June 2005 • Page 3 of 5 • Deep Fried Kudzu

June 22, 2005December 23, 2019

Southern Kitchen, New Market (VA)

We stopped at the Southern Kitchen restaurant in New Market (VA) for lunch on our way to Boston. I tried the peanut soup (it was a little strange having a regional peanut dish like this outside of the Wiregrass in Alabama, where there are roadside stands everywhere selling boiled or roasted peanuts….Dothan even has a peanut festival…). It was a little like melted peanut butter, and it had tiny little pieces of onion inside, too. Av liked it more than I did.

Av had the fried chicken plate, and even the fried chicken was different! It looked and tasted as though the chicken had been battered like tempura rather than how we do it back home – soaked in a bath of buttermilk, then dredged in White Lily flour. This tempura-style chicken was good, though.

Oh – and sad to say, but apparently New Market, VA is past the sweet tea line. When I asked for sweet tea, they only had unsweet. And as for cokes, they only served Pepsi.

June 22, 2005December 23, 2019

Pics from UVA

Av went to UVA for his degree, and this was my first time to visit. I was *so surprised* at how amazingly pretty it is. There are lots of pictures below of the campus.

The picture above is of Edgar Allan Poe’s dorm room there. A good summary about his time there is here.

June 21, 2005December 23, 2019

Hampton Inn, Charlottesville (VA)

Room: This was our first time to stay at this particular Hampton Inn in Charlottesville (VA). There are two Hamptons in Charlottesville – one that is right downtown, very close to the school, and one that is a little closer to the highway. The difference in price was about $30, so we chose the one closer to the highway. The room was one of the smallest among the Hamptons we’ve stayed at. So was the bathroom.

Lobby: Regulation Hampton.

Service: Front desk staff was friendly.

Our experience is this: We would stay here again, especially with the difference in cost between the two in town. Even though this one is a little further out, we were still just three or four minutes from UVA.

June 17, 2005December 23, 2019

Peggy’s in Philadelphia (MS)

People waiting outside, ready to sit down in Peggy’s living room and have some fried chicken

When in Philadelphia, Mississippi, you must drive to the home of someone you don’t know and sit down to lunch. Peggy’s Restaurant, at Byrd Street and Bay Street, just a couple of blocks from the courthouse, serves lunch every day (I think she was doing supper for a while too). She doesn’t have a sign in the front yard, but everybody knows that Peggy’s is the way to go.

Av and I have eaten lunch here before. You walk in and help yourself to whatever’s been cooked up that day – fried chicken, speckled butter beans, greens, cornbread, ‘nana puddin, the works – and find a seat in either of the couple of rooms that are opened up as dining areas. When you’re ready to leave, there’s no check – you just leave your tip on the table and your $7/ea in the basket. Love it!

Nowadays, Peggy has a new house and one of her sons owns the business. It is still a great place for lunch anytime.

June 17, 2005December 23, 2019

Random Pic: Roma Royalty, Objects This Week

Objects on Kelly Mitchell’s stone today

As I’ve blogged about before, the royal Roma family Mitchell is buried in Meridian. When I was there this week, I took this pic of what was on Kelly’s stone. The objects change on a very frequent basis.

June 12, 2005March 17, 2021

Peanut Butter Pie

Shavuot begins tonight, so for the *something dairy*, I made this great peanut butter pie. It’s very similar to other peanut butter pies I’ve made in the past, but the crust is different and better. This isn’t a completely ‘from-scratch’ recipe like I usually like to do, but it was yummy and quick. Nobody always needs or wants or should be a food snob. And who doesn’t like Nutter Butters, right? This is summer…let’s take it easy.

I based this recipe from one called “Nutter Butter Frozen Peanut Butter Pie“.

For the crust:
Take 24 Nutter Butter cookies and place them in a freezer bag. Hit the freezer bag with a rolling pin (or whatever) to make the cookies into crumbles. Pour the crumbled NB’s into a good-size bowl and add 5-6 tbsp of melted butter. Mix well. Place this mixture into either a pie dish or other suitable-size dish. Once filled and even on the bottom, place in the refrigerator.

For the filling:
Cream together one 8-oz package cream cheese, one cup of peanut butter, 3/4 cup of sugar. The original recipe called for a splash of vanilla, but I didn’t think that was necessary. Once that’s all incorporated, stir in 8-oz Cool Whip or freshly whipped cream.

Finish:
Take the crust back out of the refrigerator, and spoon the filling over. Level it out on top. For a little something extra, you can melt a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with a tablespoon of peanut butter, then drizzle that on top. Place in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.

Yummy!