I am not a coffee drinker. I would like to be a coffee drinker. I like the smell of coffee. I like the idea of drinking coffee. I just don’t like the taste of coffee. I drink orange juice in the morning. I’ve been drinking orange juice for as long as I can remember. As [...]

“Your blood pressure is elevated,” said my doctor. “This is the second visit in a row. I’m going to give you six weeks and if you can’t get it down, you’re going to have to go on medication.” “Elevated?” I said. “It’s elevated because I’m at the doctor’s office getting prodded and probed in every [...]

BOULDER, CO— I am in Colorado for a quick, fly-in, fly-out business meeting. Whenever I’m in a new town, I always ask the front desk clerk at the hotel to steer me towards the best “local” independent breakfast joint. I am sitting in The Original Pancake House eating Swedish pancakes while trying not to get [...]

Food was the great peacemaker in my neighborhood. When kids got into a fight or tussle, the resentment was usually short lived. Once we made it to someone’s house for a snack, all was forgotten.

There are two types of people in this world: Chocolate lovers and fruit lovers. Chocolate lovers pace themselves through a meal, making sure not to order too much in any one course so that they may receive their reward in the end— some type of rich, decadent, chocolate creation. Fruit lovers, on the other hand, [...]

The Saints won the Super Bowl! I had to get that off of my chest at the onset of this column. I’m published in 30 newspapers throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, and almost all of them run the column on a different day. Some of you are reading this a week after Tracy Porter snagged one [...]

As the years passed, our after-church meals on Sunday moved from one place to another. Members of the family moved away, some passed away, and new members joined the troop. Our after-church meal today is a result of 21st Century lifestyles. We are a nomadic troop on Sundays. We move from restaurant to restaurant rarely eating in someone’s home.

Super Saints Hell has frozen over. Pigs are flying, and when the sun rose over Bourbon Street this morning, it came up out of the west. An entire city called in sick because the party is still going on. The Saints are in the Superbowl. I have been a Saints fan all of my life. [...]

My Mississippi A decade ago, I wrote a short, stream-of-consciousness piece disputing the negative and stereotypical views the South. It quickly spread across the World Wide Web, spawned a couple of books, and a regional broadcast network’s imaging and branding campaign. Actually, it’s still making its way around the Internet. Several months ago I was [...]

I don’t play golf. Actually, at 48-years old, I’ve just started playing golf, but that’s a story for later in this column. The point is: Even though I’ve just started playing golf, I’m terrible at it. So the former statement is true, and it’s safe to say that I don’t play golf. As a kid, [...]