I'll admit it. We didn't go out this past Saturday night, so I found myself watching the Bon Appétit Best American Restaurants special hosted by Alton Brown on the Food Network. The show itself was reasonably entertaining, though no one would call it suspenseful. Brown is perhaps my favorite Food Network personality, but he looked totally bored and disengaged on this particular show. Andrew Knowlton and Barbara Fairchild of Bon Appétit were knowledgeable and credible as the magazine's on-camera experts, but they kept talking about passion without exhibiting very much themselves....
Continue reading »
On the way back from Greenwood, Mississippi, we stayed in Memphis. We arrived in downtown Memphis at 10 p.m. to find ourselves in a sea of Elvis impersonators. They were having a huge Elvis impersonator concert and contest. I'm not kidding. There were two Elvis impersonators checking in ahead of us at the Peabody Hotel. We were not there to see faux kings, we were there to eat barbecue. In the name of research, because Bon Appétit had named Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous one of its three finalists in its search for the best baby back ribs in the country, and also because it was a two-minute walk from our hotel and it was too late to eat at someplace like...
Continue reading »
