Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken

I'm not much of a fan of fried chicken. To me, it's greasy, soggy, flavorless mush coating overcooked chicken. You can revoke my "Southern" card if you want, but fried food in general just doesn't do much for me. The flavor of the fat tends to overwhelm the flavor of the food. In almost all cases you would do better to prepare it in another way.

This is the opposite of how I feel about Gus's fried chicken.

There's something about how they make it that's alchemical. The crust is crisp and full of the flavor of pepper and spice, while the chicken stays moist and juicy. It's like they condensed the essence of chicken in there. Maybe it's special chickens...I don't know. But they just taste better than ordinary ones.


Other than the superlative chicken, the menu at Gus's is limited. They have enjoyable fried pickles and jalapenos, the pies are uninspired but not bad. Beans and coleslaw come with the chicken meal and are serviceable. I like to scoop up coleslaw with pieces of chicken lightly doused in pepper vinegar. Yum!

I go to the Gus's downtown, on Front & Linden. I'm told the location out east has more variety of vegetables, but I wonder why they bother. People come to Gus's for the chicken. Eating anything else is just a waste of perfectly good tummy space.

Jerry's SnoCones

Jason and I had been planning a trip to Jerry's Sno Cones for months it seems. We finally went the other day! First of all, it's a bit of a trek to get there. Way up in the north part of Memphis - 1657 Wells Station Rd. But it's worth it on a hot day. The place is so pink and yellow and square, like if communist architecture came to Portugal.





And it does feel a little post-apocalyptic with all the people in various stages of summer undress waiting around in the sun or slurping their food out of styrofoam cups. what saves it from being too morbid is the gratuitousness of the combination of sno cone with soft serve ice cream. It's called a "supreme" and it's very good. I tried mine with mango, orchid, and cherry flavors. They were all a bit sickly sweet, and *way* too much for one person to eat, but the texture on my tongue was pretty amazing. I'm told wedding cake is the most popular flavor...but i think next time I'll try lemon or coffee and hope it won't put my teeth on edge!

Jeanne & Thorsten's Wedding Cake

So, I'm back in Memphis now -- teaching some Philosophy, tearing up some floors, baking some wedding cake. This is my second wedding cake, and I was very happy with it. It looked beautiful thanks to Amanda and Jena's artistic touches, but it tasted excellent as well! Let's see...it was an almond cake with raspberry eau-de-vie buttercream filling and fresh raspberries. For the outside I chopped up a bunch of almonds very finely and mixed it with gold dust so that it would remind Jeanne of the sand on the Pacific.

Lemon tart with Raspberries and Rosemary

the lemon filling was loose.... there's something about these creamy-firm textured pies that's difficult for me. but it was delicious anyway!