Butterball Hotline True story: A woman once called the Butterball Hotline to find out how long it would take to roast her turkey. The hotline worker asked how much the bird weighed. The woman responded, “I don’t know, it’s still running around outside.” The holidays offer no respite for idiots. The following are actual questions [...]

The Mississippi Culinary Hall of Fame Mississippi’s literary history is well documented and recognized nationwide, from Mr. Faulkner to Walker Percy, Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, and John Grisham. The blues were invented here and musicians from Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, and Robert Johnson have called Mississippi home. The father of Country music, Jimmy [...]

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go On A Diet…. It’s cookbook testing time, again. Last week I started a new diet. This week I started the recipe-testing phase for a new cookbook. Testing recipes and watching calories go together like the New Orleans Saints and the Super Bowl, never the twain shall [...]

A Different Kind of Date Last week I invited my eight-year old daughter on a date. It was the first in what I hope will become a quarterly event. No mom, no wife, no brother, no son, just my daughter and me. Earlier in the day I made a reservation at the Purple Parrot Café. [...]

A Formal Afternoon at the Triple-L Ranch Last week I was the featured speaker at a ladies luncheon club. A nice-sized group of 50 ladies were in attendance. The meeting was held in the formal living room of a stately 100-year old home in Brookhaven. Before the speech, the ladies were served tea, cheese straws, [...]

Bathroomitis and the Joys of Lavender Soap My four-year old son used to be an extremely rowdy restaurant customer. Early on, he screamed like a banshee while eating in restaurants. Later, during his terrible twos, he graduated to holding conversations with customers seated at surrounding tables while they were hopelessly trying to finish their meal. [...]

The Loss of A Legend Last week Austin Leslie, the creator of Creole-Soul food and a true New Orleans culinary journeyman, died in Atlanta. He was 71. Leslie, who most recently manned the stoves at Pampy’s Creole Kitchen, was best known for his groundbreaking Creole Soul-food restaurant Chez Helene and his world-class fried chicken. I [...]

The Elementary Vegan The other day my eight-year old daughter told me she had become a vegetarian. A vegetarian? Oh, the betrayal. What hath my sins wrought? She comes from a long line of devout carnivores, what have I done to make God so angry? She might as well have told me that she had [...]

The New Orleans Culinary Resurrection In the September issue of Bon Appetite magazine, New Orleans was listed as one of America’s top five restaurant cities The ill-timed edition— which hit newsstands two weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall— serves as a tangible reminder of what the nation’s restaurant customers have lost. The other four cities— [...]

Down around BiloxiPretty girls are dancin’ in the seaThey all look like sisters in the oceanThe boy will fill his pail with salty waterAnd the storms will blow from off towards New Orleans– Jimmy Buffett The Gulf Coast is my second home. I grew up one hour due North; in the Piney Woods of Hattiesburg, [...]