Sun Studio and other adventures in THE SOUTH

For all y'all who think they have "done Memphis" by going to Graceland and then to see the ducks swim in the bar fountain at the Peabody Hotel...you have missed out by not going to Sun Studio! We had a BLAST and got to see where Elvis stood when he cut his first "studio" record. The photo above shows that very spot!

We honestly ate ourselves stupid on this trip.

After our day of fried chicken, we ate dried fruit in the car while driving to Brooks Shaw's Country Store at Casey Jones Village, Jackson, TN, a sweet place owned by friends of ours, Clark and Juanita Shaw. Clark's daddy, Brooks, started the store and it has grown into an incredible place to eat home-style cooking and shop for ...Americana! We first learned of their incredible food at a Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium where Clark and Juanita made their famous "Baba's Cracklin' Cornbread" and we ate our weight in cornbread! We mentioned it to Juanita who sent her sister (the one that threw George Harrison out of Carl Perkin's house after Carl's funeral, but that is another story!) to take care of us. Did she EVER!!! Jeff and I were both delivered HOT cornbread along with the hot pockets of joy, fresh fried peach pie! OH LOWDY!!! I could have eaten 10 of them, or died trying! It was revealed that the chef uses dried peaches for the concentrated peach flavor. Whatever he does, it works!!!

Would you believe that all this took place before lunch? We crawled back in the car, with me wondering if I could eat again in the next day, much less in the next hour! That was put to the test when we pulled up at our destination, B.E.Scott's aka Ricky Parker's Whole Hog Barbecue in Lexington, TN. (The link will take you to an interview of Ricky by Southern Foodways Alliance. Ricky wasn't around but his son was and he was kind enough to give us a tour. Don't all tours include dressed pigs? We had an incredible pulled (not chopped - our preference)  pork sandwich...and climbed back in the car and drove back to the Country Store.

They had promised us a "soda fountain treat"...which was!!! The fountain has been deemed one of the best 50 ice cream parlors in the US...so we HAD to try it! I had my all time favorite flavor combo of vanilla ice cream, bananas, fudge sauce, whipped cream and salted nuts! YUM!!!

We got ourselves a cup of coffee, some chocolate walnut fudge for the road (yes, I HAVE been doing Weight Watchers for a YEAR!) and drove back to Memphis where a fabulous dinner at Restaurant Iris awaited us! Can you say "FOOD COMA"???