By John Woo
A Po' Boy's Baton Rouge: Seth Kugel kicks off his budget-friendly road trip through America's heartland in Baton Rouge, La.
Downtown Baton Rouge, La., is sleepy enough that Poor Boy Lloyd's, a catfish-frying, shrimp-boiling, po'boy-making restaurant whose walls are adorned with L.S.U. knickknacks, doesn't even bother opening for dinner during the week.
But it was late Friday afternoon when I arrived in the city, the starting line for my through-the-heartland summer road trip that would eventually take me to Fargo, N.D. Within a few hours the restaurant would be serving dinner — and, according to its Web site (poorboylloyds.com), offering live music. It was hard to imagine that entertainment at a place called Poor Boy Lloyd's could possibly be bland, so I headed over, grabbed a table for one, ordered a shrimp remoulade salad ($7.75) and promptly got winked at.
The winker was also the evening's star, "Ms. J.J. Johnson" (real name: Janice H. Johnson) who at 60 rocked a sleeveless flame-orange blouse as she belted out Motown hits to the crowd of a few dozen as if the room was 20 times bigger and she were 20 years younger. I soon realized I was not the only recipient of a wink; this woman knew how to work a crowd. "Someone asked me what the 'H' stand for in my middle name," she said between songs, "and I told them 'Hot mama'!" She then proved her point by launching into a spirited rendition of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour," accompanied by a band of three tucked into the corner. I stayed until closing, thinking that if the rest of my trip went like this — fortuitous timing, local spirit, minimal cost — it would be quite a summer.
I had mapped out a northwest route through Louisiana for the next two days, with four stops over about 250 miles, each with a hoped-for (and budget-friendly) theme: Mamou for music, Lecompte for pie, Natchitoches for history and Shreveport for art.
The next morning I got up early (Poor Boy Lloyd's closed at 10, so it was hardly a burden), stopped for breakfast at the Red Stick Farmers Market (redstickfarmersmarket.org), and by 9 a.m. was on the road, headed out on U.S. 190 toward the legendary (and legendarily boozy) weekly Cajun hoedown at Fred's Lounge in Mamou.
Mamou (population, 3,000), is another pretty sleepy place — if it's a more than one stoplight town, I didn't see the other one. It's hardly where you'd expect to find people partying, let alone on a Saturday morning. But at 11, I arrived to find festivities behind a brick facade on Sixth Street, which had been pulsing with accordion-based Cajun music for the last three hours. (From 9 to 11, a local AM station, KVPI, broadcasts the free show live.) This was Fred's Lounge, where couples of all ages strutted on the dance floor, and around the bar wallflowers downed $3 beers and mixed drinks for $4 to $5. At the center of it all was Tante Sue, the widow of the former owner; at one point she led a Cajun conga line out the front door of the bar and back in through the rear.
Nursing a Jack and Coke, I became fixated on one older couple, dancing slowly but elegantly, and I imagined their story: they had met here decades ago, and have danced every Saturday since. Ever nosy, I introduced myself to the woman, whose name was Willie (actually Willie Mae, but she doesn't like the Mae), and my story turned out be accurate except for one rather vital detail: they had met at Fred's not decades before, but less than a month ago.
"My husband died three years ago, and I've just started going out," she said over the din of the band. I asked if her husband had danced. "Oh, no," she said. "He was from Oklahoma" — as if that explained it.
Needing to get back on the road and lacking a designated driver, I tossed most of my drink, got back in the car and headed up Louisiana Route 13, listening to the Cajun music show (and French-speaking D.J.'s) still on KVPI. Next stop: Lea's Lunchroom (leaslunchroom.com) in Lecompte, population, 1,200. A Twitter follower had provided the tip, noting it was "a must for pie and the best ham sandwich you'll ever have." Little did I know he was leading me to the town declared "Pie Capital of Louisiana" by the State Legislature in 2000. At Lea's, a hard-hitting editorial from the local paper on the subject — "Lecompte Deserves Pie Capital Status" — hung on the wall.
The ham sandwich, served on a pressed round roll, was fine, and might have even been the best I'd ever had, though that would not say much as I have had few ham sandwiches in my lifetime. The pecan pie, topped with appealingly crumbled or chopped pecans, was excellent.
My next stop was Natchitoches, which was founded 299 years ago in an era that apparently predates rational spelling: the town's name is pronounced "Nakatish." It was certainly the most touristy place I'd seen so far: the gussied-up historic center, set along Cane River Lake, is full of gift shops, bed-and-breakfasts and flowering trees and was a primary location for "Steel Magnolias." The highlight is probably Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile (oldhardwarestore.com), an expansive store that has changed little since the building was erected in 1893, except in the products it sells. The cash register dates to 1917.
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