With a meticulous attention to detail, and our own particular cravings, BJH and I mapped out a Southern Food Odyssey fit for only the most gluttonous culinary hobbyists. Sure, we planned a lot traveling and visiting and a fair amount of outdoorsy type activities, but the main goal was to stuff our faces with as much deep fried, butter soaked, sugar encrusted goodness as humanly possible. We planned stops at roadside pork shacks, celebrity owned press magnets, four-star culinary institutions, and one potential tourist trap that I was praying might actually be good as everyone said.
After a meet and greet with Gran-Gran, I promptly passed out in a Dramamine haze for about thirty minutes and awoke to the scintillating smell of John’s mama Sue’s special spaghetti sauce wafting through the wood-beamed ranch house. Apparently, it’s one of his favorite things from boyhood so she makes it whenever he comes home to visit.
She insisted that it was just a simple meat gravy, and I shouldn’t expect any fancy New York additions—fresh basil, fresh garlic, fresh grated Parmesan cheese. “It’s just something John likes,” she stated, and after one bite I understood why: it delivered just enough sweetness to satisfy even the most finicky of kiddie diners. It was comfort food of the highest order, rich with ground beef and a kick of onion, it made me feel like I’d grown up with the Chickamauga Summerours.
To work off our hearty, starchy lunch, we hopped into the car and drove to Dairy Queen. John got some awful blended mocha monstrosity called a MooLatta. According to him, it was moolicious, but I can’t deal with sweetened coffee drinks so I opted for a Key Lime Blizzard: DQ’s delectable vanalla soft-serve with chunks of graham cracker crust mixed in, topped with key lime syrup and whipped cream.
We’d read a great article in a recent issue of the Times about Watershed Restaurant in Decatur. It’s co-owned by Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls (I was determined not to hold that against the place) and cheffed by Scott Peacock, who’s known not only for an impressive career but also for his somewhat complicated relationship with the aging culinary icon, Edna Lewis. Ms.Lewis is the “South’s answer to Julia Child,” and her fried chicken recipe, which she has divulged to Mr. Peacock, is rumored to be among the best EVER. Tuesday night is Fried Chicken Night at Watershed and according to the Times, they’ve normally run out of the stuff by 6:30PM. So I made reservations for six and we drove to Decatur through the post-work Atlanta traffic crush.
To be fair, the food wasn’t bad, it was simply nothing special. The fried chicken plate was large: four pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and two biscuits. But for $17 in an Atlanta suburb, I’d expect no less. John had been excited to try Peacock’s take on Country Captain, a southern chicken curry with peanuts and raisins. The chicken was dry and the curry sauce was simply dumped on top. Several friends of friends had demanded that we not leave without having dessert so I ordered a very sub-par slice of carrot cake (the icing tasted like some sort of cream cheese/Crisco hybrid), John’s folks went for the Best Chocolate Cake—named by the restaurant—and John had a pecan tart that could not have been more boring. I’d been hoping for Down South, not downtown. But the week was young so I kept my chin up.