Local Flavor

One of the many things that Zheng and I share is a desire to get to the heart of a place. This is tied very closely to three things. If you ask yourself, how do people spend their:

1). Time
2). Money
3). Appetite (food)

you will have a very accurate read on what is popular in a given area. 

Albuquerque, NM

1). Time: Hiking the Sandias, going to the Rio Grande park, shopping (there are a significant amount of furniture stores in ABQ), coffee shops, watching Breaking Bad 
2). Money: Native American or summer-styled clothing, Mexican influenced cookware and decoration
3). Appetite: Mexican food, great food in general, good barbecue

During our drive, we tried very much to get a sense of the “local flavor” of any given state, city, town, etc. 

Here were some observations from a Chinese (now permanent US resident!) man, who has lived in the United States for six years:

1). Lower gas prices mean worse houses (and cars).
2). Walmart is everywhere.
3). People dress very poorly (clothes don’t flatter them, clothes don’t match, aren’t kept in good repair, little taste) and often the clothes don’t fit properly.
4). Pennsylvania had the worst roads of the eleven states. 
5). Also, the longest and most boring drive (and also most harrowing due to very narrow roads) was the PA Turnpike Northeast Extension.
6). If you enter a state through a Native American reservation, you will not see any labeling or signage.
7). Americans really love drive-in food. (He meant drive-through windows).
8). Americans love to go to church!
9). Fast food is cheap.

One of the best meals we had was in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The restaurant was called “Local Flavor Cafe” and has remarkable food. When my friend B.C. came to visit Arkansas four years ago (and also would join me on a very interesting road trip!), we had a meal there. When we re-met (and my husband and his fiancée met each other), we still talked about that meal! It seemed to be an obvious choice that Zheng and I would eat there during our trip. 

When Zheng and I were in Kentucky, he insisted on eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Despite the fact that it is a chain, I agreed. We were ordering and he asked the cooks, “What is the most local flavor?” They didn’t understand him, so we went with the “original” chicken.

We chose a route that maybe meandered, and maybe was a little out of the way at times. But we saw a lot of America, as our friend John says, “that many Americans have not seen!”

PHOTOS: Local Flavor Cafe, Arkansas