JUBILEE

BY JOHN T. EDGE

in College-Town Flavor FORK the AT THEIR NEW SPOT IN A CONVERTED RANCH HOUSE, TARASQUE CUCINA’S JOHN AND ROAD LAUREN STOKES BRING A DELIGHTFULLY HOMEMADE TASTE OF FUN TO OXFORD

ollege towns are outposts of oddity in a opened this past spring in a converted house with a sea of conformity. That’s the promise, any- stack of exhaust vents mounted on the roof like blocky Coffee way. When I moved to Oxford, Mississip- periscopes, behind a liquor store and a Domino’s pizza Stop pi, in 1995, I fell for the Hoka, where a local delivery pod, presents like a throwback. Five nights a Pop in next door for a named Ronzo screened art-house films week, John wraps his forehead in a bandanna and po- worthy cup and more and served dense and delicious fudge pies gos from his twelve-burner stove to the order counter, C in an old warehouse near the courthouse where Lauren, his wife, beams a smile that could power A gleaming stainless square. Two years in, I became a regular a sawmill and says, in a bright and earnest and pleas- espresso machine at Don Pancho’s, a brown-bag Dominican ingly goofball tone, “We’re so glad that you’re here,” to perches in the in a squat shed across from Second Bap- every soul who crosses the threshold. front window, and a sherbet-green coffee tist Church, where Maria and Dario served From left: House- An Oxford native, John began wash- roaster hunkers along a vinegar-and-onion-smothered catfish made sourdough ing dishes in a local restaurant at sixteen. the back wall at escabeche that I chase today like a mara- ciabatta; Lauren and Before he turned twenty-five, he became Gretchen Williams’s thoner striding toward a runner’s high. John Stokes; pappar- de of the late and beloved delle Bolognese. Heartbreak Coffee, Both of those places, now gone, were L&M’s and Salumeria here. Back tucked alongside random. They made no sense. Unless you in 2016, he and Lauren opened a takeaway Tarasque. Along with chalked them up to the grace that a college town, flush kitchen that doubled as a commissary for other vegan doughnuts and with new arrivals, rich with idealism, and tolerant of businesses, including an ice-pop maker and a cake stu- cookies, baked in the oddity, affords residents. Grace is now harder to come dio. They served rigatoni with house-ground , Tarasque kitchen, by in Oxford and other college towns. Today, real estate pappardelle Bolognese, and other pasta dishes. And Williams and her crew serve lovely single- investors push out mom-and-pop retailers, and fast they staged occasional in-house tasting- feasts. origin coffees. Get a casual chains and powerful local restaurant groups The restaurant half of the equation was charming and pour-over, snag that dominate places that once nurtured a kaleidoscope fledgling, in the manner of a punk rock band that knows Camus novel left by a of fish houses and steak joints and burger walk-ups. what it aims to agitate about but doesn’t yet know the student, and you’ll feel

Tarasque Cucina, which John and Lauren Stokes songs it wants to sing. And then, in the summer of 2018, at home.—J.T.E. Spitz Michael by Illustration

54 OCT. / NOV. 2019 GARDEN&GUN PHOTOGRAPHS BY RORY DOYLE JUBILEE

they lost their lease. in buttermilk, vanilla roasted carrots with that ranges from women in yoga pants A year of dreaming, plotting, and re- sorghum, and gigante beans cooked in a who arrive with bottles of rosé to profes- modeling later, John and Lauren now run scuppernong broth. sors and spouses who book babysitters to a new-guard college-town mom-and-pop Stunningly, those rarely top roll through one of John’s tasting , restaurant. The pastas have reappeared. ten dollars. In the spirit of college-town which run around fourteen dishes and cost So has the sourdough ciabatta. Ditto the past, you get to brown-bag just forty-five dollars a head. butter bean hummus, bound with tahini, in wine and liquor. (Tarasque charges one Earlier this summer, to get organized sharpened with lemon, and glossed with ol- dollar for every wineglass used.) Along before a big writing project, I cleared out ive oil. This time out, though, many of the with goofy optimism, a frugal spirit guides my office, filing tattered newspaper clips small-plate dishes that John previously the look. To salvage lumber for the counter and yellowed black-and-white family pho- reserved for tasting menus earned spots and the tables, John chainsawed out twelve tos and tossing an occasional palmetto on the everyday chalkboard menu. lanes from a defunct bowling alley. For a bug. At the bottom of a pasteboard box, I That change has proved transforma- country-boy parquet floor, he cut four-by- found a hand-drawn flyer for an army man tive. Tarasque is still a modest spot, where sixes into half-inch pucks, mounted thou- show my friends and I staged when I was you order at the counter and fetch your sands of them on the subfloor, and grouted eight or so. The energy was infectious, the own water glass and cutlery roll. And, yes, the gaps. To fill tabletop vases, Lauren bar- colors bright, the lines simple, the text John and Lauren still do a lot of takeout and ters with a farmer, trading bowls of pasta crossed through and corrected. delivery business. But now they make their puttanesca for zinnias and cockscombs. at Tarasque tastes the way that reputation on such small plates as fried ar- Macon Humphries, who works as a waiter old flyer looks. A night here feels the way tichoke hearts with lemon miso dressing, here when he’s not coaching girls’ soccer that army man show felt. John and Lau- boiled peanuts doused with olive oil, sweet- at the high school, contributed the plastic ren Stokes work with a kind of jubilance. corn skewers rolled in a pecorino gremo- dinosaurs that stand alongside each vase. To make food that is artful and delicious, lata, and blueberries tossed with cash- All of that adds up to a restaurant aes- to make a space that is warm and graceful, ew butter and sunflower sprouts. Come thetic that we might as well call shop-class they channel earnest intents and good en- fall as local farmers harvest new crops, the chic. That handmade look jibes with the ergy. Their small plates beg your attention. roster will shift to include turnips braised handmade food, which suits a clientele The show they stage wins your affection. G

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