Herring & oysters
I figured I should plant a flag here at Dreamwidth, so here's a post about what I did last Saturday, kids.
I piled into a car with a couple friends and we headed east. Our main destination for the day was the Cypress Grill, open since 1936 and rebuilt in 1946, now one of the last remaining herring shacks. Herring in this case being river herring, Alosa pseudoharengus. Some of y'all might call them alewives. But before we made it to Jamesville and the Cypress Grill, we took a detour to see an old truss bridge on an abandoned section of US-64. The phrase that popped into my head was "Kerouac drove here," an echo of "Washington slept here."
On to Jamesville, where it was the last day of the season at Cypress Grill. We all got herring plates and a side of roe to share, and then slices of homemade pie. Would I eat a fried-way-past-crispy river herring on the regular, were such a thing available without driving a couple hours out into the sticks? Probably not. It's about the overall experience, not just the food (which, to be clear, is good).
The day was still young so we pushed on to Plymouth to see their replica of the ironclad CSS Albemarle. Turns out they were having a living history event there, so a bunch of re-enactors had set up camps on the river. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were a ton of Confederate re-enactors, and only three guys in the Union encampment, all rigged out as sailors. I have no real problem with the pure re-enactors, but I did refrain from wandering over and arguing with the SCV dopes (obviously down here there is plenty of overlap between SCV dopes and re-enactors). There were also a bunch of women dressed up as Southern belles. Another not-surprise: The only person of color at the event was a photographer.
We made a few more stops, one at an abandoned Rosenwald School, and then went down to Kinston, where the downtown revitalization started with Mother Earth Brewing a few years back. We were there to hit one of Vivian Howard's restaurants, The Boiler Room oyster bar. The oysters, which were from nearby Cedar Island, were outstanding. The local beer, Tarboro Brewing Company's Town Common, was a nice balanced ale of relatively low ABV, which is exactly what I look for in beer these days. Would I want to live in Kinston? Heck no. But it's got a lot going on now, for a tiny city in Lenoir County.
And then we came home. The End.
I piled into a car with a couple friends and we headed east. Our main destination for the day was the Cypress Grill, open since 1936 and rebuilt in 1946, now one of the last remaining herring shacks. Herring in this case being river herring, Alosa pseudoharengus. Some of y'all might call them alewives. But before we made it to Jamesville and the Cypress Grill, we took a detour to see an old truss bridge on an abandoned section of US-64. The phrase that popped into my head was "Kerouac drove here," an echo of "Washington slept here."
On to Jamesville, where it was the last day of the season at Cypress Grill. We all got herring plates and a side of roe to share, and then slices of homemade pie. Would I eat a fried-way-past-crispy river herring on the regular, were such a thing available without driving a couple hours out into the sticks? Probably not. It's about the overall experience, not just the food (which, to be clear, is good).
The day was still young so we pushed on to Plymouth to see their replica of the ironclad CSS Albemarle. Turns out they were having a living history event there, so a bunch of re-enactors had set up camps on the river. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were a ton of Confederate re-enactors, and only three guys in the Union encampment, all rigged out as sailors. I have no real problem with the pure re-enactors, but I did refrain from wandering over and arguing with the SCV dopes (obviously down here there is plenty of overlap between SCV dopes and re-enactors). There were also a bunch of women dressed up as Southern belles. Another not-surprise: The only person of color at the event was a photographer.
We made a few more stops, one at an abandoned Rosenwald School, and then went down to Kinston, where the downtown revitalization started with Mother Earth Brewing a few years back. We were there to hit one of Vivian Howard's restaurants, The Boiler Room oyster bar. The oysters, which were from nearby Cedar Island, were outstanding. The local beer, Tarboro Brewing Company's Town Common, was a nice balanced ale of relatively low ABV, which is exactly what I look for in beer these days. Would I want to live in Kinston? Heck no. But it's got a lot going on now, for a tiny city in Lenoir County.
And then we came home. The End.