My grandmother made the world’s best biscuits. She passed away 20 years ago and I have been trying to replicate them ever since. Her biscuits were small, light, and slightly salty with a hint buttermilk. She never followed a recipe, yet they were consistent every time she made them. I could eat a dozen over [...]

A couple of weeks ago The James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony was held in  New York to honor the nation’s best chefs, restaurants, cookbook authors, and food journalists. The James Beard Foundation Awards are the Academy Awards of the food business and my home state of Mississippi was  represented well. John Currence, chef/owner of City [...]

I stirred up a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Possessing an overactive imagination and a hyperactive disposition, I was responsible for a fair share of the havoc created in and around my school and neighborhood. Most of the parents in the neighborhood had, on at least one occasion, found the need to [...]

Yesterday I ordered a pizza online. I didn’t get in my car, I didn’t pick up the phone, I never even spoke to anyone. I just logged onto my laptop and 30 minutes later, I was shaking crushed red pepper flakes over my thin-crust pepperoni. The ordering of the pizza and the ingredient selection was [...]

WATERCOLOR, FL— The older I become the more I appreciate substantive dinner party conversation. I am on the second leg of a Spring Break sandwich that started in the rapidly melting Spring snow of Colorado and has ended on the sugar white sands of the Florida Panhandle. I am here with my family on a [...]

Salads The weather is warming and salad sales in the restaurant are booming. I like salads, but I am not an entrée-salad eater. I like a salad as a small course or as a component or accompaniment to a main course. When I am entertaining friends at home, I rarely serve a salad. Sometimes at [...]

St. Patrick’s Day is a paradox. It’s an annual feast day set in the middle of a season in which people are supposed to be fasting. During my childhood in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, St. Patrick’s Day was nothing more than a small mention in my elementary school classroom and the opportunity to pinch someone if they [...]

ASPEN— The question of the day is: How far will a man travel for a Quiche Muffin from Paradise Bakery? The answer: 1,362 miles. Well, actually, I was out her on Spring Break with my family, but we’re staying in Snowmass, 12 miles away. I had a craving for a Quiche Muffin from the Paradise [...]

The Lenten Season has begun. In most Christian denominations, Lent is the 40-day period of fasting and prayer before Easter. Growing up, I attended church, religiously. If the doors were unlocked at Main Street United Methodist Church in my hometown of Hattiesburg, I was usually there— Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Wednesday evenings, Thursday night youth [...]

Cocktail Sauce Yesterday, I was watching my 11-year old daughter eat Chargrilled Oysters at Drago’s in New Orleans while my seven year-old son ate fried shrimp. Oysters and shrimp are the foods from my youth which still lease a substantial plot of real estate in my heart. While we were sitting at the counter in [...]