The home of the Carolina Mudcats and my friend Barrie Davis!

There's a place that's a little bit of heaven down in North Carolina called Zebulon.  That's zip code number 27597 in your zip code directory. 

Zebulon is near Raleigh but it's not too close to the North Carolina state capital.  There's no suburban sprawl and never any traffic in Zebulon. 

Zebulon is home to 3,173 folks most of the year except for the summertime when about thirty young men come to town to play ball for the Carolina Mudcats AA minor league baseball team.

As small as it is, Zebulon is way bigger than Lizard Lick (pop. 318) which is seven miles down the road, just past Wakefield and on the way to Raleigh.  I imagine some folks from Lizard Lick actually go to Zebulon to shopping on Saturdays.  My city readers are wondering why the Mañana Man prefers Zebulon's peaceful Main Street, Route 64, to New York's brash Broadway, or Chicago's mighty Michigan Avenue, or New Orleans bawdy Bourbon Street.

It's the Kountry Kitchen.  That's right.  The Kountry Kitchen.  Every morning Zebulon's working people, farmers, and business people gather at the Kountry Kitchen for breakfast.  There, you're served steaming coffee before you can even get settled in your chair.  You can order three scrambled eggs, grits, country ham, gravy and biscuits and juice and get change from a $5.00 bill.  There's one definition of my blue heaven - friendly folks, good conversation and a hot delicious breakfast every day.

Then there's the Carolina Mudcats playing a home game against Nashville on a sweet summer evening.  There's a piece of heaven for me.  Every night, fans from all over the region, drive to Zebulon and fill the ballpark's 6,500 seats.  The Mudcat's management creatively entertains the bejeebers out of the fans with promotions between every inning.

There's North Carolina barbecue and cole slaw in Zebulon.  That's enough said.  Things were slow one day in Heaven and our maker was fiddlin' around with some pork butts on His big hickory pit and, well, the rest is history.  For some reason, He only sent the recipe to folks in North Carolina.  Before any of you New Yorkers get too uppity, you should know that the great food editor of the New York Times, Craig Claiborne, went down to North Carolina especially to eat the barbecue, scored the recipe, proclaimed it "The Best" and printed the recipe in the Sunday Times.

But, the best thing about Zebulon is that it's the home of my friends, Barrie and Ramona Davis.