Culinary Infidelity I have been cheating on my wife. It’s true. I’ve been sneaking around behind her back, and lately my rendezvous’ have been getting more frequent. I feel guilty and believe it’s time to air out my dirty laundry. This might seem like an odd forum to address marital infidelity, but I am not [...]

Move Over, Ralph Lauren, The Burger King’s In Town When I was a young boy, a neighbor asked if Santa was going to bring me everything on my Christmas wish list. I told her, “Yes.” My mother jumped in and said, “Don’t be so sure, Robert. You know Santa keeps a naughty and nice list.” [...]

Robert’s Top Ten 2008 Each year, my final column is a list of the top ten dining experiences I enjoyed over the previous twelve months. The list is never based on price or atmosphere. I believe that good food can be served in a fine-dining environment or in a run-down diner. The only considerations are [...]

Eggnog I am not a fan of eggnog. I quit drinking alcohol over two decades ago, but that has nothing to do with my dislike of eggnog. I could drink the non-alcoholic variety if I wanted to; I just never developed a taste for it. Earlier today, while watching a football game, my 11-year old [...]

Give Me Some Skin Big Ganny During the first 20 years of my life I never encountered a boneless, skinless chicken breast. When I was a child, all chicken came under cellophane with bone and skin attached. The drumstick, the breast, the thigh, and even the wing, all had skin and bones. That’s the way [...]

We Wish You A Figgy Christmas A group of Christmas carolers stopped by my house last night. I like the whole caroling thing, but I often worry about the family of unsuspecting foreigners who might have just moved into the neighborhood from a faraway land with divergent customs. I wonder what they must think when [...]

Newk’s Evil Chocolate Cake I am on a diet. A diet is a serious problem for someone in the restaurant business. It also poses a predicament with my second day job— being a food writer— which requires, at a minimum, eating a lot of food and then writing about it. There are several food items [...]

Three Mississippi Girls (and one man) The holiday shopping free-for-all has begun. The retail craziness used to start the day after Thanksgiving, these days shopkeepers begin gearing up the week before Halloween. No one knows what effect the economy will have on this Christmas season, but one thing is for sure: Whatever happens in 2009, [...]

Free My Fine-Feathered Friends!Tuducken… the campaign begins Thanksgiving is almost here and anyone within 100 miles of the Louisiana border will soon be hearing long-winded and glowing tributes to one of the world’s strangest culinary oddities— the turducken. A turducken is deboned turkey, which has a deboned duck stuffed inside it, and just in case [...]

Haggis I have often written that if I ever visited Scotland, I would eat haggis. I have never been to Scotland, but I can now say that I have eaten haggis.Yesterday, my family and I attended the 23rd Scottish Highland Games and Celtic Music Festival on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A friend was competing in [...]