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BARBERINO VAL D’ELSA, TUSCANY— I sit in an almost empty villa on a Tuscan hillside as I type this column. San Gimignano is peeking through the mist in the distance. I am reviewing and re-living the previous week in my mind. Two days ago the 23 members of our tour group said goodbye to eachContinue reading “As One Journey Ends, Another Begins”

BARBERINO VAL D’ELSA, TUSCANY, ITALY— I don’t believe in past lives or reincarnation, but if I did I would imagine several of my former selves lived in this area of Italy. The first time I ever set a foot on the soil of this part of Tuscany I felt at home. There was an instantContinue reading “An Italian Palate Road Trip Part One”

I have written often about breakfast being my favorite meal of the day. There is something about the freshness-of-the-morning aspect to it that holds great appeal to me. Everything is new and the world as we will know it on that day is just beginning to unfold. Breakfast foods appeal to me, too. My innerContinue reading “Game Day Breakfast”

There are many suggestions and recipes for hangover cures. Some say to go with, “the hair of the dog that bit you.” Others swear by concoctions with tomato juice, raw eggs, and various random ingredients. Still others have certain foods that work for them. Personally, I stopped drinking in 1983, so I haven’t had toContinue reading “Hangovers”

There are six major holidays that receive focus in my family: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter, the Fourth of July, and Halloween. Halloween is always a fun opportunity to take my son and his friends to haunted houses in the area. Christmas— my favorite holiday for 55 years— is filled with two days of familyContinue reading “Cheeseburgers for Thanksgiving”

With a son who is a sophomore in high school and a daughter who is a sophomore in college, I will take every chance I get to spend a little “quality time” with my kids, as schedules become hectic during the school year. So when my wife asked me to join in on a mother-daughterContinue reading “Brightsen's 2016”

  I have been dreaming of ham, lately. Just this past weekend I was visiting my brother in Madison, Mississippi and he took me to breakfast at a restaurant called The Gathering in Livingston, just down the road from his house. I ordered the standard eggs, grits, bacon, and biscuit breakfast. After placing my orderContinue reading “Hammin’ It Up On Both Sides of the Pond”

  I might be the only southern writer/columnist/author working today who didn’t grow up drinking iced tea. It wasn’t due to lack of exposure to iced tea. Our family drank a lot of it. My grandmother hosted elaborate Sunday lunches several times each month in which her formal dining room table would be set withContinue reading “A Vessel For Everything, and Everything In Its Place”

Random Notes From My Montana Travel Diary: BIG SKY, MT— Time off is something that I haven’t seen a lot of lately. That’s not a complaint; it’s a statement of fact. I love what I do for a living. While driving with my teenage son last year, he turned to me and asked, “Dad, whatContinue reading “Montana Travel Diary”