Steaks, Tamales, and much more.

 

With things sort of slow around home, we gave some friends from Memphis a call.  Would they like to meet us someplace for a few days of just visiting, eating, and other low impact activities?  The answer was a resounding yes, and we decided on Lake Chicot State Park near Lake village, Arkansas.  Lake Chicot itself is a beautiful old oxbow lake.  Part of the Mississippi River some 500 years ago, it became a polluted cachement basin after the levees were built in the 1930’s.  A restoration was begun in 1985, and it is now one of the premier lakes in Arkansas.  It is also the largest oxbow lake in North America.

Arkansas state parks, along with Mississippi’s, are some of the best in the Country, in my opinion.  They are nice facilities where one can get a full hookup site for around twenty dollars.  No additional per-person fees or park admission fees, either. 

My only complaint is their water hookups.  You have to wonder why the electric and sewer is where it’s supposed to be, and the water is way out “there”.  We’ve run into that in a number of Arkansas parks.

Did I mention eating?  One shouldn’t be within fifty miles of Greenville, MS, and not visit Doe’s Eat Place.  Located in a neighborhood that was run down in 1941, when it opened, it’s a place that defies description.  An armed security person roams the street and points out where to park. Entering the front door, you find yourself in the kitchen, where slabs of beef the size of dinner plates are sizzling in the broiler.  There are other Doe’s out there, but this is the original.

You’re seated in another part of the kitchen where the frying takes place.  The menu is steak, shrimp; fried or grilled, and spaghetti with sauce.  You get fries with the steak or shrimp, and a small salad with home made dressing is optional. That’s it!

When “our” 42 ounce “bone in ribeye” arrived, I was too shocked to take a picture.  Ruth’s Chris couldn’t touch it.

On another evening we went looking for tamales.  One might think the Mississippi Delta would be an odd place for tamales.  Truth is, they are everywhere.  Handmade by families that have used recipes handed down generation by generation.  Lots of stories about how they became a staple of the Delta.  No one know for sure, but most every Delta town has a family that makes and sells tamales.

We decided on a local joint in Lake Village.  Wanda wasn’t too sure about the place.

Rhoda and her husband make every tamale, themselves.  Wrap each one in a shuck and simmer them for hours in a pot of seasoned broth.  Almost forgot to get a picture there also.  They were awesome.

I may have gotten another half dozen, but we had pie back at the camper.

We were told that a bus with fifty Australians stopped by earlier that day.  Would have loved to get their thoughts on the Delta, and its food…….jc