Calabria Brick Oven Pizzeria -- A Restaurant Review

                Calabria Brick Oven Pizzeria is one of those quaint non-chain pizza joints that you find in many of our American cities.  This one is located at the end of a small strip mall in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.  The restaurant has waitress seating in a very comfortable and neat dining area.  My wife and I arrived around 5 pm on a weeknight in order to avoid any possible crowds.  Only a few patrons were seated at that time.

                Calabria’s menu offers a variety of appetizers, salads and desserts to add to their offering of pizza.  The pizza are categorized into two sections—New York Pies and Pizza Specialties as well as Calzone.  We chose the Supreme Pizza from the New York Pies menu.  The pizzas come in 12 inch and16 inch size. We were quite hungry and the waitress told us the 12 inch was only 4 slices so we chose the 16 inch.  This pizza was topped with pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, red onions, green peppers and shredded mozzarella cheese.  Since I like pepperoni and my wife likes green peppers, we were both were happy.  The pizza was baked while we waited in an actual brick over viewable from the dining area.  The pizza was delivered to our table by our very attentive waitress.  It was cooked to perfection on a slightly thin crust heaped with the aforementioned toppings.  I had three slices and my wife had two, so we had enough pizza leftover to carry home for another meal.  

                We highly recommend Calabria Brick Oven Pizza, not only for its outstanding food, but for its excellent service and its very attractive and neat dining area. A nice place for the family.

Boyette's -- A Restaurant Review

Boyette’s is known as one of upper western Tennessee’s most popular restaurants.  It has been featured on the TV show, Tennessee Crossroads and the restaurant was highly recommended by my hunting and fishing brother-in-law who quite often travels to that area of the state to fish.  It is located directly across the street from Reelfoot Lake State Park in Tiptonville, Tennessee.

            We arrived at the restaurant at around one thirty on a Thursday afternoon in mid May, a time we thought the crowds would not be heavy, even though the establishment accepts reservations...  And sure enough, there was a long line for those paying their luncheon bills at the cashier; there were only two of us in line to be seated.  We were seated in a front corner booth behind the cashier area which provided us a view of the entire restaurant looking to the rear.

            Service was quick as our waitress brought us our menu and took our drink orders. The menu offered us a choice of All You Can Eat, Plates, or Dinners, as well as Steaks and a Kids Menu. Since it was the middle of the day we chose to stick with the Plates or Dinners menu.  The Plates and Dinners menu came with the same sides and the only difference seemed to be that the dinner prices ran about a couple of dollars more than the Plate prices.

            Since this was lake country and the restaurant was noted for its “farm-raised catfish”, I elected to order the 3 Piece Catfish Steak Plate at $10.99.  My wife chose the Chicken Plate with Thigh and Leg priced at $8.59.  We had a choice of green beans or white beans and we both chose white beans as one of our sides.

            After about ten or fifteen minutes our food was delivered and what a feast it was.  My fish plate included four pieces instead of three. (Three was the most you could order without going for the All You can Eat menu).  Crowding out my catfish on the plate was a tall order of French fries and a order of onion rings.  My wife’s chicken came with five pieces, two thighs, two legs and a wing whose size filled the plate.  Her fries and onion rings came on a separate plate. In addition, we were served family style a large bowl of white beans and a large bowl of cole slaw.  On the side was a bread basket featuring hot biscuits and hush puppies.

            Now I am not a great fan of fish and I would not have ordered catfish except that was the dish the establishment was noted for.  It had been some years since I had tasted catfish and this one was delicious.  Of course, I had to be on constant alert for the dratted “bones” that comes in real catfish like this.  This makes the dining experience somewhat unnerving. My wife and I swapped out a piece of chicken for a piece of catfish and I found her friend chicken to be moist and delicious, somewhat like the kind my mother used to make.  The slaw and white beans were also very good and there were so much of them!  Now I must tell you of the highlight of the meal—the hushpuppies and the onion rings. These homemade hushpuppies were absolutely delicious, almost sweet to the taste. Of everything that was served, those puppies made the meal.  Secondly, the onion rings were undoubtedly the best onion rings I have ever tasted. Here again, I assume these rings were home made in the restaurant’s kitchen.  Their crispness and taste were again out of this world.

            As mentioned, Boyette’s has an All You Can Eat Menu offering on its menu.  But I cannot see how anyone would want to elect that option.  The plates that we ordered contained so much food that both of us were literally stuffed.  There were plenty of leftovers and we asked for a take home box for the chicken fries and onion rings.  It made a tasty meal in the motel that night.

            Bottom line, I highly recommend Boyette’s if you are in the West Tennessee area.  It is truly a fantastic dining experience.

Photos of this dining experience can be found later in the blog.

A Book From the Past

                It was my Aunt Lorene that caused me to read one of the biggest books of all time.  Aunt Lorene was the reader of the family. My parents did not read books and I don’t know of any of my other aunts or uncles that were readers.  The bookmobile from the county library was the source of my Aunt Lorene’s reading materials as she lived in what we called the country, away from a town.  It came every two weeks and she stocked up a stack of novels that kept her occupied until the bookmobile came around again.  She was the one who insisted that I read Gone With the Wind.  I was only in the ninth grade at that time and I was, as they say today, blown away by the book. 

                Gone With the Wind tweaked my interest in the old south and I yearned to read more novels set in that period.  Somehow, I stumbled upon a book called Fair Oaks, published in 1957 and written by Frank Yerby. Now in my golden years, that book somehow again came to mind.  A quick search on Amazon revealed that this 1950ish book was available as a used book from some obscure bookstore for only one cent, with the obligatory $3.99 shipping charge.  So after more than 55 years, I obtained a rather beaten, coffee stained, book- coverless copy of Fair Oaks.  I enjoyed reading this novel again as I had completely forgotten its plot about a young southern American lad who worked as a slave trader in Africa and later became the master of a majestic plantation in Mississippi called Fair Oaks.  I had forgotten how the novel had portrayed the ruthless and horrible conditions on the slave ships that traversed the Atlantic in the early and mid 1800s.  It was a pleasure to read this very adult novel without all the rough language and detailed romantic episodes that are so prevalent in today’s modern novels, although the N-word was used heavily throughout the book.  I must say that as a novice book reviewer, this book published in 1957 is a definite “good read”.

                Frank Yerby, the author of this book wrote several novels in the late 1940s and 1950s set in the old South.  He even continued to produce several novels up until his last novel in 1985.  Three of his novels were adapted into movies, The Foxes of Harrow (1947), The Golden Hawk (1952), and The Saracen Blade (1954). Oh yes, one interesting fact about this prolific author who wrote so elegantly and  insightful about the life of slaves in the old south  and something I didn’t know  until I reread Fair Oaks in 2017.  Frank Yerby was a celebrated African-American writer.

Dumb Speed Limit

                I recently drove from Memphis to Nashville on Interstate 40.  I drive this route often.  But there is one section of the road that is one of my pet peeves. When finally leaving the suburbs of Memphis and the interstate narrows from three lanes to two lanes on each side, the speed limit is 65 mph.  Then you pass exit 25 which is the last exit in the Memphis area.  There are no more entrances or exits to the interstate until you reach exit 35 ten miles away.  Now for several miles on this stretch of highway, the speed limit remains at 65 mph.  Suddenly, it goes to 70 mph.  So what has changed on the highway?  There were no more exits or entrances, no construction.  Why does the state not change the speed limit to 70 immediately after exit 25?  The reason is obvious—the county line.  As soon as you leave Shelby County, the speed limit goes to 70 mph.  Now in our day of modern intestates, why should a county line be used to determine a speed limit.  Common sense would say that the highway conditions, density of entrances or exits creating change in the amount of traffic or other reasons directly affecting traffic would be the factors that determine the speed limit.  But no, here we let the unnoticeable county line on a map determine the speed limit.  It would seem the speed limit between exits 25 and 35 would be the same all the way.  I just saying…..