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    BARBARINO VAL D’ELSA, TUSCANY— It is the season of the “new oil.” The Italian landscape is awash in the colors of a Tuscan fall. The leaves that remain on the grapevines are holding on to their final shade of gold before they give way to winter. The new olive oil, like the treesContinue reading “Enzo, Dario, & Fabio”

  BARBERINO VAL D’ELSA, ITALY— Even on a cold, grey, rainy day, the Tuscan countryside is picturesque. There is an unintentional romanticism that bleeds through every vein of this land. It is made twice as charming due to the fact that the locals seem to have no idea how wonderful this place actually is. Understandable,Continue reading “Tuscany”

  This time last year I was in Italy eating my way through that country. On this exact day I was in Sicily about to head north towards Venice, Milan, and Lake Como. I had spent the entire month of October in the cities and towns around Tuscany. This October was spent in America working,Continue reading “On the Road Again”

  There are many “firsts” in our lives— our first word, our first step, our first day of school, and our first date. Even in advanced age we encounter firsts. Earlier this year, I tasted kudzu— in the form of jelly prepared from the kudzu blossom— for the first time. Most firsts occur organically overContinue reading “The First Taste of Chocolate”

  “The wind brings them out,” she said. My friend Wyatt and I had just finished a presentation for an outdoor luncheon on the picturesque campus at Mississippi State University. We were walking along a small ridge above a pecan grove just behind the university president’s home with the wife of the president, the spirited,Continue reading “Wind in the Pecans”

    My high school football coach was in town last week. After a round of golf with two of my best friends and former teammates the three of them, along with one of the coach’s friends, asked me to join them at one of my restaurants for dinner and a catch-up session.   IContinue reading “Gumbo and Football”

    This is one of my favorite times of year. It’s not because of football season, or due to the air getting cool and crisp. It has nothing to do with leaves changing or days getting shorter. Actually, “this time of year” could actually happen in winter spring, summer, or fall in any monthContinue reading “Recipe Testing”

    “What’s for supper, dad?” “It’s a surprise, son.” It wasn’t really a surprise, at least not an intentional one. Whatever it was, or was going to become, looked as if it would be a surprise to me as well. I had no idea. The girls were out doing something— likely shopping— on aContinue reading “Sunday Supper”

      There are several sandwiches that would make my all-time list of great sandwiches— The Deli Deluxe at Martin Wine Cellar in New Orleans, my mom’s ham and cheese poppyseed sandwiches, my beef tenderloin sandwiches with horseradish mustard, and anyone’s shrimp po-boy— but the sandwich I eat more than any other, is aContinue reading “Roast Beef Po-Boy”