Category Archives: Weekly Column

No one signs up for a European tour expecting to have lunch in a stranger’s home in a village so small, it doesn’t show up on most maps. But that’s exactly where my guests found themselves—deep in the Andalusian hills, breaking bread in the homes of Spanish women who didn’t speak our language but knewContinue reading “No Sign, No Menu, Just Home”

SEVILLE— No one expects to use the word romantic when talking about a pig farm. But standing in the soft morning light, in the rolling hills of southern Spain, watching Iberian pigs roam free under a canopy of ancient cork and oak, that’s the only word that kept coming to mind. Romantic. When my RSJContinue reading “The Romance of a Pig Farm”

There are only a few moments in life when time slows down enough to let you take it all in.For me, this past weekend was one of those moments. My daughter, Holleman, got married. If you’ve been following along these past few weeks, you’ve read some of my reflections leading up to this day. AndContinue reading “A Father’s Reflection on a Wedding Weekend”

Life tends to deliver milestones in clusters, never spreading them out at a leisurely pace, but stacking them up all at once. This week is no exception. On Saturday, my daughter is getting married—a once-in-a-lifetime event. Then, two days later, I board a plane to spend the next eight weeks working overseas. It’s not idealContinue reading “The Weight of a Wedding”

These days, emotions are running high. One minute, I’m in my truck thinking about our restaurants or the travel business, and the next, a song comes on, and I’m blinking back tears. Not over business, not over projects—over something much bigger, and way more important. My daughter is getting married in 18 days. I’ve cateredContinue reading “The Wedding”

In the 1990s, I was at a statewide board meeting for the Mississippi Restaurant Association, and during a discussion about tourism, I mentioned the Hattiesburg Zoo in my hometown. That got some laughs. “Hattiesburg has a zoo?” they scoffed. Some of them chuckled like I’d just suggested we start promoting Hattiesburg as the next greatContinue reading “Ribeyes, Foxes, with a Side of Zebras”

Last week, a polar vortex blew through the region and New Orleans got eight inches of snow. I think that’s a record. We had a couple of inches in Hattiesburg—just enough to shut everything down and turn the South into a snow day for grown-ups. The night before the freeze seemed like perfect weather forContinue reading “S’mores Are a Sticky Lie”

A bitter cold has settled into the Pine Belt of Mississippi this week, and it’s the kind of chill that makes you appreciate the sweltering days of August. Down here, cold weather feels like an event, something that calls for a hearty soup on the stove and extra layers by the backdoor. As the temperaturesContinue reading “The Weight of Weather and a Wedding”

Most of my life, I wasn’t a fan of Mardi Gras king cakes. Even during the decades when I consumed bucketsful of sugar—cereal straight out of the box, candy by the case—I still thought king cakes were over the top. Too sweet, too dry, too artificial. The filled ones I came across were like oversizedContinue reading “A King Cake Conversion”