Meet Our Bloggers: Chestnut Growler

  CHESTNUT GROWLER

 

The Musician Food Blogger

Chestnut documents the food adventures he has on tour with his band The Swaggerin' Growlers and around the Boston area. 

 

Chestnut Growler, Drummer for The Swaggerin' Growlers

THE SWAGGERIN' GROWLERS - RIOT FOLK - BOSTON, MA:

All good ideas start by about the fourth drink. In this case, it’s four pints of a strong stout. The local beer variety store, Smiley’s, carried growlers of it, so we figured what the hell, lets try it on draft. After all, we are brewers and musicians – arms manufacturers in the war against prohibition; The front line soldiers in the war against boredom.

Food On The Road - Tour Day 18 - New Orleans to San Antonio - Part 1

On this morning, we awoke at the ass crack of dawn. We had a long drive ahead of us, 545 miles, estimated by Google Maps to take 8 hours and 58 minutes, plus an hour or so to figure in for gas/pee/smoke breaks. We also had one planned stop on our way west, to meet with a friend of the band's for a Waffle House breakfast in Lafayette, LA, about an hour out of New Orleans.

The highway west from New Orleans is the famous I-10. On it, you travel for miles and miles on a raised roadway above the swamps of southwest Louisiana. It's a feat of civil engineering, and I'm always impressed when traversing it. The other great part was listening to local radio as we drove. We found a zydeco station and got to enjoy some great tunes, as well as the Creole accent of the DJ. Too cool.

Due to my lack of sleep the night before, I ended up sleeping through a chunk of our drive to Lafayette. I am such a car sleeper, have been my whole life. Get me in a car when I'm not behind the wheel and it's awful likely that I'll be drooling on the window within minutes of when we start moving. It sure makes touring easier.

So, onward to Waffle House. I have been in love with Waffle House since I was a teenager in Texas. The other homeless punk kids and I had a friend that worked in one, and on the nights that we didn't have places to stay and it was rainy or too cold to sleep in the tunnels, we would head over and drink coffee all night. Waffle House also had the cheap all you can eat menu, so whenever we could scrape together $5 each, we'd head over and gorge ourselves for hours. They did eventually discontinue the cheap all you eat menu, but my love for the food and for the atmosphere there stayed just as strong.

For those unfamiliar, WH is basically a chain of Southern diners, good and greasy, with a feeling like you just stepped back into the 50s. Also, they all have jukeboxes, which are stocked with oldies, especially ones with something to do with food. There are also like five songs which are actually about Waffle House. They have even released compilations of Waffle House jukebox music.

http://www.wafflehouse.com/your-house/jukebox-favorites-volume-2

Anyway, it was a sunny morning as we pulled into the WH parking lot, where Manny was waiting for us, leaning up against his car, all smiles. We piled out, said our hellos, and made a couple of introductions as we smoked our butts before going into the restaurant. The six of us took up a line of counter seats and perused the menu. I already knew what part of my order would be. My favorite item on the WH menu would have to be hash browns. They have a lot of variables involved, so every order can be different.

The Waffle House Menu
http://www.wafflehouse.com/images/alacarte90611.pdf

As you can see, the choices for hash browns are:

Scattered - On the grill

Smothered - Sauteed Onions

Covered - Melted Cheese

Chunked - Grilled Hickory Smoked Ham

Diced - Grilled Tomatoes

Peppered - Spicy Jalepeno Peppers

Capped - Grilled Button Mushrooms

Topped - Bert’s Chili

Country - Sausage Gravy

I went with Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Peppered, and Capped. My favorite part of it is actually the ordering, since I feel like a part of the kitchen staff when calling it out to the waitress. To compliment my side dish, I also ordered a Texas Cheesesteak - Shredded "steak" on Texas Toast with grilled onions and double cheese. 

The grill masters of Waffle House almost never disappoint, and they sure didn't this time. We had our food in just a few minutes, and it was just the right grease to crunch ratio. Oh, and I didn't use the mayonnaise packet in the picture. I'm still not entirely sure why they even include it. 

We spent the meal being social with each other. It amazes me sometimes how even five guys that spend nearly every waking moment together can still come up with fresh conversation when even just one more person is added to the mix. All in all, tons of fun. Also, I think the funny looks we got from most of the other patrons helped us to be a little more hyper.

As much as we would have loved to stay to eat and chill all day, we had a show to get to that was still very far away, so we settled our bills and headed back out to the vehicles. We chilled for a few more minutes there, listening to a band Manny suggested to us, then we headed to a specialty store just a couple of minutes away for one more treat with him before we got back on the road. 

Manny knows that we are huge fans of trying local cuisine when we pass through places, so he had to bring us to a shop that sells Cracklin's and Boudin. What are those, you ask? Well, allow me to explain.

Both items are pork products. Cracklin's are basically pork rinds, except they include with some of the fat and meat included instead of just the skin. They are prepared the same way as pork rinds are. Since they are a snack that will keep at room temperature for months, they are very popular in the South. We got a couple of bags of them fresh out of the grease. The taste is very much like that of pork rinds, just a little bit fuller, almost wrapping around the tongue. And their name is absolutely accurate - they are CRISPY! They crackle. This is what one looks like. You can see the difference in color between skin and no skin. (The skin is the lighter part.)

So, onto the Boudin. Boudin is a type of pork sausage, but instead of just being meat, it is mixed with spiced rice before going into the casing. According to Wikipedia:

Boudin blanc: A white sausage made of pork without the blood. Pork liver and heart meat are typically included. In Cajun versions, the sausage is made from a pork rice dressing, (much like dirty rice; such brands consist of Foreman's Boudin, Richard's Cajun Kitchen, and Nu Nu's) which is stuffed into pork casings. Rice is always used in Cajun cuisine, whereas theFrench/Belgian version typically uses milk, and is therefore generally more delicate than the Cajun variety. In French/Belgiancuisine, the sausage is sauteed or grilled. The Louisiana version is normally simmered or braised, although coating with oil and slow grilling for tailgating is becoming a popular option in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

We got some of the regular version of this and some of the spicy version, and we owe a big thanks to Manny, because he wouldn't let us pay for any of it! Real hospitality is not a lost art! As to the eating: I dug right into a piece of the Boudin, even though I was mostly full of Waffle House goodness. As per usual, I opted for the spicy to start with. The first thing I noticed on biting into the Boudin was how the rice made the texture differ from other types of sausage. It was less dense and easier to eat by itself. Unfortunately, my phone chose to die just about then, so I didn't get a picture of the Boudin, but it just looks like a long link of Kielbasa except more brown than red.

We munched on the two Louisiana snacks for the rest of our drive that day, as we passed through the last bit of southwestern Louisiana and then into the great state of Texas. Here is the state that I have the most history with besides my home state of Massachusetts.  Tell ya what - since I have such a history with the place, I'll break it into another post. So, that's it for this one.

Keep on eating!

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: 

www.theswaggeringrowlers.com/music

Food On The Road - Tour Day 17 - Part 2 - New Orleans, LA

So, once we managed to get out of our chairs and motivate back to the road, we made the short hop over to New Orleans. It's only about an hour or so drive. How the hell do I even start writing about New Orleans? My first visit to that great city was Halloween night of 1992, back when I was just 17 years old, a rambling punk traveling the country with my best friend, Jason Perry. When I say rambling, I mean that we had been on the road together for a few months, going from Texas over to California, up and down the coast, SLC, Reno, Denver, and points between, before finally turning our eyes to the Gulf Coast. We were traveling in Jason's hand-me-down 1976 Datsun (yes, old enough to be pre-Nissan) B210 hatchback, the color of blue and rust. 

Upon my first arrival in the French Quarter of that famed city, on a dark, chilly Halloween night, New Orleans captured my heart in my first few minutes there. My first impression was of the unique architecture - there have been many who have written about it better than I can, but it's a mixture of mostly Creole townhouses and Creole cottages, both heavily influenced by Spanish and French architecture, sporting porches the width of the house and heavy artistic ornamentation and latticework. I have never to this day experienced a city which hit me so viscerally just upon first sight. The second thing to grab my attention was the amount of people that were out on the streets and sidewalks, the feeling of an almost hive-like city, except that nobody seemed to be in a hurry.

We hadn't been in the city more than 10 or 15 minutes before strangers were pulling us into a side street strip bar and feeding us free sangria, and the rest of my time there was at least that exciting and crazy. I lived on the streets in New Orleans for a total of probably 6 months over the next couple of years of travelling around, and it was always one of the toughest places to leave. It gets a hold on you, and one of the main pincers it uses is the breadth of magical food there. A walk past the restaurants and takeout places and bars that have kitchens is enough to delight and beckon any hungry traveller that comes through. The main traditional foods of New Orleans are: Po'Boys, Gumbo, Crawfish (either etoufee or straight from the shell, twist the tail, suck the head!), Jambalaya, Red Beans and Rice, Mufulettas, King Cakes, and Beignets. I have had all of these regional specialties at one point or another in that city, and I highly recommend that any foodie in the region takes the time to search out these delicacies and get a great sample.

With my history with this city, I have some patterns that exhibit themselves anytime I first get there. This visit was no different. We arrived in New Orleans at about 4 in the afternoon and found ourselves a parking spot just on the other side of Canal St. from the French Quarter. This happens to be the same block and almost the exact same parking space that we found on our last trip there. We spent some frustrating minutes trying to get the new fangled parking meter machines to accept our money before finally succeeding. One of my bandmates had never been to the city before, and even the ones that had been there before hadn't had much time there to explore, so we were all interested in stretching our legs and seeing some sights before we had music work to do. Also, by this far into the tour, it's always a good thing to get a couple of hours away from your good friends with whom you happen to share very close quarters with almost a third of your waking hours. 

I know the Quarter well, so I walked the boys down a few blocks of the world famous tourist trap called Bourbon St., before leading us off on side streets towards the mighty Mississippi river and my favorite side of the Quarter, between Royal St and Decatur St. Folks split off from the group one by one to wander by themselves until it was down to just me wandering down past the French Market, reliving old times, seeing familiar blocks and remembering the faces of the people I have known there. I made what is fast becoming a traditional first stop for me, at a NOLA fixture called Molly's At The Market, a right proper dive bar. They have locally brewed Abita beers on tap, an eclectic collection of bric a brac, photos, and randomness covering all of the walls, and a bathroom you can trust for all duties (get it?) if you go early enough in the day. Molly's also has, in my experience, ALWAYS had an incredibly hot tattooed lady bartender working. I have literally never been there when that's not the case. And as a final bonus, the place has a small kitchen in the back courtyard which serves up freshly made, cheap fish tacos, plus a couple of other food items. 

I am always on a food quest and I knew that I'd be writing this blog, so of course I gave the $1.50 or so for a fish taco. I have had these in several places, prepared many different ways. Some of them are great, some leave me wishing I had stayed away. To be honest, Molly's was kind of in the middle. It was a generic white fish used, decent tasting but nothing especially good or bad. The taco was assembled right there in front of me from fresh ingredients, and I do appreciate that, but it was lacking in spicing and flavor. I used some of the hot sauce they had on hand, but again, the heat was there, but not much flavor. Luckily enough, I wasn't expecting too much, so I wasn't too disappointed. Also, smoking is still allowed in bars in New Orleans, so I was stoked to be able to eat my taco while drinking a stout from Abita, and then have a smoke as soon as I was finished without having to move. Hell yeah!

While at Molly's I ended up meeting back up with my bass player, Matt, who had a beer with me while we chilled and played around on our phones. After a little while I knew it was time to continue moving around. NOLA is a city where I do not like to be in the same place for too long. My next stop was a place that has been a tradition to me since my second ever night in the city: The Moonwalk. Matt accompanied me there.

This spot goes by several different names: The Moonwalk, the levee, the boardwalk, Waldenberg Park, and who knows what else, but it'll always be the Moonwalk to me. The spot I'm talking about is a walkway on top of the levee on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, right at the edge of the French Quarter. On one side it ends at the Governor Nichols Street Wharf. On the other side at the ferry landing (I think - I've never been all the way to the other end of the thing.) My habit is to show up at the Moonwalk sometime in mid-afternoon, usually with at least a beer or two in my pocket, but more frequently with some whiskey, and find some crusties to drink with. It's not necessarily a plan, but it is just what happens. This day was no exception. Matt and I had walked no more than 150 feet along the levee before we ran into 3 crusty kids chilling and passing a bottle around while hitting up passersby for smokes. Hell, that's my scene. We stopped and introduced ourselves and pulled up a piece of pavement to pass the time.

Looking right from the Moonwalk

Looking left from the Moonwalk

We hung out and shot the shit, me with my mind wandering in and out of the conversation, thinking back to years ago when I drank on this very spot with people I haven't seen in years. I remember climbing the fence to get onto the wharf with Shrew. I remember Spoo getting so drunk my second night in town that he fell into the dirty, dirty water of the Mississippi and got sick for a week. It's always a trip for me to go back to places I have a real history with, but I enjoy it. A few minutes into our sojourn another guy rode up on a bicycle who obviously knew the folks we were talking with. He had a flexible cooler made of cloth attached to the front handlebars of the bike and a banjo strapped onto his back. We found out to our delight that he had homemade (and very strong) Jell-o shots in the cooler, which he was selling to tourists for $5 each but to locals and crusties for $1-$3 sliding scale. I gave up a couple of my few remaining dollars in the week's budget and supported local business. 

My frontman Swagger rolled up after a little while to join us for a couple of shots. He and I had done this before, on our last stop through New Orleans, within mere feet of the spot we were at now. We shot the shit a little more, pumped our show that night to the kids we were talking to, even though we knew the odds of them showing up to the bar uptown to be slim to none. I remember being the one on that side of the conversation. I missed so many good shows as a teenager running the streets of the French Quarter: GG Allin, NOFX (on the White Trash, Two Heebs, and a Bean tour), too many others to name. The drink is a powerful thing, and we are all slaves to inertia. 

The clock rolled forward and it was time for us to meet up with the rest of the band back at the Jeep and head over to our venue for the night and take care of load-in. We arrived on site and the venue wasn't quite open yet, so Swagger and I - you guessed it - went looking for food. Just a couple of blocks from the venue (I used my intuition to guide our direction), we saw a good looking crowd of freaky people like us standing on the sidewalk outside of some kind of business. As we got in front of the place, we saw that it was a bar/restaurant called Juan's Flying Burrito. There was absolutely no way we could pass up a place like that.

The spot was jumping! Full of people and movement, with not an empty seat in the house, and hardly any room at the bar. We talked to the greeter who informed us that there was a 45 minute wait for seating but that we could order takeout from the bar. That sounded like a solid plan to us, so we wove our way through the crowd and snatched up the last couple available feet of real estate at the bar and waited for one of the kinetic bartenders to look our direction. Continuing on a running theme for New Orleans, the folks behind the counter were gorgeous and tattooed like crazy, so the short wait was not unpleasant. The two of us got in some serious people watching between the frenzied staff running all over the place and the knots of customers stuffed into every available space in the joint. It was like a symphony, each person an instrument, all moving around each other, slipping past, forming visual harmonies. There was a certain beauty to it.

When the bartender/server did look over, she had a smile and presented us with menus. My choice was easy: They have a burrito called the Gutter Punk!

$6.95 is a little steep for a burrito in my book, but I figured what the hell? I was happy about the experience I was having, plus I saw a couple of the burritos other folks had ordered coming through, and they were huge. Mine was no exception. After a few minutes of waiting while they constructed it, our burritos were brought out to us, packed and ready to take out along with our selections of hot sauce. We booked it back out of there and returned to find the venue had opened its doors and our bandmates and some other folks were already inside. I found a countertop and opened up this savory culinary delight, marveling at it's construction, then pulled out my phone to snap a quick pic......and my phone was dead! I quickly found a plug to charge it up, but wasn't going to be able to take a picture anytime soon and wasn't about to wait and let my food get cold, so I had to skip the pic, so much the worse. 

But let me tell you - that burrito was everything I could hope for out of a $6.95 tortilla meat bag! To start with, it was a very large flour tortilla, obviously steamed just before rolling. The rolling job was perfect. It was about 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter, even all the way down, with perfectly folded ends to keep all of its guts inside during consumption. I have always been amazed by folks that roll burritos well because I am absolutely horrible at it, no matter how many times I have gone to a burrito joint or a friend's house and paid attention while they did a bang up job. All of the other ingredients were plentiful and well balanced. I was able to taste it as a whole, enjoying the simple combination of flavors that complimented each other perfectly. The texture was just what I look for, no pieces too big, but not so small that they turned into mush. The jack in the jack and cheddar cheese mixture had a sharp tang which provided counterpoint to the taco seasonings in the ground beef. The jalepenos were freshly cut and crisp, and the rice (which can sometimes make a great burrito into a mediocre burrito) stood out due to its being obviously slightly spiced while being prepared, and then picking up the other flavors in the meal well.

Overall, I was incredibly happy with my meal - happy enough that I finished the entire giant thing even though I was likely truly full at about the halfway mark. I didn't care. I wasn't about to leave anything that good to the trash can or a giveaway. If you're in New Orleans and looking for some food that isn't necessarily traditional Creole, think about heading just a little bit uptown from the French Quarter and stopping in for a burrito and a couple of drinks at Juan’s Flying Burrito, located at 2018 Magazine Street. I wish I could have stayed and eaten there as well.

The rest of the night was fun. The other band on the bill, The Ameriskins, were really funny and got super drunk during their set. We saw a friend of ours from back home that had just moved to NOLA, played a high energy set, then I got smoked up outside. We packed our gear up and headed over to our place to crash for the night, the house of a friend of our bass player. Of course, I kept with my normal tour habits and, even though I had my bedroll set up and occupied within a few minutes of arriving, I still ended up texting my girlfriend until close to 5 o'clock in the morning, even though we had a 10-hour drive to San Antonio ahead of us for the next day and were getting up at the ass crack of dawn to hit the road.

But that, my friends, is fodder for my next post - Food On The Road - Day 18 - San Antonio. See you all soon. Keep eating!

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: www.theswaggeringrowlers.com/

Food On The Road - Tour Day 17 - Part 1 - Ocean Springs, MS - BBQ!

I don't entirely remember waking up this morning. I got hammerfied the night before out at the second bar we went to. To be honest, I have no idea where we even slept that night. But what I did remember from the night before was that we had asked one of our hosts at the club where we could get some amazing BBQ. She told us about a place called Pleasant's. It's a family run place, been around for a few decades, in a building along with an auto body shop on the other side, also owned and operated by the same family. We were told this was THE place to go in town, so our consensus was that we were stopping there on our way off to New Orleans.

Even though I had gotten wicked drunk the night before, I was surprisingly not hung over, thank goodness. So, food actually sounded like a great idea. We motivated before too long, but not in any real hurry, as we only had a short drive ahead of us that day. We pulled up the address of Pleasant's on the GPS and headed over, encountering an obstacle course of video game proportions in the last few blocks due to the road being in the process of being rebuilt. We had to do a crazy turnaround of the Jeep and trailer in a parking lot - there was some cussing, to be sure - and then we finally found adequate parking and piled out of the vehicle into the bright warm day. It was a smallish street with a canal running under part of it, mostly businesses like paint stores and auto body shops. We stood out a bit, what with our punk rock clothes and funny colored hair. We definitely got a few stares from the road crew, but it was mainly bewilderment instead of anything mean. Hell, we even got a couple of smiles and hellos.

We walked up on the restaurant, which was painted the happiest of yellows, and took shelter from the blazing sun under its porch awning while we finished up our smokes and allowed the bbq anticipation to grow. We could smell the hickory smoke which added a unique counterpoint to the sounds of small town industry coming from all around us. I could tell that this place must be a favorite for lunch with the neighborhood workers. As we approached the doorway we were met by a tallish man with bright eyes and skin the color of cappuccino with almost a burgundy tint. The only wrinkles I saw were smile lines. As he welcomed us into the restaurant and found seating, we found out that this was the aptly named Mr. Pleasant. His father had founded the restaurant in 1982 and then the restaurant was taken over by the current Mr. Pleasant when his father passed away, keeping the secret family recipe intact and the tradition very much alive. 

We got settled into our seats and the family matriarch came around to see what we wanted to drink (sweet iced tea was the obvious choice) and to take our orders. I knew exactly what I was there to have, so I ordered up a pile of ribs with collard greens and beans on the side, plus a nice thick Texas-sized piece of garlic toast. A couple of the others ordered the only other item on the menu that made me think twice before ordering the ribs - pull pork sandwiches. But I knew my priority and stuck by my guns. While we waited for our food to arrive, I plugged away at my tea - it was hot outside, and sweet iced tea is a uniquely southern thing for me, plus they had free refills - and took a look around the inside of the small restaurant. The walls were made of industrial cinder block but warmed by being painted a toned down version of the happy yellow color of the outside of the building. There was a large, flat-panel TV mounted on the wall, with Fox News or CNN on, with the volume thankfully turned almost all the way down, above a handmade wooden cabinet. I liked the curios on the cabinet top - a giant liquor jug with a flag, next to part of a meat grinder. Very apropos. 

Mama Pleasant came back to give us a new round of sweet tea, and then just a few moments later our food arrived. This plate of food was worth the entire trip! The ribs were so tender that a couple of them literally just fell apart when I picked up the bone. The taste was perfectly sweet southern bbq, with a hint of spiciness. The meat was just moist enough to have the flavor of the hickory and bbq sauce all the way through, not just bbq flavor on the outside where the sauce touched it. The secret here is twofold - the sauce and the cooking method. The method is slow smoking over hickory. As to the sauce, according to Pleasant's website: 

In 1984 Mrs. Pleasant developed a recipe for barbecue sauce with the intent to distinguish their business from any other. Customers were surveyed and with the strong positive feedback the family began using their own homemade sauce.

Let me tell you, she got it right!

The greens had their natural flavor augmented mostly with just pepper and a touch of lemon and butter, with a hint of sweetness, just enough to cut the bitter aftertaste that collard greens can get. The beans were soft with a rich sauce, not overpowering in taste, but just lightly spiced, plus I added a little hot sauce to them. I took my time with this meal, even though my first instinct was to just shove it all into my face as quickly as possible. But no! I wanted to revel in it, savor it, make it last as long as possible, so I slowed it down, chewed every bite many times, and it worked. I mean, look at this!

Once we did all finish, we had the chance to talk to Mr. Pleasant a little bit more about the restaurant and about what brought us there. He might have been more curious about us than we were about him! His easy smile made it easy to tell a couple of stories about the road, and about some of the other meals that we have had on this trip. If you are ever within a hundred miles of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, I highly recommend that you make the trek to Pleasant's BBQ. It's located at 1415 Government St, Ocean Springs, MS. Tell 'em Chestnut and MassBytes sent you! 

The other good news is that if Mississippi cannot be in your travel plans, you can still get a taste of what I'm talking about. I discovered in checking out their website that they do sell bottles of the sauce, and you can order it online. I know what I'll be getting shipped to me this week! Look 'em up at http://www.pleasantsbarbq.com/sauce.html.

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Stay tuned for Part 2 of Day 17 - New Orleans!

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: www.theswaggeringrowlers.com/music

Food On The Road - Tour Day 16 - Tallahassee, FL to Ocean Springs, MS

I could have sworn I actually posted this entry on the same day that it happened, but I can't find it in the blog history, so he we go again!

Whataburger - #9 breakfast combo - Taquito w/bacon, side of hash browned potatoes, side of biscuit and gravy, coffee.

On the morning of day 16, I had been drunk the night before, but of course, I woke up dead early, way before anyone else. I could tell through the vertical blinds that it was a nice bright day outside. It was very tempting, especially when contrasted with staying in a mostly dark room listening to the snores of my bandmates. I flipped open my laptop and couldn't get a signal, then decided to pop out into the sunshine for a smoke. When I got outside the door, I was greeted not only by our bright star overhead, but also by air that was pleasantly room temperature - just how I love it. Before I even lit the butt, I realized that I wanted to go off on my own for breakfast. I jumped back inside the house long enough to grab my wallet then headed over to the little convenience store a block over that I'd been hitting for the couple of days we'd been in town to see if I could get a good recommendation. 

The clerks at this particular store were just the sweetest ladies ever. Every time I went in for a pack of smokes or some lemonade I ended up with a conversation for free. This morning was no exception. I picked out a chocolate milk and went up to the counter. We exchanged pleasantries and transacted our business, then I asked about breakfast places. I was initially thinking maybe I could get pointed towards a little diner or something, but the very first thing to come out of her mouth was Whataburger, which was just a couple blocks away. I remembered walking past it the night before and noting its location. I figured: what the hell?

I haven't been to a Whataburger in years. I used to spend a lot of time at the one in - where was it, North Richland Hills, TX? - as young punks because it was open 24/7 and way cheaper than IHOP or Denny's. I remember being hot and cold on their burgers - they were ok. The distinctive part was that they had mustard instead of ketchup on them.

But I don't believe I had ever had their breakfast food. My breakfast this morning was on the good side of average. I don't really look for spectacular in fast food, so I was satisfied with the quality of the food. But my breakfast was turned into something special by the atmosphere. This particular Whataburger is one of the old ones, an A-frame building with carparks all around it, and it's run old style as well. They have drive up service outside, as well as booths on the inside. It felt like taking a step back to a kinder and gentler than it really was version of the 1950s.

First off, southern accents and food just go hand in hand to me. When I got to the register, I ordered and the "thank you, ma'am" just flew out of my mouth. The reciprocal smile felt genuine and spread to my face as well as I accepted my coffee cup and the little "table tent" with my order number on it. Whataburger uses little folded pieces of plastic for customers to put on their table so that the servers know which order goes to which table. Yes, they bring your food out. My server also had what almost looked like an old cigarette girl tray laden with ketchup, syrup and other condiments as well as napkins, plasticware and coffee fixings, and took her friendly time making sure that I had everything I needed at my table to enjoy my meal. Let me tell you, I did.

Sometimes it's all about the food but other times it's about the social aspect of eating. That's exactly how it was this morning and I'm grateful for such a good start to the day.

After my return from breakfast, all smiles, I met back up with the rest of the band, we got our shit together and headed out of town on the way to our next show in Ocean Springs, MS. We weren't entirely sure what to expect from the gig. I have been through Mississippi a few times before and what I felt the most was fear. 

On my first visit to Mississippi, I was 16 or 17 years old - mohawked, decked out in leather jacket with huge anti-nazi symbols, bondage belt and Doc Martens. My road dog Jason and I broke down in Biloxi, MS on our way from New Orleans to Florida. We had blown a hole in our radiator and had to pull over at a gas station to try to figure out a plan of action. Within minutes a state trooper pulled in and ran our IDs for suspicion of being punk in public. Once he realized we weren't wanted criminals or runaways, and that our car actually belonged to us, he warned us that we should do our best to get gone before the locals took too much notice of us. Yes, let's take a second to think about that - the statie was warning us that the rednecks would attack us if they saw our funny-haired anti-racist selves. We got a replacement radiator and got gone quick!

I had also heard stories from a lot of my hitchhiking friends who had told about hitching through and getting arrested for vagrancy (having less than $30 cash on them was the definition at the time, I think) or for hitchhiking itself, doing a week in jail, then getting released and having no choice but to go back out to the highway and try again to get the hell out of town before getting picked up again. Walking was not allowed on the highway, but the highway was the only way to get out of the area. I had one buddy who said he had ended up being arrested three times in a row, just trying to get the hell out of town. 

On the other hand, we had heard some good stories about the venue that we were booked to play that night. The place is called the Squeaky Lizard, and it is referred to as the CBGBs of the South. We aimed to find out what was really up in this day and age.

On the way there, we made one stop for gas and food, and I had my second and final meal of the day - Popeye's Famous Fried Chicken. Can't help it, I love Popeye's. I lived off of it when I was homeless in New Orleans as a teenager. I got a three piece meal with mashed potatoes. The spiciness of the potatoes is what really sucks me in. Also, hell yeah, biscuits.

Well, we finally arrived at the Squeaky Lizard, and it was a cool place! It was in a storefront, pretty unassuming from the outside. On the inside there were flyers all over the walls, plenty of bands I know or have heard of that had coming through, plus I found out they sold the big mouth hand grenades of Mickey's! 

Mickey's is pretty much my favorite malt liquor. Enough that I have the famous hornet from the cap tattooed on myself. 

I have to say, Ocean Springs, MS, acquitted itself quite well. We played a fun show to a wicked punk rock bar. I got high for free, got drunk on Mickey's, whiskey, and who knows what else, and then we got to go to another show after ours and had a hell of a time! Now we're looking forward to our next visit there. Also, the next day, we had some AMAZING food, but that's for the next post!

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: The Swaggerin' Growlers

Food on the Road - Day 15 Tallahassee, FL

Sorry kids, I've been out crazy for the last couple of weeks. But now I'm back, bitches!

I started my day still drunk from the night before. We had been good guests and helped our hosts to finish the entire bottle of Jack, which led to the inevitable passing out. After some blissfully numb sleep, I finally roused myself and fought the remnants of hangover with the rest of the onion burger left over from last night. As the afternoon progressed, I decided it was time for the culinary highlight of the day: thick broth venison stew that one of our hosts had made, from venison he hunted himself. He had been hard at work on the stew when we first arrived the night before, and it smelled wonderful then. After sitting and the flavor infusing throughout all night, I knew this would be a treat today.

Now, a moment of culinary disclosure here: I have consumed venison probably a half dozen times, and I have never really liked it. I tend away from gamey meats, so I've never been a huge fan of game hens, duck, rabbit, venison....hell, I don't even like salmon. But the thing about me is that just because I don't like something several times, it doesn't mean I won't like it later. Besides, no matter my tastes, I always want to know what it is that other people are enjoying. So I persist. I try again. I didn't like lamb the first 6 or 8 times that I had it, but I kept trying and finally I passed my watershed moment and now I like lamb. Well, as long as it's actually lamb and not mutton, and as long as it's prepared and spiced well. That seems to be the trick with lamb with me. It can be spiced to not disguise but augment the natural darker notes in the meat. That's when I love it. But, I digress. My point is that I have had venison before, not really liked it at all, but that hasn't stopped me from looking forward to the time when I would have it and love it.

This moment came to me on my second day in Tallahassee, FL.

Wait, that's not a picture of the moment of my venison enlightenment, but that cat was pretty damn cute.

Back to the story at hand. The venison was fresh, tender and perfectly spiced. The broth was one of the strongest points, almost fork thick. The meat was cut down into thick but manageable chunks. It came out tender as hell. The veggies were about the same size and had picked up scads of flavor overnight. I heated up and ate a couple of big bowls and loved every second of it - we're talking burned my mouth and kept going, that's how much I loved it.

A couple hours later it was time for the band to get loaded into the venue for the night, a large boxy room with a low stage, a dance floor, and a bar down one wall. It was in a strip mall, along with another bar owned by the same folks plus a coffee shop and a boutique or two. Load in time was 6pm, and it went quickly. Once we were finished with that, we were shooed back out again so the pub could have an employee meeting and either birthday or going away party, I can't remember which. The upshot was that I had 2 hours to kill in a city I'd never been to before, with a couple of dollars in my pocket, nice weather for walking, and a yearning for some alone time and some exploration, which I hoped would end in food.

I chose a direction that looked like towards downtown Tallahassee, and I was right. But there weren't any little cool looking food places - so disappointing! Downtown was very pretty, though. As I was walking, there was a great sunset which I saw through the silhouettes of old growth trees covered in Spanish moss and surrounding the historic buildings of downtown.

I spent a little while in the park across the street from the vista, watching the sun go down and texting with folks back home about future meals. After a few minutes, I kept walking, keeping my eyes open for at least an indie coffee shop. By this time I was near the local college so I figured I'd be in luck. I finally saw a sign for a place called Atomic Coffee, which looked perfect!

Except that it was still under construction and wouldn't be open until 3 or 4 days after we left town. So I kept walking. Luckily enough, a few blocks further, right when I knew that I would soon need to turn back to arrive at the show on time, I found a little place that fit the bill.  I got a big coffee and decided a donut was in order. The most interesting one they had was called a Twix donut, so what the hell? It was a regular donut, yellow cake (not uranium), but glazed like this:

I wish I could say it had an awesome and unique taste, and it did try to - it was alleged to be chocolate and caramel, but really it was just a stale donut with weak glaze that had a little chocolate flavor and not much else. But, hey, if you won them all, what fun would winning be anymore, right? The staff were nice, though, so I ate the whole donut, grabbed a lid for my coffee and walked the 45 minutes back to our venue where we played for a few hours to a growing crowd of people. Then it was a drunken walk back to our wonderful hosts' apartment, some more lovely drinking, and eventually passing outtttttt.

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: www.theswaggeringrowlers.com/music

Food on the Road - Tour Day 14 Gainesville, FL to Tallahassee, FL

On the morning of Day 14, I woke up as usual after about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. My sleep was comfortable, on my pallet on the floor of what looked like a tearoom with knick knacks and a kickass record collection arranged on the floor almost like it was spooning with me. We didn't have a very long drive, but our host had work so we needed to get out of the house kind of early. We got our stuff together and motivated on our way.

Around halfway through our drive, we stopped for gas, bathroom and food. The gas station at the small Florida highway exit had an attached sub shop which is where I decided to order from. The sign proclaimed is as Lester's Subs, Salads, & More. I used my dad's standard test of a sub shot and ordered an Italian with everything, toasted, add bacon. They passed, but only with about a C. Average, edible but I wouldn't go back just to get one.

A little later we arrived at our hosts' place in Tallahassee. Once we were settled in, our hosts told us that they would like to take us out to a local oyster shack, to which we responded with a hearty HELL YEAH! It was trivia night, so the inside seating was taken up, but hell, it was Florida and nice as hell out, so we opted for outside seating with no waiting. It was a like a huge covered patio with rows of picnic tables. You could even smoke! This place was very confident about their kitchen. I could tell because they only had a few items on their simple menu: oysters and sandwiches with either burger, chicken, grouper or boca burger, that's it. Once you had decided on your base, there were several choices to customize your meal. I went with raw oysters for an appetizer, then a burger with Mojo sauce, lettuce, tomato, cheddar, raw onions, grilled onions, jalepenos, and mushrooms.

The oysters were great - hard to screw up raw food. I enjoyed the cocktail sauce that came with them - lots of horseradish in it, good flavor. I downed them and waited patiently for my burger to arrive. Now, let me say, I love oysters and cocktail sauce, but I had planned my meal with the upcoming burger in mind. Spicy cocktail sauce can play hell with my stomach at times, but isn't a problem when I put something else down on top of it. I was in good shape when the waiter started bringing out everyone's food, but then I hit a snag: the waiter dropped my burger on the way to the table. Ugh. Ok, he was apologetic, it's an accident, could happen to anyone. He said it was the first time he had ever done it, and that he would immediately order up another one for me from the kitchen. So, everyone else had their food, and I had a wait....a long wait. My replacement burger finally arrived 20+ minutes later, and unfortunately by that time my stomach was eating itself! I had just started getting more and more nauseous from the oysters and sauce, and the burger didn't quite come in time.

It was a great looking burger, exactly what I had ordered and almost too big to even fit into my mouth. I gave it my best, though, flattening it down a bit and digging in. The burger didn't taste quite as good as it looked, but was passable. The bun was a little stale, the burger could have been spiced a bit better, but besides that, it was good. I maybe should have thought better about having two different kinds of onions on it. Anyways, I was hoping that it would settle my stomach but it was too late. I got through almost half of the burger and then I felt the bubbling start. Oh no! You know how it goes: your mouth starts to water, the gag reflex starts working a little. I started swallowing to try to calm it down, but to no avail. I knew I needed a bathroom right away, so I excused myself and headed inside, trying to rush through and hoping that it was vacant. I was in luck and barely in time. As I reached the door, someone came out and I hustled inside, slammed the door behind me. I threw the latch, turned and unleashed an unrivaled stream of projectile vomit that the little girl in the Exorcist would have been jealous of. It was maybe four minutes of solid puking, the kind that leaves you tired and shaking, tears in the eyes. Once I was finally empty, and once the dry heaves had subsided, I rinsed out my mouth and washed my face, knowing that in a place this busy that there was bound to be someone that I was keeping from bathroom use. I composed myself and headed back out to join my friends.

Folks had already settled up by the time I returned, so I had the server wrap up the second half of my burger to munch on later, when I felt better and could maybe appreciate it a little more. We went back to the house and as time passed I started feeling a little better. Better enough that I felt I was up to the challenge when our hosts declared that they expected us to finish up this bottle of booze that night.

Woo, there's no way to erase like a bottle of the devil!


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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: The Swaggerin' Growlers

Food on the Road - Tour Day 12 Sarasota to Jacksonville, FL

Couldn’t keep any food down due to a hangover, but that didn’t stop me from trying. The day started with a simple little egg bake that our host Kate made for everybody. It was tasty, just eggs and I think bacon (I was realllllly hungover, so hungover in fact that I still feel hungover). I ate a piece of it and managed to keep it in my stomach for about 5 minutes.

We had about a 5-hour drive from Sarasota to Jacksonville. I spent most of that ride in a hangover induced coma, leaning on my pillow on the window. The one shining moment was when we stopped for gas and a stretch, and I found ice cream, soft serve vanilla awesomeness. I kept it down until our next pee break. It was totally worth it. Look at that happy face!

When we got to our venue for the night, it was BBQ Sunday, so they had free food laid out like crazy, and they wanted us to eat! So I tried. Damn, did I try. And the food was really good, that's the worst part. There were spiced, grilled burgers, fat and juicy, so good I didn't even use a bun. I have thought a lot about it, and I have to say that this was the best burger I had the entire length of the tour - it was spiced that well. I kept it down for all of five minutes. 


Then I went back for some of the BBQ chicken. It was perfect! Charred skin, tons of sauce and flavor. The meat was tender and fully cooked. It practically fell off the bone. I kept it down just long enough to finish the piece I had, then had to make a run for the bathroom. 

There was also a crockpot full of spicy tomato-based veggie soup, which included everything from corn to okra. I really like the soup the most, so I made at least three attempts at it. None of them succeeded. But the length I was able to keep each batch down made me hopeful. Keep in mind that we were still going to have to play a set that night, so I was really trying to get past this nausea and get myself somewhat in shape to play.

Time came around to set up my drums. I did, but sloooowly. We finished up getting ready to play, did quick line checks, and and then we were given ten minutes to chill before we had to come back up and play. I had one last smoke and then, on my way back to the stage, I saw there was one piece of chicken left so I figured, "What the hell?" I picked it up and tore into it. It was slightly blackened and crisp on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside, holding the spicing all the way through. I finished the roughly hamburger-sized piece on my trek to get behind the drums. My nausea had fallen away, and it took a couple of songs to get warmed up, but the set went really well and I didn't have to puke through any of it. 

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: The Swaggerin' Growlers

Food on the Road - Tour Day 11 Lake Worth to Sarasota, FL

Day 11 - Lake Worth, FL to Sarasota, FL 

We woke up to a beautiful morning in Lake Worth, FL. It was close to 80 degrees, bright and sunny, the bluest of skies you could ever ask for. My direct deposit had gone through overnight - thank goodness! - so when going out to breakfast in the morning was brought up, even I was a yes vote. Capt. Bobo, our kind host said he knew just the spot and we took the short walk from his house to Toojay's Original Gourmet Deli (Toojay's Website). They were able to get us seated quickly, even though it was Sunday after-church rush. I ordered coffee, orange juice (hell, I was in Florida!), and water, then perused the menu for the perfect choices.

The orange juice made me realize that I wanted more fruit, not really having had any since Philly, so I started out with a fruit salad consisting of honeydew melon, cantaloupe, raisins, nice big juicy grapes, strawberries, pineapple and pine nuts over a bed of lettuce. It was a great start and kept me busy until my main course arrived.


For my main course, I chose Eggs Benedict. This is one of my favorite breakfast dishes, especially when at a place quality enough that I want to test their food. Toojay's Eggs Bene was advertised as basic and simple, just what I was looking for: Two poached eggs on an English muffin with ham and tomato, topped with Hollandaise sauce. Now, this isn't the easiest dish to prepare, but it is in essence a simple dish. The two main keys are: 1) that the eggs much be poached perfectly - not too soft, not too hard: texture and shape are both important; and 2) that the Hollandaise sauce must have both the appropriate texture and flavor. It should be a creamy sauce, so smooth. I am happy to say that they got both right. It was exquisite, the perfect follow up to the fruit salad, and it was complimented by a slightly mushy but well-spiced potato hash.

That was the food highlight of my day. After that, we walked around Lake Worth in the beautiful weather, stopped in at a local record store, hit the open air artists' market, where we even got to meet Bobo's mom, who is a great artist and sweet lady.

We managed to pick up a show for that night in Sarasota, FL through a friend of a friend, playing with Carolina Still and with an acoustic player with a great voice. It was about a 4 hour drive from Lake, not much to tell - we stopped at Taco Bell once and Subway once, and both of those were about what you can expect from those places anytime. 

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: The Swaggerin' Growlers

Food on the Road - Tour Day 10 - Fort Lauderdale to Lake Worth, FL

Day 10 was a day off for us. We had stayed the night with our frontman's brother, in an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The night before I at least had at least gotten pretty drunk or whatever, so I was ok with being pretty lazy during the day. Our plan was to chill, maybe eat, and then a very short drive - under an hour - to Lake Worth, FL, where a band called Everymen was playing a show. We had heard of Everymen, and had even tried to get them on as the support act on our Miami show, but they already had this show booked and couldn't do it. But they offered to guest list us into their show. Since everything in South Florida seems to start and end later, we had plenty of time in Fort Lauderdale to order 4 pies from Domino's. We got a pepperoni/sausage, a Philly steak/onion, a green pepper and 1/2 mushroom, 1/2 onion, and a pineapple/bacon. The 6 of us devoured those pizzas in about 30 minutes. It was everything we hoped it could be. I don't often order pizza from large chains, but I do have to give Domino's some credit for taking feedback from customers and improving their overall product a couple of years ago from trash to something I enjoy eating now and again.

We finally got motivated and took the short ride over to Lake Worth. The club was cool, we got our free wristbands and Joker cards for a free shot at the bar, but I just wasn't into the night. I took a walk, found a public beach on the ocean, punched my internal reset button, and rejoined the group with a huge smile on my face. We retired to the house of our host for the night, was granted a bowl, a spoon, and access to the microwave. I ended the night with another one of my Indian food MREs. This time is was Muttar Paneer:

spiced green peas and cottage cheese and gravy, with a piece of onion nan on the side. Again, the MRE took great care of me. Some writing and I was off to sleep.

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Chestnut Growler plays drums for The Swaggerin' Growlers, a punk/folk band based in Boston, MA. He tours full time. This blog is about the food experienced on the road: the good, the bad, and homemade and the gas station sammiches. You can find the band here: The Swaggerin' Growlers