L-O-N-G Weekend in Oxford, or Yoknapatawpha County

June 4-8, 2010

I got bored with my "Mint to Be" mints in Memphis traffic.

We left out Friday afternoon (June 4) for Oxford, Mississippi, to visit Kevin and Bree. It wasn't that long of a trip, except when we hit rush-hour traffic outside of Memphis and puttered along for awhile.

Oxford is definitely not what I expected. :) Mississippi is a scary place. :( But we met lots of their friends and gorged ourselves on grilled steaks, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade strawberry ice cream, beer, and cheap wine. It was a great dinner and a great first night in Oxford!

Lafayette County Courthouse

Saturday we woke up late, ate lunch, and headed to the Oxford Square, where I imagined it from the last page of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

There, we explored Square Books (with its "Faulkner" section), shared a sundae at Holli's Sweet Tooth, tried pecan beer at The Blind Pig, drifted through Lily Pad, and loaded up on booze to head to Taylor Grocery.
Wow.
We drove out past Oxford into the boonies, getting lost and turning around at a possibly crazed man's house...all the while learning how to pronounce Lafayette (as in, Lafayette County).

Taylor Grocery was even more intriguing. According to one website, it is "the place to see and be seen." First of all, a "grocery" refers to a restaurant, the term seeming to originate from general stores and grocery stores that served meals on the side. As these businesses transitioned to full restaurants, the term stuck. Now I would say it is trendy to call your restaurant a "grocery," as in City Grocery, which we are visiting on Monday. But Taylor Grocery was once a general store and is housed in its original building. It is a "dry" part of earth, so you have to brown bag it--that is, bring your own liquor. (Hence why we loaded up on booze beforehand.) But you can't bring the bottles inside. Oh, no. You mix your drinks and pour your wine in the parking lot. The alcohol rules and regulations are interesting in these here parts. You cannot buy cold beer in (actual) grocery stores or mini-marts--only warm beer--and beer is not sold in liquor stores (wine and hard liquor only). You can get cold beer in town, as beer is legal in the town of Oxford though illegal in the county of Lafayette. Yep. The county is dry in beer, but the city is not while you can get liquor and brown-bag it at least three restaurants.

Nuts, I say.

So many levels of irony in this photo of my wine at Taylor Grocery.

It was a wonderful meal, and if I could make a comparison between Taylor Grocery and any other restaurant, it would be Toad Suck Buck's, which is also in the woods and makes great use of plasticky tablecloths. Ah, but the best steaks are found there, just as great catfish was found here. The house salad with vidalia onion dressing lived up to its reputation (although I wouldn't have minded some onion in the salad itself). I liked the French fries with Rotel (which is actually cheese dip with Rotel), but it wasn't novel to me. The place, with its graffiti and corner musician singing Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, also reminded me of White Water Tavern. It was like coming home. :)

We topped the night off with a mini-tour of campus and played Puerto Rico, which was a fun game of producing coffee and indigo, even if I came in last.

(See the corkscrews on the wall? If you forget yours, you can always come in and borrow one!)

We had breakfast from Honest Abe's doughnuts and BBQ, which used to be a drive-thru liquor store. Classy, I say.
And the biggest bear claws I've ever seen!

These babies are the most precious jewels. :)
pearl onions = a delish dish
Onions are my favorite. And I could just pop these in my mouth whole and let them melt.
Bree and Ashley Taylor made boeuf bourguignon with garlic bread on Sunday. It truly takes all day to make, but it is not impossible. Kevin, Zach, and I went shopping for the ingredients; Melissa and I chopped and prepped ingredients. Those ladies know how to cook up a good meal. :)

We went to The Grove and played bocce and took in a concert.

Sunset in The Grove

And Zach and I explored Ventress Hall, the administrative offices for the College of Liberal Arts. It reminds me of Hogwarts.

This Tiffany Stained Glass commemorates the University Grays, a Confederate unit of Ole Miss students who had a 100% fatality rate. (The only survivor never returned to school, so he's not counted.)

There are hydrangeas EVERYWHERE! We found these in the kids bookstore, Square Books Jr. on Monday.


After lunch at Newk's, we finally made it to the famed City Grocery that night.

After a farewell breakfast with the Gates' at Bottletree Bakery on Tuesday, where I had this deliciously crispy chocolate croissant, Zach and I headed to Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's Oxford home. : )Once there, I proceeded to take too many out-of-focus photos because I did not want to be caught looking like a nerd who has to photograph EVERYTHING in William Faulkner's Oxford home. ; )I enjoyed listening to one visitor attempt to explain to an older couple, who had never read Faulkner (except for possibly a few short stories), who Quentin Compson was (including clarifying that he was not a real person who lived at Rowan Oak), why he is important, when he died (including the side note that the 100th anniversary of his death was on June 2), and how and why emos are drawn to him--and what an "emo" is. Our tour guide, who appeared younger than the visitor himself, just stood by quietly and smirked.

(I did, however, have to acknowledge and applaud how much of a nerd this visitor was because he asked the older couple to take a picture of him on the porch so he would have proof he had been there.)

The house was nice, but the grounds were gorgeous and fragrant. I wish I knew what those yellow and white flowers were off to the right of the house. I wanted to gallop across the grounds while wishing I had a real camera to take more professional pictures.

Zach and I at Rowan Oak

But I did take this one of Zach crossing the grounds. I think it has become one of my favorites! : )O