We’ve had some wins and a few losses in the garden, so far. Almost 3/4 of an acre, in a second plot a few hundred yards away from the main garden, was planted in corn and cucumbers. They didn’t make it. I don’t know enough about gardening to know why we failed there. Just before we planted, we cut trees and cleared the land. My guess is that the soil wasn’t balanced or prepped correctly.

Nevertheless, we have 1 1/4 acres flourishing. The restaurants are getting stocked almost every day.

In the Purple Parrot Café we are making fresh, organic gazpacho with our Roma tomatoes, succotash using our bell peppers and butter beans, and ratatouille with our squash, zucchini, and eggplant.

In the Crescent City Grill we are using Romas in all of our salads and pastas, jalapeno peppers in our salsas, okra in our gumbos, and fresh herbs in almost everything. Though the stars of the garden, so far, have been squash and zucchini.

We use squash and zucchini in our steamed vegetable medley, and when we stir-fry vegetables, but where we have not been able to keep up with the demand is with a daily special we have been featuring— Baked Shrimp and Squash.

The Baked Shrimp and Squash dish is flying out the door. The reason, I suspect, is not because the ingredients are coming from our garden, but because it’s just a great-tasting, local dish.

I created the Baked Shrimp and Squash dish about 10 years ago, during my first foray into gardening. I plated 400 linear feet of squash and was knee deep in the stuff for weeks. I was desperately trying to create dishes to make use of the surplus when I remembered a baked squash casserole that my mother used to make. I took that recipe, modified it, added shrimp and more seasoning, and one of my signature dishes was born.

Baked Shrimp and Squash was one of the most popular recipes in my first cookbook “A Southern Palate,” it was included in my Top 40 Recipes of All Time in my latest book “Dispatches From My South,” and out of all of the dishes I have prepared while traveling and doing cooking demos on tour, Baked Shrimp and Squash is served most often.

I talk about Baked Shrimp and Squash when giving speeches, and when answering questions about my style of cooking. It is the perfect example of local cuisine from this part of South Mississippi. It combines fresh shrimp from the Gulf, Creole seasonings from Louisiana, and fresh vegetables from the South Mississippi garden.

It can be prepared in a large casserole dish, or served in individual rarebit dishes as we do in the restaurant. It is perfect for a summer lunch served with roasted asparagus or fresh fruit, and is the go-to casserole I deliver to someone’s home.

Baked Shrimp and Squash is versatile, it is local, and— for the next several weeks— is coming from our organic garden.

The honeydew, Cantaloupe, and watermelon are almost ready, but in the meantime we’ll keep picking squash.

Baked Shrimp and Squash

6 cups Squash, cut into 1 /2-inch cubes
1/4 cup Clarified butter, canola oil or bacon grease
1 Tbl Garlic, minced
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper, freshly ground
1 Tbl Creole Seasoning
1/2 cup green onion, chopped
3 cups Fresh Shrimp (36 – 42 count), peeled and de-veined
1/4 cup Clarified butter or canola oil
1 Tbl Old Bay Seasoning
1 Tbl. Garlic
1/2 cup Onion, medium dice
1/4 cup Red Bell pepper, medium dice
1/4 cup Green Bell Pepper, medium dice
4 Tbl Butter, cubed
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup Cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup Sour Cream
1/4 cup Green Onion, sliced
1 Tbl Hot Sauce
1 cup Ritz Cracker crumbs, crumbled fine
1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
2 Tbl Parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large skillet, sauté the squash, butter, garlic, salt, pepper Creole seasoning and green onion over medium-high heat until the squash is cooked. Place squash in a colander and press out excess moisture with the back of a spoon (this is very important). Pour squash into a stainless steel mixing bowl, discard the drained liquid.

In the same skillet sauté the shrimp, butter, Old Bay, garlic, onion, and bell pepper until the shrimp are pink and cooked through. Using a slotted spoon, transfer shrimp to the mixing bowl with the squash. Discard the excess liquid.

Immediately add butter, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, sour cream, green onion and hot sauce to the bowl with the hot shrimp/squash mixture. Gently stir until butter and cheeses are melted. Pour the mixture into a 9 x 13 casserole dish.

Mix together the Ritz crumbs, parmesan and parsley. Top casserole with the cracker crumb mixture and bake for 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Low fat, high protein, good carbs, no sugar, no starch, five meals a day, 2,500 calories, yada, yada, yada. Welcome to my world.

Every time I have ever dieted, I reach a stage— usually three weeks in— when I start craving food items that I took for granted when I was eating poorly. Today, I find myself smack dab in the middle of that stage.

When this phenomenon occurs, it’s usually a craving for simple food items— hot roast beef and melted Swiss cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise, ham and cheese sandwiches with whole-grain mustard, my grandmother’s chicken salad, bacon cheeseburgers.

I have had a 48-year, steamy love affair with sandwiches.

I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost every day of my life until I was six-years old. I ate them with strawberry jelly, I ate them with grape jelly, and when I was spending the night at my grandmother’s and she was out of jelly, I ate them with orange marmalade. My grandmother always cut the crusts off, and my mother made double-decker pb&js. They were also the first food that I could prepare on my own, without the help of an adult.

Sometime around the first grade, my mother finally put her foot down and tried to get me to explore other sandwich possibilities. It was around this time that she introduced me to the mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich.

No kidding, a sandwich made with nothing more than iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise, a sprinkle of salt, and two pieces of white bread, a sort of BLT without the B and the T. For years I assumed she just made up the mayonnaise-lettuce sandwich because she forgot to pick up a package of sliced meat at the grocery store. “Here, Robert, try this. It’s the latest thing, a mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich. It tastes much better than pbj. Trust me. Batman and Robin eat them everyday.”

I didn’t care who ate them. I didn’t like them. No matter how one tries to spin it, mayonnaise and lettuce are a poor substitute of peanut butter and jelly every time.

She also made sugar and butter sandwiches— two pieces of white bread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar. Obviously, my childhood home was not the Southeastern Headquarters for Healthy Eating. I can’t think of a sandwich more devoid of nutritional value and taste.

After learning about the Food Pyramid in school, I tried to convince my mother that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich was represented by most of the main food groups: Jelly = fruits, peanut butter = protein, bread = grains, and the glass of milk I drank = dairy. Granted, some of those might be a stretch, but compared with the alternatives— fat-laden mayonnaise and low-grade lettuce, or pure white sugar and butter— it was next best thing to Grape Nuts.

So as I trudge along the road to Dietville, it is not a mayonnaise-laden lettuce sandwich that I crave. Sugar and butter combined on white bread turn my stomach just thinking about it. No, it is peanut butter and jelly that sits atop that shining hill in Sandwichville.

Florence Fabricant called peanut butter, “The pate’ of childhood.” Famed New Orleans restaurateur, Dick Brennan, Sr., once said, “You know why kids like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Because they’re good.” Yes they are, and 25 pounds from now, I’ll be eating a double-decker with the crusts cut off.

Pork Tenderloin Po Boy

1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp brown Sugar
1 Tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Dry Mustard
1 tsp Black Pepper, freshly ground
1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground Coriander

1-2 Tbl Olive Oil
2 Pork Tenderloins, approximately one-pound each, cleaned and trimmed

6 8-inch French bread or Sourdough Roll, split down the middle
2 cups Green Leaf Lettuce, shredded
3 Roma Tomatoes, slice thinly
1/2 cup Red Onion, shaved paper thin
1 Recipe Chutney Mayo (below)

Combine the dry spices in a small mixing bowl, blend well.

Lightly brush the tenderloins with the olive oil and spread the dry spice mixture over the pork. Press the spice mixture firmly into the pork.

Prepare the grill and cook over direct medium heat until the pork is barely pink in the center, about 15-20 minutes (155 degrees). Turn the pork 2-3 times while cooking.

Remove the pork from the grill and allow to rest 5-10 minutes. While the pork is resting, grill the po boy bread for 1-2 minutes on each side.

Spread the chutney mayonnaise on the toasted bread. Slice the pork into one-eighth inch thick slices. Place several slices of pork on each roll and top with shredded lettuce, tomato and red onion.

Yield:
6 sandwiches

Chutney Mayo

1 Tbl Olive Oil
2 Tbl Yellow Onion, minced
1/4 tsp Salt
2 tsp Garlic, minced
1/2 tsp Curry Powder
2 Tbl Sherry
3/4 cup Chutney
3/4 cup Mayonnaise

In a small sauté pan, heat olive oil over low heat. Place the onion, garlic, salt and curry powder and cook for 1 minute. Add sherry and cook until almost dry. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Once the cooked mixture is cooled, combine with the remaining ingredients. Store covered and refrigerated until ready to serve.

Yield:
1 1/2 cups

Males tended to die young in my family. My father died when I was six-year’s old, my paternal grandfather, five years before that. For most of our childhood, my brother and I were the “men” of the family.

My mother was a fanatic about manners. She was a drill sergeant when it came to decorum, and Emily Post was her four-star general— when in doubt, consult the book. The book being “Emily Post’s Etiquette” (the second bible in our home), though I don’t ever remember her actually looking in the book. I just assumed that she had the entire thing memorized.

“Yes ma’am” and “No Ma’ams” were mandatory, and always required, no matter whom we were addressing. I was probably the only student at the First Presbyterian Kindergarten who was forced to put his napkin in his lap and knew the proper table placement of his plastic knife and fork.

Her strict adherence to the second bible in our home always became more rigid around mealtimes. The Victorian Age— the era that gave birth to Emily Post— was filled with rules and regulations about eating. Gilded Age diners had a utensil for everything: Asparagus forks, olive forks, sherbet spoons, and a partridge in a pear tree, blah, blah, blah.

Formal meals with my family were hard work. There was a mother, two grandmothers, a great-grandmother, a couple of aunts, and several female cousins. When it came time to finally sit down at the table, my brother and I would frantically rush around the table trying to help seat all of the ladies in the family. Two young boys pulling out a dozen chairs in a mad, pre-meal scramble that required a lot of precision and timing. “I’ll take the left side, you take the right. Go!” Once seated, we were sweaty, winded, and often too tired to eat.

That is, unless I pulled the hand-washing ploy. Out of all of the tricks in my brother-to-brother practical-joke cupboard (my mother would call it a chiffonier), the hand-washing ploy was one of my favorites.

The key to the successful execution of the hand-washing ploy was all in the timing. One had to excuse himself to wash his hands at just the precise moment.

That was the beauty of the hand-washing ploy. It was perfect in it’s structure . At its core it was all about manners. One should always ask to be excused, and one should always wash hands before a meal. Who could say no to that?

Again, timing was key. I would pick just the right amount of time before we sat down to lunch, and just enough time so that everyone would go ahead and sit down without waiting on me. This is when I would forego the bathroom, hide around the corner, and watch my brother try to seat all of the ladies in our family by himself. He worked overtime, sweating, stumbling, constantly looking out of the corner of his eye waiting for me to return, but knowing down deep that I wouldn’t, and finally realizing that he had been zinged again.

Ultimately, the reason St. John men died young is because the women in the family had us working overtime on table manners.

My high school graduation gift from my mother was— you guessed it— a copy of, “Emily Post’s Etiquette,” because every incoming college freshman who attends a frat party with a punk band and a trash can full of grain-alcohol whoop juice needs to be able to say, “I want to make you acquainted with Miss Smith.” And, “Pardon me. Pleased to meet you. Will you permit me to recall myself to you?”

The World’s Last Deviled Egg

1 dozen Eggs, hard boiled, peeled and cut in half, lengthwise
2 tsp. White balsamic vinegar
1 /3 cup Mayonnaise
1 /4 cup Sour cream
1 TBL pickle relish
1 1 /2 tsp Salt
1 Tbl Creole Mustard
2 tsp yellow mustard
1 /8 tsp white pepper
1 /8 tsp Garlic, granulated
Paprika and fresh parsley to garnish (optional)

Remove the yolks from the hard cooked eggs and place in a mixing bowl. Add all ingredients and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Use a pastry bag to fill the egg whites. Sprinkle with paprika fresh parsley.

Yield: 24

While researching this development, I wound up at www.health.com where Sarah Klein wrote a piece entitled “The 50 Fattiest Foods in the States” where she selected regional high-fat content favorites which represented each of the 50 states.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of Ms. Klein’s state selections, but based on this article, my home state of Mississippi should fall in the middle of the pack when it comes to obesity.

Take for example the first state listed alphabetically on the list— Alabama. The iconic fatty dish in that state is bacon-wrapped meatloaf. I love bacon, and I am a new convert to meatloaf, but looking at the photo in the article makes one want to resort to vegetarianism.

The representative food for Georgia was something called a Luther Burger— a ground-beef patty topped with bacon and cheese that uses two Krispy Kreme doughnuts as a bun. I learned that Paula Deen took it one step further and topped it with a fried egg. How can Georgia only be number 17 on the list of fattest states when they’re eating stuff like that?

North Carolina came in at number 10 on the list, but it’s understandable, because according to Klein, they’re eating something called Livermush. North Carolina might have been first in flight, but they’re dragging the bottom of the barrel when it comes to taste buds. Livermush is ground pig liver and pig head parts breaded with corn meal. No thank you.

In Mississippi, on the other hand— albeit a hand with chubby fingers— our statewide selection is an innocent little slice of Mud Pie. I don’t necessarily agree with that selection, but it is fairly innocuous nevertheless. Arkansas got catfish and Oklahoma was tagged with Chicken Fried Steak so we’ll take the pie whether we eat much of it or not.

I just thank the Lord that I don’t live in Michigan where the statewide food selection was a BLT loaded with a pound of bacon. I love bacon. I mean I really, really love bacon. But I can’t eat more than two or three slices in one sitting— and I’m a big guy. The BLT served at Tony’s I-75 has 192 grams of fat. Yet Michigan is only the number 11 fattest state.

Colorado, which is the healthiest state in America, was represented by Jack-N-Grill’s 7-Pound Breakfast Burrito, which includes a pound of ham, a dozen eggs, and 100 grams of fat. That makes Mississippi Mud Pie’s 24 grams of fat look like health food.

Klein missed the mark in several states such as Texas— home of excellent beef bbq— where she chose a corn dog to represent the Lone Star citizenry. In Louisiana, birthplace of the Turducken and several hundred very tasty, though very fattening foodstuffs, she gave a stereotypical nod to the beignet, which makes one wonder if the author ever wandered past Jackson Square during any of her trips to that food-filled city. South Carolina was tagged with Turducken on the health.com list.

In some states the selections were obvious. Pennsylvania got Cheese Steak, New Hampshire was pegged with Clam Chowder, and Montana was labeled with Rocky Mountain Oysters. In other states Klein blew it altogether— Florida- empanadas, and Tennessee- a bacon cheeseburger.

Not only is Virginia one of our most beautiful states, and one that is only 31 on the fat-state list, it is represented by tasty, salty Virginia Ham which only has about eight grams of fat per serving.

In the end, maybe we top the fattest-state list because our food tastes so good. Pass the pie, please.

Chocolate Pie

1 cup plus 2 Tbl. Sugar
3 /4 cups Heavy cream
3 /4 cups Buttermilk
3 1 /2 Tbl Cornstarch
Pinch Salt
4 Egg yolks, reserve whites for meringue
3 ounces Semisweet chocolate, high quality
1 Tbl Butter
3 /4 tsp Vanilla
1 (9-inch) Pie Crust, baked

In a small saucepan combine the sugar, heavy cream, buttermilk, cornstarch and salt and whisk until smooth. Place over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil, whisking from time to time, allowing the sugar and cornstarch to dissolve and the mixture to thicken (about five minutes). Continue cooking at a low boil for an additional five minutes, whisking constantly.

In a mixing bowl, beat egg yolks lightly. Pour 1 /2 cup of the hot mixture into the egg yolks and whisk thoroughly. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the saucepan and whisk over the heat until thoroughly combined (about 30 seconds).

Pour mixture into a mixing bowl, and whisk in the chocolate, butter and vanilla. Continue whisking until thoroughly combined (mixture will be very thick). Pour the chocolate batter into the prepared pie crust. Prepare the meringue and spread over the pie and bake at 350 until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Allow pie to cool completely before serving (refrigerate at least four hours). Yield: eight slices

Meringue:

4 Egg whites
6 TBSP Sugar
1 /2 tsp Cream of tartar

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer. When they start to increase in volume, add in the sugar and cream of tartar. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

I lived down here during two brief stints of my misspent youth in the 1980s. I worked in restaurants and lived the life of a single guy in a beach town. During the first stint I worked at a restaurant called Big Pop’s BBQ that also served fried chicken and delivered pizza to the condos. During the second stretch, I worked at a restaurant called Harbor Docks.

Of all of the restaurant jobs I held before I opened my own concepts, Harbor Docks was my favorite. I had a blast and made good money. I rented a cheap Snowbird condo on the beach where I rolled out of bed around 10:00 a.m. every morning, walked the beach to June’s Dune’s and ate breakfast, spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the sand and surf, showered, pulled a shift at Harbor Docks, showered, went out on the town, slept, wash, rinse, repeat. It was great. I had the stress level of a grapefruit.

It was a different town back then. The “Sleepy Little Fishing Village” moniker had long been replaced, but the condo invasion wasn’t even a decade old. Beach cottages such as The Silver Beach still existed, and all of the old-line seafood joints were open.

Hitting this area as infrequently as I do these days, I am always amazed by the changes that occur in the off-season. Restaurants come and go with the seasons. Old restaurants close and new ones take their place, just to be replaced by another next season. The initial drive into town always brings new discoveries.

While arriving last night we passed a couple of new joints— The Crazy Lobster and the Dancing Iguana. We laughed at the names of the new places and how some people just take an adjective and a noun and put them together to form a restaurant name.

I started developing a humorous take on that theme and was going to write a column about this silly business practice. I even started coming up with my own adjective/noun restaurant names— The Coughing Crab, The Flaming Fish, The Mildewed Minnow— until my wife reminded me that I named my first restaurant The Purple Parrot. Ouch.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked in a media interview or by customers in the restaurant is, “Where did you get the name Purple Parrot?” Actually it has its roots in this area.

After moving back home from my second stint in Destin, I was ready to open, what was then referred to as “The restaurant.” I found a location, began purchasing equipment, hired staff, and started the staff training. As opening day drew closer, there was still no name for the restaurant.

On August 7th, 1987, after attending Jimmy Buffett concert in Biloxi, I was riding home from the show with my original business partner as we discussed possible names. This was in the burgeoning days of the Parrothead movement. As a fluke, I said, “What if we call it the Purple Parrot Café?” We both laughed and agreed that the name would be temporary until we came up with a better one. In the end, we got busy and just went with what we had. It stuck.

Nothing in the Purple Parrot is tropical or Buffett-like, but it is who we are, and – hopefully— whom we will be for many years to come.

In the end, I guess I’ve got Mr. Buffett to thank that I am not the owner of the Mauve Macaw, The Finicky Finch, or The Putrid Pelican.

Mama Alma and her daughters (Leslie and Solidad)

I fell backwards into food writing over a decade ago. My early stuff was bad, really bad; some might take the stance that the new writing is not all that great either. Nevertheless, it’s where my passion lies— or is it lays? Then again, maybe the writing hasn’t improved, after all.

Like any job, food writing has its positives and negatives. I get to travel a lot and write about dining out in all manner of restaurants. That is certainly a plus, especially since I usually travel with my family. I test recipes, which isn’t a whole lot of fun, but eating the results during each stage of the process is nice. I work alone during my favorite part of the day— the early morning hours— and that’s peaceful and serene and makes for a low-stress work environment.

I don’t really have a boss— check another one in the plus category. Syndication offers a significant degree of autonomy. I write about what interests me and am never censored too badly at the business end of the editor’s pen.

I also receive a lot of email from readers. That, along with meeting those people at book signings, is one of the greatest joys of my life. My column reader’s retention is amazing. I am often reminded of long-forgotten things that I have written or done. I get a kick out of that.

I also receive angry emails. Strangely enough, I love that correspondence even more. Just the fact that I have stirred up an emotion in someone that is so strong they took time out of their day to tell me about it, why I wear that criticism like a badge of honor.

Note to potential future columnists: Never anger the Girl Scouts.

One of the downsides of being near the bottom of the D-list in the food world is that you get invited to be the judge at food competitions and cook-offs.

Note to event organizers who, in the past, have asked me to judge their cooking competitions: I am not talking about your event. I am talking about one of those other food competitions I had to judge.

Being a food judge is a no-win situation. One would think that getting to taste all sorts of free food is a great perk. One would be wrong. Rarely, if ever, is there “great” food to be tasted. Most of it is bad. Really bad.

I once judged a cook-off where I was the sole judge. I was seated on a stage in an auditorium in front of a standing-room only crowd, of which the first three rows were contestants who watched me eat every bite. Talk about pressure? Try eating poorly prepared food in front of the preparer who prepared it so poorly. I can’t act that well.

I once judged a home-cooking competition where, in the casserole category, there were four entrants. I was to select a first, second, and third-place winner, which obviously meant someone was going to be left out. As with most cooking competitions, one entry stood out above all of the others. The second and third place casseroles were mediocre and easy to place. The fourth casserole was just plain bad. Luckily I was judging in a sequestered area, and I spit it back out.

After the awards ceremony, a lady— the fourth place casserole contestant— came up to me and asked, “Why didn’t you like my casserole?” Stumbling and stammering, I lied and said that it had been a very tough choice choosing between all of the entries.

When she pressed further, I got frustrated and said, “Yours just wasn’t quite as good as the others. I’m sorry.”

“Actually,” she said, “I should be the one who is sorry. The recipe came from one of your cookbooks.”

And that, my friends, is why I love being a food writer.

Pineapple Sorbet with Minted Cookies

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup karo syrup

1 Tbl fresh lemon juice

1 large ripe pineapple, rind and core removed and cubed, approx. 5 cups

Make a simple syrup by placing the water and sugar in a small sauce pot and heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Cool the syrup completely.

Place the simple syrup, karo syrup, lemon juice and pineapple in a blender. On high speed, puree the mixer until it is smooth. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer and refrigerate for one hour.

Following the manufacturer’s directions of an electric ice cream machine, freeze the liquid. Remove from the ice cream maker and store covered in the freezer for 2 hours before serving. The sorbet may be made and held in the freezer for one week.

Yield: 1 quart

Minted Cookie

1/2 cup Butter

1 /4cup Sugar

1 medium Egg

1/2tsp mint extract

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups Flour

1/4 tsp. Baking powder

10 peppermints, crushed*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar; beat in egg and extracts. Sift flour and baking powder together, stir into mixture. Refrigerate about 1 hour, or until dough is firm enough to roll. On a floured surface, roll to 1 /8-inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters. Sprinkle the tops with the crushed peppermint pieces. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Yield: 12-16 cookies

To serve, scoop the sorbet into serving dishes and place 1-2 cookies along side of the scooped sorbet.

In the early 1980s, I remember reading a trade magazine article about how computers were going to play a major role in the restaurant business. At the time, I was working as a server in a restaurant where we were still sending our orders back to the kitchen on written tickets and computers were as large and slow as… well, pick your own simile and insert something large and slow here.

I was skeptical about the upcoming impact of computers. I was wrong. In the 21st century restaurant business, we are so reliant on computers that the internal restaurant machine almost shuts down if a point-of-sale system fails during a lunch shift.

When computers started breaking into the food business, quiche had just finished a three-year run as a cutting edge food trend— replacing fondue, which had made its second comeback in the early 1970s.

The diet trends that were most popular when I first started working in restaurants were salads— any kind of salad it didn’t matter. As long as the menu item had the word “salad” in it, it was considered, by most, to be healthy. Forget that it was loaded with cheese, or that the salad had Thousand Island dressing dumped all over it, it was called “salad” therefore it had to be healthy. Pasta salad, chicken salad, tuna salad— it didn’t matter how much mayonnaise was in the mix— “salad” was in the name.

The country moved into a “fat free” phase after that. Things were called “lite” before the government started defining the term. During the fat-free craze, people wanted items that had absolutely no fat. Unfortunately they traded fat-free items for foodstuffs with extra sugar, which then opened the door for Sugar Busters and its cousins. Sugar Busters gave way to Atkins, which was easier for restaurants to pull off because most of us are heavy on the protein side of the equation.

Atkins was so big seven years ago that one of our restaurants developed an entire special menu for Atkins dieters. It was wildly popular at first, before people started graduating to the South Beach Diet and the like.

I’m not sure what the cause célèbre of the diet world is today, but at our restaurants, we stopped following fads and just started cooking real, honest food, made simply with real ingredients. Over a year ago, we added more healthfully cooked vegetables and we’re growing some of our own food, and finding local growers and suppliers for even more.

“Gluten-free” is a big request these days. Most of those requests are from people with serious allergies though some are holdovers from the low-carb craze. Peanut and shellfish allergies are serious, too, and those requests must be taken very seriously.

Actually, we take all special requests seriously, but I can remember back in my server days, some customers would use the “allergic” request, just to make sure that an ingredient wasn’t added to a dish. Over the years, I served people who may, or may not, have been allergic to pepper, garlic, onions, salt, and ice. I am sure that some people are allergic to a few of those things— ice, maybe not— but you could usually tell when it was legitimate, and when it was not.

In the end, I guess I have learned not to be swallowed up by the trends of the day, and just be true to our customers, our concept, and the food world in general. By the way, I am writing this on a computer that is as small as, well, keep the trend going and pick your own simile here, too.

Crescent City Grill 1000 Island Dressing

2 cups Mayonnaise
1 /2 cup Chili Sauce
2 Tbl Bell Pepper, small dice
1 Tbl Onion, minced
3 Tbl Sweet Pickle Relish
pinch Salt
1 1 /2 Boiled Eggs, chopped

Combine all ingredients thoroughly

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure why I needed a beehive beside the fact that bees pollinate plants, and I had heard a few old-timers at the farm and garden store talk about how the best gardens had beehives in the vicinity. I asked my friend, Perry, at the garden store to recommend a beekeeper, and he gave me the name of a local man named Roy Clingon. I called Roy, and the next day I had a hive filled with 40,000 Italian Honeybees sitting next to my garden.

It was quite an innocent entree into beekeeping, but the more I talked to Roy about bees and the inner-workings of the hive colony, the more fascinated and enthralled with the hard-working insects I became.

All of that fascination was enough to get me interested in pollinating a garden, but it wasn’t until I tasted the honey that came from Roy’s bees, that I became a disciple. In a matter of days, I went from purchasing bees for the health of the garden, to keeping bees so they will make honey for the restaurants and my family, to asking Roy when I could get more hives so that I can start a true apiary.

Bees are the only insects that produce food for humans, and Clingon’s honey is the bee’s knees. One taste, and I knew what I wanted to use in our restaurants and in my home. It tasted more local, clean, and pure than anything I have tasted.

I spent two full days last week in a series of seminars about bees and beekeeping. The more I learned the more fascinated I became.

The bee world is all about the queen, who works hard laying approximately 2,000 eggs a day from January through October. The other 39,999 bees in that hive are working just as hard and exclusively for her and the betterment of her hive. The queen gives off a pheromone that the other bees spread throughout the hive. This pheromone lets the bees know that she is alive, laying eggs, and in good health. If the queen is weakened or removed from the colony, the bees will create another queen to take her place.

Bees have their pollen-collecting job down pat, and they should, because they’ve been producing honey for at least 150 million years. Bees travel up to two miles to gather pollen and nectar, but before they leave the hive they are given the flower’s exact location by other bees that fly in a specific pattern outside of the hive. It’s like insect GPS. Amazing.

A hive consists of one queen, several hundred drones (bees whose specific duty is to mate with the queen), and tens of thousands of worker bees, which do all of the work, and there is a lot of work to be done in their short, six-week lifespan.

Workers build the honeycomb— a hexagonal cell 2/1000-inch thick, able to support 25 times its weight— and produce honey. To make one pound of honey, workers in a hive fly 55,000 miles and tap two million flowers. Pretty remarkable, especially since each healthy hive produces approximately 50-75 pounds of honey, and one worker can only produce 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

Bees regulate the temperature in their hive by lining up to fan their wings in unison to cool the hive. When the temperature gets close to 100 degrees, the bees will stop collecting pollen and start collecting water, which they bring to the hive for cooling.

Clingon’s bee yard is only a mile or so away from my garden, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my honey will taste as good as his. I now have two hives, one for each of my children. Hers is pink. His is purple. Though I’ve got a bee in my bonnet, and I plan to purchase a few dozen more in the coming years.

My current business card reads: “Robert St.John, author, chef, columnist, world-class eater.” Now I can proudly add farmer and beekeeper to the list.

Key Lime Grilled Shrimp with Pecan-Spiked Rice

For this recipe you need the zest and juice from Key Limes. Use the fine-cut side of a cheese grater to remove the zest from the limes before juicing them.

36 Large Shrimp, peeled, deviened
1/4 cup No-Stick Grilling Marinade for Seafood
2 Tbl Honey
1 tsp Key Lime Zest
2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper, freshly ground.

Place the shrimp in a mixing bowl and add the marinade, honey and lime zest. Marinate for one hour before grilling. Place a grill screen over direct-high heat. Once the grill screen is preheated, sprinkle the shrimp with the salt and pepper and grill for 6-8 minutes, turning once while cooking.

Key Lime Beurre Blanc

2/3 cup White Wine
1 Tbl White Vinegar
1/3 cup Fresh Key Lime Juice
1/4 cup shallots, finely chopped
1 tspl garlic, minced
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 pound unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, then chilled
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 tsp Key Lime Zest
1 Tbl Fresh Chives, chopped

In a small saucepan over medium heat, reduce wine, vinegar, lime juice, shallots, and garlic. When almost all liquid has evaporated, add cream. Reduce cream by half. Reduce heat slightly and incorporate the butter adding a few pieces at a time. Stir constantly using a wire whisk until butter is completely melted. Remove from heat. Strain the sauce and add the lime zest and salt. Hold in a warm place until needed. Stir in the fresh chopped chives just before serving.

Pecan Spiked Rice

2 Tbl Unsalted Butter
1/2 cup Yellow Onion, small dice
1/4 cup Shallot, minced
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 Bay Leaf
1 cup White Rice
2 cups Chicken Broth, hot
1/4 tsp Black Pepper, freshly ground
1 cup Pecan Pieces, chopped and toasted

Melt butter over medium heat in a 1 1/2 quart sauce pot. Add onion, shallot, salt, and bay leaf and cook 4-5 minutes, stirring often to prevent browning. Add the rice and continue to cook until the grains of rice are thoroughly heated. Stir in the chicken broth and black pepper and bring the broth to a simmer. Lower the heat and cover the rice Cook 18-20 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed. Stir in toasted pecans.

To serve, place the rice on serving dishes. Top the rice with 6 shrimp and ladle the sauce over the shrimp.

Yield: 6 servings

On their birthdays, my wife and I let each of the kids choose their three meals for the day. My daughter, the most devout carnivore in our house, wanted steak and biscuits for breakfast.

Steak and biscuits has long been one of the favorite special-occasion breakfasts in our house. The way I prepare the dish started 40 years ago at our fish camp.

One would think that a fish camp would spawn longstanding recipes for grilled snapper and boiled shrimp, and it did. But the most lasting, oft-used fish camp recipe in our family repertoire is for steak and biscuits.

After spending a week eating fresh-caught seafood at a fish camp, steak night was always a welcome treat. After the meal, we would take all of the leftover steak, wrap it, refrigerate it, and heat it up the next morning with biscuits.

It’s a great breakfast served alongside scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice. This is not the steak biscuit one orders at fast-food restaurant for breakfast. That is usually a breaded and deep-fried cutlet of cheap meat. This is real steak, usually a ribeye at our house.

My family loves a steak-and-biscuits breakfast so much that whenever we grill steaks for dinner, I always put an extra steak on the grill for breakfast the next day. My kids like steak and biscuits the next morning more than they like the steak dinner.

I take the extra steak off of the grill while medium rare and let it sit for a few minutes before putting it straight into the refrigerator. Once it has completely cooled (approximately two hours) I place it in a zip baggie overnight.

The next morning, the steak can be sliced into crosswise strips about 1/4-inch thick. Using a cold steak will allow you to separate the fat, which has coagulated. I place the strips of steak into an aluminum foil pouch, dot it with a few pats of butter, sprinkle steak seasoning over the top, close the pouch and place it in the oven while the biscuits cook.

The strange thing about this dish is the biscuits. In every other meal of my life, I always prefer homemade biscuits to the grocery store variety. But for some reason, this dish is better when made with those whop-on-the-counter-refrigerator biscuits. Maybe it’s just what I remember from my childhood. Nevertheless, either can be used.

When the biscuits are fully cooked, I slice them open, spread a tiny amount of butter on the biscuit, place a couple of strips of steak on the inside, and eat one of the best breakfasts around.

For the other two meals, my daughter opted to dine out— sushi for lunch, and steak, again, for dinner. On the way to lunch, my wife said, “This is your day, Sissy.”

My eight-year old son chimed in, “So what’s the difference between this and every other day?” I think the boy is onto something.

I am now officially the parent of a teenager. Keep me in your prayers.