Country Cookin'

This morning I was off to an early start as while I’m visiting with Martha and Tom this week they’re both moving in to new places. Martha scored a pretty sweet house with a law school friend that is about spitting distance to the “perdy” bama stadium and Tom is still out there being a vagrant and looking for a place. Since my train wasn’t coming till the afternoon on Thursday I had a good chunk of the morning free and I felt the need to help a sista out. We were able to get a number of trips to and fro from the apartment to the new house and afterwards Tom and I ducked over to the City Café located in that one street town of Historic Downtown Northport. Let me tell ya the food in Alabama has yet to disappoint me and considering that I’ve shaken the dust off my sandals and on my way to New Orleans I think I’ll keep that happy sentiment.

Riding the train has been a fairly relaxing experience for me and I’ve been able to get quite a bit of emailing and such done while I’ve been on the train. The only downside is that the Amtrak line is pretty notorious for being late. For example showing up the hour early that they recommend and then adding on the half hour that the train is late to that and you end up sitting around for quite a while. For me that ended up being almost all that time spend on the floor as the Dobb’s family decided to have their family reunion in Tuscaloosa and they all decided the train was the way to go, which I don’t blame them at all. I was still proud though that even though there were a bunch of them they didn’t produce the same numbers or amount of ruckus as my family gatherings do. Just my direct family alone is 30 people including the little nieces and nephews of mine.

I’ll be pulling into New Orleans tonight just in time to get a Tee of Gumbo (hopefully onion free if I can find it, since I’d like to remain cancer free) or perhaps take the 15 Dozen Oyster challenge at the Acme Oyster House. I’ll report more tomorrow on the New Orleans experience.

Day 4 (Thursday July 30) notes:

Southern Cooking Joint: City Café
Located in Historic Downtown Northport

• Plenty of spirit and history considering how close it is to the bama football stadium
• Dinner / Country restaurant feel , pictures that tell a bit of the history of the town from the Civil Rights movement to the hayday of bama football under the guidance of Paul “Bear” Bryant
• I ordered a Sausage & Egg Biscuit, a Chicken Biscuit, and a Bowl of Grits w/ a cup of coffee (All were excellent and I donned them with a little bit of Alabama Sunshine Hot Sauce and I was as happy as a pig in slop)
• Tom ordered the Biscuits and Gravy with a Bowl of Grits but managed in his northern Indiana way to slightly confuse the waitress as to what he wanted b/c me wanted to emphasize the sausage gravy and there for said “Sausage Biscuit and Gravy” A quick language translation and all was ‘gravy’ and it was good!