Author Archives: Robert

The restaurant business is a cruel mistress. She has swallowed and spit out more entrepreneurial dreamers than anyone cares to count. Professional foodservice can be a merciless line of work. I have survived over 38 years— 30 as an owner— due to a large amount of luck, good timing, willingness to work hard and doContinue reading “RSJ’s Lessons Learned in the Restaurant Biz”

NEW ORLEANS— The New Orleans restaurant population has almost doubled in the decade after Hurricane Katrina. The exact number, according to USA Today is approximately 1,400 current restaurants vs 800 pre-Katrina restaurants. That is a staggering statistic. In the immediate months after the hurricane made landfall on the Mississippi Coast, and the levies broke inContinue reading “Frank”

America is meat rich. Today we have so much beef that we send thousands of tons of steaks, ground beef, ribs, and roasts to Asia and Europe. The same goes for poultry and swine. We are so meat rich that on any given day I can easily put my hands on several pounds of duck,Continue reading “The Meat Question”

As we age our vocabulary grows deeper and more advanced. There are words I use today that were never in my lexicon in my youth. “Lexicon” would be a prime example. My vocabulary is nothing that I have consciously sought to improve. I am a former B- student who had very little use for schoolContinue reading “Mississippi’s Top Five Quintessential Foods”

I love “joints.” Whether I am traveling across America or walking through a small village in Europe, I am always looking for a joint where the locals gather. Definitions of a “true joint” vary. Some people look at something called a joint in a negative light. Those are the same people who think good foodContinue reading “Mississippi’s Top Joints (and that’s a good thing)”

I love toast. Seriously, if I look back on the course of my eating career, my longest lasting and most fervent relationship might be with toast. There are certainly more passionate relationships than the one I have had with toast— I was infatuated with kid’s sugary cereal in my youth and I had a veryContinue reading “My Longest Love Affair”

King Cake is good. I could end this column with that sentence. Those are the only four words I need to make my point. But my editors would complain that they aren’t getting their money’s worth, so more column inches will follow. To expand on my original hypothesis, not only is king cake good, kingContinue reading “King Cake Bread Pudding”

My father died when I was six-years old. A single mom raised me throughout my youth and it was fine. I had a fantastic childhood, and didn’t know any other reality than the one I was living. Actually, I couldn’t imagine having a better childhood than the one I experienced. Though something about that situationContinue reading “The Joys of Fatherhood”

The older I get the more I appreciate the simple things in life. As the tire around my gut grows over my belt and the hairs on my head turn loose instead of grey, I find myself gravitating towards uncomplicated things, and coiling away from life’s little dramas. These days, the more I can doContinue reading “The Beauty of Pizza”