“Mmm. You’re on,” I replied.
The two cooks turned to Ezra as they stood behind a collection of plates. “Your food is ready,” Ezra said to us. “Come, come, time to enjoy it.”
Alison and I both sampled everything and commented on it. Again, I’m not a foodie. Food to me is mostly functional. I eat so I don’t get hungry. But this stuff was really good. Like the food at yesterday’s restaurant was, but different. I had never really thought about the nuances of food flavor before, but I now realized how people could get into this.
Alison was making notes about everything she tasted. She was telling me all the different flavors she got out of each bite and seemed to be having a religious experience. After we had tasted everything and I was going back to finish off a couple of my favorites, Ezra reappeared with two big pieces of chocolate cake.
“Oh my god,” Alison said. “I can’t possibly eat all that. We can split a piece.”
“I could eat that,” I said just loud enough for Alison to hear. I never bother with dessert at home, but when it’s offered, I can definitely enjoy a good piece of chocolate cake—or homemade pie, just for your reference.
But Ezra saved me. “Oh, no, no. You must have a whole piece. It is necessary to appreciate the full effect.” He sat down with us and leaned toward Alison. “I have a secret ingredient in it, but I’ll tell you what it is. I add a little mint. Just a small amount.” He did the thumb and forefinger thing again. “I grind it up very small and sift it in with the flour so you cannot detect it. Go ahead. Tell me what you think.”
We each took a bite, and it was an excellent chocolate cake. It didn’t taste like mint to me, but there was definitely something unusual in there.
Alison described it for both of us. “Oh bless your heart, Ezra, this is fabulous chocolate cake. Even the icing is wonderful.”
“I bake them fresh every morning. People come here from very far away just for my chocolate cake. Keep eating. It gets better.”
“I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I’ll certainly try it.” Alison said with a laugh and took another bite.
Ezra smiled while he watched Alison eat another couple bites. I was finishing my piece by then. Ezra turned to me and stretched himself tall in his chair, making a waving motion from his stomach to his face like he was smelling a kettle of soup. “Just sit for a minute and enjoy the experience,” he said.
“Actually, I need to get some photos of the front of your building,” I said, and excused myself with my camera.
When I came back in, Alison’s plate was empty, and she had a big smile across her face. “I haven’t eaten that much cake in years, but you’re right. It did seem to keep getting better with every bite.” She leaned forward and took hold of Ezra’s wrist. “Now can I put your secret in my article, or do you want me to keep that hush?”
“No, no,” Ezra almost whispered. I told that to you alone. “Please keep that to yourself.”
“I certainly will,” Alison said. “But I might experiment with it a little on my own, if that’s alright.”
“Absolutely.” He whispered again, “Just don’t tell anyone else what you are doing. We need to keep this our secret.”
“I promise.”
Ezra said to both of us, “I hunt my own wild mint on weekends. You’re welcome to come along with me if you like. I also hunt ginseng. There is usually a small group of us that goes.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Alison said, “but we have to go back home tomorrow. We can’t do it this time.”
Some customers came in the front door, and Ezra pushed his chair back. “I like you two,” he said. “We’ll work something out.”
Alison thanked him profusely for his time and hospitality and handed him a business card. She asked me for a couple minutes to put some more thoughts down on paper before we left. I was fine with that. Ezra seemed to be right about his cake. I was just enjoying the experience.
Alison’s schedule was open for the rest of the day. She had three barbecue joints lined up for tomorrow, all north of I-40, which meant we had to cross over the interstate, which meant we ought to be able to find a decent hotel for the night. I used my Official North Carolina State Highway Map to maximize our chance of finding one and headed off.
Seeing a few other cars on the road told me we were just getting back into real civilization, when I had a sudden realization. “Crap!” I shouted, startling Alison. “Sorry. I just realized I never got a photo of Ezra’s chocolate cake! Not with the icing on it, anyway.”
“Ohhh. We could really use that. Oh well. You got a lot of other good pictures there didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but the cake is his specialty. You are going to highlight that in your article, aren’t you?”
“Duh!” Alison paused. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I just said that. Yes, I’m going to highlight his cake.” She giggled. “Duh!”
Now we both started laughing. My right tires caught the edge of the road with a lot of noise. “Whoa! Sorry about that. I need to pay attention to my driving.”
Alison giggled some more. “Duh.”
4
Brunswick Stew
We were approaching the interstate and there weren’t any hotels at this exit, but there was a cell connection—something not to be taken for granted in this area—so I pulled over and searched online. I found a couple prospects only two exits away, so I pulled back onto the road and we headed that direction.
We got to a hotel and were walking up to the registration desk when Alison’s phone rang.
“Hello … Oh, hi Ezra! … Tomorrow afternoon? We have three restaurants to visit tomorrow. I don’t know that we’ll have time … No, they’re just barbecue places. I’m sure they won’t compare with yours … Can you hang on a moment, Ezra?” She put her phone down against her chest and said to me, “He wants us to go herb hunting with him tomorrow after our barbecue places. That would make us really late getting home. And besides, I don’t have shoes for that.” She paused. “Sam?”
“Sorry.” I was still staring at where she had her phone. “Uh, I’m up for it. And you can wear the same shoes you wore gem hunting.” At that moment, the front door came crashing open and a big group of kids and a few parents charged in, toting suitcases and backpacks. “Take care of it,” I hurriedly said to Alison. “I need to get ahead of this group.”
I barely squeezed in front of the growing herd of teenagers. Another clerk came to the desk to help, and I asked her about rooms for the night.
“Let me check,” she said, typing into her computer. “There’s a baseball tournament starting tomorrow. We might be booked up.” She waited for her computer and apologized for its slowness. “We have two rooms left,” she finally said.
Relieved, I asked the price.
“One hundred twenty each.”
“Whoa. Really. I mean, isn’t that a lot for here?”
“That’s our standard rate.”
“How about any discounts?” I asked.
“We won’t be discounting anything tonight. With this tournament, we’ll be booked full before six o’clock.”
I got us signed in and worked my way back through the crowd until I found Alison. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s a baseball tournament,” I replied. “They only had one room left.”
“Oh no. What are we going to do?”
I held up the key card. “There are two beds. I got the room.” Seeing a great opportunity to change the subject, I asked, “What did you work out with Ezra?”
“I’ll tell you, that man is so sweet, but he just won’t take no for an answer.”
“So where are we meeting him?” I asked with a grin.
She sighed. “At his restaurant whenever we can get there.”
I smiled. “It’ll be fun. C’mon, let’s go get our stuff out of the car.”
We showed up at the first barbecue place early so we’d have time for Ezra’s herb hunt later. At best, we were still look
ing at getting home after midnight.
We got through the first place quickly and without event—good or bad. The second place was the same story, and we were now heading to the third. The pace of the day was going well, but Alison wasn’t very excited about the content she was getting.
“Neither one of those places deserves to be in this article,” she said. “They just weren’t that good.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “This last one wasn’t bad. My pork was good, and the hush puppies weren’t too bad.”
“Was there anything about the place that stood out as being any different or any better than any other barbecue joint you’ve ever been in?”
I thought about that for a few seconds. “It was better than the first place?”
“Exactly. I’m just not including them. This third place better have something to show for itself.”
We pulled in a little before two o’clock. Alison introduced us to the manager, a rather rotund woman, and asked for samples of a few items. Alison tasted each and passed them on to me before she offered any of her own comments. Nothing was bad—except maybe the Brunswick stew—but nothing was particularly good, either. “There just aren’t any outstanding barbecue restaurants around here,” she finally summarized.
“What are you going to do about your article?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, just as the manager came back over.
“What do you think?” the manager asked.
“It’s good,” Alison said without feeling, “but to be honest, there’s nothing any different about it. We’ve been to three different barbecue restaurants today, and y’all have the same menu, and y’all’s food all tastes the same. I’m writing an article about hidden gem restaurants. I’m just not finding anything unique.”
“What would you like to see?” the manager asked. “Barbecue has a pretty simple menu.”
“But why?” Alison pleaded. “Why can’t you do something different,”—her face tensed for a second—“like put dumplin’s in your Brunswick stew or something?”
“Dumplin’s in Brunswick stew? You don’t put dumplin’s in Brunswick stew. That just ain’t right.”
“Why ain’t it right? You could make them cornbread dumplin’s. That would give y’all something unique to offer.” This was the most emotion I had seen Alison show so far, and she had her accent full on ten—maybe eleven.
The manager seemed taken slightly aback. “I don’t know—”
“Do you have any flour back there?” Alison asked. I know you have cornbread.”
“We … sure … we have flour—”
Alison stood up. “Come on. Can I make you some cornbread dumplin’s?”
The manager tilted her head in thought. “Okay.” Then she ran to catch up with Alison.
Maybe I need to explain something here—I'm not sure. I had never heard of Brunswick stew before I moved down from Pennsylvania. I’d never even been in a barbecue joint before I moved south, so that may explain why. Brunswick stew looks like all the scraps left over from the kitchen, all thrown into a big pot and cooked to death. I tried it one time before today, and I thought it tasted like death, too. I haven't tried it since … until today. I've now had my second, third and fourth attempts at Brunswick stew. My opinion of it hasn't changed.
But apparently I'm alone in that belief, because Brunswick stew is very popular here. Alison walked into the kitchen, took off her wristwatch and handed it to me, asked for flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt, and I think a couple other things—I don't remember. She quickly whipped up a flurry of yellow dough, then pulled off some fistfuls and threw them into the pot of stew that was already simmering on the big stove.
The manager made a comment about her doing something too soon, but Alison just said, “You don’t want to overwork it,” without even turning her head away from her work. In no more than ten minutes from the time we had walked into the kitchen, she had made her dumplings, washed her hands and asked me for her watch back. I was truly impressed. I wish I had thought to take a video of the whole thing.
After her creation had boiled a while, Alison picked up a short stack of bowls and ladled some stew and one dumpling into each one.
She handed two bowls to me, two to the manager, picked up two more and said, “Follow me.”
We marched our little parade into the dining area, where six people were still eating lunch—I wondered if Alison had counted them on her way to the kitchen—and walked up to the first table.
“Hey y’all!” Alison said to the four patrons sitting together—pegging the meter on the accent dial. “We’re trying something new with our Brunswick stew and were hoping you’d like to try a sample of it and tell us what y’all think.”
She placed her two bowls onto the table, grabbed mine, and placed them before I could even lower my hands.
“Go on,” she said to the four, raising her hands as if conducting an orchestra. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
She had the manager hold up her two bowls and smile while I took her picture, then she pushed him toward a table with two people eating and said, “Go on.”
The manager presented her stew and returned.
Alison cornered her. “If these people say they like the stew, will y’all start serving it this way—with dumplin’s?”
“I don’t know. I guess if they like it, I might make it for people who ask for it.”
“But nobody’s going to ask for it if it’s not on your menu,” Alison scolded. “I’m asking, if these people like the dumplin’s—if they love them—will you include this on your menu?”
“Fine,” the manager said, rising to the challenge. “If they love it, I’ll add it to the menu.”
Alison walked back to the first table, and we followed. “So have y’all tried the Brunswick stew with cornbread dumplin’s yet? What do you think?”
The answers all came simultaneously:
“This is great.”
“Yeah, it’s really good.”
“Cornbread dumplin’s. That’s what that was.”
“Can I have some more?”
Alison replied, “If we add this to the menu, would y’all order it? And yes, there’s one dumplin’ left. I’ll get it for you.”
They all said they’d order it, and we went to the second table. Alison placed her hand on the manager’s shoulder and nudged her forward.
“Hey there,” the manager said much more softly than Alison had. “Wha’d y’all think of our Brunswick stew with cornbread dumplin’s? Did y’all like it?”
“Love it,” one said.
“This is the best Brunswick stew I’ve ever had here,” said the second.
“Do you think you might order it the next time you come in?” the manager asked them.
“Absolutely.”
“For sure.”
Alison nodded at the manager’s new smile. “Now I have something to write about.”
Outside, I said to Alison, “You know, you have a real talent.”
“What. All I did was make some dumplin’s.”
“But you knew that that would make her Brunswick stew actually taste good. And you knew that right away. And you made them without a recipe, and you told her about not overworking it like you really knew what you were doing—which you clearly do. I’m really impressed, Alison.”
Alison blushed. “Well, thank you. I was just trying to make something to write about.”
5
The Dogs or the Knife
We made it back to Ezra’s restaurant in the late afternoon. I grabbed a camera, lens, and flash from my bag to get some shots of his prize chocolate cake, and we went inside.
No one was eating; it was a little too early for the dinner crowd. Ezra must have seen us from the back, because he came out greeting us with open arms.
“Before anything else,” I said, “I have to get some pictures of your chocolate cake. Do you have one ready?
“Of course, of course,” Ezra replied. “Do you want t
o take a picture of the whole cake or just a piece on a plate?
“Both, if I can.”
“You wait right here. I will bring it out.”
Ezra went back into the kitchen and returned with a whole cake on a big white plate. There was icing smeared around the rim of the plate, so I asked him for some napkins to clean it up. He got those along with some plates, forks, and a big knife. He wiped off the plate rim, but I sent him back for a glass of water so I could wet the napkins to remove the film that the icing left on the plate. It’s details like this that make a photograph saleable or not.
I got some good photos of the whole cake, then asked Ezra to slice a piece to put onto a plate. He did that, being very careful to not smear the icing any more than necessary. I got those shots, and then said, “I see you brought some forks….”
Alison and I each enjoyed a piece of cake while Ezra told us where we were going. The woods where he hunted his mint was not too far away, and we could follow him there in our own car. He had called some friends who were going to meet us as soon as they got off work. They might be on their way already.
With our bellies full of something much more tasty than Brunswick stew, we headed off behind Ezra in an old Mercedes. First I’d seen a car like that out here, and it was a challenge to keep up with. Once we turned onto the dirt road—if it even deserves being called a road—he seemed to be confident that he wasn’t going to meet anyone coming the opposite direction, not changing his speed at all for hills, cliff-side turns, or the rare straight section.
Ezra carried a canvas shoulder bag and led us into the woods. I was next with my full backpack of camera gear plus a camera around my neck. Alison brought up the rear. I caught up to Ezra and asked him where he got the cool, old Mercedes.
Diners, Dives, and Dirty Deeds Page 4