15 March 2010

A Potpurri of Armchair Traveling

I've been saving these up for a while:

Library, Unknown Location: An awesome panorama that makes you feel like you're there - at first, I thought it was the Prunksaal in Vienna, but it's not.

Brick Labourer in Bangladesh: This video is short, but really amazing - I can't imagine doing this without crushing myself!

Universal Packing List: I wish I'd had this ages ago, though I'm usually pretty good about packing light and efficiently.  It seems like a great tool, I'll have to try it sometime and do a review.

03 March 2010

Recipe: Italian Olive Oil Lemon Cake

I baked this, and it's awesome. 
Just follow the recipe - do not use flavored olive oil, use the zest of 2 lemons for more lemon flavor instead of adding juice.

Barbeque in Georgia

I posted this picture a few days ago on Facebook, but my Facebook crew and blog-reading crews don't always overlap, so I thought I'd post it here for posterity.  After getting back from the South, I think I took about a 36 hour break from any sort of pork products.  My body knew/knows I needed/need a break, but my mind keeps thinking, "Bacon." 

Alas, fate took me to Quitman, Georgia - this place was recommended to us, but it was closed, so I'll have to return.  Instead, while driving back towards Valdosta, we passed this fantastic place:

So the great thing were the homemade barbeque grills on the side -- but the best was the ribs:

We, clearly know-nothing Northerner tourist-types (there were things on the menu that were incomprehensible, like chipped things and God knows what else - chipped as in Pittsburgh chipped ham? I don't know! It could've been another language), engaged in some witty banter with the locals regarding the high quality of the local ribs.  Based on that discussion, these ribs are the best in Georgia, which, until proven otherwise, I will agree with.  You can't see it in this picture, but there's a quarter of a chicken under those ribs.

The baked beans were not homemade, but the coleslaw was and it was great.  The last three weeks have seen my appreciation of coleslaw grow exponentially, and I enjoyed this iteration quite a bit. 

Ohhhh barbeque.  I think I could be happy just going from small town to small town in the South, sampling barbeque as long as my heart could handle it and my body could process the cholesterol.  It's got everything I like in my kind of food tourism:
  • something that speaks to the local culture,
  • something made in a semi-permanent structure,
  • something involving pork products,
  • something that is cooked to perfection, and that's the only thing the business sells, because they do it to perfection and so they don't need to fart around with other things.