Food for Thought

This past week my mom had to go to a meeting in Raleigh. So I went with her to drive and to explore downtown Raleigh for myself. Fortunately we had good directions and where she was meeting was not too hard to find considering that it was one street over from the governor's mansion. While she went to her meeting I went to the North Carolina Museum of History. I know, please contain your excitement. It was so much better than I thought it would be. I didn't know what to expect but I was really excited that it was free and that they had an exhibit about the history of North Carolina. As you can imagine the North Carolina exhibit comprises most of the first floor and begins with pre-Colonial times up until the 60s. For an exhibit about a whole state I thought it was pretty impressive. I would have liked to have seen more in some areas and less in others but I thought that it was good. I spent about 2 1/2 hours in the exhibit learning about famous North Carolinians and events that happened here. For me there was really no better place to be that day than at the museum. It was a perfect orchestration by God for the museum to be that close to my mom's meeting.

On the way home we stopped in Chapel Hill where we visited a restaurant called Mama Dips. We had been there about a year ago right after Christmas 2010 when we went to Raleigh for the Norman Rockwell exhibit. The food is down home Southern cooked just right. The last time I had fried chicken and it was good, not Sylvia's good but good just the same. This time I had a strong desire for barbecue. So I got a combination of barbecue and Brunswick stew. I really wish I had just gotten the barbecue. Not that the stew was bad because it was delicious but the barbecue came extremely close to my all time favorite barbecue at Courtney's in York, SC. The barbecue was amazing! It was seasoned perfectly. I had cole slaw and turnip greens (with vinegar) with it and it was so tasty. Not to mention their awesome cornbread. The sweet tea was okay not great. But I could not get over how good the barbecue was. I didn't even eat it politely it was so good. I think I didn't rest my fork but maybe 4 times. I just had to have more and more barbecue. For some reason, since I have moved back to North Carolina, I have been addicted to barbecue. I never ate it as much as I do now. I think I first developed this passion for barbecue when I first went to Courtney's in 2005 with my grandmother. Before then I had little desire for barbecue. But now it is one of my favorite things. I guess the generations of my family that came before are smiling because I finally developed a love for one of the signature dishes from this state. The standard for me is Courtney's. There is none better to me than that. They have perfect BBQ, perfect BBQ sauce, perfect red slaw, and perfect hush puppies. But there is a little place near where I live called Farmer's Barbecue and they have a really good BBQ and sauce as well. I don't know why I developed a sudden passion for BBQ but I really do love the taste of it and the comfort of it. It is so delicious! It's South in your mouth!