Porkin’ in the USA

October means several things around here.  The weather gets cooler.  It also starts to rain again although its been unusually dry around here lately.  Then there is Octoberfest.  I’ve written about it before.  Every year around mid-October the town of Cleveland holds a big barbecue competition downtown.  Winners go on to participate in the World…

Lost and Found Pizza

Early on one of the things I lamented was the lack of a good pizza place in Cleveland.  There is Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and more recently Papa John’s, plus frozen pizza from Walmart and Kroger.  However another place sits just beyond the edge of town on the south side of Highway 61.  It’s called Lost…

Taking a Bite Out of Cleveland

Social life down here tends to go as follows. There will be long periods of little activity. Then all of a sudden there’s an event or two and the whole town comes out.  One of those happened last week.  On Thursday the Chamber of Commerce held the first ever Cleveland Bites Food Festival.  It attracted…

An Italian Restaurant in the Delta

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that the Delta has a diverse history.   Several groups have made their mark here and one of those was Italian immigrants.  Coming from New York, one would expect the landscape to be dotted with Italian communities and restaurants.  You can imagine my surprise then to learn that even good…

Delis in the Delta

When New Yorkers mention the word Deli a few things come to mind.   Usually they are cold cuts, cheese, and potato salad.   Typically a deli is the sort of place you go to get those things by the pound.   Sometimes they come with bagel shops attached.  And every supermarket has its Deli section. Down in…

Eating Down South

By Biswarup Ganguly (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Southern food has a certain reputation.  People say folks down here deep fry everything.  They say the food is boring and generic and unhealthy.  Northerners point to Fried Chicken, Fried Twinkies, Fried Snickers bars, Fried Oreos, and Deep fried steak as examples….

BBQ

One of the things people strongly associate with the Deep South is barbecue and with good reason.   As you probably noticed from my previous posts it is something they take seriously down here.   One can find some of the best pulled pork, ribs, and smoked sausage you’ve ever had.   And the best…

Rambling Back Home

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts to this blog recently.   The reason is that, since December 20th I have been back in New York.  Travelling home gave me the chance to visit family and old friends, see a movie or two, go out to eat, and simply have a good time….