My iPhone read 8 a.m. when I woke up this morning. For anyone who knows me, that’s quite the feat. My days typically start well before the sun even thinks about rising, my internal clock drags me out of bed between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. on most mornings, whether I’m ready to wake up,Continue reading “Labor Day at the Lake: A Family Affair”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Core Values
This year has been the year for core values around here. One would think that New South Restaurant Group, a business that has been opening and operating restaurant and bar concepts for the past 37 years, would always have been an organization that eats, sleeps, and breathes, core values. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.Continue reading “Core Values”
RSJ’s New Orleans Restaurant Recommendations 2024
NEW ORLEANS— In a poll of national food critics I believe New Orleans would be listed among the top three food cities in America. To my taste— and I’ve eaten extensively in most of America’s top restaurant cities— New Orleans is number one. Period. No question. End of discussion. I consider myself fortunate to haveContinue reading “RSJ’s New Orleans Restaurant Recommendations 2024”
Simply the Best
For the 26-plus years this column has been in existence I have typed over 1,000 words a week, every week, never missing a week. That’s over 1,300,000 total words published in your newspaper. These days, in addition to newspapers, this column is also consumed online and through email subscriptions. In the early days I tookContinue reading “Simply the Best”
Potatoes, Peas, Popcorn, and Pancakes (but not all at once)
A few weeks ago, I wrote that 2023 will go down as the summer of watermelon. I mentioned how I like to put salt on watermelon. I put salt on a lot of atypical things. Many times, it’s on sweet things. There have been a lot of sweet things in my life lately as weContinue reading “Potatoes, Peas, Popcorn, and Pancakes (but not all at once)”
Pondering Chips
BARBERINO-TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY— Things are different over here. It’s not just the language. Spaces are smaller. Roads are tighter. Bathrooms are tinier. But there’s a reason for all of that. The roads are tighter because many were built over one thousand years ago and were meant to accommodate horses, carriages, wagons, and people traveling by foot.Continue reading “Pondering Chips”
An Easter to Remember
PETROGNANO, TUSCANY— Most of my early childhood memories come from Christmas and Easter. If I let my memory go back as far as it will take me, I can remember opening gifts and the smell of the scotch pine Christmas tree. I also remember eating Christmas cookies. Over the past 61 years I’ll come acrossContinue reading “An Easter to Remember”
Perfect Simplicity
Sometimes the simplest things give me the most satisfaction. That probably seems like an obvious statement to most. I have only recently come to that realization in my personal life. For the first 30 years of my career, I was a hardcore devotee of fine dining. My early goal was to open a fine diningContinue reading “Perfect Simplicity”
A Lifetime Love Affair
TAVARNELLE, TUSCANY— My love of bakeries goes back as far as my episodic memory will allow. The earliest bakery recollection I can drum up comes from the Blue Ribbon Bakery in my hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In a kid’s eyes a bakery is a wonderland of shapes, sizes, colors, and all things sweet. In 1968Continue reading “A Lifetime Love Affair”