Tuesday, March 5, 2013.
Up And Down The River, Part 4: Vicksburg. No New Cocktail.
The Queen of the Mississippi pulled up to the dock in Vicksburg around nine this morning. The harbor is a long stretch of abandoned river, about half the width of the main flow and with no current at all. We shared this water with a casino and small boats pushing off and coming in. Like Natchez, Vicksburg is on a bluff overlooking the river, making for another steep climb to get to the action.
Looking over the city as we floated into position, Mary Ann assessed Vicksburg as "another poor Southern city with no future." She checked it out on her own anyway while I was getting my NOMenu Daily out. She returned an hour later with her mind changed entirely. "This place looks great!" she said. "Let's go!"
We went. I found a lunch spot called Rusty's Riverfront Grill. Despite the name, the emphasis was on fried seafood, but it seemed more ambitious in its offerings than anything else I've ever found in Vicksburg.
The place was starting to fill up with a lunch crowd. After MA made her adjustments to the seating, we were in the rear of a new addition. Rusty's is only about ten years old to begin with, so we took the expansion as a good sign.
The place lived up to the promise. We started with something silly--fried pickle chips--but they were so good that our confidence rose. After a basic but well-composed salad came a fried platter of oysters, shrimp, and crab cakes, with a side of cheese grits. All just fine, with a particular surprise in the amount of lump crabmeat in the cakes.
The other entree was really an appetizer, but easily enough for a main course. Fried green tomatoes (are we in the South or what?) came out hidden from view because of a load of crabmeat and hollandaise on top. The sauce had been glazed, turning it into a very light omelette. That's an old cooking trick I haven't seen since the days of trout Veronique in the Caribbean Room. Rich, crabby, terrific. And too much food.
We ate dessert anyway. Peanut butter and chocolate pie. I had in mind the mousse-like dessert of the same name at Feelings, knowing full well than no other peanut butter pie has ever been as good as that one. This wasn't either--a bit heavy, I thought--but it was more than good enough to finish.
Across the street from Rusty's is a new museum built last year by the Mississippi River Commission, an adjunct to the Army Corps of Engineers. The commission's headquarters are in Vicksburg, in a century-old, striking red brick building. Here on the nearest navigable waterway it has a muscular, decommissioned boat that looks like an oversize tugboat. It's now part of the museum, and interesting enough that we walked through three of its five floors. (The kitchen and mess were there, with tables set not just with utensils and napkins but fake food.)
The building adjacent has a fascinating array of exhibits about the Mississippi River and its history of floods, levees, navigation, and changes. There was enough here to take up an hour of our time. One exhibit I found especially fascinating was a mock river whose flow you could control. You would direct water across a bed of sand and duplicate, on a small scale, the forces that make a real river do what it does.
Not far away from this terrific attraction is another one of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad's improbably large, grand passenger stations. This hosted a small railroad museum, but I didn't find that out until we were back on the riverboat. We had bypassed the depot to walk along Main Street.
Mary Ann was tried to remember when we were here last, but needed my prodding. I remember that visit vividly. It was August 29, 2008, and we were on a odyssey with two purposes: to get away from Hurricane Gustav (which Mayor Nagin was calling "the mother of all hurricanes"), and to deliver Jude to Los Angeles, where he would shortly begin his tenure at the University of Southern California.
Vicksburg was our first stop that day after leaving home. We had lunch in an Italian restaurant (now apparently closed), then toured the downtown, particularly the Coca-Cola Museum (exactly as it was then). Vicksburg was the first place where Coke was bottled. Jazz plays from speakers mounted on every lamppost. Good idea.
Mary Ann went on, but I had to get back to the riverboat for a scheduled seminar at three-thirty. My idea was for the participants to create a cocktail we would call The Riverboat. I could not find an existing cocktail by that name. I would have started by suggesting Southern Comfort as the main liquor, and we'd go from there. But only three people showed up. Most of the passengers were still out on a tour of the historic Vicksburg battlefield. As well they should have been. The weather had warmed up and the sun was shining.
Two of my would-be audience members understood why I decided to postpone our session. The other guy thought he would get a cocktail out of the deal, so I made one for him. Not a big deal: drinks are free on this boat.
The kitchen aboard the Queen of the Mississippi did not show any flagging of its creativity at dinner. I was going to eat light, after that big lunch at Rusty's. But I couldn't turn down the lamb chops. Four of them, cooked just right. The only iffy aspect was the cup of mint jelly on the side. I imagine this generation of passengers still regard mint jelly as an essential adjunct to lamb. I couldn't remember the last time I've seen that usage.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
