Category Archives: culinary travel

Cape Hatteras National Seashore: Where land and sea meet

It would have been a mistake to look at a map of the stretch of barrier islands to the south, turn around and head back north to the comforts of the Outer Banks’ “larger” communities, like Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Manteo. As lovely as these villages are – and they are great places to visit – things got really interesting the further we drove south into the heart of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

First, a little geography: Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a long, pencil-thin stretch of barrier islands (Bodie, Hatteras, Ocracoke) with the dunes of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the water of Pamlico Sound on the other. It’s largely land under the watch of the National Park Service, so gets a high level of environmental protection. There are several historic villages scattered along the way (not part of the NPS land) with large beachfront homes and all the amenities of a smaller town.

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We’ve already written about the shifting sand and the close watch residents keep through hurricane season (June – November) but the real highlight is what’s not along long stretches of this pristine coast. The NPS has preserved wetlands for migratory birds (hike along a boardwalk at Pea island National Wildlife Refuge), historic lighthouses and miles of remote sand beach.

In the water, dolphins played. On the shoreline, a few fishermen planted their long rods to cast from the surf and the occasional walker doffed footwear and strolled barefoot along the sand. No shops. No go-carts or mini-golf. Not even a single vending machine. In the NPS campgrounds? No electrical hook-ups and cold water showers. Ink-black skies at night. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it sure is ours.

The Outer Banks are infamous as the Graveyard of the Atlantic – a testament to the dangerous shoals that claimed many a passing ship (the estimate is the waters off the banks holds more than 600 shipwrecks dating back centuries).

Craig took the ranger-guided hike up the black and white striped Bodie Island Light Station. The view from the top was great over the long dunes and the salt marshes that are a perfect stopover point for birds migrating north-south along the Atlantic Flyway. Bodie Island Lighthouse was built in 1871, is 214 steps and on a clear day you can see 30 km (18 mi) from the top. Its flash pattern is 2.5 on, 2.5 off, 2.5 on, 22.5 off (just in case you were wondering) and it still uses an original Fresnel lens. The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

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A little further down the road we stopped at the candy-cane striped lighthouse that most people associate with the Outer Banks: Cape Hatteras Light Station. The National Historic Landmark is the continent’s tallest brick lighthouse (a climb up Hatteras is 248 steps, equivalent to a 12-storey building). The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

The iconic lighthouse also made it to many a newspaper front page in 1999 when the National Park Service moved the entire brick structure 460 m (1,500 ft) back from an encroaching sea. The sands continue to shift but they say the move should keep the tall building safe for a good long time.

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In Hatteras Village we ate dinner overlooking a dock filled with fishing boats and had a seafood meal that set the bar high for the remainder of our trip. The chef at the Breakwater Restaurant buys local: shrimp, scallops, grouper, flounder, tuna and it shows in the taste on the plate. We ate our fill of steamed shrimp the size of a toddler’s fist that were flavour-packed, meaty and didn’t suffer a bit from being dipped in melted butter. On a quest to embrace grits, Jo ate a delicious main of Shrimp & Grits (and yes, it did the trick – now a convert) and Craig had spicy, blackened chunks of yellowfin tuna (the catch of the day) wrapped in soft wheat tortillas and served with sides of black beans, rice and a pineapple chutney. Dessert was one slice/two forks of Peanut Butter Pie – a rich and creamy PB centre topped with dark, chocolate ganache.

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Like we said, the bar is set high.

They call it OBX: North Carolina’s Outer Banks

We’re looking for the places that smack of coastline life. The Outer Banks certainly fill that bill – from the northern tip at the beach at Corolla, to the secluded village of Ocracoke 190 km (118 mi) away. By secluded, here’s what we overheard: “Honey, if the world ended tomorrow, Ocracoke would find out about it next week.” We’ll be there in a few days and will report in.

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Look at a map of the Outer Banks and it seems like the long barrier islands could be blown away by a stiff hurricane. It turns out, they are slowly moving southwest – gale-force winds and the constant pounding of the ocean are shifting the tenuous landscape, one grain of sand at a time. Inch by inch, century by century, the sandbar moves closer to the mainland as wind and tempestuous storms re-arrange the dunes, reshaping the map. When hurricanes come roaring up the Atlantic seaboard, the Outer Banks are in the bull’s eye. But when the weather is lovely – like it has been this early October 2014 – it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful stretch of sand and sun. Kiteboarders, windsurfers, parasailors and sailors love the wind.

We started at the top: Corolla, home to the Colonial Spanish Mustangs, a herd of 100 that are direct descendants of horses shipwrecked centuries ago. Fast forward to the 21st century and these wild horses freely range the beaches, dunes and scrub brush of the narrow sandbar between the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound, protected by the non-profit Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

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We loaded into the back of a 4WD truck, and setout with Corolla Outback Adventures to follow hoof prints in the sand. After driving between the dunes and into the maritime forest, we finally spotted one harem of six down by the ocean’s edge catching a little sea breeze to stay cool.

OBX – in particular, Kitty Hawk – is known for wind and for the “12 seconds that changed history.” This is where two bicycle-building brothers – Wilbur and Orville Wright – came to take advantage of the constant winds and the area’s seclusion to test their homemade flying machine. The year was 1903, and on a chilly December day they ran four successful flights – the shortest was 12 seconds and the longest 59 seconds. It was the first successful power-driven flight in world history and it cemented the Outer Banks as the Birthplace of Aviation. We saw it, walked it and soaked it up at the excellent Wright Brothers National Monument. Markers in the field show the exact start and stopping points of each flight, and indoor displays include reproductions of the brothers’ first wind tunnel machine and lightweight flying contraptions.

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Just a few miles down the road, Jockey’s Ridge State Park protects the tallest natural sand dune on the eastern seaboard (at 100 ft above sea level it’s not exactly nosebleed territory, but it is a very impressive sweep of sand). We took a long walk to the top of the dune for great views over the beachfront. We visited too late in the afternoon, but Wright-wannabes can sign up for hang gliding classes with the dune top as a take-off point.

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Part two of our OBX mission is to try as much fresh seafood as possible. Our favourite stop was an Outer Banks’ institution: Sam & Omie’s. Even in the off season, the place was hopping, packed with entrants in a women’s sportfishing tournament who knew where to find the best seafood meals. Sam & Omie’s began as an early breakfast hangout for local fisherman back in the late 1930s. These days, they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and are known for the shrimp burger (a delicious pile of shrimp on a coleslaw-lined bun that is impossibly messy to eat) and the catch of the day (always right off the boat). We shared a Broiled Seafood Combo of shrimp and scallops with steamed collards on the side (got to get our iron-rich veggies for the day).

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Getting to where we’re going

You’d think that getting out of town would be the easy part.

Not so much.

The city we live in sits at the juncture of a big river and a large lake. Sometimes it’s windy, which makes for great sailing, kiteboarding and the like. Big wind can mean big waves. And big waves can make for one rollickin’ ferry ride.

In a feat of physics and geometry, the fellows who run Horne’s Ferry managed to shoehorn 10 vehicles onto the small platform, toss the lines and move us safely from Point A to Point B, bobbing across the roiling waters of the St. Lawrence River. With the ferry holdup, the miraculous shoehorning and the slower-than-usual crossing, it took us about four hours to travel 15-kilometres (9 miles).

This six-week road trip is about finding out what’s unique about life along the lower stretches of the Atlantic coastline – through the Carolinas and Georgia – then turning inland and digging deep into the music, culture and history of the hills and mountains on the return trip north.

So, we packed the camper van, revved the engine, gave our house sitters some last minute instructions (Reminder if you’re reading this: No parties. Recycling goes out on Mondays.) and we were off.

As soon as possible, we connected with salty water: driving down the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) that separates Chesapeake Bay from the mighty Atlantic Ocean. We tested the patience of a bemused local fisherman in Onancock, VA, peppering him with questions about how he cooks clams, oysters, shrimp, grouper and catfish. We went for the clams; scrubbed and then steamed in a mixture of Heineken, chopped tomatoes, garlic and onions.

onancock seafood

Next morning we crossed the 30-km (17.6-mi) Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World. Craig took the wheel. Jo “doesn’t do tunnels.”

It’s like magic: we popped out near Virginia Beach, it was a short hop down the coastline to North Carolina and then suddenly we found ourselves in the village of Corolla at the very top of the Outer Banks (OBX, as the locals like to call it).

So, we’re here. One dog. One camper van. Two people. Bring on the beaches and the seafood.

5 best tastes of the Southwest

Picture the foods of the American Southwest: fiery dishes, cold drinks and incredible flavours. It turns out that these are an everyday part of the smaller communities as well as the chic urban eateries across New Mexico and Arizona. The desert of the Southwest is a backdrop where the green chile reigns supreme and the locals will happily share their secrets of freshly made salsa.

COOKBOOKS: If you can find copies of these cookbooks, grab them!

      • Southwestern Kitchen, by Jane Butel
      • Fiestas for Four Seasons, by Jane Butel
      • The Great Salsa Book, by Mark Miller
      • Arizona’s Salsa Trail, The Official Guide by Christine Maxa

5 BEST WAYS TO TASTE THE FLAVOURS

1. Follow Arizona’s Salsa Trail in the southeast part of the state. The stops along the trail include a dozen family-run eateries that will set your tastebuds ablaze (and we mean that only in the most positive of ways). Stop in at a grocery store and check out the staggering selection of salsas. Then, bypass the big name brands and buy local.

Our top picks:

  • At the tiny El Mesquite Taqueria in Pima, owner Jesus Cabrera roasts his green chiles over fragrant mesquite wood. Jesus serves dishes like Carne Asada Burrito or Birria Tacos with a side of very spicy Sonora style salsa.
  • Locals have been stopping in for three decades to eat tasty Huevos Rancheros, the signature dish at El Coronado on Safford’s Main Street. The dish is smothered in homemade salsa – the recipe hasn’t changed in 30 years – tomatoes with oregano, cumin, garlic, onions, cilantro, jalapeños and serrano peppers.
  • El Charro boasts three homemade salsas: the signature hot sauce on the menu since 1979, a thicker and spicier chile caribe salsa, and the flaming hot jalapeño salsa.
  • The Manor House Restaurant has been on the Salsa Trail since its inception. Their award winning salsa (heavy on the cilantro) flies out the door. They make it in five gallon pails at a time.

2. Look for the green chiles.
You can be methodical about this. Follow New Mexico’s official Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail or just try it scattershot. The chances are you’ll find the ubiquitous green chile on virtually ever menu, breakfast, lunch and dinner. We stopped by the local grocery store to pick up canned, chopped green chiles to try to recreate the recipes back home in the middle of a cold Canadian winter.

Our top picks:

  • In Roswell, a stop on New Mexico’s Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail, they serve up a tongue-sizzling Fire-Roasted Green Chile Cheeseburger at downtown Peppers Grill & Bar. A handmade beef patty is topped with Monterey Jack and a thick slice of roasted Chaves County-grown hot green chile. For added heat, the burger is served on a jalapeño bun and a side of green chile enchilada sauce for dipping.
    Peppers
  • We found lots of local colour (and chiles) in historic Pinos Altos, a small New Mexican community where the dining magnet is definitely the Buckhorn Saloon. Behind its thick adobe walls is the real deal, complete with a bison head above the bar and a pot bellied stove that’s been a fixture since 1897. Chef-owner Thomas Bock serves up bowls of thick, meaty green chile stew, flavoured with onions and served with soft, warm tortillas for sopping up the drippings. The Saloon’s signature Green Chile Cheese Fries are a plate of fries smothered with a green chile sauce and melted Monterey Jack cheese. The juicy, cooked-to-order Buffalo Burger gets its extra kick from a slice of fresh green chile.
    Buckhorn
  • 66 Diner on classic Route 66 in downtown Albuquerque, NM has been named one of the top 10 diners in America by Huffington Post. The menu includes a massive Green Chile Cheeseburger, a New Mexican staple and their thick milkshakes consistently win awards as the city’s best.
  • The Green Chili Beef Burrito at El Charro in Safford, AZ is a house speciality – an enchilada-style flauta, deep-fried and topped with cheese and sauce, and very filling.

3. Open your tastebuds to frosty margaritas

Our top picks:

  • The Classic Margarita at Stables Ranch Grille (in the Tubac Golf Resort) spoiled us for life. Patrón tequila and a splash of Grand Marnier served in two versions: frozen with salt and lime or traditional with rough kosher salt on the rim.
    margarita
  • Elvira’s in Tubac where they have nine margaritas on the menu in flavours like agave honey, mango and tangerine-orange. We tried the Tamarind Margarita made with tequila, tamarind pulp, lime and served in a Tajin chile-rimmed glass.
  • We loved the House Margarita at La Paloma in southeast Arizona where their advice is to “drink it right off the rim to get a hit of salt.”
  • Silver City’s Little Toad Creek Brewery & Distillery serves a Jalapeño Rita, a Southwest style margarita created with vodka infused with muddled jalapeños. Think: traditional margarita meets Southwest heat.

4. Look for dishes with the trinity of ingredients – corn, chiles and squash.

Our top picks:

  • Frida Kahlo Chile Poblano at Elvira’s in Tubac. Stuffed with squash blossom, roasted corn, queso Chihuahua (a Mexican semi-soft cheese made from pasteurized or raw cow’s milk), covered with a bean chipotle sauce. The vibrantly decorated restaurant is considered one of the best Mexican eateries in the state.
    Elvira's
  • One of the best meals we ate in the Southwest was the Tres Queso Relleno at Sandiago’s Mexican Grill in Albuquerque (right at the base of the Sandia Tram). It was a tortilla-encrusted poblano chile filled with goat, Cotija and Monterey Jack cheeses and topped “Christmas” style (with both red and green chile sauces).

5. Embrace Mexican
New Mexico and Arizona are heavily influenced by the flavours from south of the border. Virtually every city or town – no matter how small – has a stable of Mexican restaurants that can satisfy every budget. We travel on the frugal side and luckily there is no shortage of Mexican foods that fall in line with our finances.

Mexican

Our top picks:

  • Chiles Rellenos at La Paloma in Solomon (also a stop on the Salsa Trail) – roasted, mild Anaheim chiles are stuffed with cheddar cheese, fried in a light batter and then doused with two scratch-made enchilada sauces.
  • Start with Spinach and Queso Dip (spinach, artichoke, mushrooms, spinach, poblano and Mexican cheeses) and follow up with the signature dish, Carne Seca, at El Charro Café in Tucson’s El Presidio Historic District. The Carne Seca is made of marinated, lean Angus beef sundried on rooftop racks, then shredded and grilled with green chile, onions and tomatoes.
    carne seca
  • They say Tucson has the best Mexican food north of the border. Testing that claim along “The Best 23 Miles of Mexican Food” requires stamina and a love for dishes like pico de gallo and local specialties like the cult-status Sonoran Hot Dog (a large hot dog wrapped in bacon, and topped with pinto beans, grilled onions, fresh tomatoes, jalapeño sauce, mustard and mayo).
  • Pulled Pork Tacos at The Mission in Scottsdale, a moderate-size city that is home to more than 600 restaurants (more per capita than Manhattan – this is foodie heaven). The pork has been marinated overnight (for a minimum of eight hours), topped with Cotija cheese, dried cabbage, pickled jalapeño and a signature pineapple glaze served on a hand pressed corn tortilla.

 

6 classic Southern foods

Think of this page as a “sampler plate.” To completely cover the range of Southern cooking would require pages and pages (and pages . . .). These are the tastes and flavours we thought of as classic Southern, the must-trys, the belt-looseners. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.

1. GRITS

Sign outside a typical Southern restaurant (which, of course, serves grits):

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The Nuts & Bolts: As Canadians, we don’t think we’d have a hope of finding them on the shelf in our local grocery store. This quintessential Southern dish is made from finely ground corn cooked with milk or water and enhanced with cheese, eggs, butter, hot sauce, shrimp, etc. It shows up on breakfast menus south of the Mason-Dixon line but is just at home on a lunch or dinner menu.

Must-Eat Experiences:

  • After a month of ordering Shrimp and Grits at every possible opportunity, I tried one that was completely different – and also delicious – at the Early Girl Eatery in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville is a mountain city (read: far from the shoreline) but that didn’t seem to matter. The dish was yummy: jumbo shrimp sautéed in a spicy brown sauce with peppers, green onions, tomato and andouille sausage that had a bit of a kick. Served over stone-ground cheese grits (the chef swears by the stone-ground variety of grits) this version of Shrimp and Grits had a more creamy than tomato base. Loved. Every. Spoonful.Early Girl Eatery shrimp and grits
  • Shrimp and Grits at the Front Street Grill at Stillwater in historic Beaufort (North Carolina) were calling to me. Really loudly. To think that I almost ordered something else from the menu (having loaded up on shrimp as we travelled down the coast the previous week) . . . best not to think about it. It was an amazing meal of enormous, local shrimp in a tasso gravy with sundered tomatoes and mushrooms, served over stone-ground cheese grits. I am a fan for life.
  • The signature dish of Shrimp and Grits at City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi. In 2009 the restaurant won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Southern Chef. We snagged a table at the window and had a great view of the main courthouse square in downtown Oxford. It was like watching the set of a John Grisham novel (in fact, Grisham used to call Oxford home). The dish starts with Original Grit Girl cheese grits and adds plump, sautéed shrimp, garlic, mushrooms, scallions, white wine, lemon juice and local Big Bad bacon. Shrimp and Grits has been on the menu for 21 years and nobody’s talking about taking it off.
  • Thought I’d died and gone to heaven with the Shrimp & Grits at the Breakwater Restaurant in small Hatteras village near the bottom of the North Carolina Outer Banks. If you’re unsure about grits, the flavour-filled stone-ground grits of this dish will convert you for life. The grits were the perfect backdrop to soak up a flavour-filled mixture of sautéed Carolina shrimp, spicy Andouille sausage, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic. One of the best meals of our travels.

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The Final Word: Grits vary from plain (for those who like their foods tilting toward bland) to a wonderful backdrop for Gulf Coast shrimp, hot sauces and creamy cheese. We’ve learned that not all grits are created the same – they’ve ranged from “meh” to “gimme more” so we’re always willing to give them a try.

2. BISCUITS AND GRAVY

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The Nuts & Bolts: Biscuits and gravy are not haute cuisine, but they are classic Southern breakfast comfort food. It is a caloric blowout, for sure. They are so passionate about it across the South that the second week of September has been crowned National Biscuits and Gravy Week. Who knew?

Must-Eat Experiences:

  • The chief of police was settled into the booth next to ours at the Blue Ridge Restaurant in Floyd, VA. Two tables over there’s a spirited discussion about local politics. If ever there was a place to experiment with authentic biscuits and gravy, this was it. The serving that arrived was enormous – easily enough to feed two – home-style biscuits doused with a white gravy peppered with sausage bits and a serving of Virginia ham on the side. The Blue Ridge is in the former Floyd County Bank Building – they still use the walk-in vault as a cooler.

The Final Word: It’s definitely “a Southern thing,” showing up on menus from McDonald’s restaurants to virtually every breakfast diner, in every state across the region. Locals we spoke to crave their biscuits and gravy hit in the morning.

3. BARBECUE

The Nuts & Bolts: We think there’s no such thing as bad barbecue . . . some just tastes better than others. But talk about regional rivalries – roasted with sauce, sauce added at serving; dry-rubbed, moist marinade; hickory wood, maple wood. One could spark a bar brawl with this kind of talk.

Must-Eat Experiences:

  • We visited months ago but we’re still dreaming of the pork barbecue at Ubon’s Barbecue, just outside Yazoo City, MS. Ubon’s award-winning pork ribs and beef brisket are to die for. Five generations of the Roark family stick close to the original recipes – back in the day they cooked up their sauces in a five-gallon washtub. “Best funeral a dead pig could ever have” boasts a sign outside the kitchen.
  • Jim ‘N Nick’s in Birmingham, AL is the original restaurant, the mothership of their locations across the South. Their conviction is that barbecue is the union of hickory and fire. All else stems from this one truth. The sandwich board on the sidewalk claims “the best pulled pork anywhere,” blues riffs drift from the open doorway, and the tantalizing smell of barbecue reaches out and yanks you inside. The meat arrives fresh and is slowly smoked over the low heat of a hickory wood fire (14 hours for the pulled pork). The slow-smoked meat shows up in all quadrants of the menu – in sandwiches, loaded on top of nachos, on baked potatoes, and mixed into salads.
  • In Abingdon, VA – along The Crooked Road music trail at the heritage centre called Heartwood the small restaurant serves barbecue including delicious pulled pork on a bun with blue cheese coleslaw, baked beans and sweet & spicy dill pickles. Heartwood holds a free Thursday evening open jam where local musicians play old-time and bluegrass.

The Final Word: Sampling barbecue is the dream assignment. Pulled pork, beef brisket, ribs served with classic Southern sides like baked beans and homemade coleslaw. As one local told us: “My grandfather used to say they’d eat everything but the squeal.”

4. FRIED CHICKEN

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The Nuts & Bolts: What can we say? They like to fry things across the South. And they especially like to fry chicken. Southern fried chicken is a religious experience: chicken pieces are battered and then pan-fried or deep-fried in sizzling oil. Seasonings may or may not be part of the equation. There’s a law in the South: Everyone’s mother makes the best fried chicken.

Must-Eat Experiences: 

  • In historic Vicksburg, MS – a stop along the beautiful Natchez Trace Trail and the location of the Vicksburg National Military Park – the Walnut Hills Restaurant served us their delicious Blue Plate Special of cayenne-sprinkled fried chicken, fried corn, okra and tomatoes, mustard greens, coleslaw and a tall glass of sweet tea.

The Final Word: You cannot escape from the South without bellying up to a picnic table meal of fried chicken. Our main takeaway? Chicken + batter + hot oil = everyone’s  mother makes the best fried chicken (natch).

5. FRESH SEAFOOD

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The Nuts & Bolts: It should come as no surprise that we ate fresh seafood every day while visiting the Gulf Coast states. We asked locals where to find a supplier at the docks, and often there was a shrimp boat tied up outside. Two family-run favourites were 13 Mile Seafood Market (great shrimp and oysters) in Apalachicola, FL and Joe Patti’s Seafood in Pensacola, FL. Without a word of a lie, you can literally jump from the shrimp boat into the side door of Joe Patti’s, one of the largest fresh seafood markets in the whole Southeast.

Must-Eat Experiences:

  • Every once in a while a meal lands on the plate that makes us salivate for weeks afterwards, aching for a repeat performance. Such was dinner at the Breakwater Restaurant in the village of Hatteras, well down the coastline of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It would be hard to beat the starter of Steamed Shrimp (21/25 count size) pulled from the sea just a short distance up the NC coast. The moist, meaty, enormous shrimp were seasoned with Old Bay, steamed, and served with melted butter for dipping. We ordered the half-pound and quickly wished we’d indulged in the full pound plate. Their Shrimp & Grits main dish (see Grits, above) was just as amazing.

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  • Joe Patti’s will steam a bucket of shrimp for you to eat in the car. Grab a handful of napkins and chances are the shrimp won’t even make it out of the parking lot. We bought a pound of shrimp, took it out to the van and cooked it up right away, then ate picnic style.
  • The Steamboat Warehouse is one of the few remaining cotton warehouses on the banks of the Bayou Courtableau in tiny Washington, LA. The Eggplant Belle Rose appetizer is worth every one of its seafood-laced gazillion calories: fried eggplant medallions are topped with Gulf shrimp and fresh crabmeat, then smothered with a creamy seafood sauce and chunks of fresh bluepoint crabmeat. So rich we had to share.
  • Remoulade (in the French Quarter) serves New Orleans specialties like seafood gumbo, crawfish pie, soft-shell crab and fried catfish. We downed a platter of Shrimp Creole and practically licked the plate.
  • It’s crowded. It’s loud. It’s so way bigger than popular. And the seafood is off-the-boat fresh. It’s an Outer Banks classic: Sam & Omie’s in Nags Head, North Carolina. We gorged on seafood with their signature Shrimp Burger (an enormous pile of fried shrimp loaded onto a coleslaw-lined bun). It’s messy but delicious — if you’ve eaten one and don’t have the juices running down your arms . . . well, then you haven’t eaten one.

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The Final Word: One can never have too much fresh seafood. And South is the place to get it.

6. CAJUN

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The Nuts & Bolts: Cajun cooking is, ahem, “different.” Some might describe it as an acquired taste but for the Cajuns who settled in the bayou and the remote prairie of Louisiana, they depended on a diet that leaned heavily toward seafood, local wildlife (think: gators and shrimp), heavily seasoned dishes and hearty meals, like stews and gumbos.

Must-Eat Experiences:

  • Crawfish Town USA in Breaux Bridge, LA specializes in Cajun favourites – gumbo, étouffée, cracklin’, boudin, bisques and crawfish boils. We had a delicious Spicy Shrimp and Chicken Pasta – which sounds ho-hum but was anything but bland.
  • Tabasco sauce is made from peppers on a family-run specialty farm on Avery Island in rural Louisiana. Getting to the factory was a drive across miles of low bayou country, past fields of sugar cane and rice but once there we indulged in the short factory tour. They don’t serve full meals at the site but, no matter, you can get Tabasco sauce at virtually every restaurant across the state (and much of the world). It’s a tabletop staple.
  • Everywhere across the small towns and down rural roads we saw signs for boudin, gator-on-a-stick and cracklin’.

The Final Word: Sometimes we couldn’t get enough – dishes like shrimp étouffée and pecan pie. Other unique dishes – deep-fried cracklin’ and boudin – were new to our tastebuds but beloved by locals. There’s lots to choose from in Cajun cuisine, so we never went hungry. Loved the spiciness! Best of all, food and music usually went together.

 

Food

We’re firm believers in the philosophy that food, history and culture are intertwined. (What else could explain cracklin’ in rural Louisiana or jalapeño-infused margaritas in Arizona?)

So, when we are on the road we are always looking for the dishes that are local; those foods that bring us closer to the people and the landscape we are travelling through. We scour shelves at local grocery stores, hunt through farmers’ markets and ask a lot of questions. It’s a way to fill our stomachs and gain a little cultural wisdom along the way.

In the bites that follow, keep this edict from Luciano Pavarotti in mind:
One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

Words on the page

Our stories and articles appear in Canadian magazines and online.

Spring and fall, we load the van – with everything from guitars to laptops – toss in a thick bundle of maps, several notebooks and roll down the road. We meet great people, gather wonderful story material and then write, write, write. Browse the links to some of our pieces in print:

BIG TRIP #1: ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC: 9,000 km through the Southeast U.S.

Music Trails of the American Southeast1

BIG TRIP #2: TUNES, RUINS & STARS: 13,000 km across the American Southwest

American Southwest

BIG TRIP #3: HUGGING THE ATLANTIC COASTLINE; MUSIC INLAND: 7,064 km

Google Maps Big Trip #3 PDF-page-001

BIG TRIP #4: ROCK & ROLL: 10,950 km exploring western U.S. National Parks

 MISCELLANEOUS

RV TRAVEL, PET TRAVEL, FOOD & TRAVEL DESTINATIONS

We travel. We write. We publish.

Travels With Rigby is for web surfers who are looking for practical information on frugal RV travel, travelling with your dog (our pooch is Rigby), finding irresistible eats and sussing out music destinations. We’ve clocked the miles and visited the sights and these are the best from our travels: the who/what/when/where/why highlights for those that love music, food and the camping life.

You’ll find tips and info on:

  • Best ways to travel with your dog.
  • Foods we found irresistible.
  • Practical ways to travel by small RV.
  • Campsites and parks we’ve loved.
  • Planning realistically for gas costs, cell phone coverage, etc.

About us . . .

Travel writers. Foodies. Music lovers. Can’t go anywhere without our dog. Josephine Matyas works full-time as a freelance writer, specializing in travel and food. Craig Jones has got street cred: lots of miles on the road crisscrossing Canada as a professional musician, followed by just as many years tapping away at a computer keyboard.

We’re book authors – our award-winning book on the roots of the blues is Chasing the Blues: A Traveler’s Guide to America’s Music. Find it online or order from your favourite bookstore. For a modest shipping amount, we can also send you a signed copy – just reach out through our contact form.

We write for websites, newspapers and magazines. We also blog on this site when we are on the road. Yes, we are “old school” if that means research, writing and paying attention to grammar, quality and fact checking. But as for the platform – print and digital both. 

It’s been an experiment: Taking her expertise (travel writing) and his experience (on the bandstand, teacher and writer), stirring it together and seeing what happens. Add a camper van (a 2007 Roadtrek 210 for those who need the specs), an easy going dog, a file full of maps and a GPS/wireless backup camera nicknamed “Hal” that sometimes toys with us (we prefer the maps).

Several times a year we pack up High Cotton (the Class B RV), take the dog for her trim, top up the gas tank and hit the road for a month or two at a time. We post links to articles we’ve published (see Words) and blog short bits and pieces while we are away from Home Base (Ontario, Canada).

LISTEN TO JO’S CBC RADIO INTERVIEW ON TRAVEL IN CANADA!