Soul Food In Dixie
I am stuffed, and smiling.
In downtown Charlotte, while walking in a cold rain, attempting to help an HTV crew find a story, I hear my cell phone ring, and life gets better fast. Brandon Goodwin, along as a field producer, informs me that a place called “Mert’s Heart and Soul Restaurant” is open, and willing to let us do a story about the southern soul food they serve.
We get there in about five minutes, sit down to look over the menu, and everyone at our table of six starts buzzing about our options. I’m talking southern fried chicken, salmon cakes, collard greens, red beans and rice, sauteed squash, and cornbread, precious cornbread. The feast was on.
This on the heels of last night’s seafood extravaganza in Virginia Beach. If it sounds like we are eating our way across the U.S., well, you might be right.
Again today our trip down south was cold, and our first rainy weather set in about 1 p.m. Still, we made it to Lowe’s Speedway to tour a NASCAR track. This little tour included a van ride that took us out for a few laps at about 75 miles per hour. That was fine. When we stopped for a few minutes on turn one, I thought we would tip over. Talk about steep.
The big thing about visiting the track for some of our kids was getting to visit the gift shop. Lots of dads and brothers can expect NASCAR-themed gifts this weekend when we get home.
For now, I’m chillin’ in the afterglow of a great, southern meal, and waiting for my wife to return from…a mall. In fact, out of 27 in our group, only nine of us went to downtown Charlotte tonight. The others hit a mall somewhere out there, and I hope their food court meal was all they dreamed it would be.
