Roadtrip IV

It wasn’t a recommendation that pointed Jill and me toward Louisa County for our fourth lunchtime roadtrip last week.

In fact, nobody we knew had ever eaten at the restaurant that was our destination.

What drew us to the town of Louisa, the county seat of Louisa County, was the restaurant’s name: Floozies Pie Shop.

(Note the absence of an apostrophe. Perhaps that means this is not a pie shop owned by floozies but a pie shop for floozies. I forgot to ask.)
   
Who wouldn’t want to have lunch at a place called Floozies Pie Shop?

On a rare, beautiful July day with heat but little humidity, Jill and I drove west on Staple’s Mill Road, also known as state route 33, for about an hour. And there we were. Finding the restaurant was easy. It’s on Main Street, right across from the elegant classic-revival brick courthouse, built 110 years ago.

Floozies sells all kind of pies, whole or by the slice. The restaurant is a cozy place with a few tables inside and several more outside the front door. The interior décor is folksy and kitschy, with lots of knickknacks recalling the 1940s and ‘50s on a wall of shelves.  Admiring them while we waited to be served passed the time quickly. An old-school ice cream scoop brought back memories of riding my bike to the drug store soda fountain on summer Sunday afternoons to fetch a hand-packed quart of chocolate for my mom, my father and my little sister and me.
   
Floozies also sells standard cafe fare at lunchtime -- sandwiches and soups, salads and quiche -- but it’s the pies that take center stage.

A refrigerated display case holds at least a dozen varieties, many using locally sourced ingredients: apple, peach, blueberry and strawberry rhubarb, among many others, were available when we were there, along with one I had to ask the waitress to explain. It’s called Pucker Up and Kiss Me. She told me the secret to the Pucker Up was thin slices of candied lemon. But both Jill and I decided we had to have a slice of the double-crust peach pie. The crust was perfect, reminiscent of my mom’s crusts, and the filling was luscious. We had eaten a big lunch -- so we took the pie slices home with us.

Next time, I really want to try the Pucker Up pie.

And there will be a next time. The drive to Louisa alone is a treat. Floozies makes the trip even more worthwhile.

And you gotta like the pie shop’s slogan: “Take home a floozie today.”
          

Summer idyll

A beautiful summer day on the Rappahannock River.

A comfortable Adirondack chair in a shady spot on the beach.

Good company and good conversation.

Watching my great-niece and great-nephew building castles in the sand.

What could be more idyllic?

Nothing.

That was last weekend, and I wouldn’t trade the memory for the world.

Roadtrip III

“How about Michie Tavern?”

I was talking with Jill, my companion on this summer’s series of lunchtime roadtrips.

“I’ve never been there,” she said. So off we went to Charlottesville.

Michie Tavern is an hour’s drive from Richmond. It’s part-way up the mountain to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Its location means that it serves lots of tourists who come to pay homage to Jefferson, either before or after a visit to his spectacular home and grounds.  There’s also an old-fashioned general store on the premises, with the predictable tourist souvenirs. An added plus are the Virginia jams and jellies and a wide array of hot sauces, grilling rubs and salsas.

But it’s the food that draws me back time and again since I first visited Michie Tavern in the 1960s: fried and baked chicken, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, hickory smoked pulled-pork barbecue, homemade mashed potatoes with really good gravy, seasoned green beans, cole slaw, whole baby beets, cornbread and biscuits. Oh, yeah, there’s also apple cider.

The food is served at a buffet, and servers in Colonial costume circulate among the diners with seconds on everything.

There are desserts, too, if you’re still hungry. I never am.

The food, in a word, is wonderful.

After stuffing ourselves, Jill and I walked down to the general store, where we bought a few gifts.

Michie Tavern has a long history. Corporal William Michie was at Valley Forge in 1777 when he received an urgent message to return to Virginia.  By the time he reached home, his ailing father had died. William Michie soon began building his tavern by the side of Buck Mountain Road in Albemarle.

The Tavern continued operation until the mid-1800s, at a time when stagecoach travel had diminished.  In 1910, the tavern was sold at auction.  In 1927 the building was rapidly deteriorating, but Mrs. Mark Henderson purchased it, foreseeing a rise in automobile ownership and the development of tourism.  Monticello had been open to the public for several years and was drawing thousands of visitors. Mrs. Henderson decided to move Michie Tavern to a more accessible location. What better site than Carter’s Mountain, one-half mile from Jefferson’s home. The pieces of the old inn were painstakingly numbered, dismantled and moved 17 miles by horse and wagon and by truck.  Success followed, and her efforts ultimately led to Michie Tavern’s designation as a Virginia historic landmark.

That’s all very interesting, I know, but it’s the food that draws people back to the historic tavern on the mountainside down the road from Monticello. It’s good Southern fare.

Jill and I gave it four thumbs up.

Roadtrip II

We came for the restaurant. We stayed for the grocery store.

As Jill and I continue our informal roadtrips for lunch, our next stop was the Iron Horse Restaurant in Ashland.

First, some background. My first paid job in broadcasting, in 1961, was at WIVE, a new AM radio station on Ashcake Road in Ashland. I wasn’t paid much, mind you, but I did get a weekly check for doing what I dearly wanted to do: be a radio deejay. For a time I did the afternoon show while I continued my journalism classes at the University of Richmond. When school let out for summer, I switched to the early-morning shift.

Having a radio station in their back yard was exciting to the people who lived at the Center of the Universe, as Ashland calls itself. WIVE played rock and roll music, mixed with pop standards, so we developed quite a following among Hanover’s teenagers. I made some good friends in Ashland while I was working there.

I learned a thing or two about Hanover tomatoes, too. I spent two days that summer helping a friend pick tomatoes at his father’s farm just outside of town. I did it to help free my friend up for a trip to the beach. Picking tomatoes in the hot July sun is tough work. I gained new respect for the backstory on those fantastic Hanover tomatoes I’d been eating all of my life.

But back to the present day and lunch at the Iron Horse. (The Iron Horse, by the way, was Cox’s Department Store when I first got to know Ashland 50-some years ago. The building sits at Ashland’s main intersection, facing the railroad tracks, on the appropriately named Railroad Avenue.)

I ordered shrimp and grits: four perfectly spiced and cooked jumbo shrimp accompanied by parmesan grits with a piquant sauce and fresh herbs. So simple. So satisfying.

Jill ate lighter. She had a salad. She was also pleased with her choice.

But all through the meal, we kept looking out of a large plate-glass window and across the tracks at the Cross Bros. Grocery store. I thought I remembered it from the 1960s. Our waitress confirmed my memory and suggested that we check it out. After lunch, we crossed the tracks and did just that.

Cross Bros. mixes nostalgia with today. The selection of produce (including Hanover tomatoes), meats and other grocery staples was much larger than you’d expect if you just looked at the store from the street. On one shelf we saw a six-pack of Billy Beer (for display only) and other items that date back to long before the Carter administration. I discovered a package of horehound drops, which are not so easy to find these days. I quickly snatched up a bag. (When I was a kid, they were sold for medicinal purposes, to soothe a cough or a sore throat. Nowadays, they’re sold as candy.) Jill and I spent time wandering the aisles, calling out to each other with each interesting discovery.

I’m a sucker for homemade country sausage. The butchers at Cross Bros. make their own, and I took a pound of it home -- along with a couple of slices (more like slabs) of country ham.

The cheerful, friendly cashier told us on our way out that the store has been in business for about a century. The store is definitely worth a visit, as is the restaurant across the tracks.

Next stop on our summer of lunchtime roadtrips: Michie Tavern on Mr. Jefferson’s mountain in Charlottesville. It’s even older than Cross Bros. Grocery.

Roadtrip!

Years ago, when I was younger, a roadtrip might mean anything from a couple of days at Nag’s Head to a midnight run to West Point -- complete with a six-pack -- to look for the ghost light on the railroad tracks.

This summer, my friend Jill and I seem to be taking roadtrips just to have lunch. We didn’t plan this as a series. We just thought we’d take a pleasant drive down to Wakefield (pop. 927) in Sussex County and have lunch at the famed Virginia Diner in the heart of peanut country.

We got lost at one point (due to my inattention) and had to ask for directions at a rural 7-Eleven. Not only did one of the guys hanging out in front of the store tell us how to get back on track. He actually followed us in his pickup for a mile or so to make sure we took the correct turn. When he was sure we were headed in the right direction, he stuck his hand out of his window and waved goodbye.

(We had another offer of help in the parking lot at the Virginia Diner. Jill and I were taking a selfie when a man asked if we wanted him to take our picture. We said yes and handed him the camera. He took one image and asked if we wanted another. We said “sure.” Back in Richmond, I checked the images. Only the selfie appeared. The helpful stranger had apparently pushed the on/off button for the camera instead of the shutter release. Oh, well. It’s the thought that counts.)

Wakefield isn’t much more than a wide spot in the road, the road being US 460. Before interstate highways came along, 460 was the road to the beach, and the Virginia Diner was a convenient place to stop for lunch.

The Virginia Diner was around long before I was born. It opened in 1929 in a refurbished railroad car. Since then, more and more dining rooms have been added because of the restaurant’s popularity.
   
What I had for lunch only confirmed the reason for the restaurant’s continued success: a cup of Brunswick stew almost thick enough to eat with a fork and a kick that was enough to make me sweat, and a fried country ham sandwich. Jill had a barbecue sandwich. We were both happy diners.

On the way out, we stopped in the gift shop, where I bought a bottle of Virginia Diner’s own habanera hot sauce for my nephew. When I gave it to him that evening, we both tasted it and learned exactly how hot the sauce was: the word “blazing” comes to mind. Ouch. It was then that I realized what gave the kick to that Brunswick stew I had for lunch.

The Virginia Diner roadtrip was a winner, so Jill and I decided we’d try to make this a regular thing this summer.

Next up: a trip to Ashland and the Iron Horse Restaurant.

My head’s in the clouds

I’ve never lived in a building that soared above the treetops.

Now I do. And the view is remarkably different.

Instead of being oriented to street level, I’m sky-centered now.

I traded the sights and sounds of the ground for a constant reminder of how much -- and how fast -- the heavens change.

When I sit in my 9th-floor living room with a good book, the skyscape competes for my attention. From my favorite chair, an enormous window to my right looks out on spectacular shapes that seem to morph from white, cottony bunnies to fierce forces of nature, sometimes with shocking speed.

Does that one look like a profile of Abe Lincoln? The one over there looks like a map of Europe with Italy’s boot kicking at the treetops. Still another looks like a chess piece -- is it a pawn, or maybe a bishop?

Sometimes I can get lost in the clouds, pointlessly trying to figure out what animal this one brings to mind or what fantasy another evokes.

It’s a mind game that was familiar to Shakespeare, so much so that he wrote about it in Antony and Cleopatra 500 years ago.

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish;
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower’d citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t.

I’m enjoying the ever-changing, crystalline view outside my windows. It’s better than ultra-high-definition, wide screen TV.

Except, of course, when Downton Abbey is on. And that’s usually after dark, anyway.

A lifetime of dogs

Meet Rags, my new friend.

He’s a miniature schnauzer. But he looks to me like an extremely wise and dignified English gentleman. His manners are impeccable. His reserve only adds to his charm.

More about Rags, whose full and proper name is Ragsdale, in a moment.

Now that I am living in an apartment, I am limited to having just one pet. So Cassie is it. She’s the long-haired calico I adopted five years before I sold my house. I love her to pieces. But a cat is not a dog. The love you get is different. Dog-love is unconditional. Proof of that is clear every time your dog senses you need it. A cat demonstrates her love according to her own needs and schedule.

The first dog I remember was Snookie. He belonged to my Aunt Annie and Uncle Bick, who lived near Luck’s Field in Fairmount in Richmond’s east end. My mother and I were living with them while my father was in the Seabees in the South Pacific during WWII. Snookie was black and white. I hazily recall he was some sort of bulldog. I also remember that he would lick my face, much to my delight. I was probably about 3.

Later, after my father came back from the war and we moved into our own home on 24th Street, my father brought home an 8-week-old puppy, a black cocker spaniel with a freshly-docked tail. It was love at first sight for me. We named him Mr. Boh, after the cartoon character in a TV commercial for National Bohemian beer. He was a constant companion during my pre-teen years.

I was the one responsible for adding our next dog to the family. And I had been present for his birth and helped with the delivery.

I was 16 and was working at my first job, as an assistant to the veterinarians at Ambassador Animal Hospital on Broad Street near Horsepen. The owners of a pregnant Airedale had brought her in on a Sunday evening when I was the only one still at work. I made the dog comfortable until the vet could respond to my phone call. He delivered the puppies one by one, and I cleaned them up and kept them warm. Six weeks later, the grateful owner gave me one of the puppies.

I named him Sir Mordred, after the Black Knight from Arthurian legend -- which we were studying in English class -- but we all called him Mo. He lived with us, and slept with me, until I was ready to graduate from college. I came home one day after class to discover he had gotten out of the back yard and been hit by a car. He died in my arms on the way to the vet hospital where he had been born.

Service in the USAF in Germany for four years and a return to an apartment I lived in for 10 years in Richmond meant there was no dog in my life again until 1980, when I bought a house. I moved in with my cat Pusskuss and a newly adopted dog. She was a gift from a woman I worked with at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I named her Basket (after Gertrude Stein’s dog). Basket looked for all the world like a black lab, although the woman who owned Basket’s mother told me my new puppy was the result of an ... ahem … “unauthorized liaison” between her black lab and her neighbor’s black standard poodle. Basket lived with me for 16 years. She died of a stroke, in my arms, on the kitchen floor.

A few months after Basket died, a newspaper reporter who covered the museum asked if I would like to have a 4-year-old Australian Shepherd who had wandered onto her deck in rural Hanover. Lollie was the dog’s name. My friend traced it through the only ID Lollie had on her collar, her rabies tag. My friend got the address of the owner from the vet who had issued the tag, but when she took the dog to the owner’s house -- Lollie getting more excited as she got closer -- she found the house abandoned. Lollie raced around to the back door, obviously hoping to be let in. A neighbor recognized Lollie and told her that Lollie‘s family had moved away almost a year before.

Lollie had been left behind. She was emaciated and a bit battle-scarred from fending for herself in the woods for many months.

Once she moved in with me, Lollie put on about 30 pounds and wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was the most loyal and loving dog -- could she have been grateful? -- that I have ever lived with. She would do anything for me once she could figure out what I wanted. Too soon, Lollie died of cancer at the animal hospital with her head in my lap, looking at me with her brown eyes full of trust.

Lollie was the last dog I ever owned.

So Rags brings me great joy. I see him in the mornings on my way to fitness class, in the early afternoon when he dozes among the potted geraniums on the patio in front of his owner’s ground-floor apartment, or when his owner is taking him for a walk around the grounds. He knows me now. I’m the guy who always seems to have a doggie treat in his pocket. I get a warm welcome when he sees me coming.

Rags is a shy little guy. I’ve known him for months, and he’s only now beginning to take a treat right out of my hand instead of waiting for me to put it on the ground in front of him. And he wags his stubby tail (in fact he wags his whole rear end) when I pet him or scratch behind his ears.

But Rags has yet to lick my face. I miss that most of all.

We’ll get there.