Crisler’s – a satisfying soul food side trip in Crystal Springs, Miss.

It’s rarely a challenge to find good soul food in the Deep South.  But if you really want great soul food, it’s been my experience that you need to skip the cities and get off the beaten path as much as possible.  Punky and I applied this logic on one of our road trips to New Orleans not long ago, and my senses proved to be spot-on after we discovered Crisler’s outside of Crystal Springs, Miss.

Neon Pig shines bright in Tupelo, Miss.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, my travels have, with good reason, been much more limited.  The only exceptions I made in 2020 were to places near and familiar, and even then trips were made with an acute awareness of local health protocols.  In a roundabout way, this provides a reason for why Punky and I found ourselves in Tupelo, Miss., one night last November.  We were returning home from New Orleans, and I had insisted on driving back the “old way” my grandmother used to take (she was never fond of the four-lane highway).  Tupelo seems like a logical place to stay for a night to break up the trip.  

While in Tupelo, I had every intention of finding a fun local barbecue or soul food restaurant for dinner.  But the one I had in mind was surprisingly closed by the time we got there.  Fortunately, Punky has become an expert at advance scouting travel destinations in her own right and suggested the Neon Pig Cafe.  It turned out to be a great call in every way.

Was Pinetop Perkins the last of the original Delta bluesmen?

Pinetop Perkins died Monday, March 21, at the ripe age of 97.   Aside from having a really cool name, you might ask why this should matter so much to music lovers like myself.  Well, everyone who knows anything about blues music knows B.B. King, and he said, “He was one of the last great Mississippi Bluesmen.  He had such a distinctive voice, and he sure could play the piano. He will be missed not only by me, but by lovers of music all over the world."