Tonight, there is hope...

Yeah, I know. Some of you saw the title to this blog entry and thought maybe our commander-in-chief had figured out how to pronounce "nuclear".

But no, this is about food. For the past few years, I have been on a quest that rivals the search for Noah's ark. Yes, friends, the art of restaurant-style home-cooking has become such a lost art that I've basically been depressed (not to mention under-fed) for the better part of two decades. I remember the first time I sampled a Black-eyed Pea, I thought a culinary zenith had been achieved and that my homestyle hankerin's had been assuaged forever. But then they got bought out and food quality dropped.

Actually, I had found chicken-fried nirvana as a college student in Abilene in the late '60's at a boarding house called "Ma Brown's". Miss Brown basically sold seats in her dining room to outsiders and baby, it was all you could eat for fifty cents. I and some of my buddies put her out of business. We wore black arm bands for a month.

But for a long time, the search has been on for someone, yea anyone, who could make decent mashed potatoes and chicken fried ________ (feel free to fill in the blank). And tonight, I'm proud to report the astoundingly good news, both to fans of southern cooking and cardiologists alike. The strange name of the place is "Cooppies". Carole and I found it in the Firewheel area of Garland this afternoon.

Fried chicken with the best crust ever. Mashed 'taters better than Fran Clift's, something I never thought I'd say. Macaroni and cheese better than Mom's. Sweet tea. I made such a fool of myself that there simply was no will left in me to sample their crumbly cobblers. And had Carole and I opted for water instead of tea, our check would have been around $17.

So for those of you in the Dallas area, check it out. Take a few friends. My number is 972-771-xxxx.