Michael, thanks for the article, it's going to help a lot with a few Christmas gifts!

One thing, I always get sidetracked, and this is no exception... In your photo for The Last Word recipe, the one below it is a Latin Manhattan, any chance you could post the recipe for that one?? I've dug around online a bit, but as usual for old cocktails, they all vary enough from each other I'm not sure to where to start aiming for the original.

Thanks!

Great post! This would make a great slideshow and/or YouTube short as well!

I bet you the leftovers could get quite inventive... Pulled Pork, Olive Salad, & Mozarella sounds like something I'll be trying in the near future.

Since grandma passed, mom's taken up the reins of her scratch cornbread dressing. They make a huge batch ahead of time and have enough frozen for Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years so we can focus on other stuff leading up to & day of.

I find it really odd that they're that averse to salt, yet seems most of the menu is fairly carb-forward. A friend of mine is a trainer and a big paleo proponent, when talking nutritional shop, salt's mentioned, but not nearly as much as bread & white potatoes.

Sure, theres the hypertension to worry about with too much salt (canned soup, anyone), but if you're cooking it yourself from scratch, I've have seen many folk that really get themselves in trouble with their salt intake, even making it tasty. Just seems like they majored on the minor bits.

Why just kidding about the Wild Bird?? :D

We sub'd extra-thick chocolate milk in a round of White Russians the other night. And, a friend introduced me to the Velvet Presley, Bourbon or Rye whiskey with chocolate milk. Dangerous. But, in an appealing way.

Burgers & Venn Diagrams! Love It!

I agree with the nuance, it fits perfectly a place (Fat Cow Burgers) we just had open up here in Baton Rouge last week... It's not a "Fancy-Pants" place by a longshot, they're not aiming for that two blocks from LSU, but the burgers are on-point!

You can get a basic cheeseburger up to some with Al Benton's bacon, and one with Foie Gras. With pretty much all counter service, except some tables & chairs outside accessed through roll-up garage doors, when it's not 98deg outside.

Awesome, thanks for all the info man, I really appreciate!!

Word, good deal!

Doh, I caught myself going back through and looking, but I completely missed the link.

Thanks for suffering me not quite RTFM. :)

Nice work, thanks!

Which burger patty is that? I'm going to attempt some Burger Lab burgers in the near future, and that looks outstanding.

I was a picky eater growing up and my folks aren't that adventurous with food, so I'd never tried sushi. We were in a karaoke bar on vacation and I was well into the sake at this point in the evening, the waitress offered a menu, tried & loved it, and went on a bender. :-) Eat it regularly now.

Sorry buddy. It's hard to lose friends, whether they have two or four legs. Y'all are in our prayers.

Good article. I'm glad we're at a point that we can talk about the drawbacks of local. I've found that in our area, Baton Rouge, 60mi from New Orleans, that we don't really have enough local production to provide a full range of products, particularly meat, to farmers market customers as area restaurants have first dibs on the cuts they want. So all that shows up to the markets are ground beef, cut round stew meat, maybe a sirloin roast occasionally, and sometimes a thin-cut second pass ribeye. No chance at chuck, loin steaks, tritips, skirt, flank, pork shoulders, etc.

So, to eat the full range that you might otherwise cook, you've got to increase your food budget substantially and go out a good bit, or be fairly restrictive on the diversity of what you cook.