You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Blue plate café in Memphis.
It’s southern fried goodness dripping with cholesterol filled loveliness. This venerable eatery is hot sauce and chili peppers that transform your mouth into a Fourth of July fire works celebration.
According to the owners “Southern cooking and southern hospitality is what we serve at Blue Plate Cafe. All because Mama would want it that way.”
It’s 10am on a Sunday. The parking lot is filled with cars as a steady mist floats in the murky sky.
We park in a no parking zone.
Cars are circling like angry barracuda around us.
If we don’t take the questionable spot, the next diner with a buldging waist line surely will.
We enter the unassuming building. It is part house, part converted commercial structure.
We enter the lobby. It is small, with the host stand directly in front of us. A few women are seated in the available chairs lining the wall.
We give the hostess our name.
“It won’t be but a few minutes sugar,” she says with honey dripping on every slurred syllable.
We lean against the wall and take a moment to inhale the ambience.
There are colorful paintings hanging on every wall. There is a replica of the University of Memphis Tiger mascot in the adjoining room.
This River City landmark is painted yolk yellow, the walls trimmed in white. There’s a parquet wood floor that is highly waxed and shimmers from sunlight beaming through a nearby window.
I breathe in deeply.
The smell of breakfast frying in the kitchen fills my nostrils.
I’m over come by a wave of familiarity that reminds me of good childhood memories. It is reminiscent of a time long ago, sitting at a breakfast table, my sisters and me waiting for breakfast while bacon sizzles in the pan.
My mouth begins to water and my stomach gurgles its approval.
Just then, the hostess calls our name.
“That didn’t take long,” I murmur as we move through the crowd gathered in front of the host stand.
“this way,” she says leading us through the main dining room into an ancillary section of the restaurant.
“This is where the locals come,” my friend says.
I see packed tables and plates piled high with food.
I see biscuits and gravy to my left.
I see a man with a belly filling up all available booth space, his stomach is so pronounced, so extended, it is touching the tabletop. Before him is a stack of pancakes, a side of bacon and pile of hash browns.
I wonder if the booth comes with an EKG paddle, just in case he goes into cardiac arrest.
We sit at a table at the back of the café, next to a large window.
The bus boy greets us with a smile and a final wipe of the plastic table cloth which is a blue and white checker board pattern.
“Enjoy your meal, your server will be with you in a moment,” he says with a Blue Café smile.
We sit down. I feel the damp plastic stick to my forearm. It’s moist but clean.
“This place just feels like breakfast,” I say.
There’s a painting of a dog above our booth. The price tag hanging below says $800.
I look again at the brightly colored dog. It’s friendly, inviting, almost child like.
“Nice painting of a dog,” I say.
“not for $800,” my friends smirks.
“Morning ya’ll,” our waitress says. She is a young woman in her early 20’s. She is wearing a T shirt that says Memphis across the front. Her brown hair frames her attractive face. She hands us 2 newspaper like menus filled with food items.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she says.
Her voice is booming. Her words are vociferous, volcanic, booming out of her diminutive girl face.
I am startled by the amazing amplitude, the power of her elocution.
“Some coffee, please.”
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she booms.
I smile at my friend as we listen to the young waitress work the booths to the front of the room.
“My father died and I came back to Memphis to be with my mother,” I hear the waitress tell other diners 3 booths away.
“Maybe she’s an actor,” my friend guesses reading the newspaper menu.
“Yeah, that or an opera singer,” I reply.
The young waitress returns with 2 coffee mugs filled with piping hot brew.
The steam is rising like an aromatic vapor snake into the air.
I follow the hot mist as it floats by the waitresses face. That’s when I notice her left ear decorated with a cluster of metallic earrings.
There are more than a dozen piercings in her ear. She has tiny circles of metal in her fleshy ear lobe. She has half a dozen more hooks puncturing the bony cartilage that holds her ear together. The young woman has a few spiky barbs exiting the top of her ear as well.
“How many earrings you got?” I blurt out astounded by this scrap metal heap of fashion.
“20,” she replies, her voice bellowing so loudly her words rain down upon us like a thunder cloud.
“Wow, 20,” I reply, feeling like I should say something. I stare at the metallic mess. It is unsightly, like barbed wire at the top of a maximum security prison fence.
I smile and I’m prepared to order.
But our waitress with the powerful lungs has more on her mind. She wants to talk more about her fashion statement.
“I don’t have any tattoos ,”she volunteers. “I don’t want anything permanent on my body,” she boasts. “Each piercing represents something significant in my life. If I want to take them out, they’ll heal up and the holes will be gone. Can’t do that with a tattoo.”
She softly touches her left ear. It looks like a tackle box at a Bass Pro Shop.
“cool,” I say.
“You ready to order?” she booms.
“I’ll have the omelette.”
“You want hashbrowns or grits with that?”
“Hashbrowns please.”
“Well I’ll have the grits,” my friend says in a joking manner.
“Oh are you from the North?” the waitress asks loudly.
“no I grew up here,” my friend says smiling.
“It was the way you said Grits,” she booms. “People either say what are grits and they are from the north. Or they are from the South and they are like enthusiastic about ordering grits.”
“He doesn’t like grits.”
The waitress eyes me suspiciously like I am a carpet bagger from the North.
“Where are you from?”
“California.”
“have you ever had grits?”
“Yeah. While back. I don’t like the way grits feel in my mouth,” I say.
“Yeah, you either like Grits or you don’t,” she bellows from above. “Have you ever seen the movie my Cousin Vinny. They are Yankees who come to South Alabama and order grits. What’s a grit? Joe Pesci asks the waitress. It’s hilarious.”
The waitresses voice is so loud, so pronounced, it slices through the dining hall ambience like a vocal light house beacon slicing through a dense fog.
“OK, I’ll get those orders right up,” she says her smile beaming with confidence.
She springs away talking to other tables as she goes.
“Hi are you a princess?” she says to the booth behind us. “That is such a pretty birthday crown,” she says to the little girl, her voice projecting as if she were perched in my eardrum.
“She’s got a set of lungs,” I say to my friend.
“I was a college student in Ohio,” I hear her say to diners in another section of the restaurant.
A few minutes later the waitress arrives with appetizers of biscuits and gravy. She puts a small bowl of grits, smothered in butter, on the table.
“Enjoy,” the server says.
My friend cuts into the biscuit with a fork and then slathers the gravy over it.
“Delicious.”
I try a mouthful.
It’s so rich and creamy, I think my heart is going to stop.
I feel the velvety goodness slide down my throat.
“That is good.”
“Try the grits.”
I stare at the bowl.
It looks like chunky milk.
I put the spoon full in my mouth. I immediately notice the texture. It makes me think of gruel with less flavor. It is like pre-chewed tapioca pudding with the taste of soggy cardboard.
“Needs sugar,” I say swallowing the phloem like substance.
My friend laughs.
Soon our table cloth is decorated with plates piled high with eggs and hash browns and sausage.
It is scrumptious, beautifully nutritious, wonderfully life sustaining.
A few shakes of Louisiana hot sauce give my eggs a south of the border flavor that eclipses any and all memories of grits.
“What a great place,” I say, my mouth filled with Southern breakfast food.
“Everything taste great?” the waitress asks.
I look at her smiling face. I can’t help but notice an ear lobe that would create a stir at a TSA check point.
My mouth is full and my heart happy.
Our waitress will go on to tell us that she is a mechanical engineer who loves to work on cars.
I smile and keep eating.
I want to ask her where she got that booming voice, but I don’t.
As we leave this Memphis Culinary oasis, the crowd in the tiny lobby has doubled.
The rain is coming down steadily and more people are ducking for cover.
As we pull out of the illegal parking space, two cars jockey for position. Like couching tigers, they are waiting for us to leave, their blinkers illuminated, ready to pounce.
Man that was good, I say as we pull into the street.
I look at the sign. Breakfast served any time.
I rub my belly knowing it’s filled with Southern deliciousness.
Life’s Crazy™