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The packing has commenced and the two-day scramble to get all “affairs in order” before an international trip has reached full-tilt boogie. I am about to travel back to the European continent. This time I won’t have a wife, two kids, and an artist in tow. On this go ‘round my wife will accompany me,Continue reading “Battlefields & Baguettes”

“Don’t stand in front of the kitchen door, sir.” I stepped to the side as the server hurried by with a full tray of fried seafood baskets. I moved just in time for another server to rush out of the kitchen with an overloaded tray of boiled shrimp, fried fish, burgers and crab claws. IContinue reading “Gulf Shores Surprise”

Southern ladies love a club. Not a club with flashing lights, pulsating music, and fruity cocktails but a club where they join other ladies who like to dress up, meet, gossip, and do whatever it is that ladies do in a club. Southern ladies reach a point in their life when nature calls and theyContinue reading “The Monthly Meeting of the Little Sandwiches Is Now Called To Order”

The world is living off of byproducts and off-cuts, and that’s a good thing. After three decades in the restaurant business it’s easy to look back and notice trends and cycles in people’s eating habits. When we opened our first restaurant in 1987, poultry suppliers could almost give away chicken wings for free. What weContinue reading “Chickens, and Sheepshead, and Crabs, Oh My”

Last week I relived my youth on a small sand bar near a bend in the Chatooga River, just upwater from a treacherous series of class-five rapids. That might seem like a strange place for a South Mississippi boy to have a childhood flashback. The body of water that ran through the neigborhood of myContinue reading “The Pater Familias & Peanut Butter”

It’s graduation season. Sitting at my desk I think back to my graduation. In my mind’s eye I see myself in the Beeson Academy gymnasium sitting in a gray metal folding chair alongside my classmates, waiting for my name to be called and relieved that I had passed my algebra final and would actually graduate.Continue reading “Commence the Commencement”

“I’ll take ‘Foods With Holes’ for $500, Alex.” “This fried yeast bread pastry is heavily glazed with sugar and is likely to put you to sleep after eating just one, if you are over the age of 50.” “What is a donut? I’ll take ‘Foods With Holes’ for $1,000, Alex” “This versatile New York delicatessenContinue reading “Hole Foods”

Brunch was invented just for me.   If not for me, then certainly whoever came up with the amazing idea of combining breakfast and lunch had someone like me in mind as the prototypical customer.   Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I can eat breakfast items in the morning, afternoon, evening, orContinue reading “Breakfast + Lunch = Good Stuff”

The older I get the less enamored I am with inanimate objects. As a kid, I loved “stuff.” I could spend 30 minutes on the 15-foot long toy shelf at the neighborhood Ben Franklin store. The “stuff” obsession didn’t end in childhood. As an adult I went through several phases— a compact disc phase, aContinue reading “Toast and Stuff”