Shrimp and Grits

Well it turns out the silver lining of my cloudy and cold vacation at the beach was meeting Greg. Funny I had to drive hours away from home to make a local friend but my life often plays out in such odd ways.

Greg kindly offered to acquaint me with the local cuisine and we met for dinner at the apparently world famous Crook's Corner. After reading the reviews on the website, I of course had to order the shrimp and grits which totally lived up to its billing. Beautifully presented and delicious with just the right amount of garlic. It was a fabulous meal and Greg is a great dinner companion. The time flew by and I was sorry when it was over.

I missed my turn on the way home and ended in the center of town so I stopped at the local blues club, which I've been threatening to do since I got here, now almost six months ago. They were having an open mike and it was surprisingly good and really well organized. The set changes went really quickly.

When I was bartending at the Baystate, I suffered some pretty horrible players so I was surprised at the caliber of the performers here. I ended staying much longer than I intended. A real standout was the acappella group of three women who did a couple of gospel songs with some heartrending harmonies.

The room was rather full for a Tuesday night, all but about six of us were musicians and I heard most of them play before I got out of there. They were a friendly bunch and I had a great chat with one of the acappella group and another woman singer-songwriter, Dolie and Sally. I understand they're sort of there every other Tuesday so I expect I'll try to get back there again in a couple of weeks. This may turn out to be my venue for human contact.

Meanwhile, continuing on the theme of meeting friends while miles from home, I also met John, a guy who lives here in town and it turns out he's a friend of Tom Lesser, my old boss of 18 years. We discovered we had many friends and acquaintances in common. Small world.