had worked in Salt Lake City for Uinta Brewing and they competed against breweries all over the world – and won – with 3.2% beer.

He assured me the alcohol content would not affect the taste.

I was dubious, to say the least.

But what could I do? Arguing with my waiter wasn’t going to cause a frosty mug of Dogfish Head’s finest to suddenly appear in my hand.

So I tried Moab’s “Merrimack Steamer”, a pale ale with a crisp, hoppy, tasty flavor.

I mean, this brew isn’t going to make the Beer Hall of Fame, but I have to admit, I was impressed.

Call it “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” as George W. Bush would say.

My second brew, the “Raven Stout”, seemed like a good choice because stouts tend to be low in alcohol anyway. Maybe I wouldn’t miss it, I rationalized.

Unfortunately, this oatmeal stout tasted watered down, not as good as the Steamer.

The good news is that unlike the beer, the food served at Moab Brewery is free from meddling restrictions imposed by the Utah legislature.

My “Chili Verde Pork Burrito” was chock full of fork tender meat that had been slow simmered in green chili sauce. If those Mormon lawmakers had the same attitude toward dead pig that they do toward beer, this burrito would be in serious violation of at least a couple Utah statutes.

Topped with cheese and a delicious chili of beans, onions, olives, peppers and tomatoes, my burrito was an ideal companion to my microbrewed beer.

On the side came sturdy slabs of fresh baked corn bread studded with jalapeño peppers. After slathering on a generous hunk of honey sweet butter, I was in corn bread heaven.

So I know you are dying to know. My waiter was too.

Is Suit757 a convert to hand crafted low alcohol beer?

Well, I’ll tell you what I told my waiter.

I’m impressed.

Moab Brewery moved me from “Why bother?” to “Hey, this is actually pretty good.”

I mean, I’m not going home and pouring my $13 twelve ounce bottle of 120 Minute IPA down the drain or anything. But I’m impressed. Impressed that Moab Brewery can overcome such a 3.2 ABV handicap and rise to the occasion.

So impressed, I cashed in my little “$1 Off Souvenirs” wooden coin at the gift shop and bought myself a Moab Brewery shirt.

So is Suit757 going soft in his old age?

I don’t think so. But who knows? You know what they say about low expectations.

Rating: Bought the Shirt.