Tupelo Honey & Sweet Potato Pancakes
Me: Ok – great plan!
The alarm went off at 5:30 and perhaps for the first time in his life my husband had no clue what the annoying sound was. He’s a bounce-out-of-bed type. I’m… a recovering snoozer.
No matter our style, we both woke up to a disaster of a room to pack up. Three days of work had rendered #324 into something I can only describe as a kennel (without the stench) meets messy closet meets network crash site. Miles’ accoutrement overlapped with our bags which overlapped with our computers which were hooked up to a labyrinth of wires and cables plus our three cameras and corresponding charges, a printer…. You get the picture. I can only assume what you’re thinking – this is supposed to be a road trip! And so it is.
We left slightly grumpy, overwhelmed and worst of all -- late. Our plan to lunch in Asheville, NC and shoot a new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Gastonia later in the afternoon were on the ropes. Wal-Mart has launched a TV commercial campaign which portrays Wal-Mart as being good for local businesses. As this documentary is examining the relationship & often the struggle of independent businesses in a “big box” dominated landscape Gastonia is of great interest to us.
Which is why we knowingly broke one of our rules today. We left highway 70 and rolled onto Interstate 40 to make it to Asheville in time for a late lunch and to pick up a replacement credit card (which one of us had left in a chicken fried chicken stupor at the Loveless Café the night before) before shooting in Gastonia – another three hours away.
Before you shake a well deserved finger, let us say that we paid for our cheat. 30 minutes into our transgression we came to a dead stop. Annoyed, we sat for a few minutes, fuming quietly and not so quietly about the delay. Then engines around us stopped idling. Not a good sign. I jumped out & climbed the cab of a shiny big rig close to us to ask if he’d heard anything on the radio.
Me: Hello (I’m clutching the window to keep from falling off) Do you know anything about what’s going on?
Truckdriver: Yep. A big truck lost its load of steel all over the road a ways up. They say the clean up could take 4-5 hours.
Amazingly no one was hurt but the fact remained we were stuck and had no way of getting to where we needed to go on time or even contact anyone to tell them what had happened. Resigned to our fate we do what most people do in nutty situations do – we depleted our food supply (which happened to be one Cliff Bar between us) and made friends. Soon we were chatting with Dale and his daughter Pamela about family road trips and why stopping at a chain like McDonalds is often easier and less risky than trying a Mom & Pop.
Dale: “At least at McDonalds you know what you’re going to get – a greasy burger and a couple of pickles on a bun. At mom & pop’s you never know – it could be full of cockroaches. We have had some good Mom & Pop experiences but some – ahghg…. I don’t know where these people learn to cook! Besides, our daughter really likes the playgrounds at McDonalds.”
Another fellow stranded motorist, Curtis, used to run his own restaurant for several years. He gave it up to work for a chain restaurant and told us that working as an independent was the more difficult of the two. He also kindly lent us his cell phone as its Verizon service was serving him much better than our T-Mobile.
Lucky for us, the steel spill was cleaned up about two hours shy of the predicted 4-5 and we arrived in Ashville at the Tupelo Honey Café just in time for dinner. Let me just say that if you ever find yourself in the Asheville vicinity, make a beeline for the Tupelo Honey Café. The Café serves breakfast, lunch & dinner and I am genuinely sorry we weren’t in town long enough to enjoy all three! Now, I don’t know about you but there are some restaurants whose menus I swear were written explicitly with me in mind. Tonight, I held the menu with both hands wondering how on earth they could have come up with so many perfect selections without even knowing me! Here’s just a sample: Fresh Greens tossed with Blue Cheese, Pecans, Cranberries and seared Ahi Tuna, Sweet Potato Pancakes with whipped butter Cinnamon Pecans & Tupelo Honey (a dinner entrée), Tomato Sandwich, thick slices of sun ripened Tomatoes with Havarti on Texas Toast. Homemade Tomato Soup, Grilled Cheese (choice of several cheeses) with that homemade soup, Nutty Fried Chicken and Hanson’s choice for the evening, the special: Carolina Nut Crusted Trout with Chevre Grits. And oh yes… biscuits that put every other biscuit we’ve had so far to shame. A little butter, some Tupelo honey, our half rule in the dumper again, and we’re happy.
The Tupelo Honey Café is independently owned and boasts that it uses as many organic and local ingredients as possible. It ranks as one of the best meals we’ve had on the road. If I lived in Asheville you would find me there. Often. For now, I’ll just have to try to replicate those wonderful Sweet Potato Pancakes which were SO good Hanson even liked them -- and he won’t go near a Sweet Potato. Isn’t he missing out??!!
Postscript: It’s just before 11 here in Charlotte, NC. We’re at Martha & Will’s lovely B&B at 803 Elizabeth. The crickets & frogs are making their night noise and a soft breeze is bringing in floral scents from the surrounding gardens. We're here hours later than we should have been. That traffic jam and a map ignored are making for another late night. I’ve never been so ready for bed.
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