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!

I Sold My Soul to the Devil…And all I Got Was this T-Shirt

Abe’s Bar-B-Q
616 State Street
Clarksdale, MS





“I went to the crossroad
Fell down on my knees”
  -- Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues


From Robert Johnson to Led Zeppelin to Eric Clapton, the image of a drifter standing in the moonlight at the crossing of two lonely roads has been elevated to an iconic symbolism.

Clarksdale, Mississippi and Abe’s Bar-B-Q, literally standing at the crossing of the state’s two “Blues Highways”, are both inextricably linked to the legend of “The Crossroads”.

Of course the most famous crossroads story of all is tied to Robert Johnson himself, that pioneer of Mississippi Delta blues.

Johnson grew up on the Abbay and Leatherman Plantation, which still operates today about 30 miles north of here.

Interested in music at a young age, Johnson would bug blues-playing share croppers on the plantation like Son House to show him licks on harmonica and guitar.

There was just one problem.

Basically, young Robert Johnson sucked.

Around 1930, Johnson moved away.

When he returned a few years later, Robert Johnson had transformed into the greatest blues guitarist on earth.

To the Folks around the Abbay and Leatherman Plantation there could be but one explanation for Johnson’s newfound proficiency…

…he must have sold his soul at some Delta crossroads in a late night deal with the devil.

Of course. What else could it be?

I guess it never occurred to these folks that combining God-given talent with lots and lots of hard work and practice might be a more logical conclusion.

You can see the roots of collectivism in this thinking: your successes in life can’t possibly be legitimately earned, so therefore the rest of us have a rightful claim on the fruits of your labor.

But I digress.

Besides, the whole “sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads” thing sounds a whole lot cooler.

Apparently, the Clarksdale Chamber of Congress agrees.

They have erected a gaudy monument of cris-crossing blue guitars in the middle of a median at the center of town where Highways 61 and 49 intersect, commemorating the spot where Johnson did his supposed soul bartering.

In a way I understand the logic.

Highway 61, “The Blues Highway”, has been immortalized in countless blues songs from Mississippi Fred McDowell to Bob Dylan.

Same with Highway 49, as sung by everyone from Big Joe Williams to Mick Jagger.

These two iconic roads cut straight through the heart of the Mississippi Delta where the blues was born and intersect here in Clarksdale.

In front of Mid-South Farm Supply, Krosstown Pawn Shop and Church’s Chicken.

Somehow, I doubt this is where Robert Johnson would actually choose to sell his soul to the devil.

All I know is if I were going to do some dealin’ with the devil, I’d want a bit more privacy, like on some lonely crossroads out in the country.

But then again, maybe the devil was hungry.

If so, this urban crossroads in the heart of Clarksdale wouldn’t be such a bad place to hang out.

Even in Robert Johnson’s day, Abe Davis, a Lebanese immigrant, was smoking and slicing pork right here in Clarksdale.

Now run by Abe’s sons and literally sitting under the shadow of the Chamber’s “Crossroads” Monument, Abe’s Bar-B-Q remains one of Mississippi’s top roadside culinary destinations.

The pork here is smoked over hickory for six hours, which is just long enough to melt the fat and cartilage into the meat, but not long enough to achieve that pull apart tenderness most barbeque masters seek.

But Abe’s solves that issue by slicing the smoked pork shoulders super thin and grilling the pork shavings on the flat top.

The result is crispy, delicate barbeque topped with a vinegary/ketchupy sauce.

Delicious. Especially as a sandwich.

The barbeque sandwich is a double-decker, kinda like a Big Mac, with alternating layers of bread, pork, sauce and cole slaw.

The sauce adds a zesty tang. The slaw a crunchy, cool bite. The squooshy fresh buns hold it all together.

But man cannot live on barbeque alone.

You can’t visit the Mississippi Delta without trying some local tamales.

Tamales? In Mississippi?

There aren’t any Mexicans in Mississippi!

Nope. And never have been.

Nobody knows where the Delta tradition of tamales originated. But I do know one thing.

Abe’s tamales are among the best.

Starchy corn meal filled with moist beef, Abe’s tamales are best when slathered with its signature meaty chili.

Some top-notch onion rings on the side and a cold Coors Light long neck to wash it all down, Abe’s Bar-B-Q was a highlight of my trip to the Delta.

It was so good, I thought about how I’d give ANYTHING to get a replica of the Abe’s Bar-B-Q/Crossroads t-shirt my waitress was wearing.

Well, just about anything.

I’m not saying I’d sell my soul to the devil for a t-shirt, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Jukin’ at Red’s

Red’s Lounge
395 Sunflower Ave.
Clarksdale, MS






I CRAVE authenticity. The real deal.

It’s getting harder and harder to find it in our homogenized, franchised, mass-marketed modern America.

That search for the real thing is what brought me to the corner of Sunflower and Martin Luther King Boulevard on a Sunday night in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

I love the blues.

From Chicago electric blues to the hypnotic rhythm of North Mississippi Hill Country blues to acoustic country blues played on a bottle neck slide that originated right here in Clarksdale, this authentic brand of American music is one of my favorite genres.

Virtually all modern forms of popular music, from rock n roll to hip hop to R and B, derived from black cotton pickers strumming homemade cigar box and dime store guitars here in the fertile Mississippi Delta at the turn of the last century.

While the blues originated as a black genre of music, now days if you go to a blues club anywhere in America, you’ll find yourself surrounded by middle-aged white guys sporting beer guts, beards or pony tails -- or, more than likely, all three.

In the 21st Century, the blues audience is almost completely white.

And chances are the performers are too.

Sure, there are a few black blues artists like Kenny Neal, Shemekia Copeland and Duwayne Burnside who are literally following in their fathers’ footsteps, but the majority of modern blues artists look a lot like their audience.

And I supposed that’s fine. People should be free to listen to and perform whatever type of music they want.

But whenever I’m sitting there in a strip mall blues club sipping one of my microbrews listening to some white guy play a tired version of “Sweet Home Chicago”, I can’t help but let my mind wander…

…to some smoke-filled shack hard against the railroad tracks deep in the heart of the Mississippi Delta -- where the blues started.

The real deal.

Dim lights flickering, beer bottles clanging, an old weathered black hand sliding a bottle neck across the strings, big legged women rhythmically swaying their hips to the low down dirty blues beat.

A place where Suit757 doesn’t belong.

A place where I have no business being.

A place where sketchy-looking characters could cut me with a switch blade if I look at them the wrong way.

Yeah. That’s why I’m talking about!

Okay. Some of my friends think I have an unhealthy fixation on danger.

But that’s not it. I just crave something authentic.

That’s why I came to Red’s Lounge.

I heard it was perhaps the last true juke joint left in America.

Juke joints are the down home places where blues were first performed for an audience.

They were places for hard working black people to unwind after hot days under the Mississippi sun picking cotton.

Moonshine, dice playing and felicitous companionship could all be found in theses smoky, sweaty shacks out in the country or in town on the wrong side of the tracks.

For the most part, the local white sheriffs had no interest in interfering with the goings on in black juke joints. Liquor laws, last call, fire regulations went largely unenforced.

Cuttin’ and shootin’ was an occupational hazard for blues players in juke joints.

But as the musical tastes of black folks have evolved beyond their blues roots and the casinos with their free whiskey have drawn them to their riverboats on the Mississippi River, juke joints with live blues have all but disappeared here in the Delta.

Except for Red’s.

Red Paden has been running juke joints for most of his adult life. And he loves the blues.

At his namesake blues club in the heart of Clarksdale, he still schedules live blues every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in a run-down former music store. Whether any one shows up or not.

Walking through the front door of America’s last standing live music juke joint was the fulfillment of a life-long fantasy.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous -- for all the aforementioned reasons.

Plus I had talked to a guy in Memphis who told me Red sometimes “has an attitude” about white people coming to his place to soak up the black juke joint atmosphere. “Although he’ll happily take your money,” he quickly added.

Another guy said when he tried to videotape one of the performers, Red threatened “to cut him”. The opinion of the regulars was divided on whether Red was kidding -- or not.

But that which made me nervous was exactly what made me so excited as I parked my rental car on Sunflower Avenue and slowly walked toward the low rumbling blues pouring out of Red’s door.

As I pushed on the weathered handle and paid my $7 cover to the friendly lady at the front, my apprehension eased a bit.

I pulled up a battered stool near the front door and ordered a beer from Red. Three bucks for a 12 ounce bottle of Miller High Life (I wasn’t about to ask Red for a beer list).

Plus I tipped Red a buck. He seemed to appreciate it.

No sign of a switch blade. That’s a relief.

As it turned out, I didn’t have anything to be nervous about.

The crowd was almost entirely white, except for a few folks who seemed to be kin to the band.

Right up front was a table of five 20-something white girls downing 18 ounce bottles of Bud. I figured they must be European (as was much of the crowd). American chicks would never walk into a place like Red’s by themselves.

It was close to a packed house. That’s a couple dozen people in this cozy joint.

Every last one of them seemed to be damn glad to be there, soaking up the authentic divey charm and the kick ass blues band.

The real deal.

These adventurous blues lovers were just like me!

The band was in the midst of a full blown scorching set of electric blues when I walked in.

Taking the lead was a 14 year old kid named “King Fish”.

Yes. You read that right. Fourteen years old!

Maybe there is hope after all for the future of black blues.

The kid was amazing, playing scalding guitar riffs behind is back and with his teeth, ala Jimmy Hendrix. He belted out blues with a voice way beyond his years.

On keyboard and occasional vocals was David “Space Cowboy” Isaac.

Perhaps most entertaining of all was Space Cowboy’s nephew on drums, aptly named, “Hollywood”.

Hollywood looked like he was twelve at the most, but spent the entire evening effortlessly banging out the blues beat with a charismatic smile plastered on his face.

While Red’s Lounge wasn’t quite as scary as I had feared/hoped, it was plenty authentic.

Years old posters haphazardly tacked to the walls.

Various flotsam and jetsam piled high against the windows.

A tapestry of plastic trash bags staplegunned to the ceiling to minimize the leaking rainwater from the roof.

A soft glow of red snake lights shaped into musical notes.

Most authentic of all was Red himself, stumbling around behind the bar, drinking his own profits and soaking up the kick ass blues unfolding in front of him in his own place.

Red wore a tattered holey Red’s Lounge t-shirt that read “It is what it is”.

I was jealous.

Our entire Suits in Strange Places rating system was devised with places like Red’s in mind.

Uncool touristy places make it easy to buy a t-shirt. They are ubiquitous. Exit through the t-shirt gift shop on your way out.

Think Hard Rock Café, House of Blues, B.B. King’s Blues Club.

The coolest places make it HARD to get a t-shirt. You’d feel like a loser-tourist-idiot even asking for one.

THOSE are the AWESOME places.

The harder it is to buy a shirt, the cooler it is to wear it.

That’s my Suit757 t-shirt philosophy.

I really wanted a Red’s shirt but I was too chicken to ask for one.

Roger Stolle, who owns the Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art store down the street, told me the next morning that Red’s does indeed sell t-shirts.

Roger said, “I keep telling Red to put up a sign or something if he wants to sell them. But he won’t do it. ‘This is a juke joint,’ he says. I guess to be an authentic juke joint, you have to have some ridiculous conversation to buy a shirt.”

Exactly.

Rating: I really, really wanted to buy the shirt…but I wimped out.

Deep in the Heart of Fly Over Country

Squealer’s Bar-B-Que
4805 Great River Dr.
Meridian, MS





I love “fly over” country.

That’s the derogatory term used by the San Francisco/LA/New York leftist elites for the rest of America.

You know -- those of us who drink beer, eat barbeque, watch NASCAR and college football and think Barack Obama is purposefully trying to destroy America.

Basically, every tax paying, non-lawyer, non-actor, non-government worker who has a job.

For the cultural one percenters, the farms, fields and small towns they “fly over” in First Class from JFK to LAX are an embarrassment. Like the crazy uncle whose uncouth jokes they tolerate at Thanksgiving dinner.

And they call conservatives like us closed minded?

As Suit757, I see plenty of “fly over” country. Up close.

I call it America.

Hell, that’s why I take the time to write a blog about it. (In fact, as I write this, I’m soaring 35,000 feet above the rolling blue grass hills of Kentucky.)

But unlike those Park Avenue penthouse dwellers coasting on the jet stream above, I’ve actually been in the hollows, hills, and barbeque shacks below. All 50 states. Virtually every airport in America with scheduled service.

Meridian, Mississippi is the epitome of “fly over’ country.

To the elites, at 35,000 feet, it’s just another town of roads and roof tops carved out of the red clay hills of Eastern Mississippi.

But if you are lucky enough to touch down in this corner of our country, you’ll find 50,000 souls living, working, eating and dying in the heart of real America.

The leftist elites might say progress bypassed Meridian. You won’t find Whole Foods here selling overpriced hippie granola munch and vegan tofu burgers at twenty bucks per pound.

When I first stepped foot in this town sixteen years ago, the only non-fast food joint turned out their lights before the kickoff of Monday Night Football. That’s 8pm here in the Central Time Zone.

Now, Meridian has caught the fancy of almost every national restaurant chain in America.

But if you want my opinion, real progress can be defined by a place like Squealer’s Bar-B-Que.

Teresa Cranmore founded the barbeque place in 1998, taking old time Southern traditions to the lucky masses who take the time to seek out real “fly over’ country cuisine.

Ribs, pork and chicken slow smoked over hickory for hours.

Best of all for indecisive barbeque connoisseurs like me, you can get all three in the “wings and things” combo.

For less than ten bucks.

I had to ask my young waitress to verify my good fortune.

“You mean I get a barbeque sandwich, three wings, a rib and a side of beans? All that for ten bucks?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied enthusiastically in an East Mississippi drawl.

My beer was an even better deal.

In a big bi-coastal metropolis, you can expect to pay five or six bucks for a decent microbrew.

At Squealer’s? Three bucks for an Abita Turbodog.

Did I tell you I love “fly over” country?

The barbeque sandwich was exquisite. Smokey pulled pork marinated in a sweet tomato-based sauce on a buttery bun, this is barbeque done right.

The wings are a Squealer’s specialty. The zesty sauce is baked right onto the wings, not ladled over the top like an afterthought at so many corner sports bars.

But the highlight of the plate was the rib.

Yes, one single solitary rib.

But that one rib had more meat on it than some of the half racks of baby backs I’ve had at the big city chains.

That one rib, smoky and tender, contained enough pig meat to qualify as a decent sized meal. Which was convenient, because this was the only meal I was going to get for at least 24 hours.

While the rib meat was outstanding on its own, I couldn’t resist the urge to pop off the cork on the mini “moonshine” jugs of sauce placed in the Miller Lite carrier at the center piece of my table.

Just a touch of the sweet sauce elevated my rib to close to barbeque perfection.

As I gnawed off every last scrap of pork from the bone, fingers sticky with charred meat and barbeque sauce, I couldn’t help but think about those deprived cultural elitists jetting over Meridian at that very moment.

I mean, do these folks ever discover the great joys of America? Like attractive waitresses with sweet southern accents? Or three dollar microbrews? Or the fun of eating dead sticky animals with their fingers?

Nope. And they probably never will.

But that’s okay. That just leaves more of what makes America great for you and me.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!