Featured Column
If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On
Music has been a constant companion throughout my life. It has accompanied me in times of joy and sorrow and…
Read moreLoblolly Stories
Ten Things I’ve Learned Opening a Bakery
I am opening a bakery today. Opening any style of restaurant is one of the most stressful activities one will…
Read moreIt’s A Tough Job but Somebody’s Got To Chew It
“No one trusts a skinny chef.” In my business— if you posess the body style I walk around with every…
Read moreNeck Deep In King Cake Development
It looks like 2023 will go down as the year of the king cake— at least in my book. I…
Read moreRSJ's New Orleans Favorites
RSJ’s New Orleans Restaurant Recommendations 2023
NEW ORLEANS— In a poll of national food critics I believe New Orleans would be listed among the top three…
Read moreRSJ’s Top 10 New Orleans Breakfasts
The following is the first in a summer-column series that will cover dining in New Orleans. Over the next four…
Read moreAn Engagement to Remember
This past weekend was a memorable one for our family. Our 26-year old daughter got engaged to her longtime boyfriend.…
Read moreRecent Columns
Pizza Ground Zero
BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY— Naples is the birthplace of pizza. It’s an ancient and historic seaside city that can be a little…
Read moreBirthplace
PETROGNANO, ITALY— It’s true that there’s no place like home, and I deeply and dearly love my hometown of Hattiesburg…
Read moreOh, Jesse Where Art Thou? — A True Tight Spot
VALENCIA, SPAIN— It was a tight spot. Not in the figurative sense in which one is faced with a challenging…
Read moreSpanish Breakdown
MADRID— The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is to be prepared. That’s all well and good, except I…
Read moreBurgers I Have Known
There are long stretches in my life when I dedicated all my culinary focus, research, development, and meals to fine…
Read moreThe Best Job Ever
There are many emotions associated with parenthood. Joy and amusement come to mind immediately. The early responsibilities of parenting can…
Read moreNobody’s Poet
In the late 1990s I was asked by my local newspaper to write a weekly food column. I politely declined…
Read moreI Love This Business
In the 1985 Ron Howard movie, “Cocoon,” a group of senior citizens from a retirement home break into an abandoned…
Read moreFried Shrimp
The late great Ella Brennan, long-time matriarch of the New Orleans restaurant scene as head of the Brennan clan— and…
Read moreCakes Fit For A King
It’s king cake season. Those four words don’t carry a lot of weight across 90% of this country. Though in…
Read moreGood Morning, Hattiesburg
A few weeks ago, an interviewer asked, “Give me a typical day in the life of Robert St. John.” I…
Read moreNext Up in New Orleans
I have often wondered what it must have been like to have attended the Beatles first live performance as a…
Read moreRobert’s Top 10 of 2023
For the 25 years I have written in this space I have always reserved the final column inches of the…
Read moreThe Currency of Christmas
Everyone has a favorite holiday. Many of my friends are partial to Halloween. They have fond memories of trick-or-treating through…
Read moreNot Your Typical, Everyday, Run-Of-The-Mill Christmas Message
Let’s talk about failures. The holiday season may seem like a peculiar time to air personal disappointments but stick with…
Read moreCousin Jim
They buried my cousin last week. He was sent to his reward with full military honors in one of the…
Read moreMississippians Feeding Mississippians
It is said that Texans have an unparalleled pride for their state. My wife grew up there and my father-in-law…
Read moreIt Takes a Village (or at least a dedicated team)
There are a lot of factors that go into the process of writing, testing, re-testing, editing, photographing, re-editing, styling, re-re-editing,…
Read moreAll In the Family
BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY— It could be said— and probably has often been said— that I am a slow learner. It took…
Read moreFrom A Hot Dog Cart
BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE— This week will mark the final week of my most recent work stint in Italy. I host tours in…
Read moreWhen In Rome (mostly)
BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY— One of the travel codes I abide by is the when-in-Rome-do-as-the-Romans-do dining philosophy. No matter where I am…
Read moreTuscan Son
BARBERINO-TAVERNELLE, TUSCANY— I first came to this part of the world in 2011 on a three-week stopover with my wife…
Read moreIt’s All Lessons All the Time
It’s funny how at different ages I have assumed I had life completely figured out. When I was 19 no…
Read moreBreakfasts Abroad
PALAERMO, SICILY— Ten weeks out of each year I work over here leading tours of Americans through European countries. It’s…
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