One of my favourite segments on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” was the bit at the end where he’d offer up a rather humourous and often satirical take on something that was mentioned during the show.
It was introduced by “here’s your moment of Zen”.
I had one this morning and it absolutely blew my mind just how much things have changed in the past few months.
I wasn’t quite expecting a moment of Zen but that seems rather the point…not so much predicting it will happen but appreciating the sign for what it is when it does.
The morning started a bit earlier than usual owing to the fact that Alex and Katie had stayed over due to Julia having a works do the prior evening.
All seemed normal enough…they’re clothed and breakfasted, lunches for school packed, Mistletoe heads back to her crate to resume her snoozing, and we make it to the conga line behind Enloe well ahead of the usual arrival time and out they go.
Normally, I’d head back home straightaway to release Mistletoe from her crate but the morning’s mission was to finish kitting out Nicholas’ set of tools he’ll be using at Wake Tech in the coming semester as well as at his new position as a service technician at Leith Toyota.
An automotive tradition amongst those who mend cars for a living is that you’re usually obliged to provide and if need be *DEFEND* your own set of hand tools (especially the 10mm socket, everyone’s misplacing their own and looking to nick someone else’s because it’s just so darned useful!).
Anywho, mission accomplished except for the digital multimeter which needs a bit more research before pulling the trigger on it.
90 minutes of searching for tools and forking over a mighty pile of cash in Lowe’s direction for a full set of tools far better than I’ve ever had the privilege to use definitely takes it out of you.
What better way to put that right than to roll up to the queue at Bojangle’s for a Cajun filet biscuit and their sweet tea!
OK, for our Northern and Midwestern cousins…one thing you’ll find about those of us in the South is that we have three obsessions and NASCAR is the one that doesn’t involve food.
I’ll save the religious debate over what constitutes *REAL* BBQ and where one finds it for a later post but our other culinary obsession is chicken.
The choice irony here is that most of my father’s side of the family were farmers and if you’ve ever seen how disgusting live chickens can be, it’s rather miraculous that we can get past those repressed memories to actually eat them. Mind you, those same memories do rather ensure that we’re not terribly broken up by them meeting their demise so it all balances out in the end. Well, except for the chicken, that is… 🙂
The South probably has more chicken joints per capita than anywhere else in the world and for good reason…chicken is just so darned tasty down here. If you’re lucky enough to have a family recipe for fried chicken and the capacity for turning out tonnes of it, you’re set.
For the rest of us, we have to take a ride through the drive-through… 🙂
There’s Atlanta’s contribution to sacrificing domesticated farm birds known to the world as the Lord’s chicken from Chick-Fil-A…in my opinion the tastiest chicken sandwich known to man and well worth waiting in the massive queues enveloping their stand-alone stores. The waffle fries are meh but the sandwich and their lemonade is more than worth the price of admission!
It’s even better when the Hurricanes win at home which they’ve been doing an awful lot of late…free chicken sandwich the next day through their app if you make sure you log in before midnight! It was nice seeing this promotion return in it’s original form…the free brownie on offer during the pandemic just wasn’t even close nor was it worth enduring the longest wait time in the fast food industry.
We have Popeye’s when you want to go really spicy Cajun. And when I say spicy, I’m not fooling around. My long departed dog Buster (ugly little mutt but super lovable in his way!) found that out the hard way when Dad and I breezed through Popeye’s for some chicken only to find that they had substituted the spicy Cajun for the mild we had ordered.
Unfortunately, we discovered their unintended treachery a little too late.
Buster took one bite of that bird and then buried his snout in his water bowl. The next three weeks, he would give us looks that were best translated as “I’d sooner warm up to being friends with Judas Iscariot than you two bastards!” and forget getting him to eat chicken joint chicken ever again. Fool me once… 😉
Church’s is your spot when you’re in the mood for that serious soul food inspired flavour. It’s the only drive-through chicken place I’ve ever known where your bird could be accompanied by fried okra and a mess of collard greens. Sadly, the collards are gone but you can still have okra with your bird! 🙂
If you want awesome chicken on a salad that could swallow Saturn, Zaxby’s is the joint you want to visit.
PDQ is where you go when you’re feeling truly posh.
KFC is where you go when you’re feeling truly desperate for bird but don’t want to just completely give up on life and do the drive of shame through McDonald’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Colonel’s spice but can’t stand the greasiness of Original Recipe where you’re most likely to be able to taste it. The spices are so muted in the extra crispy that it’s just not worth it.
One of our newer chicken places here in North Carolina is Alpaca when you want thank God Almighty for having the wisdom to grace Earth with the Peruvian people and the plates from heaven they inspired that are positively loaded with arroz chaufa con pollo and pollo/lomo saltado.
But if you’re looking for North Carolina’s bird with a Cajun kick and the altar from which Southern sweet tea dreams to be dispensed, there really is only one choice: Charlotte’s own Bojangle’s.
Nothing else comes close.
And that is why I was in the queue at Bojangle’s near the Mos Eisley Wal-Mart on New Bern Avenue this morning.
What I wasn’t expecting to see was Nicholas getting into his car in the car park as I’m coming down the building toward the drive-through window.
It wasn’t particularly surprising that he was there…he said he would be heading there before heading to Wake Tech when the Hurricanes scored a power-play goal in last night’s game where they beat the Lightning 2-1 in Tampa.
When the Canes score a power-play goal and should you be willing to endure the embarrassment of repeating a cheesy promo line in the queue, Bojangle’s will give you a free Bo-berry biscuit. He rather likes the Bo-berry biscuit. He also likes free stuff (can’t really blame him there!). And in previous years that they’ve run that promotion, I’d be the one driving him there to get his Bo-berry biscuit and have him get me some sweet tea to see me through my day.
But accidentally coming across him there in the car park in the car that he’d driven by himself to get his Bo-berry fix before heading off to school as I’m driving through at the same time…well, what a change we’ve seen in the past five months.
In a heartbeat, I was remembering what life was like at fifteen years old and having a full driving licence in Mississippi and a red-coloured Nissan Pulsar NX to take me where I wished to go when I wished to go.
That was a vision of freedom and to see him happily exercising that freedom was truly breathtaking.
That’s your moment of Zen, folks. 🙂