The Couscous Chronicles

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting my “new” neighbors Jackie and Josiah Saunders.  A more proper description would be I met my “future” new neighbors given my wife and I are able to eventually sell our semi-customized “Mac Mansion” tract home in the booming Cincinnati mega suburb of West Chester; AKA the “Dub C”population 75000 and noted for the giant landmark blue and yellow IKEA flanking I-75, and relocate to our recently acquired two year old custom built builder’s home in the leafy inner I-275 beltway suburb of Glendale population 22oo known for being “the only village in Ohio designated a National Historic Landmark by the U. S. Department of Interior (www.glendaleohio.org).  I don’t know if West Chester has a town symbol, but I think the closest thing would be the ubiquitous “Coming Soon” sign while for Glendale the town symbol is immortalized in the giant metal art squirrels dotting the village landscape as part of an art project modeled after downtown Cincinnati’s 2000 Great Pig Gig.  The Saunders live in a almost pinkish light red brick 1958 modified ranch home framed up and surrounded by meticulously maintained gardens interspersed throughout the front and back yards.   I had admired their back yard from a distance during several of my previous visits to the “new” home and I was honored to finally meet its care takers on a day that found me quickly darting to and for about my own yard trying to kill weeds with a recycled bottle of Ortho “Weed-B-Gone”.We made our acquaintances at the partially rusting metal fence that separates our two backyards.  The Saunders energetically introduced themselves and welcomed me to Glendale.  Jackie and Joe both being African American and decidedly senior with a slight air of academia in their mannerisms and speech.  While we did not share our occupations, they both reminded me of retired college professors making them quite a cute couple with Jackie citing, “I spend most of my time in the basement…I live there and Joe lives in the upstairs”.Oddly enough following introductions Josiah or “Joe” as Jackie calls him, acting as though he had known me for years and was simply picking up on a previously unfinished conversation launched immediately into a politically charged diatribe against why last year’s $800 billion banking industry stimulus package was a conspiracy to rob all of us hard working Americans blind.  Nice!In the passing of approximately forty-five minutes several of which were interrupted (at least for me) by the incessant crowing of a rooster in someone’s nearby back yard the Saunders not only educated me on how Jackie had “jumped the fence” last year attempting to exterminate the poison ivy vines dripping over a portion of our shared fence with “Brush-B-Gone” to alerting me that my new home had been built on a former water well that tapped into a series of underground artisian wells that some day would flood my basement as it has theirs following several days of heavy rain for the past twelve years they have lived in their home.   Not so nice!The Saunders were also a repository of recent local history, sharing the time their nephew was chased down the street by a deer, “the worst thing that can happen is if you get a deer in your yard”.  They also knew their share of Glendale antiquity in describing how Joe was a third generation Glendalean (can I say that?), the son of a former track star whose name graces a small park near my new home’s cul-de-sac called Saunders Park.  Jackie and Joe disagreed on whether his father’s local track record had ever been broken with Joe clarifying that it was his Grandfather’s track record that was broken in 1977 and that his father’s still stood the test of time.Joe also educated me on how Glendale had been developed back in 1855 by the original Procter of THE Procter & Gamble soap company and that he built the town as a rail commuter suburb connected via rail line directly to his Ivorydale soap plant.  Joe also mentioned his Grandfather despite the rail line did indeed drive the Procter patriarch to Cincinnati from time to time and that several Procter descendants still inhabited homes near the Glendale village square.I could tell the Saunders could have talked all day, but I needed to get back home to the family and so as I spotted and pounced on spraying a nearby gargantuan weed, announced I needed to continue you on finishing out my weed extermination campaign and I looked forward to speaking again.  Overall this was a conversation and history lesson worth listening to and now I am not only looking forward to selling the “Dub C” Mac Mansion but to also move into the new Glendale home and to having more future interesting conversations with the Saunders.  A positive foot note on the basement flooding situation is it seems the future chance of that happening has somewhat been negated by a huge black plastic pipe that was recently partially buried in my back yard by the previous owner to carry away water to avoid basement flooding.  One more mystery solved, thanks Jackie and Joe!

“After the storm, after the rain, after the harm and after the pain, after we laugh and after we cry after we live after we die, we need a healing”Strange Fruit Project “God is/After the Healing”  I finally built up the courage to watch the four hour Spike Lee directed HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke, a requiem in four acts” DVD set. Having lived in New Orleans in the early nineties I easily felt a part of myself died in the months following the impact of Katrina.In the last seventeen years that I have been since removed from the Big Easy, I have always seen “her” as my “mistress”.  Following my relocation from the Big Easy, she has never let me down in constantly beaconing me to return to enjoy and sample her culinary and festive pleasures.  When I relocated from New Orleans to Detroit, I somehow figured out a way to return on business and connected rerouted business trips on almost a monthly basis for the first two years I was gone.  Since this blog has a foundation build on food I could not help in the aftermath of Katrina to recall one of my favorite NOLA establishments, “We Never Close”.  I have no idea if this little “greasy spoon”- shadow of a once thriving convenience store - sandwich joint even exists any longer as New Orleans East was inundated with the deluge of flood waters and We Never Close was situated along the “ridge” on the venerable Chef Menteur Hwy. It would be unfortunate if We Never Close is now dare I say, closed?!  Sad enough my only brushes with the place were limited, but I can say at least my first visit was a watermark event.  My first encounter with We Never Close came on the heels of my first job offer.  Following two days of intensive interviewing in a reflective glass office tower overlooking Lake Ponchatrain in suburban Metairie I received a job offer from the consumer products conglomerate Procter & Gamble that eventually led to an eighteen year marketing career.  Upon leaving their offices with an offer in hand and joyously sharing the occasion with two of my LSU classmates who had received internship offers, we all decided we were thoroughly hungry and a celebration of food in the “City that Care Forgot” was at hand.  Fortunately, Sabrina who had graciously offered to drive had the idea of driving forty five minutes out of the way in rush hour traffic to a “dive” of a po’ boy sandwich shop called “We Never Close”.It was love at first bite and that is not to be confused with “sight” as We Never Close is truly visually arresting.  From the outside it looked  like at one time perhaps twenty years earlier it enjoyed an existence as a “Stop n Go” type convenience store that had been haphazardly planned into being built on the edge of the swampy light industrial nowhere that was Chef Menteur Hwy in eastern New Orleans.  It literally sat isolated from any signs of residential life and looked as though it had simply sprang up right out of the cypress stands that surrounded it.  It was totally out of place. So given its reputation was more of being a place for great sandwiches and less of a convenience store started to make sense.   Upon entering the establishment, I could see why.  The store consisted of two thirds convenience store and one third sandwich counter.  The convenience portion looked like an after thought, it was practically a museum of convenience America.  The place was a quissential “hole in the wall” and I recall my initial reaction as I saw several flies darting about the interior and the general unkemptness of the place almost scared me off.  There was literally a quarter inch layer of grease permeating the place.  Fortunately my senses returned as I recalled I was in the Big Easy and noted the long line of folks at the back of the store waiting to place an order for what Sabrina had spent forty minutes in the car describing across every salivating burst of breath as the best sandwiches we would ever lay our gums into.Fortunately the prognosis was good.  The po-boys arrived over the counter in aluminum foil wrappers and when you opened them your senses were met with a burst of steam and the scent of freshly fried seafood!  What made these po-boys exceptional was two things the freshness of the seafood (in my case shrimp) and the New Orleans style po-boy french bread.  I had never eaten anything like it.  Fifteen minutes later we were heading west over the I-10 “high rise” bridge with the only sound outside the incessant groaning of Sabrina’s car motor being that of lips smacking down on the best po-boys we had all ever had.  I recall the revelry in the car on the way home.  We all had fresh job offers and full stomachs to match.  Damn!  We though life could never be so good!

Okay I admit I am not a food critic and your life could be fairly complete whether you’ve eaten at anyone of these places or not, but in my opinion these are some pretty damn good choices for budget eats given you are in the vicinity of any one of these establishments.

• “Burnt Ends” LC’s BBQ - Kansas City, MO. - Succulent and smokey melt in your mouth BBQ”Garlic Chicken”
• “Garlic Chicken” Vie’s Snack Shack - Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI - Chicken fried and seasoned to perfection and every bite bursting with juicy flavor!
• “The Buffet” Lady and Son’s - Savannah, GA.  - Can you say butter?  The best southern fried chicken I have ever tasted hands down.
• “Catfish Acadiana” Walk-Ons - Baton Rouge, LA. - Down home cajun cooking at its best.
• “Fried Catfish Filet Basket” The Flying Fish - Little Rock, AR - A no frills fresh version of a southern classic.
• “Shrimp Po-Boy” We Never Close - New Orleans, LA. Worth the out of the way trip and you won’t regret it!

I am not much of a sports trash talker probably because I was never good in any one sport save maybe the occasional vintage video sports game.  Dr. J versus Larry Bird anyone?   [Read more →]

Upon entering Slim Goodies Diner, my buddy the good Doctor and I were greeted by a purple and gold clad waitress who greeted us with a pleasant smile and “welcome” and then looked past us shouting to no one in particular, “hey and no Buckeye fans are allowed here”!    [Read more →]

Re-new-al

1. the act or process of renewing something,  or the state of being renewed
2. something that is being or has been renewed
3. the rebuilding and revitalization  of an urban area

When the deacon of my church asked me to write about my spiritual renewal, I had no idea it would indirectly become the underpinnings of this blog.  As a result my research lead me back to the humble beginnings of my own spiritual journey and an important gastronomic chapter in my life at my grandparents church in LeBeau, LA. 

LeBeau is one of those “blink and you’ll miss it” towns.  Actually to call it a town would be generous, what LeBeau simply is not is a city, town or even a village it is a small community made up primarily of the ancestors of a former colony of freed slaves. 

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The Couscous Chronicles are dedicated to my parents for our all of their patience in raising and guiding me through childhood and for my father buying me my first computer back in 1984…a Commodore 64.  I also want to recognize my maternal grandparents of Kansas City, Mo., the late Ollie Mae Knox for her inspiration as an entrepreneur selling clothing out of the basement and her excellent soul food cooking, my grandfather Ellis Knox for sharing his entrepreneurial spirit during tours to his salvage yard and my paternal grandparents, the late Ernestine Labrie another entrepreneur who sold “fresh eggs” on the roadside and as an accomplished cook who provided ample me helpings of creole and cajun cooking and the late Harrington Labrie, who provided me another entrepreneurial hero in his accomplishment of being a self made insurance/cattle/oil/justice of the peace millionaire with what he described as a only a “sixth grade” education.

I also want to recognize, Eugene Varnado II for all is guidance and inspiration in putting a blog together.  Eugene is a true friend for life where he and I have known each other since the early seventies beginning in Miss Dink’s kindergarten class at Lakewood Elementary school in Park Forest, IL.  Eugene’s website the Chronicles of Roosevelt Franklin provided me a great deal of motivation to put together a blog.