"My Final Answer"

After two weeks and eight different barbecue restaurants, what did Chuck and I have for lunch today? Mexican and it tasted great.

After intense deliberation, the following are our Memphis favorites. In two of the categories--Best Restaurant and Best Pulled Pork Shoulder--we each listed our top three. For ribs, I listed my top three. Otherwise, the results below show a consensus (if two can form a consensus).
Best Restaurant – Chuck:
1. Corky’s
2. Central BBQ
3. A & R Bar-B-Que
Best Restaurant – Kate:
1. The Bar-BQ Shop/Central BBQ (tie)
2. Corky’s
3. Leonard’s Pit Barbeque
Best Pulled Pork Chuck:
1. Corky’s
2. Central BBQ
3. A & R Bar-B-Que
Best Pulled Pork – Kate:
1. Central BBQ
2. Leonard’s Pit Barbeque
3. Germantown Commissary
Best Dry Ribs:
1. The Bar-BQ Shop
2. Corky’s
3. Leonard’s Pit Barbeque
Best Potato Salad – Leonard’s Pit Barbeque
Best Cole Slaw – Corky’s
Best Baked Beans – Tie among all
Best Rub – Cozy Corner
Best Non-Pork Entrée – Cozy Corner (Cornish Game Hen)

As we bid farewell to Memphis, I wanted to talk about the fountain display at the Civic Center. These fountains (with drains under each) cover much of the area leading to the entrance of the Center.

This photo captured two people taking a stroll through the fountains.

And lastly, we visited the National Ornamental Metal Museum--America's only metal museum. The Museum, occupying some of the buildings of what was the United States Marine Hospital dating back to the mid 1930s, consists of a gallery, an outdoor display area, a site for metalworking, and the Anniversary Gates.

To celebrate the Museum's tenth anniversary in 1989, Richard Quinnell of Surrey, England, designed the Museum's entrance gates. Added to the early Renaissance classic "S" scroll design for the gate would be 192 rosettes, each of which would mark the termination of a scroll.

The examples in these two photos are just a sampling of the submissions from some of the nearly 200 metalsmiths from around the world who produced these gates.

One of the work areas open to the public is the smithy, the building in which staff metalsmiths work on special projects, such as the barbecue trophies for the Memphis in May competition. This staff member was producing the replacement legs for an aged shorebird.

Displayed on the lawn were creations representing interpretations under the theme "The Art Cooker III: Meat Meet Metal." The Whistling Piglet is a smoker capable of not only smoking an entire pig but also of making wonderful music at the same time (artists: J. Avery, T. King, J. Kuisma, and L. Winters).

Durant Thompson's Antique Picnic is a picnic table and grill mounted together on an antique pickup truck.

The barbecue theme seemed to follow us throughout our visit to Memphis.

The Final (Barbecue) Pit Stops

Realizing that our list of restaurants yet to be sampled exceeds the number of days left for sampling, we needed to refine our list to the “must go to” places.

Our final two choices included one full service sit down and one joint and both are reputed to have the best dry ribs in the city. The Bar-B-Q Shop near the medical corridor of Madison Avenue was the full service restaurant and was once known as Brady & Lil’s. The new owners use Brady and Lil’s smoking techniques and the fifty-year-old sauce recipe.

No surprises here--Chuck had the pulled pork platter and I the regular order of dry ribs. Each came with slaw and beans. Great slaw—-shredded, crisp, and creamy. Good beans.

Chuck’s serving of pork was interesting. The pork itself had a small measure of bark and was of the more finely shredded variety. But the sauce that covered the pork was a more tangy (vinegary) style than we have seen at other Memphis restaurants. But the contents of the mild (sweet) sauce container sitting on the table were much sweeter, and after applying a copious amount of this sweet sauce to the pork, Chuck had the taste he wanted.

How were my ribs? THE BEST RIBS EVER!!! To me, this is what ribs are meant to be—a crusty exterior that tastes of a mildly spicy rub that covers lean, tender, moist, smoky meat. With these ribs, you wanted to suck the bones. I tried a little of both sauces on small morsels of meat, but, while both sauces were excellent, I didn’t want anything to change the taste of the smoky meat.

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The final stop in the Pork-a-ree was A & R Bar-B-Que on Elvis Presley Boulevard. There we were, a few blocks from Graceland. If you are wondering—no we didn’t.

You place your order with a woman at the counter who would put a Marine drill sergeant to shame. She appeared to run this place with an iron fist—chastising fellow employees and customers alike.

Guess what we ordered. How did you know that Chuck has the pulled pork shoulder with beans and potato salad, and I had the dry ribs with slaw and fried okra? To summarize the sides: very good southern (mustard and pickle) potato salad; good beans; only mustard-based slaw I’ve liked; basic, but good, corn meal-battered okra.
Chuck was really pleased with his very large serving of pulled pork that came covered in a sweet sauce. We both kept trying to identify the taste in the sauce that was also present in the beans. We suspect that both were made from sorghum molasses and that is what gave them this unique but delicious flavor.

My mostly fat-free dry ribs were very lightly rubbed and had the most intense smoked flavor of any ribs I’d had. They had the crusty exterior that I enjoy and moist and juicy meat. But I did miss the taste imparted by a spicy rub. These have been described as ribs for purists—I guess my taste is still bourgeois.

We thought the sign in A & R's dining area pretty well summed up the select company in which barbecue pitmasters find themselves.

Coming tomorrow—our final rankings of the barbecue joints.

From Michelangelo to Memphis

So we continue the Pork-O-Rama with . . . Cozy Corner, another of those bare bones, low overhead, order-at-the-counter “joints”.

During this outing, both Chuck and I ate outside the box, and I may have difficulty figuring how to include this restaurant in our final ranking. Known for their smoked Cornish game hen, I felt it my obligation (it's hard work but someone has to do it), and Chuck ordered the rib tips (also one of their specialties). Both came with slaw, beans, and plain white bread.

To start, the beans were the standard--very good--and not at all different from most of the restaurants in Virginia and Tennessee. The slaw was heavy on the vinegar and too tart for my taste.

Chuck’s rib tips came topped with a good amount of very good barbecue sauce, and I dipped some of my bread in the puddles of Memphis-style sweet sauce on his plate. Rib tips are the meat at the very end of the bone and contain a large amount of both cartilage and fat. But, once you have extracted the succulent meat from the fat and cartilage, the rib tips have excellent smoked pork flavor and can be the moistest of the ways to eat and prepare ribs. My samples from his plate were those pieces with the crustiest exterior (which also seemed to be the leanest pieces) and the contrast of the crust and moist meat was rib heaven.

At first I thought that my Cornish hen was on the small side, but there turned out to be a lot of breast meat on that little darlin’. I asked for the hen to be naked--no sauce--and a wise decision that was. The same sauce that worked so well on Chuck’s ribs would have overwhelmed the smoky goodness of the breast meat. Also, the taste of the spicy rub that coated the hen would have been diluted with the sauce. This was the best meat rub to date--the tongue tingled and the lips burned.

We received a nice smile and well wishes as we left.

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So we're in Florence, Italy standing in line in a cold drizzle to enter the Academia to view Michelangelo’s David, when I heard a group with southern accents--and I’m not talking Southern Italy--right behind us. Since I’ll start a conversation with anyone at any time, I got talking with the group and learned that one man had spent time living in Memphis. So I asked about barbecue and he recommended that, should we ever get to Memphis, we had to eat at Germantown Commissary. So, as a part of our visit with Dora and Rebecca, off to Germantown we went.

Chuck and Rebecca both ordered the pork barbecue sandwich--a regular for Rebecca and a jumbo for Chuck. Dora ordered the half slab of ribs, and I threw all caution to the wind and got the hot smoky sausage links. All four of our orders came with the standard beans and slaw, along with a deviled egg.

(I stepped outside for a moment and found Chuck engaged in truck talk with one of our fellow campers. For some reason, men love our modified Ford 550 to an extent that has led me to define this condition as “truckis envy”. It causes grown men to drool, chase us across parking lots, and want to engage in technical conversation about such esoteric topics as gear ratios. Now Chuck is a brilliant man, but his knowledge of the internal combustion engine is limited. But I give him credit--he’s learned to fake it well.)

Back to barbecue. Chuck has developed a theory that a person’s favorite barbecue is served at the restaurant nearest his/her home. This is not to say that Germantown Commissary was not good, just that--to me at least--this was suburban barbecue for the suburban eater. The pulled pork contained a small amount of bark but not enough to make an appreciable difference in the overall taste. The ribs were lean and meaty but lightly smoked. My smoked sausage was also good but not much different from Hillshire Farms. Good food, reasonable prices, but nothing outstanding.

The quest continues . . . .

The Traveling Tutors

"We're training Chuck this morning and want you to get on line and whisper to him."

This was the instruction that my cousin Dora gave to her sister Betty and was related to my learning how to use the chat room on our family's web page. It was just one of the topics covered in my tutorial with my cousin and one of the procedures addressed today.

To begin the day, Mike Bell, our RV neighbor offered suggestions on a treatment to remove water and algae from diesel fuel, the purchase of a lifetime air filter, and a simple way to keep bugs from sticking to the front of the RV on the road (spray on Pam). Mike is just the most recent knowledgeable person (former truck driver and experienced RV'er) who has gladly passed along advice and help to a novice. Our conversation two days ago covered a lot of information on the purchase of a satellite dish.

Dora and her daughter, Rebecca, joined us at the RV for breakfast this morning before heading home. Kate, who needs no tutorials in cooking but who will adopt some tweaking techniques on occasion, prepared a breakfast of French toast, hickory smoked bacon (from Benton's in Madisonville, TN) and country ham (from Galax, VA).

She used a couple of tips from Alton Brown of Good Eats on The Food Network. She let the bread dry out before using it and let each thick slice sit in the egg mixture for a soaking rather than a mere dip. The result was a breakfast featuring firm slices of French toast that welcomed the maple syrup with a long hug, slices of flavorful, smoky bacon, and country ham that was just the right mixture of saltiness and juiciness.

After breakfast, the work turned to downloading pictures that Dora had taken so that they could be included in this entry. There was discussion about taking some people out a picture and this led to learning how to crop photos. What followed was instruction on how to burn a CD so that I could save all the photos we have used in our first four months of travels. Then Dora provided hints on how to get into the family web page and open the chat room. Finally, she dropped some introductory comments on adding music to our entries.

When we talked about our experience of entering the world of the cell phone, Rebecca asked if we had the Bluetooth earpiece. We did not, but I mentioned that we did have some Bluetooth equipment that would enable us to use the phone hands free in the truck, but that I had never used it. So, that led her to get me up and running with this device.

Rebecca also pointed out several features on my cell phone with which I had not been familiar--mostly, I must say, were basic features, such as how to load frequently-called numbers and emergency numbers and how to access different functions faster.

It was shortly after 12:00 that we waved good-bye to Dora and Rebecca, grateful that they had taken time to drive quite a distance to see us and thrilled that we had time to talk and enjoy the sights.

We watched barges and towboats working on the river the rest of the afternoon. These were three of the smaller boats we saw:

The Amy Ross

The Annie Wepfer

The Lee Leavell












We still run to the riverbank when any of these boats and barges go by.

A Thousand Mile Stroll Down the Mississippi

Today The Wanderers were joined by two travelers, Dora (second from left), my (Chuck) cousin from Illinois, and Rebeccca (third from left), Dora's daughter from Kentucky. We started the day with an encounter with Elvis. Some were more interested in this brief "visit" than others; one member of the group touched Elvis and set off an alarm. Elvis is truly wired.

We then traveled to nearby Mud Island, which is in the Mississippi River, just a short bridge ride from Memphis. Dora took a picture of us with the "M" Bridge (because of its similarity to the letter "m"), which carries I-40 between Memphis and West Memphis (AR), in the background.

Along with the Mississippi River Museum, restaurants, and shops is one of the most unique representations of the Mississippi River. The River Walk is a 5-block long replica of the lower Mississippi river, from Cairo, IL, to New Orleans, LA. Each 30" stride is equivalent to one mile on the actual river. Shown here is the view of Memphis and West Memphis and the bridges connecting them.

Water flows through this model which shows the number of curves and bends that occur along the lower half of the Mississippi. The depth of the River along this route is shown in detail.

The "1,000 mile" journey concludes at the Gulf of Mexico, a one-acre enclosure that holds 1.3 million gallons of water. There, visitors can enjoy a leisurely pedal boat ride around the Gulf area.

Students from an area school enjoyed this part of the Mud Island attractions.

With the Memphis skyline in the background, this fountain provided a beautiful complement to the Riverwalk display.

A mini rainbow provided a nice touch to the final part of the River's journey.

The travelers took a moment to relax at our RV before venturing out for dinner.

BBQ: Large and Small

The Pork-a-Thon continues with a full-service, sit-down restaurant and an order-at-the-counter-and-seat-yourself “joint.” We went to Corky’s (the "sit-down") prepared to not be impressed. Corky’s now franchises, and we saw a number of the restaurants in the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. Now we have a bias against chains, but Corky’s has been voted the best barbeque restaurant in Memphis for seventeen years. So, we decided, in the interest of pure scientific research, that we had to include them in our barbecue survey. And are we glad we did!!

(The batteries in Chuck’s camera decided to die, and consequently no Corky photos will accompany this section. So, for the next few seconds you are welcome to review these three "substitute" photos taken from the roof of the Peabody Hotel.)





Blowing caution to the winds, we each began our meal with a mug of Corky’s house amber beer. It went down so easy with “Little Darling” by the Diamonds and “The Great Pretender” by The Platters playing in the background. A second glass was in order.

It should come as no surprise that Chuck ordered the pulled pork with beans and slaw, and I opted for a small rack of dry rub ribs with beans and slaw. Chuck rated his pork as the best yet, and I admit that it was moist, tender and flavorful. The house barbecue sauce was so good that I squirted it on my rolls instead of using the awful imitation butter spread. The beans were sweet and similar to the beans that we have had in most Memphis restaurants. The slaw was the best yet. Shredded and not chopped, it was crisp and creamy and worked perfectly with both of our pork orders. (I think a food scientist needs to investigate the relationship between slaw and barbecue and why the slaw compliments the smoked meat so perfectly.)

I have decided that I definitely am a dry ribs woman. This was the “regular” size order--eight meaty ribs devoid of any fat and dusted after smoking with a rub that tasted reminiscent of “Joe’s Stuff,” a Cajun seasoning, but without the intense heat from red pepper. They disappeared from my plate in record time. I regretted giving one to Chuck so that he could taste. That’s the only child in me—we don’t like to share.

Central BBQ is a relative newcomer to the Memphis barbeque scene and pulled pork shoulder reigns supreme. Our meals were identical—the pulled pork platter with beans and slaw. With these, we got an order of seasoned fries. We are learning that Chuck and I have different standards in pulled pork. For me, it is all about the bark and the more the better. I love the taste of the not quite burned outer skin that results from the smoking process, and Central’s order was full of “barky” pieces. Also, their pork was coarsely shredded, leaving large pieces of tender, succulent, and smoky meat. When these have the outer bark shell, we are talking barbecue heaven. So I kept exchanging bits of meat with Chuck—taking his bark and giving him pieces free of bark—and we both ate happily. Both the beans and slaw were good, and the fries appeared to have been dusted with the house rub.

As we were leaving, Chuck asked if he could take a picture of the staff. They had engaged in lively back-and-forth comments with many customers, and as Chuck was lining up the photo, the group struck this pose. From behind me, J.C., the person in charge, said, "These guys have friends around the world." I believed him.

Conversation continued with J.C., quickly turning to baseball. "You must be happy about your Phillies," he said.

"Well, yes, but I'm still a Cub fan after growing up around Chicago," was Chuck's response.

"I'm a Cub fan, too," was J.C.'s unexpected response.

The two compared levels of expectation and disappointment each of them experienced before ending the conversation with the familiar refrain of Cubs' fans: "Wait till next year." It was rather sad to listen to their exchange.

We left clutching two bags of their homemade thick cut potato chips that are again dusted with the dry seasoning—and a bag of barbecue pork rinds.

Later that evening, we realized that we should have purchased several more bags of those chips.

Civil Rights and Seismographs

We continue to be taken by the sunrises over the Mississippi. With every sunrise, sunset, and towboat passing by, I'm outside with my camera.

We toured the National Civil Rights Museum, which is attached to and includes the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. The Museum opened in 1991, and in 2002 an addition to the Lorraine housing information detailing the history of the civil rights movement began its operation.

Among the displays were brief biographies of Nat Turner, Dred Scott, Harriett Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown. The gains included in the 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments, followed by setbacks on the road to achieving equality (e.g., segregation through "Jim Crow" laws), were chronicled through newspaper, reports, and film accounts.

By far the most dramatic historical accounts of the decades of struggles were those accompanied by life-size figures of prominent figures in the movement, e.g., Rosa Parks seated on a Montgomery bus and Black college students seated at a lunch counter, and the bombed bus carrying Freedom Fighters from Washington, DC to New Orleans. (Visitors were asked not to take photographs inside the Museum.)

The Birmingham jail cell from which Dr. King wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," a replica of a portion of Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, and Dr. King's room in the Lorraine Motel provide powerful messages in their stark simplicity. His room, number 306, is marked with a wreath.

The displays provided information about some 19th and early 20th century events we did not know about and reminders of events from the 1960s to the present that we've lived through.

We also visited the Public Earthquake Resource Center, which is affiliated with the Earth Science Department of the University of Memphis. The Center has a special emphasis on the New Madrid seismic zone which extends from southern Illinois, southeast Missouri, northwest Arkansas, western Tennessee, and western Kentucky and includes three fault lines. This region has more earthquakes than any other part of the United States east of the Rockies.

Three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history hit this area in 1811 and 1812. The New Madrid seismic zone has approximately 200 earthquakes per year. If quakes of similar intensity were to hit the same area today, it is estimated that 60% of Memphis would be devastated. While we were at the Center, there was a lot of activity on one of the seismographs. This may have been the 6.6 quake that occurred offshore of Chiapas, Mexico.

Michelle Dry gave us an introduction to the Center's operation and directed us to the computers that enabled us to check on the number of earthquakes in any region. For example, within the past six months, there was a 2.1 quake in Milford, NJ, on July 28.

The Center operates out of a small space and offers presentations to school groups.

We also noted that we will not be visiting any earthquake zones in the next six months.