Category Archives: Uncategorized

  I love restaurant people. They are my comrades, and I am proud to be considered among their ranks. I’ve been working with, and hanging around, restaurant people for 33 years. We are a different breed of human being— slightly off center, squarely off base, and gluttons for punishment. It takes a special person toContinue reading “Restaurant People”

    Chicken pot pie might be the quintessential family-supper comfort food. Some could make a valid case for pot roast or meatloaf. Others might cast their vote for beef stew. Healthier types would argue for baked or roasted chicken. Many southerners would insist that fried chicken be listed at the top of the family-comfortContinue reading “Chicken Pot Pie”

  Spring is here. I know this, not because of the calendar but, because pine pollen is blowing across the roads in thick, billowing yellow clouds. It’s thick this year, and is possibly the most pollen I’ve seen since Hurricane Katrina wiped out a good portion of our pine forest. I used to wonder whatContinue reading “The Moving Feast”

  “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”— Robert Burns Two weeks ago, while looking for a non-traditional location for the St. John family Spring break of 2013, I came up with Austin, TX. It was a brilliant idea. Unfortunately the vacation gods had other plans. Austin’s South By Southwest music,Continue reading “Spring Break 2013”

  Over the last decade, cooking has become very competitive. For years, the only cooking competitions that existed were low-key chef contests that no one had heard of— mostly events where chefs with tall toques and a lot of red and blue stripes on their chef’s coats prepared gelatin-glazed foodstuffs. In those days most ofContinue reading “Cooking Competitively”

  The breakfast room table is the center of my home. The table itself is large, round, and crafted from several sections of burled olive wood, which make it one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture in the house. It seats eight people comfortably, and is tucked inside a large alcove of floor-to-ceiling windowsContinue reading “The Table”

  Spring break is here. In a brief, 21-day stretch thousands of high schools and universities across the South will release their students from the weighty chains of homework and term papers and set them loose on any number of chilly beaches throughout Alabama and Florida. Let the madness begin. I’ve never been a bigContinue reading “Spring Break”

  Holidays have been challenging occasions lately, at least in this area. Hurricane Isaac hit the “land mass” known as the Mississippi Gulf Coast a few days before Labor Day. Halloween was the beginning of a 12-week deluge of rain. Thanksgiving brought more rain. The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was in town Christmas day andContinue reading “Tornado: Week II”

  “If I had ever been here before I would probably know just what to do. Don’t you? If I had ever been here before on another time around the wheel, I would probably know just how to deal… And I feel like I been here before.” In 1970, David Crosby penned those words forContinue reading “Deja Vu”