An adventure in pork, I mean, crabcakes

You never know what it's going to be that leads you to that x-marks-the-spot. You might have a map, or think you have a map, and it's true. You might. But sometimes the instructions that do direct you where you've got to go are flat-out wrong, but to further complicate matters, if they weren't wrong, you wouldn't have got there. So where does that leave you?

Still with me?

We'll get to BBQ, but first I need to pay homage to Faidley's. Oh, Faidley's, and your award-winning lump crabcakes. Oh Faidley's, how you do me wrong. I've made the mistake, on only a very few occasions, of trying to replicate my experiences at Faidley's here in Toronto and who am I kidding? Who even puts crabcakes on the menu in the middle of the continent? To what end? To mock me, I guess.

And Faidley's? You ship, do you? Oh, frabjous day, you ship... but not to Canada? You only ship in the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico? Surely Toronto is easier to ship to than Anchorage. We're really not that exotic. It's just Canada. (And believe you me, I've considered having them ship a few lump cakes to my sister to be turned around and forwarded to me, but days-old (unfrozen) seafood hardly seems like the greatest idea I ever had.)

Omar, a wise man indeed, enjoying a crabcake from Faidley's.









We stopped briefly in Baltimore before starting our pork odyssey, and it sucker-punched me again. Damn, that's a good looking town. Again, Michael got pegged as Canadian upon leaving the car and despite wearing a beat-up Orioles cap. Again, we stopped for oysters and crabcakes. Yes, lump. (You didn't really need to ask, right?) For sides? I had the collards and slaw, Michael had potato salad and something equally wild and unpredictable. The sides are stellar, but the cakes will have you on your knees. I am the Queen of condiments, and this time around, didn't even bother accepting any tartar sauce. Completely unnecessary. I guarantee it.

After some kindly parking instructions and mockery (of us), we headed south...