Eat My Globe

Chapter 5

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"Same thing", she countered, before turning to a hidden colleague in the kitchen. "We got the G.o.dd.a.m.n Queen of England out here."

Slightly shaken by this interesting approach to customer care, I ordered quickly. "A Red Hot ... with everything." I had no idea what a Red Hot might possibly be, but I wanted to get the experience over with.

"That"s $5.40, big ears." She extended a chubby paw in my direction.

I handed over $10 and waited for my change. Instead, she put it in a large jar marked "IT"S FOR THE TIPS b.i.t.c.h" and glared at me.

"That OK with you, big ears?"

"Yes, Ma"am", I whimpered and stood to one side to wait for my hot dog like a good little boy. It is all shtick, of course, but that only matters if the hot dog is no good. I need not have worried. It was a great hot dog and worth all the abuse and the 90 per cent service charge extracted from me for the pleasure. Perhaps I am just funny that way and just like being abused.

If that hot dog was good, the next proved to be one of my most memorable tastes of the whole trip to date.

I was lucky in Chicago to have contact with Adam, the poor chap who had shared a room with me as I travelled around j.a.pan and who had seen me parading in little else but a variety of short silk robes. He lived close to my hotel and joined me for a number of meals. While he was working, he put me in the charge of his girlfriend, Saritha, who seemed happy to wander around with me as I looked for things to eat. I did what any gallant chaperon would do when accompanied by an attractive young woman. I made her Walk with me through one of the rougher parts of town in search of another hot dog, in this case at the legendary Hot Doug"s.

When I did my research. Hot Doug"s was the name that came up most regularly. A little bit more research showed that Doug ^as a bit of an old punk rocker and had named some of his offerings after the members of my favourite band of all time" Buzzc.o.c.ks. It was obviously kismet.

When we arrived, Doug himself was seated behind the co ter and, as the line shortened, I took in the menu. The Sh.e.l.ley was a temptation until I realized it was a vegetar option. I just couldn"t do it. Saritha, however, was a vegetarij which probably explains the whining when she realized we ^ going to a hot dog joint for lunch. I went for a standard Fr with everything, some fries and a diet c.o.ke, and we took a! in the cheerful little dining-room and waited.

Three minutes later our food arrived. On one of their wij dows they had hung a sign that, to paraphrase, said that there i few things better in this world than an encased meat sandv They are not wrong. This was fabulous stuff as the skin of t dog popped to let the meat inside escape in a waft of meaty stean I ate quickly, too quickly, which led to lots of hot-dog-scenb burps for the next few hours. I approved of this, considering! the gift that keeps on giving. Saritha did not and made "eie noises after each regular expulsion.

I had only a limited amount of time in Chicago, as I squeezing in a couple of days between Kansas and another invit tion in Ann Arbor. So I did not really have time to explore i bewildering variety of food Chicago has to offer. I did not eve have time to visit one of Chicago"s legendary steakhouses.

I could tell you about the other restaurants I visited, aboij Avec, where the service was so charmless you would thought they had brought Hillary Clinton in to give lessons, ar about the West Town Tavern, where they did things to a plat of crisps that must be illegal in at least thirty states. But what. really want to tell you about was a hot dog, a simple sandwic which made me begin to form a small, unimportant theory my own about what makes America such an amazing place eat. For that alone, I am glad I went to Chicago.

Oh, I did have "a burrito as big as your head" before I left to Well, you are forced to, aren"t you?

Ann Arbor: The Cult of Zingerman"s.

Gauri Thergaonkar is another of those people unfortunate enough to have made my acquaintance via a food website and is a long-time resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan. As soon as she heard about Eat My Globe, she extended an invitation for me to spend time with her.

A campus town for the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is fdled with bright, young idealists still waiting for life to come and beat the living c.r.a.p out of them and with lots and lots of coffee shops for them to sit around in while waiting for that to happen. It may seem strange to cut short a visit to Chicago, one of the great eating cities in the country, to head up to Ann Arbor, but I was going for one reason only: to visit Zingerman"s.

Zingerman"s styles itself as a Jewish deli, and in fact the name is a composite put together by the founders to make it sound the part. However, to call Zingerman"s a deli is like calling Fortnum & Mason"s a corner shop. It is an extraordinary collective of food-related businesses in orbit around the main store, which all pride themselves on the superlative quality of their products and their levels of customer service. Alongside the deli there is a creamery, a bake house, a vast mail-order business and a number of restaurants.

Founded by Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw in 1982, Zingerman"s has rapidly built up a reputation nationwide, not only for the quality of its food but also for levels of service, which border on the pathological.

When I first met Gauri she was, Hke so many people Michigan, working for one of the major car companies was her obsession, and she found herself spending so muchi and money in Zingerman"s that she decided to have a total ca change and take a job as a line worker in the deli. Over the few years her enthusiasm and ability saw her rise to become of their managers and, because of her own big career shift understood completely when I told her about Eat My Globe. [ sent me a supportive mail and at the bottom wrote, "I"ll organiz for you to hang out at the deli".

This alarmed me slightly. The enigmatic leadership and i agement style of Zingerman"s engenders a loyalty among its i tomers and, even more, its staff that is almost cult-like. Ga however, is used to getting her own way, and on a Sat.u.r.day! mid-October I found myself reporting for duty.

Gauri had decided that the best way for me to understand t deli would be to undergo one of the trial shifts they give pc tial employees to see how they interact with staff and custi ers alike. I would hang out in each section of the store ar the general reports at the next staff meeting were positive, would tell me whether, if I had been eligible, they would employed me.

My shift began at 8 a.m., but before that Gauri had arrang for me to meet Ari Weinzweig in the Zingerman"s coffee sh so I could get some background about the company. As alwa he had arrived as soon as they opened and was sitting with 1 a dozen cups of their different coffees in front of him, doing tasting. "So what do you want to know about Zingerman"s?"". said, slurping on a rich, dark brew.

"Well, how do you get your staff to drink the Kool-aid?"; asked in a slightly clumsy reference to the Jonestown Ma.s.sac Ari looked up and gave me a thin smile. I was obviously not i first to make the comparison.

"Well, you"ll just have to ask them when you are workir today", he replied. "All we try and do is find people who ar d to achieving the same vision that Paul and I have for

""^^mp^^y future. Some can fit in, and others can"t."

tl*^ """gxplained how Zingerman"s runs an open-book finance ^so that every employee is able to view the accounts, and policY"^^^^^ policies, official and unofficial, that they use to sup-^"""^their staff, from help with sometimes serious personal issues ^"promotions on merit and a definite recognition of individual bilities. He also explained about "preferred futuring", a vision creation method they had used from the very beginning of the business. For a hugely cynical Brit like myself, it was all a bit hard to believe, but, as I spent more time with Ari and the staff of the company, I could see it was genuine.

As I found out when I went to take up my position behind the counter, the level of staff loyalty is incredibly high, as is the level of service - not just to the customers, who were already flooding through the doors, but also to each other and to me, the odd, middle-aged man who had been dumped in their midst and who they made feel immediately welcome.

Jess Piskor, who was looking after the cheese and meat counter, where I was to spend the next couple of hours, explained: "It is the double whammy. It"s homecoming, and U of M have a game today." I didn"t understand a word of that, but I gathered from the crowds, even at this early hour, that it was a big deal.

The staff" were swamped. One of them handed me a plate of Montgomery"s cheddar and told me to head out into the store and hand out samples. "Give it your best British s.h.i.t", he ordered.

One of the few benefits of being British is the accent, which, particularly in America, can help you get away with anything. I played the card to the full, wandering around for the next eight hours giving it my "best British s.h.i.t", trying on a range of accents from the "Cor luv a dnck" faux c.o.c.kney of Jamie Oliver to the plummy tones of David Niven.

I moved from the cheese counter to the bread counter to the dry goods area, where I sold, as the Americans might say, like a ^o"Fo. I persuaded people to buy $50 bottles of vinegar, loaves of bread stuffed with chocolate (admittedly that did not so much work) and enough British cheese to keep the industry going for another year or so.

At 4 p.m., during a lull, Gauri came onto the sales floor. "Wk look shattered", she said. It was true; I was knackered. I caiu^ a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I was covered from head t

Gauri was clutching a package. Inside was a black Zingerma^ T-shirt, my reward for helping out. "You deserve it", she sai^ giving me a hug, and she was right. But it made me realize he much effort went in to giving the levels of service Ari demand and how much I had enjoyed being part of it. I was a convert.

Now, where"s that Kool-aid?

15.

Don"t Mess with Texas.

I can understand why Texas gets a bad rap. It does precious little to ingratiate itself with the rest of the USA, and you get the impression that signs reading "Don"t Mess with Texas" studded alongside the freeways are not just talking about litter. It is a warning not to get on the wrong side of anybody in a state where it is easier to buy a gun than an apple.

I spent two weeks in 2002 driving around this vast state with TGS in search of amazing barbecue. He, of course, had done his research and had a large map of the state with the word "MEAT" scribbled on it at places of bovine interest. We both came under Texas"s spell and thought we might never leave when we drove into a gas station outside Tyler called Billy Bob"s, which sported a large sign announcing it sold only three things: "Gas, Cracklin" & Ammo". Ever since, TGS has been known suddenly to giggle quietly and mutter "gas, cracklin" & ammo" to no one in particular.

I had pretty much the same barbecue intentions this time as on my previous visit, but I was resigned to the fact that I was going to have to make the journey alone. This was a double shame because there are few people who are better company when in search of meat than TGS and obviously, having only one stomach, there was only so much I was going to be able to take on. Fortunately, the food websites came to the rescue again and, via mutual friends, I was put in touch with two locals, Jane and John King.

On my last visit I had fallen in love with Austin. I hked its quirkiness and the laid-back vibe, which meant that everything happened at its own steady pace. I liked its independence and* demand on its inhabitants to "Keep Austin Weird".

Five years later there were signs that chains were taking, from the independent shops, but the old Austin spirit still seen to be intact, particularly at the utterly fabulous Austin with its sign, a middle fmger extended to "The Man" and declaration that it was "So Close Yet So Far Out".

After an unmemorable lunch and a short walk to see the shah t.i.tty bars and dreadful restaurants of infamous Sixth Street, I" ready for a nap and returned to my hotel room, only to receive,j call from my new chum Jane, arranging to take me to her he for a Tex-Mex feast she and other members of the food web were arranging in my honour. When we arrived, her husban John, was busy unloading beer from his car into the porch.

Dressed in shorts, a grey T-shirt over his rounded stomach: a straw Stetson worn without a hint of irony, John was al impossible to dislike. This impression was reinforced when handed me the first of far too many shots of tequila with words "Welcome to Texas".

I knew almost nothing about Tex-Mex cookery. My expe ences of it in London have always verged on the disgusting, al I a.s.sumed that it was basically just an excuse to use up residu amounts of any bad cheese that you might find in the back i the fridge. It is certainly meat- and cheese-dependent, and th is no way you would ever call it a refined cuisine, but on evidence of what was put in front of me, it is entirely deliciot "Armadillo eggs" were particularly good, made of jalape peppers stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. I shovel] down about six of them before I realized that everyone else in ( porch was staring at me with a look mixing horror, disgust; nausea in equal measure. I moved quickly on to chilli con ques a dip made with ground beef and yet more cheese. I did not giv the Kings a chance to tell me not to stand on ceremony as I stoc right by the table with all the food on it and helped myself unti they began to stare again. These were just the starters, and soon huge dish of enchiladas stuffed with pulled pork and a large * "Tgf beans appeared. Jane produced a pico de gallo in a vain ttempt to keep things on the healthy side, but it was too late, -pbe enchiladas were so good it was all they could do to stop me strippmg off and smearing the sauce over my chest.

After making a pig of myself I flopped down on a pretty pink rocking chair and helped myself to yet another shot of tequila. There is a saying that "Texas is just a state of mind". Well, I was in a h.e.l.l of a state, and no one seemed to mind.

I spent the next day with Jane as she went about her day at work in Central Market, one of the best food shops I have visited in a long time, and we spent the evening cooking Indian food together for more of her family and friends. After supper, as I flopped back into the same rocking chair on their porch, John came and sat on the couch next to me. "When do you plan to go and eat barbecue?" he asked. "Tomorrow, my last day before heading to New Orleans", I replied, fighting back a dahl-flavoured burp.

"Do you mind if I come with you?" he asked gently. Mind? I was thrilled. Not only did it mean I would have a dining companion but also I had just seen John eat. Few people can put stuff away like my dear older brother, but John looked more than up to the task of operating in loco Salami.

The next morning I met John, as planned, at the cafe next to the motel. He wandered in as I sipped on my hot chocolate. Stetson very firmly on his head, and looking ready for the fight.

"Big day ahead of us, my friend", he drawled. "I want us to hit four barbecue pits before we head home. Are you game?"

Lordy, I had never been more game. I love barbecue anywhere, but Texas barbecue is special because it comes without sauce. "If you need sauce,"John intoned wisely as he drove, "then there is something wrong with your barbecue."

We were heading to a small town called Lockhart, some thirty minutes" drive from Austin, considered by many to be the barbecue capital of the world - a legacy of its past, when German butchers would smoke meat to sell alongside fresh meat tol farmhands and cowboys. We had plans to hit three pits thea then move on to another small town, Luling, to visit one! joint.

"We are going to have to pace ourselves," John warne pulled up outside Kreuz Market, our first stop, "or we able to manage all four."

Kreuz was the most famous barbecue pit. As we entered, i filling up with a lunchtime crowd queuing quietly while elj ladies sliced huge slabs of brisket from large joints or beef ribs tosold by the pound. The smell was incredible, and John guided i through the ordering of meat along with sides of pickles and i sliced bread. I liked it, but John, the pro, was harder to please. 1 "It doesn"t quite have that smokiness going through to centre as it should", he nodded seriously. "Not bad though, bad."

We headed back to the car for the short drive to our next ] of call. Black"s, a small place whose original clientele, I und stand, were the black community of Texas. As John headed i to collect more brisket for our experiment, this time suppk mented by some meaty sausage links, I went to claim a table.too was beginning to fill up, and you could see that barbec really is the great equalizer. In the small dining-room weall men in expensive suits sat next to Hispanic farmhands, studec and ordinary stiffs like us. Good Q knows no boundaries. Tsausages were spectacular, with a sufficient bite and the rig amount of spicing.

John was still not happy with the brisket, however. "It"s a liH dry, and there is not enough fat." He is a hard man to pleas would kill for any place close to this quality in London.

A short hop across the road was Smitty"s Market, on the prig nal site of Kreuz. It changed its name because of a feud betwe the surviving relatives of the original owner. The wooden wa are ingrained with the smell of a hundred years of smoke, and! too, it seemed, were the people serving. We ordered more briskc and some ribs and found a s.p.a.ce in the long dining-room, where nerations of Texans had come to eat exactly the same meal, fhe ribs were spot on: strips of fat had rendered to leave crispy trands to chew while you worked your way to the meat. The brisket was good too.^ "This is the best yet", John said, giving his seal of approval. But I could sense that all was not yet right in his world, brisket-wise. We wrapped up our remains in the butcher"s paper in which it had been served and headed to our last port of call. City Market, in the nearby town of Luling. I was suffering by now. Already beads of meat sweats were trickling down my face, and I was not sure if I would be able to face another slab of dead cow. John, however, was made of sterner stuff and ordered an extra-big slab of brisket for us to complete our day.

"Now I am going to show you how to construct a proper barbecue sandwich", he said, laying slices of brisket and pickles between two pieces of bread. I tried to keep up with him, but it was no good, I had to sit back and admire the master at work. He soon polished it off, licked his fingers and said, "Let"s head home".

I had really hit it off with John, and we talked non-stop on our short drive back to the motel. He parked the car and walked me to my room. As he reached the end of the parking lot, he turned, his body suddenly a round silhouette against the declining sun.

"Thanks for a great day and thanks for the barbecue", he said with one last wave. No, John, thank you.

That night, when Jane had finished at work, she joined me for a last drink and a dish of ice cream from a shop across from the motel. The saddest thing about meeting people on the road is that at some point you have to say goodbye. I was more sad about saying goodbye to Jane and John than just about anyone I had encountered so far. But, as Jane rightly put it, "You"ll just have to come back and eat more barbecue".

d.a.m.n right.

Simon is Big, and Simon is Easy.

Abandoned by its government and much of its population the apocalyptic events of 2005, many other cities would crumbled. Not New Orleans. Not the Big Easy. It may be struggle, in the face of federal indifference and public fear, bi New Orleans is dragging itself out of the swamps and the fii waters of Lake Pontrachain and rebuilding itself all over agai knew that no visit to the USA could possibly bypa.s.s this resili city on the banks of the Mississippi.

Chris Mcmillian is a fourth-generation New Orleans tender and one of the directors of the Museum of the America! c.o.c.ktail, dedicated to preserving the heritage of mixed drin in the USA. He is a mountain of a man but softly spoken polite in the way that only people from the Southern states, America can be.

"You"ll just have to come to see me in New Orleans", instructed when I met him at a bar show in London. "I ma pretty good Sazerac"

Three months later, as I sat across from him in the Library Bar of the Ritz Carlton, he was busy living up to his promise. "New Orleans in a gla.s.s", he said in an accent that could not have come from anywhere else.

Drinking a Sazerac is a very pleasurable history lesson. Arguably the oldest of all c.o.c.ktails, its roots lay in the French origins of the city, when it was made with cognac. Now, it is made with rye whiskey, sugar and local Peychaud bitters befc being strained into a chilled, absinthe-washed gla.s.s dressed wr j mon P^^l- ^ great joy. The shght burn of the " jjjskey followed by the sweetness of the sugar and the citrus of peel- Chris McMillian at the Library Bar makes the best in jjje world.

1 had plans to visit quite a few restaurants while I was in New Orleans, but, wanting some local advice, I asked Chris for more recommendations. "Well now, I"m not working until late tomorrow", he said, wiping the bar. "Why don"t I give you the tour?" There was nothing more to be discussed.

When Chris pulled up in front of my hotel, the next morning, the bonnet of his big old American car arrived about five minutes before the rest of it. I could already hear the unmistakable sounds of New Orleans jazz filtering through the windows. Chris opened the door, leaned out and drawled, "Mornin" y"all ready to eat?"

I climbed in, reclined into the luxurious leather seats and let Chris take charge. He loves New Orleans, with a love I had not seen from any person for any city so far on the trip. He loves it in a way that a father who has almost lost his only child can love. He loves it because of and despite Katrina, and he will love it until he finally keels over and is laid to rest in one of its famous cemeteries.

We took the long route to our first destination so he could give me a tour, pointing out the staggeringly beautiful houses on the edges of the French quarter, dating from when the city was still under Spanish rule. Eventually we drew up alongside the waters of Bayou St John and into the parking lot of the Parkway Bakery, famous for serving one of New Orleans"s greatest sandwiches, the Po"boy.

As the name suggests, the Po"Boy, or Poor Boy, sandwich was created as a cheap, filling meal for those down on their luck. It consisted of a long roll, dressed with lettuce and tomato and then filled with deep fried chunks of cheap local fish and seafood such as catfish, shrimps and oysters. Nowadays, of course, those ingredients are not exactly cheap any more, but the sandwich has remained a New Orleans cla.s.sic. I warned Chris of my a sion to oysters and let him amble up to the counter to order, returned moments later with two huge cylinders wrapped kitchen paper.

"I went for oysters, I got you a mixed catfish and shrimp" all the dressing. I hope that"s OK?"

I had already torn the wrapper off and had taken my first bib There"s no denying, this is one of the great sandwiches. The i roll, the crunch of the fish and seafood, which I had driz with lemon juice, and the bites of salad to give a semblance health. We ate in that silence which only middle-aged men i manage, when they know there is something better on of than conversation. We finished our Po" Boys and headed to the car.

T think you need to see what happened", Chris said in a mc solemn tone as we climbed back in and headed in the direct of the infamous 9th Ward. I had been surprised by how nor everything looked in New Orleans in my short time there. Charles Street car was not running and some buildings in Garden District were boarded up, but on the whole it all look in a good state of repair. As we hit the 9th Ward, I saw the re story: row upon row of houses in block upon block of streets ; deserted and crumbling. Every fifth house or so there was empty lot where the floodwaters had extracted the building lik a rotten tooth. Roads had turned to mud tracks, and all the loca businesses were shut.

"It"s a dead area. Even if people wanted to live here, there no infrastructure left to support them. No schools, no shops, hospitals."

Chris parked the car and stared out of the window. Th< p="">

"This is what makes me confident about the future", Chris smiled- "Whatever they throw at us. New Orleans finds a way to come through it. Now let"s go eat some more." We drove back to the French quarter and pulled up outside Central Grocery.

"Another sandwich?" Chris asked. "Italian this time."

The m.u.f.fuletta, unique to New Orleans, shows yet another side to its heritage. This time, the influences are not from France or Spain but from Italy or, to be more precise, Sicily. A ten-inch loaf of Italian bread layered with meats, peppers, cheeses and, most important of all, a dressing made with olives, pickles and enough oil to soak into the bread. It"s tasty all right but just too messy for my liking. Impossible to eat without getting oil into places where oil really shouldn"t get. Chris seemed to have the knack, though, and polished his off in easy order, wrapping up half a sandwich to take home to his kids.

Chris had to go to work. It had been a fantastic morning, despite the depression of the drive through the 9th Ward. I had only a couple more days left in the city and, enjoyable as they were, New Orleans has a lot more to offer the food-obsessive than just these two sandwiches.

I certainly crammed a lot into those two short days, with breakfast at Brennan"s filling me up with turtle soup and eggs benedict before I slurped up a bowl of Susan Spicer"s mind-blowing garlic soup at Bayonna. Bags of ultra-light beignets from Cafe du Monde came dusted in powdered sugar that you had to lick off your fingers as you walked and took the fire out of a bowl of crawfish etouffe I had bought to eat on the hoof. Three days in the city was hardly long enough. You could eat three meals a day in New Orleans and not even begin to scratch the surface. But 1 had limited time and, on my last night, just about enough room for one more meal.

Upperline, in the Garden district, had a menu filled with the sort of Creole food that made New Orleans famous, and I put myself in owner JoAnn Clevenger"s hands, leaving order.

A large plate of fried green tomatoes appeared, topped -shrimp remoulade spiced up with grain mustard. Half a duck came with sauces made of garlic, ginger and peaches j just when I thought I could eat no more, JoAnn carried large plate of profiteroles on to which a bitter chocolate sauce 1 been ladled. This was my sort of meal - well-made, unapolog food that, because it has never striven to be fashionable, has i gone out of fashion.

I hopped in a cab back to the French quarter and had it dt me off at the beginning of the infamous Bourbon Street. I hadj avoided it until now, remembering the vile perfume of p.i.s.s ac vomit from a previous visit. My memory had not failed me ; even despite the effects of Katrina, it was still filled with frat boys and college girls.

I hurried towards my hotel. As I turned into the street, I hear music, great music. I followed the sound and saw a parade people, young and old, of all races and colours playing ir ments, dancing and having a ball. I joined the party and follov along for a while until, exhausted, I returned to my bedr an hour later than planned. As I got ready to hit the hay, I kr they would still be outside partying for all they were worth, knowing what the future holds for them or the city.

I may not know the future, but I do know one thing. Nfl Orleans may be down, but New Orleans is most definitely out.

Right: Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo.

Below: Chanko: enough to feed three people, one sumo or me Making maki sushi with Tomoko in Kyoto.

Eric Balic: evil in eighteen-month-ou human toddler forrv.

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