It feels like Sunday on the American Queen because instead of lunch, we had a jazz brunch, New Orleans style. Coming down the staircase leading to the dining room, I was met by the bleats of a tuba and the rest of a jazz quartet playing "Hello Dolly." Among items on the buffet were a variation on Eggs Benedict, smoked brisket, fried chicken and about 18 kinds of dessert (that's only a small exaggeration).
There's a strong New Orleans influence on the daily menus, which are Southern themed to begin with. They were designed by Regina Charboneau, cookbook author and former San Francisco restaurateur. Charboneau is a Natchez native and has built the menus around Southern food -- crabs, shrimp, catfish, okra, grits, Andouille sausage, blackberries, pecans and the like -- and Southern recipes, although there are also plenty of non-Southern options.
Among the Southern dishes I've eaten on the boat: shrimp and grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, blueberry pie, grapefruit and avocado salad, crab corn chowder, fried frogs legs, crawfish beignets, roast duck, bananas Foster french toast, and more. I missed Charboneau's smoked catfish BLT on the lunch menu and hope I get another shot at it before we disembark Friday morning.
When the boat was in Natchez, I took the shore excursion to Twin Oaks, Charboneau's antebellum home and B&B, where she talked to us about some of her secrets of entertaining, fed us some of the finger foods that she prepares for guests (smoked salmon torte, biscuits with smoked turkey and cranberry chutney, tiny open-faced tomato sandwiches with shreds of bacon, jelly roll trifle) and plied us with peach champagne cocktails, milk punch with bourbon, and her colorful fruit-flavored martinis. When I woke up from my nap, I just wanted to go cook.
On the American Queen: Leaving Vicksburg
When I awoke Monday morning, the American Queen was tied up at Vicksburg. Before I got off the ship to explore the town, there was an opportunity for a tour of the pilothouse and a talk about how the steamboat works.
It was fascinating stuff.
The American Queen runs on a vintage 1932 steam engine that burns marine-grade diesel fuel. That kind of engine is no longer made, so the boat has a machine shop on board where the crew can manufacture parts as needed.
The Queen is a tall ship. The tops of its smokestacks are 100 feet above the water line, so they can fold down, parallel to the deck, as the boat approaches a low bridge. Even the pilothouse, mounted on scissor jacks, can be lowered, and the cute gingerbread top can be lifted off with an on-board crane.
When the stacks and the pilothouse are lowered, the tallest point on the ship is the wings that reach out on either side of the pilothouse, platforms with consoles (pictured at left) where a pilot has a clearer view of the river and can steer the boat. The railings on those platforms are 57 feet above the water.
We noticed that we were docked along an awfully narrow stretch of the Mississippi River and asked about that. No, we learned, we weren't on the river, we were on the Yazoo Canal. Looking back the way we came, we saw a bridge and learned that we had turned into the canal right after we had passed under the bridge, well before sunrise. The canal is too narrow for the boat to turn around, so in the afternoon, the captain was going to back the boat down the canal and back into the Mississippi River, then proceed upriver again.
We were fascinated.
After lunch, a lot of passengers gathered at the back of the boat to watch. You can see the Mississippi River bridge in the background.
On shore, the crew untied the first of four lines that secured the boat ...
... and on the boat, three crew members lined up to drag the heavy line -- as big around as a man's forearm and sodden with river water -- on board.
(Note: Out in the middle of the Mississippi, away from cities, we've had little or no Internet service since soon after we left Vicksburg on Monday)
Continued in next post....
On the American Queen: Leaving Vicksburg Part 2
A tale of backing down the Yazoo Canal, continued:
The last of the crew on shore climbed onto the gangway, it was raised, and swung around to the front on Deck 1.
The thrusters went into action, roiling the water, and the boat moved sideways away from the shore and into the middle of the canal.
From the deck above, guests watched the paddlewheel go into action.
Smoke starts coming from the stacks.
As the boat backs into the Mississippi, we can see by the change in water color where the Yazoo Canal meets the Mississippi -- the Yazoo is muddier.
Then we're back on the river, chugging forward toward West Helena, Ark.
