What a Glorious Time To Be Free

Brunch at Hal & Mals

What a beautiful world this can be
What a glorious time to be free

There's a variety of vivid pink hybrid tea roses that must love it here because driving through Jackson, they were putting on a show like a Biloxi Beauty Queen everywhere I looked. (don’t ya hate it when I try to sound homey?)

I meant to try the Hal and Mal's brunch menu for a while, but things kept getting in the way. Today was so beautiful, though, and I was feeling froggy, and in need of a creative injection, so I decided to go to the source.

My plan was to read this weird play Brent gave me, drink more than I should, and sample the brunch menu. I’ve forgotten more about drinking too much than a lot of you will ever know, but I took the cure a few years ago, and now my liver will only let me do it under the odd moon (or sun, as the case may be.) Since alcohol was involved, I took an Uber. You should, too.

The well brands at Hal and Mals were always better than most places; now that it’s been sold, that tradition continues. I had a Four Roses bourbon and branch on the rocks from the well, and it hit the spot. If I’m with a lady I’ll order a Maker’s Mark because a lady taught me to do it because she said Miss Eudora drank it. I have no idea if that’s true, but enough people have said it through the years that it doesn’t really matter if it’s true anymore. Since I was defining this as a work lunch, I settled with the Four Roses, which I like anyway.

I wish my server’s name was on the ticket. He was very efficient but really shy, which is a good combination for a server. He might not always be shy, but I look like a grumpy old bastard who might kill people, so we worked out an amenable relationship.

I ordered the fried oyster eggs benedict on french bread with a garden salad. Even though my Zepbound is on back order, there’s still enough of it in my system that I knew in advance that I couldn’t eat it all, but I wanted to be sure and taste it all.

Hal White was an extraordinary cook, and I enjoyed his meals for about thirty-five years. Damien Cavicchi is next level, though. He’s taken the recipes and, more importantly, the palette that Malcolm and Hal developed through the years, kept what he should, but added his own new creations to it. He infused the menu with new dishes that reflected Hal and Mal’s palette and married them with his own ideas about Mississippi cuisine. I honestly think Damien is a James Beard-level chef, but it’s really complicated to become a James Beard-awarded Chef, so he may never pursue that.

The measure of a chef is his sauces, and this dish came with two. The eggs, oysters, and toasted french bread were covered with a spicy hollandaise sauce that, to my taste, reflected the traditional Hal and Mal’s comeback. Honestly, he had me at fried gulf oysters and poached eggs. Despite the Zepbound tightening my belly, I finished it all.

The garden salad was rich with fresh produce (I wonder if he buys it from my cousin, Leigh). It’s a lot more than just iceberg lettuce—I don’t know if it even had any iceberg lettuce. He covered it with what he called “Green Goddess” dressing, but to my mind, Green Goddess is kind of bland and very, very California casual; this was anything but that. Damien’s palette has a noticeable bite to it, and this did, too. I told him to call it “Green Comeback” so that Mississippi people would know what they were getting into. Most people in Mississippi don’t know what the hell a green goddess is anyway. If you’re the kind of person who likes “just a salad” for lunch, get that, especially with the green goddess (green comeback) dressing; it’s a pretty big meal on its own. I couldn’t finish it because of the Zepbound, but I had enough to know that I’ll be ordering it again by itself.

My plan was to eat and drink and read my play and look very intellectual and aloof, then go home a little dazed with the staff asking, “Who was that strange man?”

What happened, though, is the lovely and talented Mary Sanders Ferris Cavicchi joined me. Damien is her husband. May Sanders was a theater kid at Millsaps, but since then, she’s become one of the most important restaurant designers in the South East. You’ve most likely eaten in restaurants she designed. If you live here, it’s almost assured.

There are people out there whose aesthetic opinion means quite a bit to me. Jane Clover Alexander is one, Sam Sparks is one, Brent Lefaovor is one, the late Sarah Jones was really one, and Mary Sanders absolutely is one. Mary Sanders is also somebody who’s willing to put her neck on the line where Jackson is concerned, and for that I’ll always be her servant.

We talked for a couple of hours. To be honest, We talked about many of you who might read this, but only in good ways. We talked about where Jackson came from, where it is, and where it can go. We talked about hope and the future and what a beautiful world this can be.

I’m not a food writer. I’m a storyteller who sometimes includes food in the story. I like food an awful lot, though, and it probably shows. I like booze a lot too, although I became its master a long ago, (it was either him or me!) One of the things we talked about was that Mississippi Today probably needs a food and culture writer. They do a sterling and important job with their political and social issue writing, but there’s more to Mississipi than that. The next time I see Guidry, I’ll tell him that. I’ll get Erin Pittman to tell him. She’s more convincing than me.

By this time next fall, some exciting things should be happening downtown. Sitting in the sun, waiting for my ride home, I thought about how much I miss living downtown sometimes. I don’t know when I’ll see him again, but I’d like to publically thank Kane Ditto for making the deal on the Mayflower that nobody else could make. It’s not just that it means a lot to Jackson, which it does, but it means a hell of a lot to me personally. Even though he didn’t go to Millsaps, Kane has been a very good friend to Millsaps, and I’d like to acknowledge that, too. Although Dale Danks was a dear friend, Kane Ditto was the best mayor Jackson ever had. The cards turned against him at the end, but imagine how bad it could have been if a lesser man was at the wheel.

Hal and Mals have their brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00 to 3:00. I can’t go tomorrow because I’m going to “As You Like It” in Smith Park after church. Ricky James will preach both the 8:30 service and the 11:00 service while the senior staff is at conference. The Millsaps Singers will perform, so I may try to make both services. If somebody were a mind to, they could go to brunch at 11:00 and still make the play in Smith Park at 2:00.

What a glorious time to be free

Brunch at Hal & Mals