Waking up at 5:30 in the morning is rather easy to do when mind and body fully understand just why this is necessary.  Please allow me to share Exhibit A.

Beignets_from_hueys

A baker’s dozen of steaming hot, made-to-order Huey’s if-they-aren’t, they-should-be world famous beignets.  Supersize the picture, then press your nose to the screen and inhale deeply…you can lick it if you’d like. 

Okay, please don’t do that, that would just be weird; but it’s inevitable–simply being in the presence of these mouth-watering culinary creations will force you to toss your diet out the door.  You’ll begin channeling Gollum and with a glazed, maniacal look in your eye, hands wringing in anticipation, you’ll creepily chant "My precious" one too many times.   

Or so I’ve heard.

We told our doughnut-loving, powdered-sugar-drinking children about Huey’s ITATSBWF beignets after our trip to Atlanta a few months ago, and they’ve been plotting a way to get there ever since.  Our drive to Hilton Head Island led us right through the heart of Atlanta, so we planned to get up early enough to stop there for breakfast. 

Imagine our SHOCK AND DISMAY when we got there at 8:22 a.m. only to find out Huey’s doesn’t open until 9:00 on the weekends!  Apparently, Atlantans are lazy! get up early Monday-Friday but sleep in on Saturday and Sunday.  We had a choice.  Drive through Chick-fil-A for a biscuit we could get anywhere, or wait it out. 

We waited. 

Atlanta has an interesting downtown, so even if there was nothing to DO at that hour, there was plenty to SEE.  Although Tad was skeptical, I’m SURE we drove through a movie scene "they" were filming…we saw lots of people out grilling burgers (again, at 8:30 A.M.??) and I saw a guy carrying a BIG camera, another a light deflector, so what else could they have been doing?

With time to expand our appetites and build anticipation even more, we finally headed back to Huey’s, their first customers of the day.   The second, third and fourth were right on our heels. 

In addition to their beignet cornerstone, scrumptious shrimp and grits and perfect omelettes, here’s why I adore Huey’s:

Their art.

Hueys_artHueys_jazz_print

Hueys_keysMore_hueys_art








Colorful and jazzy, the perfect metaphor for this restaurant.

Another reason to appreciate Huey’s is their beignet craftsman.  I doubt they call him that, but it’s what I saw when I watched him at work.  Behind a lucite window, this magnificently weathered black man with a thousand story-telling lines in his face methodically rolled out the dough, cut through it with grace and aplomb, and one-by-one, dropped the squares into boiling grease, gingerly turning and attending to them because, apparently, it matters.  There was a rhythm and beauty to his movement, I was watching a master at work.  It was nothing to him, it was magic to me.

Beignets don’t last long.  In moments, our plate overflowing was reduced to this:

Beignet

Rachel subscribes to the notion that "more is better"–in this case, she was just being a good steward of the food we ordered; it wouldn’t be "right" to let all that powdered sugar go to waste now, would it?
More_sugar_please

I don’t think it’s a breach of etiquette to lick your fingers after eating beignets…Emily Post??  Martha Stewart??  Am I correct in this presumption?
Finger_lickin_good

You don’t just eat beignets…you kind of wear them, too.Dscn1434

If anyone had sneezed, we would’ve had a real mess on our hands!

** Sigh ** 

Gone

Oh!  I almost forgot–the title of this blog is printed on the doors at Huey’s.  It translates "Let the good times roll".  At Huey’s, they always do :).

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