Poetry and Porches

My BFF, Kim, read at Emry's Open Mic at Chicora Alley last night.  Chicora is one of my favorite places downtown for atmosphere, and they have really good food, too.  Definitely a recommendation for your next girls' night or casual date night. 

Their door opens onto Main Street, but you go up a really steep flight of stairs to a great wood floored space overlooking the street.  There are lights in the trees outside and in the fall/winter, you can see Mary's Cottage and part of the park across the street.  If you sit in the benches by the windows, you can watch the people walk by, too (a favorite pass-time).   

Side note: Chicora's back entrance opens ground level on Bogg Street, which was once Chicora Street.  From Greenville's Camperdown to River Street was once Chicora College, now Queens College in Charlotte, NC.  Ben and Adam "Bert" Dixon opened their exotic island meets Southern home cooking restaurant in 2003.

 Vera Gomez was last night's MC.   I haven't seen Vera or Kim on stage in a while, so it was nice to see them get their bard on.  As usual, I dug into the menu, to see what I could nosh on and share with you.

I ordered a glass...and another... of Mil Piedras Malbec (sweet, tannic, peppery) and some appetizers for us to share: triangles of crunchy fried (not greasy) Macaroni and Cheese bites with Mom's Dressing, a spicy thousand Island dressing sans pickles.  So good.  They may dump them out of a bag into the fryer.  I don't know, but dang they are amazing junk food.  (Jack in the Box used to have these, too.)  And a basket of Sweet Potato Fries with Ketchupeno, a sweet and spicy ketchup.  I think I ate most of the fries before Kim could snag any.  I heart homemade sweet potato fries.  

I also ordered Curried Collards and had such high hopes.  There was so much promise! But they were too vinegary and crunchy (underdone), so I mimed to the waiter in a gagging motion, as to not interrupt reading, that they were awful and should go bye-bye.  He laughed and whisked them away, miming back that there would be no charge. (I could take up miming if the writing thing doesn't work out.)

Kim and I ended our girls' night out on our friend Josie's porch.  A nice old porch turned outdoor, open air den in old Greenville.  I love it there.  Good wine.  Warm fire.  Lots of laughs.  

(*thank you for putting up with my bad grammar and horrible punctuation.  I just love playing with punctuation.  I'm an editor's nightmare, and I have a few of them that can attest. Thanks to Josie for the good wine!)