Swamp Travels: Pulled Pork and Collard Greens

Life has been extremely busy for this Broad.  I apologize for not posting sooner.  It’s just that life has been moving at warp speed since the supper club.

My new travels take me to the Louisiana/Mississippi border along the Pearl River for a new television show that I’m on.  It’s been an incredibly intimate view of a slice of America that I’ve never seen before–the swamp.

I fully understand the allure of the swamp.  The sensory overload of the twenty first century slowly recedes as the boat launches into the water.  No cell reception, no vehicle noise, just the sounds of cicadas, tree frogs and the hum of an outboard.

Being out on the boats reminds me of childhood summer vacations on the lake.  We had an old and heavy rowboat that I would take out early in the mornings, just me and the water.  I would have made cornmeal mush for bait or have dug for worms the night before and head down to find the quiet that a large family rarely provides.

After loading the boat with fishing pole and bait I’d push off from the dock.  The sound that eased my soul was the squish of the boat cutting the water.  The seesaw rocking of the boat as I settled into the bench. The power I felt as I grasped the oars and pulled across the stilled waters.  The quiet sounds.  There were no kids swimming, no parents shouting, no splashing, no Marco, no Polo.  And then I’d get to my favorite fishing spot and lift the oars out of the water, and the sound of the droplets gently hitting the water as I rested the oars in the boat.  That soothing sound, the gentle cradle rock of the boat all came back like a flash as we floated along.

Of course the terrain of the lake and swamp are totally different.  The places we scouted for the show were enchanted and totally unfamiliar.

What I heard as “snappers knees” turned out to be cypress knees.  Up croppings from the roots of the cypresses that hide in the thicket to trip you.

The trudging through swamp and mud was not so kind to my very special location boots.  These old boots have been with me on many a shoot–walking through the desert in Egypt, looking for gold in Venezuela, the holy grail in Jordan as well as trudging the outback in Australia.  Alas, the swamp mud did them in.

But life has not been all swamp and mud.  We eat.  One of the best places thus far has been Fat Boys BBQ in Picayune, Mississippi.  The pulled pork is shredded, tender sweetness.  And without doubt the collared greens were the best, bar none, that I’ve ever tasted, sweet and spicy. Unfortunately the perfectly wonderful cole slaw was over shadowed by the pork and collard greens, voted the hit of the table by all.