titusvillephoto.jpg

z-Detail-AlRao.jpg I'm with space journalist friends in Florida today, preparing for the final launch of the Space Shuttle, scheduled for this Friday. We ate at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville last night, a local spot famous for rock shrimp. It is legit Southern: cheese grits are a side dish choice, and hush puppies arrive at your table hot, covered in powdered sugar.

The food was excellent, but the massive space/nature-themed murals covering the building were the best part of the evening. The artist is Al Rao, and he has a Flickr stream here with better photographs of his spectacular artwork.

I apologize for the quality of this snapshot, it was dusk, all I had was my iPhone, and the light was low. Here are some detail shots I found elsewhere of the mural, and of Mr. Rao in the process of painting it. He looks like a happy guy, and his art really reflects this.

[photo link on Xeni's Flickr stream]

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the reportage, Xeni. My parents are in Titusville (Dad worked on the Shuttle SRBs for many years) as is my brother, who’s being/been laid off. Mom worked on Saturn 5s, and I do IT at a space sciences lab. Space family!

    Whenever I visit (which is not often enough) we go to Dixie Crossroads. I love being in that place with it crowded to the gills. All the family dinner noise just does a heart good.

    The Space Shuttle has been an important part of my family since its beginning, first at Vandenberg, then at Kennedy. It’s hard to see it go.

    Enjoy the launch!

  • Ugly Canuck

    Oh yes…imho the mural is excellent! That artist ought to do more murals!

  • Anonymous

    Boing Boing, I am confused. Hush Puppies are casual footwear according to both google and hushpuppies.com.au. Have the Americans become so gluttonous that they now ingest heated footwear smothered in sugar? I can only assume so:

    “…and hush puppies arrive at your table hot, covered in powdered sugar.”???!?

    Also, what does it taste like? How do you get past the rubbery texture of the rubber souls?

  • floridaman

    The owner of Dixie Crossroads (5th generation Floridian Laurilee Thompson) is very knowledgeable about the Spacecoast ecosystems shown on the mural – she uses it as an aid with kids:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW0zepP6hsQ

    And if you want to know what the area was really like read her talk:

    “Life along the Indian River Lagoon in Titusville during the 1950′s, 60′s & 70′s”
    http://www.nbbd.com/godo/history/Laurilee-Life/index.html

  • rebdav

    The news of the Space Shuttle approval was actually beamed to humans walking on the surface of the moon. The shuttle was a supercludge satisfying the dreams of Werner VonBraun but at least it was able to access LEO and could have been the basis for a heavy disposable launcher.
    I get that the US is bankrupt and the currency crisis is nearly upon us but of all the things to cut and the % it is out of the whole budget can’t we just file a good human space program under the circus part of our bread and circuses for the plebeians budget?
    If only GWB had spent the Iraq war $$ on a nice Mars colony or at least gotten the Orion going a few years earlier.

    • DSMVWL THS

      Never fear, the development of the next phase of American human spaceflight is well underway.

  • rebdav

    But hey, I guess we will still have this beautiful mural and the seefood when the US becomes the Portugal of space exploration. At least they still speak Portuguese in Brazil, they speak nothing on the moon and Mars right now; soon to be just a Russian monopoly in LEO.

    • Anonymous

      Exploration > War

      Every time.

      However I don’t think it’s really an either/or, and of all the things to cut from the budget, playing about in space hardly seems crucial to me. We haven’t even finished exploring/understanding our own planet.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, they are NOT hush puppies, but as someone said, corn fritters. Big difference. And the shrimp are to die for. I was raised in Florida and when I come home to visit the rest of my family, we always go to Dixie Crossroads. It ain’t cheap, but your not gonna find Rock Shrimp in too many places, and they are not gonna be fresh like this. Get there early, the WILL be a line

  • Anonymous

    I’ll see you Titusville for the launch! Woot!

  • donovanbeeson

    Having grown up in the Low County, I have never seen hush puppies served with sugar. Tartar sauce, maybe, but never sugar. I’ve always known them to be a savory, fried bread ball. Perhaps this is a Florida thing.

    • Xeni Jardin

      It was news to me, too. I was born and raised in Virginia, and we know a thing or two about savory corn-based breads. This was totally odd. Honestly, I wasn’t into it. But the rest of the food we ate was terrific.

    • Anonymous

      he’s mistaken–they’re not hush puppies, they’re corn fritters. and lemme tell you… if you’ve never been to dixie crossroads, it’s always worth a trip. some of the best shrimp ever!

    • bocomo

      Louisiana native here agreeing that sugar does not belong on hushpuppies. Just further confirms by belief that people in Florida don’t know how to cook (based on many trips there).

  • teletypeturtle

    Glad you enjoyed Dixie Crossroads! I used to live in the area; dinner there was always a fun outing. If the line is long, you can always feed the fish (and turtles) while you’re waiting.

    There used to be a great hot-wing place at the port, but it closed a few years ago. There was much sadness.

  • Anonymous

    I lived in Titusville in the mid-80s while working on an archaeological project known as the Windover site, an Archaic period “mortuary pond” containing well over 150 burials dating to between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago – many with preserved saponified brain tissue. On launch days we would listen to the countdown on the radio and, after lift-off, run out of the excavation trench to watch the Shuttle rise up in the east. The juxtaposition between what we were finding in the ground and seeing in the sky was really something. Ate at Dixie Crossroads many times. I don’t think they serve all-you-can-eat rock shrimp anymore but that was what they were famous for back then, especially among us starving archaeologists.

  • Xeni Jardin

    Thanks for the personal and informative comments, folks!

  • torgeaux

    Those aren’t hushpuppies, they’re corn fritters. Hushpuppies have onions, where corn-fritters have kernels of corn.

    I’m a Titusville native-born (moved away long ago) and my parents still live there and eat the the Dixie Crossroads frequently. Good rock shrimp.

  • Stefan Jones

    My parents’ winter refuge — a single-wide in a quaint trailer park on U.S. 1 — is in Titusville.

    If you walk to the end of the drive, you’re on the Indian River, with the Cape right across the way.

    I managed to hear, but not see, a shuttle landing. The twin booms were astonishing.

    I’ll have to ask my folks if they’ve heard of the Crossroads.

  • Anonymous

    Lived most of my life on the east coast of Florida. Never had hushpuppies with sugar on them. They are basically deep-fried blobs of cornbread batter, and the good ones have onion in them. The sugar thing must have been introduced by some snowbird.