Tag Archives: USA

Memphis

by

Knowing a whole lot of nothing about the place, we decided to stop for two nights in Memphis, Tennessee. Obviously we knew that’s where Elvis lived and there’s a lot of music history there but that was about it.

The place looked almost deserted when we drove into town. Our hotel wasn’t far from the office blocks of downtown and also not far from Beale Street, which Paul (our friend from Natchez) had recommended for music. It’s the Memphis equivalent of Bourbon St in New Orleans, but much quieter – or at least it is on week nights. Bourbon Street wasn’t quiet any night of the week that we could see – and you’d even find people bar hopping any time of the day too. Beale Street seemed much more clean and sedate, although I’m sure it gets lively on the weekends.

We’d been told to try out the bbq food and I didn’t have to be told twice. BBQ ribs are just about my favourite food in the whole wide world (although my mum’s hamburgers are up there) so Luke summoned the powers of the internet and got some recommendations.

On the first night we stopped at a rather gritty diner called The Blues City Cafe.

All the neon!

It was moderately busy and the air was a little smokey from all the cooking. We ordered a full rack of ribs to share (see? Learning!) and they came with ‘steak fries’ (which are slightly larger cut chips), a little tub of coleslaw and some bbq baked beans. The beans were a surprise – I didn’t realise they were a thing over here. The ribs were excellent – on par with the City Grill Room ribs at home and probably had more meat on them than the CGR ribs normally do. We ended up having a fairly early night… after a few episodes of Star Trek on the laptop, of course.

I was hoping to find some more rockabilly style clothing, so after a hearty breakfast at the diner Elvis used to frequent, we looked in a couple of shops but to no avail. I did buy a few new pairs of  leggings at American Apparel as mine are all starting to wear out. You don’t realise how quickly clothes fall apart until you’ve only got three day’s worth of outfits.

In the afternoon we walked from our hotel to Sun Studios, the label that first signed Elvis, as well as Roy Orbison, Jerry Lewis and a host of other stars. While people take tours (pretty short, underwhelming tours) of the studio during the day recording still happens there in the evenings. If you’re a fan of rock and roll history it’s no doubt worth the trek but otherwise it’s not terribly exciting. The tour visits one room of memorabilia and then the recording studio where you listen to snippets of various people speaking and singing.

The mic used by Elvis.

The guitars used by artists.

One for Mum – a photo of Roy Orbison.

 

One of the most famous photos in the history of rock and roll. Carl Perkins, Jerry Lewis, Elvis and Johnny Cash. Notice that the background of the photo is the wall that the photo is hanging on.

After the tour I looked up one of the musicians in the photo with Elvis, Carl Perkins. I didn’t realise it was he who had written ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and the story behind it is interesting. It was Johnny Cash who had told him it would be a good theme for a song as the shoes were fashionable at the time. The song became huge but Sam, the owner of Sun Records, passed on less than half the money Carl was entitled to. As a young, fairly uneducated man with no idea he didn’t question the money and it was only years later, after he was unable to legally claim it back that he discovered he’d been ripped off. The studio tour idolises the owners for supposedly inventing rock and roll but they did not deal honestly with all of the clients who made them rich.

We went to a different restaurant in the evening – another place on Beale Street. I can’t remember the name but it had a pig on the sign. The ribs there were also good but we both agreed that we liked the first place better. After dinner we walked up to BB King’s Blues Club. I didn’t realise that BB King’s name actually comes from ‘Beale St Blues King’  – and he’s still performing over 200 shows a year now in his 80s. Pretty impressive!

The club was fairly busy and full of energy. People were actually dancing, which we hadn’t seen much of in New Orleans, and we’d have gotten up too – if we hadn’t ordered drinks and then only caught the last 3 songs of the set. Still, it was a great vibe and we contemplated stopping somewhere else on the way home but then settled for an early night as it was a 5 hour drive to St Louis the next day.

I don’t know who the band were, but they were good!

I don’t know if I’d recommended Memphis as a destination unless you’re a music geek, but it was certainly a lot warmer than St Louis. More on that later!

New York: Food

by

We were so busy when we were in New York that I’m going to have to keep coming back to it to cover all the things I want to remember.

We had some great food experiences in New York. I think that if you’re even slightly passionate about food (like most of the planet) and visiting places you may never, or only rarely, come back to, you need to put some thought into your eating plan. What kind of foods appeal most? What is in season? What is the area famous for? Then get recommendations from online, from friends, from tv shows, from cab drivers and work out how and where to spend your few precious meals.

If I was on a holiday for a couple of weeks I’d have breakfast, lunch, dinner and at least two snacks in between in order to try everything. But when you’re away for a long time, as we discovered with alcohol, you can’t live every day like it’s the weekend or things go pear-shaped. When I say ‘things’ I mean ‘my torso’. Everyone who comes to the states on holiday warns that weight gain is unavoidable – so many good things to eat and everything comes with fries and sides, drowned in dressing and deep fried.

New York definitely wasn’t like that.Healthy food was pretty easy to get. They have these great places there, a type of deli, where it’s a bit like a canteen with help-yourself bain maries and they charge by weight. Sure, some are mac and cheese or deep fried chicken, but you can also get a pile of steamed broccoli or fresh fruit and it’s not too expensive. This was a very appealing option when we needed a break from eating pizza and cooking for ourselves wasn’t an option.

Pizza is something you have to do in New York. Luke’s a big pizza fan and obviously I don’t mind it either because I have tastebuds. Luke read up on the subject and it seems people in New York take their pizza very seriously. The criteria for pizza here is different to home. The base is usually super thin, although most pizza places also offer Sicilian or ‘Grandma slice’ which have a thick base. Topping are scanty compared to home, the focus is on the crust, the sauce, and the cheese. People differ in what they think makes for the best pizza – so all you can do is get a few names and go out and compare for yourself.

Don’t forget to call it a pie.

Here’s a list of the places we tried, all were recommended as being among the top pizza places in New York – although about a hundred pizza places probably fill that bill so don’t think of this as definitive.

John’s Pizza on Bleecker St.

This place is old and looks it – people have carved their names into just about every surface. We got there at 6 and still had to wait a few minutes. Get there any later and you could wait quite a while, although the service is extremely fast. You can only buy whole pies here and they’re about $20 depending on toppings for a small. Small is still pretty big though and was enough for the two of us (although we’re not really big eaters). The pizza here was definitely good but I discovered that there’s about a five minute window between thin pizzas being the same temperature as the centre of the sun and the cheese congealing. You just have to bow to inevitability and cram it all into your mouth as quickly as possible.

Joe’s Pizza

Also in Greenwich, this take-away place was featured in one of the Spiderman movies – or so their advertising says. They sell pizza by the slice and whole. There’s a few stools to sit on but mainly people just stand around eating or take their pies away. We tried their Sicilian. Again, really good and the base was super fluffy and the very bottom had a great crunchiness to it. We had a slice of pepperoni as well, which was also good but I liked the thicker pizza better.

Arturo’s Pizza

Our last stop in Greenwich, I’m not sure if Arturo’s do take away, it’s a proper restaurant and has a piano and people singing in a kind of informal manner. The vibe is really nice and, despite being pretty crowded (we could hardly get into one of our chairs) I’m sure that if we hadn’t been sitting next to a table of shouters it wouldn’t have been too noisy. We ordered a cheese pie and arugula salad. I’ve been in love with rocket and pizza since forever and the salad here was perfect – small leaves dressed in olive oil with a little parmesan – perfect for piling on top of the pizza. Another place where it’s worth getting in early – a rule that pretty much stands for anywhere good in the city, although locals seem to prefer lining up rather than eating before 7.

Best Pizza.

This time in Williamsburg and on the same block as our accommodation, we couldn’t go past somewhere called ‘Best Pizza’. We actually ended up eating their pizza twice. The first time was on our ‘down’ day when we pretty much stayed in bed and gave our tired feet a rest. We got a whole pizza to take away – they only do one size, 20 inches. Which is huge. The box was the size of a small coffee table. Their pizza is super thin though, so really… it wasn’t *that* bad.

The next time we went was on our way home from a night out and we just bought a slice each and did some people watching. The cafe itself is interesting – patrons draw on paper plates and then the plates are stuck all over the walls and ceiling which makes for lots of things to look at while you wait for your pie.

We hid the box under the bed because it didn’t fit anywhere else.

Speaking of NY pizza terminology, the word ‘pizza’ is often used in signage and on menus, but when ordering you either want a whole pie, or a ‘slice’ – not a piece. White pie is pizza with sauce and white cheeses on it and usually nothing else. I asked for ‘a pepperoni pizza to take away’ when we were in Best Pizza. I should’ve asked for for ‘a pie with pepperoni to go’. ‘Pizza’ and ‘pie’ have the same roots as ‘pide’ and ‘pita’. They all essentially mean the same thing.

We didn’t just eat pizza in NYC though. We ate a few times at a place called The Olive Tree in Greenwich. It did great mac and cheese and there were always tables free. We ate hot dogs from street vendors (not bad.. not great) and we also tried some hip bbq food in Williamsburg on the recommendation of two friends.

Fette Sau

One of Williamsburg’s most hip restaurants, Fette Sau does bbq food – you buy as much meat as you want (by weight), it gets heaped on a tray with the sides you choose and you sit at a long bench table with strangers. A tv on one wall shows a fire… I think it’s supposed to be ironic.

Our pork belly, pulled pork, rolls and broccoli. The cornbread was a new experience – tasted a lot like cake so we ate it for dessert.

Katz’s Deli

If one eating experience shouts ‘New York’ louder than any other, it’s Katz’s deli. The scene from When Harry Met Sally – you know the one – was shot here. The walls are lined with photos of famous clients and there is a protocol here that can’t be denied. You get precisely two seconds, once you get to the front of the line, to shout your order ‘pastrami on rye’ (if you choose) to one of the extremely beefy guys behind the counter and they carve about a pound of meat and slap it between two pieces of bread. I got the pickles too, which made a nice crunchy accompaniment to the sandwich.

The pieces of bread aren’t out of the ordinary – it’s the meat that blows your mind.

A trip to Katz’s is a must do (for the non vegetarians, anyhow) but do not go right on meal times. They’re open 24 hours on the weekends so a late night trip would probably make the experience less hectic.

Luke looking fearfully at the decor.

So essentially, there’s a whole lot of great food to eat in New York. We ate lots of it and barely scratched the surface. If you’re reading this and you’ve been to New York I’d love to hear about your best dining experiences. Tell me!

Mississippi

by

Every time I see the word ‘Mississippi’ I sing that rhyme – ‘Mrs M, Mrs I, Mrs SSI Mrs SSI Mrs PPI.. MISSISSIPPI!’… I hope someone out there knows what I’m talking about or this will look mighty strange.

So we’re in Natchez, reclining in our luxurious, antique four-poster bed. This place is definitely up there with the (very) small number of other luxury places we’ve stayed in this year. Our room in the size of a squash court and people keep calling us ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’. It’s a bit unnerving.

The style to which I would like to become accustomed.

 

The property is an original antebellum plantation house and the town of Natchez was once home to over half the millionaires in America  – cotton was the main export and the wealth was built on slavery. These days it’s a quiet little town but still nicely kept and with over 500 mansions like this in the area (or so I’ve read).

We had an exceptional evening tonight, quite unexpectedly. We had decided to dress up for dinner (now that I actually own a dress) and go down early for a drink at the bar. We got talking to two gentlemen who were both from the south – Mark and Paul. Both lawyers who were here for a case, we ended up sitting together for dinner and having one of those nights of conversation where there’s never a dull moment and you leave feeling like you’ve had a window into another culture. They were both interested in Australia too – Paul had been to Sydney but not Melbourne and was keen to share his impressions.

We talked food, sport, cultural differences and similarities, economics, politics.. it was wonderful. Just the sort of engagement I’d been hoping to have with people here. Better yet, Paul offered to email us with some suggestions for places to eat and visit for the rest of our trip… if you’re reading this, don’t forget, Paul:).

 

More photos tomorrow and then it’s on to Memphis.

 

New Orlean: Swamp Tour!

by

I’ve made a couple of bad decisions today. One was having a 4 hour nap in the middle of the afternoon. So now it’s late at night and I can’t sleep. It’s amazing how many times I can do something, realise it is a mistake and then continue to do it over and over. Buying family sized blocks of chocolate and fully believing I can ration them over a week being another prime example. So now Luke is going to his well-earned rest and I’m wide awake, watching mouse-sized cockroaches scuttle across the kitchen floor. Hooray.

My other major error today, which I feel much worse about, is ordering the half-sized (full is for two people) seafood platter (platter is a flag word in terms of portion size… NTS!) at a restaurant that was described to us as having big portions by our bus driver this morning. He was half the size of a house so WHY DID I NOT LISTEN? Anyway, here’s a photo.

A seafood platter should not be entirely comprised of deep fried food >.< I felt a bit sick as soon as this landed in front of me. Note the size of Luke’s meal behind mine. Lucky bastard.

I ended up taking more than half away in a takeaway container because I felt so monumentally guilty about the wasted food but then it’s deep fried seafood so I threw it in the bin and now I have a wasted styrofoam box to add to my guilt. And it didn’t even taste that good. Hooray. To alleviate my guilt I’m not going to eat any meat for a week if I can avoid it, to atone for wasting all those fishy lives but especially for the soft shell crab. I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt especially sorry for crabs and the like.. the way they don’t just get caught and killed, they usually live all trussed up for a while before being boiled alive. No more crab for me, I think. No more unethical meat, actually – especially when I get home and can buy it for myself.

Anyhoo, what did we do today? We went on a swamp tour! On one of those boats with the giant fans on the back. Airboats, I believe they’re called. I have a thing about boats. I really love them. And the rockier and faster and more dangerous they appear the more I like them. Which makes no sense because I hate rollercoasters and anything else that involves speed and the possibility of any kind of injury, let alone drowning. But a top-heavy boat with no rudder in alligator infested waters? Where do I sign up?!

Awww yeeeeah. Sadly I did not get to drive it.

So we were picked up this morning by our very friendly driver, Chris, and taken to the place where the boats set off. It was $90 each for pick up and the 90 minute ride. We were lucky enough to be in a six person, rather than 16 person, boat. Our pilot/driver/swamp man was Mike. I couldn’t understand some of what he said but we’re getting kind of used to that down here.

That’s Mike… or, as we preferred to think of him ‘Bubba’, in the background.

After admiring the two albino alligators (which I kept calling crocodiles) in their indoor enclosure, we set off. There were about 10 boats but we all sent down different waterways and set about looking for alligators and turtles. We saw lots of each but I didn’t get any decent shots because I only have a wide angle lens. Luke got some good footage though, and the fun we had tearing around corners at high speed in the boat was much better on video than trying to capture it on camera.

We had two other girls from Melbourne on the boat and, unwisely for them, they made it clear that they were afraid of the alligators, even the tiny ones. So when Mike said he was getting a drink from the cooler but instead brought out a baby gator and put it on their shoulders they screamed mightily and much hilarity was had. I wasn’t fussed either way but I’ve learned, through teaching, how to deal with people like Mike. Look super keen and show no fear! So I held the baby and it was actually really nice to touch and not squirmy or slimy at all.

Almost caught some turtles but they tended to scuttle off when we approached.

 

Mike went to put it away but then put it on one of the girl’s heads.. I felt sorry for them but also thought it was funny. Life’s a game of chicken sometimes – if you show fear people can’t help pushing you for reactions.

We saw lots of turtles out sunning themselves but no photos (sorry Nikki!) and lots of birds. I found the moss-draped trees fascinating and we were told of giant rats – about the size of the ROUS’s  who live in the fire swamp in The Princess Bride. They’re an introduced species, designed to eat the water hyacinths but now the damage levees by digging holes under them and so hunters are paid by the tail to kill them. Sound familiar, Australia?

Quite a few homes back onto the swamp so there must be a lot of people who find gators in their yards and rattlesnakes are common too. I don’t know why Americans are so ‘OMG, life in Australia is so dangerous!’ when they have just as many deadly creatures here.

Our guide tried to catch a few live gators by hand but to no avail. The girls weren’t sorry though.

All in all, a fun trip. The most fun was holding the baby and then the bits where we went zooming down the waterways, cornering at an angle and spraying water everywhere. I’d definitely recommend this if you’re in the area, just try to time any visit to New Orleans for Spring/Autumn. Everyone agrees that the heat and bugs down here in Summer are atrocious.

I took hardly any photos but Luke got lots of video.

 

New Orleans

by

Our last day in New York had seen temperatures below zero, so we weren’t all that sorry to be flying south. We’d booked cheap flights with American Airways and were detouring via Washington, which still only meant we spent three hours in the air, which wasn’t too bad.

A few notes on our flying experience. This time we did have to take off our shoes and go through those body scanning machines – our first time. It seems a trifle strange that we have to do this for internal flights and not coming into the country. It sort of suggests that they think the terrorists are already here. Our transfer between flights was the shortest I’ve ever had – we literally walked off one plane and our next flight was already boarding at the gate next door. There was time to go to the toilet and that was it. Cutting it a bit close! Apart from that it wasn’t a bad experience. I always read about people having terrible times in domestic US flights but we had no problems. I was just glad I didn’t wear my 14 hole boots. They take about 15 minutes to get off and put on.

Our taxi driver from the airport was the most talkative yet – an older guy from Vietnam. We could hardly understand anything he said but he was very keen to say it. Telling us the area we were staying in was good and all about his family who live in Springvale in Melbourne. Almost everyone we’ve met around the world knows someone from Melbourne, or so it seems.

Our deluxe accommodation. It looks just as grand on the inside, don’t worry.

We’re staying in an Airbnb house that is supposed to be shared but the guy who lives here is away and there’s no one else staying here so we have to it ourselves. Which is just as well because the room we’re in is adjacent to the kitchen and we’d have people walking through it. The house is pretty old, with peeling paint and looks like nothing has been fixed, ever. It’s got a claw-footed bath, which is nice, but the water doesn’t drain properly and by the end of a shower it’s a quarter full. In the fact the whole place sort of feels like it was recently abandoned by a hoard of first year students. And the front rooms smell very strongly of dogs. Oh well. It’s cheap and we can spread our stuff out and the kitchen’s clean.

After a girl who looked about 15 and was carrying a baby let us in and explained everything we walked a few blocks to a bar called ‘Port of Call’. The vibe was laid back, the music wasn’t too loud and the menu was simple – enormous cocktails with a tropical theme and burgers with baked potatoes. When you order burgers here you often get asked how you want them cooked – like streak. It’s a nice touch but I can’t bring myself to eat pink burger mince. Not yet, anyhow.

The guy behind the bar had an accent like Sam from ‘True Blood’ and was really friendly. He even ended up showing us photos of his dog and an amazing ‘epic meal time’ style construction he’d made of a football pitch and stadium that was made of dip and sausages and meat sticks… it’s a bit hard to explain but we were very impressed. At the end of the night they almost under charged us by about $60 but we pointed it out and the manager gave us a cocktail for free, which was nice. We staggered home and I felt rather sorry for myself the next morning. Lesson learned – you can’t turn your back on New Orleans.

The next day we walked down Frenchman Street and through the French Quarter. All I know about New Orleans I learned from Anne Rice books so I know there’s areas with big mansions, the cemeteries are above ground and voodoo and swamps and all that stuff. So not much, really. Our area looks like an outback Australian town – lots of weatherboard and broken down cars. But then it also kind of looks like Priscilla had swept through and so lots of houses are painted really brightly and there’s mardi gras beads hanging from doorknobs and railings. It’s quite charming.

Beads everywhere!

Although we’ve been warned about the streets being dangerous we’ve not seen anything untoward as yet and I’ve only heard one siren, which is a nice change from New York. People say ‘Hi’…or rather ‘How y’all doin?’ when we walk past and the lady at the supermarket somehow managed to use the word ‘darlin’ 50 times in the space of two minutes.

Speaking of shopping, we went into a pharmacy and were taken aback by the fact that the first thing we saw upon entering was an enormous row of alcohol and bottles much bigger than you get at home. There were two litre bottles of Smirnoff for $20! But… in a pharmacy. Not something I’ve seen anywhere else around the world. Only in America?

A super stylish old car in our street.