This column turns 12-years old this month. For almost a dozen years I have written approximately 750 words each week, never missing a week. That’s almost half of a million words (and almost that many pounds gained and lost, as my weight tends to fluctuate with the seasons and the travel schedule). It’s the same [...]

CHICAGO— Every year more than 58,000 restaurateurs from all over the nation (and over 100 countries) descend on Chicago for three days in May. It’s Disneyland for chefs and operators. I’ve been coming to the National Restaurant Association’s annual trade show in Chicago, almost every year, since 1991. It helps our company stay on top [...]

DESTIN, Fla— I have had a lifelong love affair with this sector of the south. The sun is nice, the water is pretty, and the sand is world-class. But what brings me back is the food. My affection towards the Florida Panhandle, specifically the Destin area, starts and ends in my stomach. As a kid [...]

I broke another office chair last week. I wasn’t doing anything rough and rowdy, just leaned back and the welding on the swivel/tilt mechanism underneath the chair cracked and my big fat rump fell backwards. Once I got back up and into the chair it fell forward. That brings the official count to three broken [...]

Inspiration for recipes can come from a wide array of places. Part of my job is to travel and get ideas to bring back to our restaurants. Sometimes I find things in little dive bars and joints when I wasn’t looking for inspiration or ideas. Other times some of the most sought after, and upscale, [...]

I am officially old. I walked into my office yesterday and the mail was stacked neatly on my desk as usual. There were a couple of bills, several solicitations, a thank-you note, a letter from a column reader, a few pieces of junk mail, and— on the top of the stack, front and center, addressed [...]

Quick, name you favorite comfort food. Most of the world sees comfort food as a rare treat or guilty pleasure. To many, it’s an every-once-in-a-while food item that can satisfy our hunger, make us feel good, and take us back to our mother and grandmother’s kitchens, all at once. The beauty of Southern cuisine is [...]

I spent seven years living off of tips. Not advice-style tips such as, “Plant your corn early this year.” No. I lived off of gratuity. Gratuity is what paid my rent, paid the household bills, provided transportation, put food in my belly, and a diploma on my office wall. My entrée into the restaurant industry [...]

While traversing the European continent my family and I fell in love with several international cuisines. However, many times the fare in our host country was not the best food we ate in that area. In Budapest the local citizenry eat 95 percent of their meals at home. Therefore, most of the restaurants in Budapest [...]

Some say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Others skip the early morning meal altogether. I’ll leave the right and wrong of that debate to doctors and nutritionists. Either way, breakfast is— by far— my favorite meal of the day. As a kid I ate typical breakfasts enjoyed by most people [...]