Outspoken and Outta Sight...

New Orleans has Bourbon St., and Memphis has Beale St. On Bourbon you'll hear mostly jazz, zydeco, and a lot of 'show us your tits'. On Beale St., blues, soul, and R&B rule. There is a statue of W.C. Handy, the godfather of the blues, in the park, and also one of Rufus Thomas, the Ambassador of Soul, and the King of Rhythm and Blues. I'd been dreaming of eating at the Rendezvous, in an alley off 2nd St., since 1988, when I first heard John Hyatt sing “At least we can get ourselves a decent meal/Down at the Rendezvous.” We drove up from Clarksdale, Mississippi, and meandered about. Well, even though it was New Year's Eve weekend, the Rendezvous was closed, so I guess Charlie Vergos, the owner since 1948, can afford a day or two off. In fact it was closed until the tenth, so we headed back to Beale St. and settled into the Blues City Cafe on the corner of 2nd St. and Beale. At our old wine bar Stop Miami, we served Abita beers, but it became harder and harder to get in the quantity we needed. But here, like in New Orleans where it's a local beer, it's everywhere. We order two Purple Hazes, a half-slab of ribs, a bowl of seafood gumbo (okra moment #1), and some hot tamales. The ribs are dry-rubbed, Memphis-style, and they're crisped, pretty meaty, juicy and tender. A good rib. The gumbo is tangy, and the hot tamales are dense with corn. The spicy ground meat filling is definitely not Mexican, more like Southwest. I could see how after a lot of drinking, a plate of tamales here could end every single night. We were heading back to Clarksdale for New Year's, but we had a feeling we'd be back to Memphis, in the meantime.
Day three of the cleanse finds us in a better mood, as yesterday was pretty painful, starting with no coffee. Headaches, stuffy nose, poisons coming out from everywhere...Starting to remember that I love raw fruits and vegetables. Can't wait for the weekend when I score my okra.

Somebody SHOOT That Thing...

JAMES 'SUPER CHIKAN' JOHNSON is one of the reasons I'm eating only raw food...

Day One of the Daily Cocaine 21-Day raw-foods cleanse. Pictured below is the first dinner, a seaweed wrapped raw-foods bonanza. Since we'll be eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, it's making me miss the good old urban Farmers Market. Fresh produce, artisanally-produced cheeses, unpasteurized milk, heirloom pork, country-baked pies, yuppies and their golden retrievers, homeless guys asking for change, homemade soaps and candles, etc. And while I love to mingle with my neighbors on a quiet Saturday in the park, the market at Legion Park off Biscayne Blvd, which is near my neighborhood, is not a farmers market. 'Local' produce does not necessarily mean you are buying from a farmer. Farms sell to wholesalers who sell to vendors. This is the same 'local' produce that supermarkets sell, except that supermarkets (for obvious reasons), get the first pick. Which means the superior produce. Which is why you may find some 'buys' because for all intents and purposes, they may be 'seconds', or day-olds, or about-to-go-bads. The lack of understanding of how our food is grown, nurtured, harvested, and then sold to the public, especially by self-proclaimed 'foodies', is breathtaking. Which is why people are complaining all autumn about the lack of local produce at the market. In September, I asked Mr. Glaser of Glaser Organic Farms about this and he laughed. He told me he had fresh-picked okra, pomfrey, and mangoes. “I can live on that, but I don't think anyone else can,” said the raw foods eating vegan. (Yes, he eats raw okra, and I have to say I have tried some, and it was the best (non) preparation of okra I've ever had.)

My CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box, which is a half-share at $360/season, about $20/week, is just fine. I loved the arugula and radishes, but I'm fairly neutral on tatsoi. The food in the box has worked out okay, but I would rather pick what I want, not what someone else wants. I think it's a great introduction to organic food and the CSA philosophy, but I guarantee you at some point you will get tired of being required to go through someone else's choices for you, picking them up on the day they have chosen, and being prepared to cook or eat the stuff fairly quickly. The pickup's Saturday, a day I usually go out for dinner, and I don't cook much on Sunday, either. So everything's three days old right off the bat.


Back in 1992, I belonged to a CSA in Washington, DC. I used to drive out to the actual farm, east on Pennsylvania Ave. (yes, THAT Pennsylvania Ave.), to Prince George's County, where the farm was located. It was a quiet drive, and the farm was always great to see up over the long hilly driveway. I would say peaceful, but with the noise of the farm equipment, the bugs, the acrid smell of fresh cow manure, well, maybe peaceful is the right word. But the pickup was on Friday, and I worked weekends. Again, it was cool for one season. Try next year and judge for yourself.

As I begin my 21-Day raw-foods cleanse with my constant companion, I will look back concurrently on the recent road trip we took to Mississippi, through Memphis, Mobile, and New Orleans, along with Apalachicola and Cedar Key, both in Florida, if only to relive those great eating and drinking moments in my mind. We ate a lot of great food (mostly fried), including some amazing BBQ, and drank a lot (did I mention New Orleans?). Incredible music, of course, which was the reason for the trip to begin with. Let's start with Super Chikan, New Year's Eve, at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Somebody SHOOT that Thing!

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire...of Barbecue

While everyone promotes the taco experience in Homestead, due to the influx of Mexican immigrants, I instead head for an even older tradition down south, which is barbecue. And for that, no one beats the current royalty of the rib, Sir Woody. Sir Woody rolls his enormous custom-built smoker/griller into the empty lot on SW 344th St every Friday and Saturday, and if you think you smell ribs while you're shopping at 'Robert Is Here' three long blocks away, it is coming from Sir Woody's. I stepped into his trailer, and it was spotless. Gleaming, almost. Award plaque hanging on the wall from 2002, evidence of longevity. My only advice to you, while you're figuring out what to order, is everything. Not complicated. Chicken legs-skin crisped like the best duck you've ever had, dark meat pink, moist, and smoky. Ribs smoked, crisped to order, and served crackling. I was lucky enough to snare an entire barbecued pork loin that Sir Woody had just brought to peak perfection, crispy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside. Driving away with our food, the car became so irresistibly fragrant with smoke and pig aromas that my touring companion and I were compelled to finally pull over and devour most of it squatting in the dirt under a tree by the side of the road. As she opened our Jarritos Limon (Lemon Sodas) with the lug wrench (we had forgotten an opener), we busted up the chicken and ribs, too. As the homemade BBQ sauce made its way down our chins (we had forgotten napkins, too, but thank you gas station toilet paper!), the portions we were saving for our significant others back in Miami got smaller and smaller. I guess they'll have to make their own trip down south. Anyway, Sir Woody commands you.
Sir Woody...SW 344th St (Palm Dr.) near Krome Ave. Friday and Saturday Cash Only


It takes a real woman to open a soda bottle with a lug wrench, bitches!


Had to smell this one again.

DailyCocaine on the Road-North to the Deep South...

Tremendous road trip up through the Florida panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Ate some great food, and listened to a lot of great music. I cannot tell a lie-pickled okra makes your nose grow, and is also a great aphrodisiac....