Delta

To Mr. & Mrs. Smith!

August 19, 2016 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com 5 Comments

Oh y’all,

We had the most wonderful weekend and I can FINALLY tell y’all about it since it’s no longer a secret! Our friends Ruffin and Jill decided last week to elope and asked us to come up to the Delta officiate and witness the ceremony.

We drove up Saturday afternoon, Brett did a sweet short ceremony in their sunny, breezy Mississippi Delta garden. Afterward, we toasted their love and ate cake at their house, and then went to have a celebratory supper at Doe’s Eat Place. (Which, by the way, was the most delicious wedding reception food I’ve ever eaten. Hands down.)

Ruffin and Jill met several years ago at the Alluvian Hotel bar in Greenwood. Though Jill lived in Monroe, Louisiana, and Ruffin was a farmer and mayor of Louise, Mississippi, they immediately began a long-distance relationship….

The Juke Joint Cocktail: Walk Me Down

April 21, 2016 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

My favorite weekend of the year is Juke Joint Festival weekend…where my bestest buds and I can get our dance on to real, live blues music legends ALL day & night long in venues ranging from a theatre with a canopy of real stars to an old Delta commissary full of memorabilia and farm equipment to famous long-time Juke Joints owned by Delta natives with Blues Music pedigrees.

I also get to gamble with friends on baby pig races (they love oreos and will race around a track to get one… but then again, who wouldn’t?) watch Monkeys riding Dogs herding Sheep (true story) and generally sample all the best food and drink the Delta has to offer.

The winning baby pig at the aforementioned Pig Races

My friend Griffin wins a Blue Ribbon from the Pig Races

For the past eleven years or so, I’ve only missed 3 or four Juke Joint weekends, and only those for VERY important reasons… I mean, I didn’t even miss the year I had a baby that was a month and half old. I pumped in bathroom stalls and sitting out on a picnic table with a scarf wrapped around me when there WERE no stalls, and called home every hour to check on him… Talk about commitment.

Anyway, this year, since we’ve moved farther south we missed it. All weekend I pouted over my Instagram and Facebook feeds as people posted photos of great bands or delicious food. But rather than JUST pout, I decided to pretend like I was there by putting some great Delta Blues on the record player and mixing up a batch of the unofficial Cocktail of Clarksdale Blues travelers and sponsor of the wildest nights in the world, The Walk Me Down. Click below to read more about this delicious (and dangerous cocktail and find out how to make them yourself).

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To Make Great Gelato, First Build Relationships.

March 2, 2016 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Can I tell you about some of the most delicious stuff I’ve ever put in my mouth? Sweet Magnolia Gelato comes out of Clarksdale, MS, a small town I’ve had the pleasure to live in, and one with arguably the best downtown revivals happening in our region, in my opinion.

Since we moved away from the Delta, I’ve been following Sweet Magnolia on Instagram and just wishing

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Image by Rory Doyle Photography

I could get my hands on some of their really innovative frozen treats… brown sugar and bourbon, salted pork fat caramel, buttered pecan, and Miss Mary’s lemon pound cake gelato, for example. Or you know, I’d settle for just some sweet cream or chocolate chip once in awhile. THEN Instagram told me I could get some in Jackson at the Whole Foods. Y’all, even though we’re still an hour and a half away, this is AMAZING news.

How, how, how did this tiny ice cream/gelato/sorbet company in the Mississippi Delta become an incredible, delicious, truly rich delicacy? And since I care about small towns and community, what has this business meant for Clarksdale? For entreprenuership? What’s the guy who runs it like?…

Delta BBQ’d Pecans

February 23, 2016 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

When I was in high school, this cute little gift boutique gave me a holiday job wrapping presents. I think I spent most of the money I earned buying these crazy expensive praline pecans that we sold there so I could stuff my face while I worked… typical.But on the upside, I was REALLY able to sell the you-know-what out of those pecans to just about everyone who walked in.

I’m not going to try to do that to you, but I will tell you that these BBQ pecans are mighty fine as a happy hour snack, afternoon pick me up, party-food, or a little nibble between the hours of midnight and the next night at 11pm. They’re just the right amount of salty, crunchy, roasty, and spicy and turn just the most lovely brown color, and also go super well with a robust craft beer or bourbon cocktail.

Plus, they are SUPER easy.

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Dining Out Delta: The Blue Levee

January 4, 2013 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Ever since high school, one of my favorite ways to kill time has been to go “country looping,” which basically means driving around back roads a little faster than you should with the radio turned up, or exploring backways you’ve never been on before just to see what you see, or taking the long way through the county to get to dinner so you and your best friend can have a heart-to-heart. I did it in Laurel, in college in the mountains of Virginia, and, although it’s not always as fun to go looping when you drive all the time for work, or when the roads are straight-straight-straight and flat-flat-flat, I still find some time to go out looping in the Delta. In fact, when we had an entire day to do whateverthehell we wanted to over the holiday break, we decided to jump in the car, see what we could find, and talk about serious and not-so-serious things. 🙂 After seeing the baby doll house, getting nearly and completely stuck in the January Delta mud, and taking some winter-field-photos, we ended up at the Blue Levee in Rosedale, a delicious restaurant that you might never know about or find on your own because it’d kind of out of the way.

The BL has a great craft beer selection (what? in Rosedale?), pretty delicious soups and sandwiches, homemade appetizers like crabcakes and fried pickles, a pretty solid daily blue plate special, and usually a totally off-beat special like thai seafood curry. It’s that off-beat special that I usually go for, since I’ve rarely ever been let down.

But this time (see above), since everybody seemed to be recovering from New Year’s Eve, the fare seemed standard (read, standard & mouth watering), so I went with the blackened chicken sandwich and fries, Boone had the turkey and bacon on ciabatta bread, and we both left full and happy. Sorry, y’all…I was so hungry that I forgot to take a “before” photo. oops.

The next time you’re country looping, or heading to the great River Road State park, or are driving up 1 from Greenville to Helena, or just want to see how a delicious little place can sustain itself in a town with a population of 1,852, stop in to the Blue Levee.

Dining Out Delta: Rhoda’s Hot Tamales

September 25, 2012 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com 1 Comment

we had the most fun delta adventure last saturday when my folks came for a visit (went to Rhoda’s in Lake Village, antiquing, old building exploring, and river gazing) and it ended the way of all great Delta adventures…with a tetanus shot in the ER.
but before all of that, we had lunch at rhoda’s famous hot tamales... delicious burgers, HOMEMADE hot tamales, and FRESH fried peach and apple pies. AMAZING. there’s a reason why every single tamale trail guidebook or Arkansas tourist or adventure magazines and websites mentions a stop by rhoda’s as a must.

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Dining Out Delta: Cypress Swamp Picnic

September 6, 2012 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com 3 Comments

i’d heard rumours of a magical, ancient cypress swamp in a not-too-far-away town, and imagined that it would be the perfect place for a romantic weeknight picnic. i obviously wasn’t thinking clearly, since cypress swamps are known to be muggy and mosquito-infested, but it just seemed like such an adventure, i knew we had to do it anyway. i told boone we were going on a secret date, and that I was packing a picnic, and told him to be home by 5:30. he was totally bewildered, but got home in time last monday night to change clothes and help me load the car with the picnic basket. this is what we found:

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Dining Out Delta: The Church Picnic

May 27, 2012 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Every spring near the end of the school year, our sweet little church hosts a beautiful picnic and outdoor service. boone was off competing in “dude-lympics” an all weekend athletic competition hosted by some college friends, so he missed it, but my mom came up to keep me company and help me pack and she loved it. honestly, what’s not to love about a southern church picnic?

it’s funny, but you can usually tell what denomination of church is hosting the picnic or the part of the country you’re in by the spread of the table. our church in Atlanta was a really progressive place, so the majority of pot-luck items were meatless or vegan, and had foods from various countries and regions of America.

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Dining-Out Delta: Doe’s Eat Place

May 20, 2012 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com 1 Comment

This is the first installment of my Dining Out Delta posts… and I can think of nowhere better to begin than a classic establishment with first-rate food. Boone’s folks came from North Carolina two weeks ago and we took them to the best steakhouse in the south..and then not long after that we ate their with some pals…although there are other Doe’s Eat Place’s around the south these days, the original is still nestled in an old house in a neighborhood in Greenville, Mississippi….

a little koolickle…

January 27, 2011 by biz.w.harris@gmail.com Leave a Comment

so, my folks’ came up to the delta for a visit last weekend but it’s been so crazy i’ve hardly had time to breathe, much less blog… anyway, probably the highlight of the weekend was when we went fun driving around these teeny delta towns looking for local potter’s studios, antique stores, and delicious regional delicacies.

all the pottery studios were closed, but we did find a delicious new restaurant by the ms river and i introduced everyone to the “koolickle.” it’s a pickle steeped in kool-aid until it turns a bright color and tastes like a combination of dill and grape (or dill and cherry). when i first moved to the delta as a teacher 5 years ago, my friends and i were welcomed with little sandwich bags of koolickles… and then a year later, john edge wrote a story about them in the NYT. anyway, it seemed only fitting that while on a delta adventure everyone try a famous delta treat. so they did…

boone HATED it..but he also thinks dill pickles are the most disgusting things in the world, so i should have expected it. my parents said they were “interesting” and “really unique.” i don’t think that means they want another one anytime soon, but at least now they can say they tried one!

i took the photos above of my dad in the Great River Road state park, but here’s a photo from the professionals…

Delta

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