Month: November 2006

Before Wendy’s friend Liz took us to Mama Dip’s for some good ol’ unhealthy-but-yummy southern cookin’, she took us to Carr Mill in nearby Carrboro. Carr Mill is a mill that’s been converted into a shopping centre for offbeat and “alternative” shops. One of the shops in Carr Mill that we visited was Wootini, which seems to be Carrboro’s answer to the Magic Pony store on Queen Street West here in Accordion City.

I was looking at the art on the walls when I saw a painting I thought I recognized:

“That looks like Robot Johnny’s work,” I thought. I looked at the card beside the painting and saw:

Scary Monsters, Super Creeps
John Martz

“It is Robot Johnny’s work!” I said. “How’d it get down here?”

The answer, it turns out, is in a blog entry from May.

It was preety neat seeing your artwork travel far and wide, John. Maybe you should do your next “fear” piece on chicken fried steak — some people find it scary.

The Ginger Ninja and I spent the weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where we attended a family friend’s wedding on Sunday. The day before, we toured about town with her college buddy Liz, and we had lunch at Mama Dip’s, a restaurant specializing in good old-fashioned American country cooking. Here I am outside Mama Dip’s:

You may have heard of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (which is based on the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, but you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted one. The dish is made of green tomato slices, which are then battered and fried. Here’s one that I had as an appetizer:

I rarely get a chance to eat one of my favourite southern dishes: good old chicken fried steak (a.k.a. country fried steak). If you’ve never heard of this unhealthy-but-yummy dish, it’s a thin slice of beef steak, pounded until tender and then breaded and pan-fried like chicken, then smothered in gravy. Here’s what my meal looked like:

Dishes at Mama Dip’s come with your choice of sides; I went with macaroni and cheese, turnip greens and biscuits. Let’s get another look at my plate:

Oh, yeah, that’s the good stuff.

And for dessert: chocolate pecan pie with a scoop of ice cream:

I also helped Wendy finish off her dessert, which was Mama Dip’s banana pudding.

It was so good that we ended up there the next day, bringing along Wendy’s parents and aunt and uncle. We got to sample the corn bread, sweet potato fries, fried okra and fudge pudding. All terribly unhealthy, all great tasting. If you’re ever in Chapel Hill, go to Mama Dip’s!

I think I’ll be atoning for this one at the gym for some time.

Here’s a preview of an upcoming post — a photo of the appetizer for my lunch on Saturday, a fried green tomato at Mama Dip’s Traditional Country Cooking Restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. These things are delicious!

Southern cooking will probably kill me slowly, but I’m not in a hurry. More photos to come later today!