As we travel along the eastern seaboard, we’ve had a chance to eat some fantastic food on this tour. From the po boys in New Orleans, to the home cooking in North Carolina, to the Lobstah in Boston, it’s been a great trip for chow. We began in New Orleans with a couple days off. We parked the bus across the street from the greatest bar on earth, Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar and started drinking and eating immediately. I started off with a “Juicy Lucy” the best hamburger this side of Brown’s Diner. A juicy lucy will take me back to the old days of the Lucy’s in Austin. Great bar, great burger. One of the great things about parking the bus in front of Lucy’s is that we are within walking distance of the Hotel, Canal Street, and Mother’s, a world famous cafe about two blocks from Lucy’s on Tchoupitoulas st.  I like to get the crawfish etouffee and the shrimp jambalaya combo, It comes on a plate with a huge pile of red beans and rice. Heaven.  Cody likes the crawfish etouffee omelet. I also like to get a sandwich to go, The John G, with turkey, ham, and roast beef, doused with roast beef drippings. Unfortunately, Jazz got trashed and raided the bus fridge and ate it before I could get to it. I have never been so disappointed in all my life.

After a few days on the road we stopped at Jay’s folks place in NC to relax for a couple days off. Trina was out of town so we decided to do a little cooking of our own. Jay and I teamed up with his sister “Sailor Meliss,” and made a big spread, including but not limited to: Pork tenderloin, sauerkraut, spaghetti squash, roasted artichoke hearts and potatoes, and big old bowl of Guac.  The following night, Melissa cooked up a crock pot of BBQ beef and an enormous tray of pasta, and all the fixins. Tom thawed out some of Trina’s world famous stuffed longhorn peppers and we washed them down with a few bottles of wine, as per the local custom.  

Unfortunately, a home cooked meal is hard to come by on the road and we were off again, once more at the mercy of whatever culinary disasters Applebee’s and Mickey D’s could throw our way. A couple days on the road later we reached Virginia where we were blessed with a delivery from a couple friends that we’d met on the Ragweed cruise who shall remain nameless to protect them should any of us eventually sue for assault with a deadly weapon. They seriously could have put us in a food coma. 3 pumpkin breads, a huge cornbread, 2 or 3 bags of beer bread, two trays each of green beans and mashed potatoes, an enormous bag of snickerdoodle cookies, and 4 five pond meat loaves. (two of which we later discovered were actually gigantic pork tenderloins.) That was about 6 days ago and we are still trying to eat it all. I swear if you cut a slice of meatloaf, it grows back like a lizard’s tail. No pictures can be published for the aforementioned legal reasons.

The following day I woke up with a solid brick of meatloaf in my guy which prompted me to try to eat on the lighter side that day. We were playing in Falls Church, a suburb of Washington DC, so I strolled a couple blocks to a nice little Irish pub Called “Ireland’s Four Provinces.” and took a gander at the menu. I ordered up a pint and the Seafood chowder, the lightest thing I could find on the menu. It came out in a bowl roughly the size of a man hole cover. It had a half of a Maine lobstah, mussels, clams, scallops and atlantic salmon. I could only eat about two thirds of it, but it was delicious.

On to Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love and home of the world famous Philly cheese steak sand. Mike and I walked about a mile in the rain to an Irish pub who’s name escapes me (it was O’somethings…) and sat at the bar. I ordered mine with cheese whiz, as per the local custom and Mike got his with provolone. While they were not the best cheese steak sands we’d ever had, I took a pic to send to our old buddy, engineer and bass player Adam Jones Von O’dor, who is from Philly. Never, ever wast an opportunity to rub it in that you’re about to enjoy a culinary masterpiece from a buddy’s hometown. That’s why they invented picture texts. Since I have a pic, here it is for you’re enjoyment.

The next night on our journey took us to Brooklyn NY, just across the Hudson River from the best chinese restaurant in the world. This includes the country of China. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we had to visit our old friend Katrina at her bar and eatery down the street. Katrina has owed me a steak for going on 6 years now and I was in the mood to collect. Again, I walked about a mile in the rain to the bar. As soon as I got there I was made aware that I was a little late and Cody and Thumbs had eaten the last two steaks in the joint so Katrina made me a short rib pot pie that made me forget all about the steak, at least for the moment… I still plan to cash in someday! I didn’t get to take a picture of said pot pie because I wolfed it down in a hurry. It was delicious! After a BLT and a well attended show at the Brooklyn Bowl,  we headed to a german beer bar for some Huge mugs of frosty cold enjoyment and then piled in to two or three cabs and headed to 17 Mott Street, New York City. Center of the universe for Chinese food. The time was 3:30 am. We arrived in groups of 4 or 6 and made our presence known to the servers. We started with some hot and sour soup and eggrolls. I can’t recall exactly everything we got but there were bowls of pork fried rice, egg foo young, kung pao chicken, general sao’s chicken, pork chow mein, shrimp with spicy garlic sauce, steamed dumplings, and some other things that either I didn’t see or forgot about. We ate like there was no tomorrow, which was actually kind of true, as it was already tomorrow…

I woke up somewhere between New York and Cambridge at a Cracker Barrel to have brunch with my Mom, Grandma, Aunt and Cousin who were visiting in nearby Pittsfield. It was a fairly regular Cracker barrel experience, with the notable exception of the fantastic company and the grits, which are always good at the barrel. Mom and Grandma loaded us up with cookies, some of cousin Jeff’s home made deer jerky and some antiques to put under the bus and transport back to Idaho and we were off.

Cambridge Mass, post soundcheck. 6:30 PM. Legal Seafood. I order a glass of pino and 6 oysters. they are so good I order a second half dozen littlenecks and Healy does the same. Cody and Dave are eating clam chowder and drinking Whiskey.  (Cody’s signature drink, crown on the rocks. Ask for it by name, it’s called a “Cody Braun. ) I order a 2.5 pound lobstah, and am somewhat relieved when the waitress informs me that they are out of the big ones so I got a 2 pounder. (the show was much better later on due to that particular development.) It was fantastic. Perfectly cooked and sweet flavored. It must have been swimming that morning. If I was forced to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, I would have a tough time deciding, but I have a feeling Lobstah would win in the end. I like to start with the tail, then take a little time on the little legs and then save the claws for desert. A little lemon, butter and I can’t imagine anything better. If there is anything better, someone please let me know. WB