high in the middle

To accent our salads, my wife sometimes buys Bac'n Pieces or croutons. She recently found some croutons on sale that are pretty good. The package says they are made from French bread and cut into Texas-size pieces. Maybe they come from Paris, Texas. What I don't get is why the brand name for this product is New York Texas Toast Croutons. Like they used to say in the Pace Picante Sauce ads, "New York City?"



So where do famous New York brand Texas toast croutons come from? The Bronx? Brooklyn? I grew up in Yonkers and never heard of them. Maybe they are from someplace upstate like Buffalo or Rochester. Nope. The back of the package says that these New York slash Texas treats are made in... Columbus, Ohio.

plus eight minus me

The on-screen guide displayed a new reality show that I kind of like. I was about to flip to TLC last Monday night and wait for it to start when I saw that the program was both preceded and followed by Jon & Kate. The last thing I want to see is the Gosselins, even by accident. Fortunately the show I wanted to watch has been available in the On Demand menu that I now get from Comcast. I recently got their cable, phone and Internet services as part of a radio endorsement deal.

"Cake Boss" is far from perfect, however I'm finding that I'm enjoying it more than "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network. Admittedly, I've only recently started watching "Ace of Cakes" but I feel that "Cake Boss" does a better job of explaining how the cakes are actually made. Also, the cakes they show from Carlo's Bakery look more tasty than the sculptures I've seen made by Charm City Cakes. They show Buddy Valastro filling his cakes with delicious chocolate or fresh strawberries. Duff Goldman and his crew of Baltimoreans seem to focus more on researching, designing and building their creations. They also look for inspiration by going on field trips a lot.

The drama on "Cake Boss" appears staged. They recently had a completely implausible episode with a bridezilla who was left alone in the bakery with her lovely cake. She defaced it with various colors of frosting. Despite that, I'm looking forward to getting caught up with last Monday's show because it's about making a zombie cake. Zombies are hot right now. Just ask Jane Austen.

busy as Bourke Street

With all that happened lately, I didn't have an opportunity to share a photo of my birthday lunch. We'll get to that after a quick update on some of the things from last week. Deacon Patrick-Murphy Racey has posted a slide show of images from the funeral for Nancy and Peter Feist. It's impressive for me to see four bishops at my home parish.

Both Jack Lail and Michael Silence linked to my blog post about Michael Jackson and Elvis. Silence also linked to the picture of my birthday cupcakes. The photo turned out fairly well, if I say so myself.

Now that we're back on the topic, it's a family tradition to have lobster on my birthday. On Monday, I had a "cold water lobster tail" (probably Australian) and some sugar snap peas at Connor's.



While it was still very good, it wasn't from a true Maine lobster. Fortunately, I'll be able to get one of those when I go to Maine.

secret family recipe

Back in the 1960s and '70s, my father handled public relations for several big companies including Bacardi Rum. One day he was faced with a PR emergency. For whatever reason, the Bacardi Rum Cake that was supposed to be at a photo shoot was either unacceptable or just plain absent. He needed a new one right away. Dad called home but my mother was at work and couldn't help. Instead my sister Catherine, who was 12 at the time, would have to make the cake. She remembers that our grandfather was there to help measure the rum. Catherine chopped the pecans, mixed the batter and did everything else.

After the cake was baked and glazed, they needed to get it from our house to my father's office in the Chrysler Building. My mother told me that they brought it to the Crestwood train station and entrusted it to a conductor on the Harlem line. My father met the train at Grand Central Terminal and took it to the photo shoot. For years after that, Bacardi used my sister's rum cake on the recipe cards that they distributed to liquor stores. My wife helped me find our copy in her recipe file, which we used to make the cupcakes I showed you yesterday.

the mixable one

Bacardi Rum Cake has been on my mind for quite some time. I hinted to my wife that I wanted one as Thanksgiving, Christmas and other celebrations approached. We ended up making gooey butter cakes and other treats instead. I finally dropped enough hints that my wife agreed to make one that we could have for both Father's Day and my birthday. The biggest hint was when I brought home some rum on Saturday.

Because I couldn't find my wife's recipe card, I printed a 1978 recipe that I found on the Internet and took it to a nearby package store. I had to ask the clerk what happened to Bacardi Dark Rum. He pointed me toward a shelf with Bacardi Gold, as it is now called. I also had to ask which size bottle had at least a cup of fluid because they were all measured in milliliters. Fortunately he had a book which told us that 200 ml was only 6.8 ounces. Not enough. That's why I ended up with a 375 ml bottle and almost 5 ounces left over. When he asked to see my I.D. to verify that I was the person on my credit card, I asked if I could pretend I was being carded because of my youthful appearance.

The official Bacardi Rum Cake starts with a layer of chopped pecans at the bottom of a tube or Bundt pan. The cake is served upside down with the nuts on top. My son doesn't like nuts, so we talked about leaving them off one area of the cake. I thought about it overnight and decided we should try making cupcakes instead. It would be easier to omit pecans from some cupcakes and not the others.



According to the package of Butter Recipe Golden cake mix, the cooking time for cupcakes is about half that of the full size cake. The tops were perfect but when we flipped them over, some of the bottom nuts looked like they were a little overcooked. I should have looked online for cooking tips and rotated the pan. Most of the rum flavor and the kick comes from the glaze, which is made from butter, sugar, water and rum. Before adding the rum, we used some of the glaze to top the nut-free cakes. The non-alcoholic glaze turned into an opaque paste. It did not soak into the cakes, like the high-octane stuff did.



To dress up the cupcakes, we added a dollop of Betty Crocker buttercream frosting. We experimented with some right side up and some upside down. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about my family's history with Bacardi Rum Cakes. In the meantime, feast your eyes on these.

kid in a candy shop

The folks at Earth Fare invited me over for pre-opening tour of their new Bearden store. It's across Kingston Pike from Mayo Garden Center in a building that has been vacant since Bi-Lo moved out several years ago. The "healthy supermarket" opens Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. The first 100 shoppers will get a goodie bag. 5% of store sales and the proceeds from one dollar hot dog and burger sales will go to the Beardsley Community Farm.

A sign in the produce section spells out Earth Fare's food philosophy. Of all the things they prohibit, I'm most pleased by the bans on high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. If they slip up and you catch them, you get a $50 gift card for every banned ingredient you spot. Clerks stocked the shelves and workmen adjusted the fixtures while I was there. Once the store opens, I can picture myself getting lunch at the salad bar or even at the sushi counter.



The bulk foods section offers a variety of trail mixes, snacks and unusual grains. My tour guides, Troy DeGroff and Nicole St. Charles suggested I taste the Carob Peanut Clusters, which were excellent. Later when they left me alone to take pictures and try some other snacks, I was blown away by the Chocolate English Toffee. No wonder it's $20 a pound. Both products come from SunRidge Farms.



Troy offered me samples of some organic foods and the opportunity to compare their labels with popular mainstream brands. Earth Fare's organic peanut butter was good, their organic blueberry conserves were outstanding. I was very pleasantly surprised by an Oreo alternative. The stuff inside Country Choice Organic Sandwich Cremes was soft and delicious. Best of all, there was enough of it. I didn't feel shortchanged.

One of the managers (based on his name tag, it might have even been the CEO) told me that photography is not normally allowed in their stores. Because I was there for a media preview, I was permitted to take pictures. I was reminded of both an upscale grocery store in St. Louis and a downscale store in Knoxville where I was asked me to put my camera away. Fortunately I was able to take a picture of an interesting dispenser for first cold press extra virgin olive oil. I didn't notice until I got home that the "Fresh Grassy Overtones" qualify for ApostropheAbuse.com.



I was thrilled to see my all-time favorite condiment, Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce, on the shelf. A brand of spaghetti sauce made me wish my dad was still around. I would have liked to ask him if Rao's Homemade has any connection to the Mr. Rao who lived across the street from us in Crestwood, New York. If there isn't already a band named Hot Pickled Okra & Dilly Beans, there certainly ought to be. I should call WDVX and ask them.

distinguished from gourmet

It doesn't take more than a brief perusal through my blog archives to find indisputable proof that I am a foodie. Just yesterday I wrote about trying to earn airline miles by eating at certain restaurants.

I often plan my travel around places to eat. My upcoming summer vacation is centered on a meal at Red's Eats and a visit to the Ben & Jerry's factory. My next trip to St. Louis will include meeting some Facebook friends at El Pollo Loco and Crown Candy Kitchen.

An article in the Metro Pulse about two weeks ago purported to be about Knoxville staycations. In reality, it was a foodie's tour of East Tennessee. It lists so many places I haven't tried yet, even some that I had never heard of. For example, the Original Freezo sounds like someplace I should have been by now. Whenever the Metro Pulse mentions Magpies, I am reminded of all the times I walked past their former location in the Old City and wished they hadn't already closed for the day. I still need to try one of their cupcakes.

My wife and I have plans to go out to dinner with another couple tonight at RT Lodge. I've already looked at the menu online and am making sure that whatever I eat during the day today will still leave room for a dessert of homemade marshmallow on a chocolate cookie. They call it a triple chocolate "moon pie," with the last two words in quotes to avoid confusion with the real MoonPie. If all goes according to plan, I'll take a picture of it for all the rest of you foodies out there.

walk of life

An early Father's Day present from my daughter arrived via email today. She is giving me the day off by being my guest blogger. She recently returned from the real Holy Land (not the Holy Land Experience) and is willing to share some highlights with us:

If you ever crave an omelet in Nazareth, Israel, be sure to take a stroll through the market streets just outside the old city. On day one of my pilgrimage with Give Thanks and Remember, I walked down the limestone-paved roads of the marketplace and saw a stand selling really fresh eggs straight from the source and another where you could buy your own living hatchlings. I’m not sure if baby chicken is an ingredient in some Middle Eastern dishes or if most customers buy them to raise them to adulthood, but they sure were cute.



We walked to the Fontana di Maria restaurant, one of the many local eateries in Nazareth. The narrow roads were not sidewalks as I had first thought. No, they were two-way streets. It was a wonder to find any cars newer than a banged-up 1990 Fiat, so I had to document the spotless parked Mercedes taking up almost half of the road.



I ordered a Coke at lunch. Even though the label was written in Hebrew, I can assure you that the classic formula tastes just as delicious in Israel, especially when made with cane sugar.



After a huge three-course meal for lunch, we traveled by bus to Cana in Galilee where Jesus performed His first miracle at the wedding feast by turning water into wine when the bridegroom’s supply had run out. The three married couples traveling with us had the chance to renew their wedding vows for each other in the church built to remember the first miracle of Christ’s public ministry. There was not a dry eye amongst us. It was truly moving to see these couples, who combined have been married 100 years, once again vow before God to love each other selflessly and completely until death parts them.



For the next ten days I witnessed and experienced things that I never would have imagined. From the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Sea of Galilee, Holy Sepulchre, Garden of Gethsemane and to the place of Calvary, I walked in the steps of Jesus. As I prayed and reflected in all these holy sites, I grew in my faith and even started to feel at home. Looking back to that first day when I felt so far from home in a completely foreign culture, it seemed like I had lived two years instead of two weeks. Here I was in His hometown, visiting where He first spoke the message that has echoed to all the corners of the earth and I realized that when I go back to my hometown, He’ll be coming with me.

yo old lady

Marshal Andy Smalls invited me to his Big Band Showcase at the Bearden Banquet Hall yesterday afternoon. He performs there on the last Sunday of every month, alternating between big band and western shows. The price of admission includes a buffet meal from Buddy's Bar-B-Q. They were supposed to serve chicken yesterday. Due to a scheduling mix-up, we had some delicious pulled pork instead. Normally the pork is served every other month during Marshal Andy's western music show.

My wife and I sat at a table with Brad Walker and Gary Bluemel, "the singing deejay." Gary would sing two songs with the band later on. During lunch, Brad told me about his new show on WKTI, Sunday afternoons at 3:00. He said he might have me on as a guest to talk about some of my favorite songs.

The Sisters of the Silver Sage were the opening act. They sang songs like "Mr. Sandman" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" rather than their western tunes. Their calendar shows them performing at Marshal Andy's Cowboy Jamboree next month, presumably with pulled pork on the menu.



Near the end of his set, Marshal Andy surprised me by announcing that I was in the audience and asking me to come up to the microphone. Although it was the Big Band Showcase, he was going to try to teach me to yodel like Eddy Arnold. I warned him that I couldn't sing, much less yodel. All I had to do was follow him, he said. Before starting, he said that if I knew the song, I should make sure not to get ahead of his lead. I didn't want to offend the good Marshal but I don't know any Eddy Arnold songs. In fact, until recently, I used to get Eddy Arnold confused with the guy from "Green Acres." Fortunately (I think), my wife was quick to grab the camera and switch it to video mode. You can see me nervously grabbing my pockets.

chai there

Blog reader Cassie was disappointed that there weren't any photos in my post about the grand opening of Menchie's Frozen Yogurt at Turkey Creek. My wife, our son and I made a return visit to Menchie's after we saw the spectacular movie "Up" on Thursday night. This time, I had the camera.

service providers

While we pause to remember the true meaning of Memorial Day, let us also acknowledge that the holiday weekend gives many people a chance to get together with family and friends. My wife and I attended one such gathering on Saturday. It was a surprise birthday party for a friend from church.

The food at the party was impressive. We arrived as the staff from Rosa's Catering was putting the finishing touches on the food trays. Naturally, the dark-chocolate-covered strawberries caught my eye first.



As good as those looked and tasted, I was even more curious about the work that went into a tray of sliced vegetables served in hollowed-out cucumbers. I looked for them on Rosa's cocktail buffet menu to figure out what they are called. My best guess is that they fall under the "Crudités Nouveau" umbrella. Was I supposed to eat just the carrot and pepper slices? Because I ate the cucumber too.



A savory offering that looked like a cake was delicious. The menu describes it as a "Goat Cheese Torta with Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto." We spread some on a pita chip. I love the taste of sun-dried tomatoes.



There was real cake too. Not just one but two tasty treats. They said that the one on the left had rum in it. Which reminds me, one of these days I want to have a piece of authentic Bacardi Rum Cake like my mother used to make.

popular culture

Menchie's Frozen Yogurt celebrated its grand opening in Knoxville this weekend. My wife and I stopped by the new Turkey Creek location for a taste on Saturday. Local franchisee Bruce Smythe introduced us to Danna Caldwell, who founded the company and her sister Shir Balas, who handles marketing. Danna (pronounced Donna) is the mensch who gave the store its name. Menchie is her husband's nickname for her.

Frozen yogurt has become fashionable again in Southern California. Some chains, like Pinkberry, specialize in tart flavors. Menchie's offers both tart and sweet yogurt. The ratio varies by locale. Danna opened her first store in Valley Village. When we told her we had lived in Burbank, she happily described the location of her store there and her other San Fernando Valley locations.

The customers serve themselves at Menchies. You pick a flavor or a mixture of flavors and then add your own choice of toppings. The cashier puts your finished concoction on a scale by the register, where you pay 44 cents per ounce. Trying to be concise, I said on the air Friday that they charge you by weight. Oops.

I mixed dark chocolate and island banana yogurts in my cup. My wife said it might be a good idea for me to try mixing the dark chocolate with tart pomegranate next time. I had intended to top my frozen yogurt only with fruit however all the other choices proved irresistible. I was especially intrigued by some rice thingies called mochi that were like miniature marshmallows. Danna said they had no taste themselves but picked up the flavors surrounding them. Afterwards, we remembered hearing about mochi last summer on "I Survived a Japanese Game Show." The contestants tried to eat the most mochi balls while riding tricycles.

involved and committed

The ideas I had for my son's seventh grade science fair project were rejected, including the one that made it as far as the teacher. I thought that a miniature body farm, using critters that had accidentally died in the pool, would go over well. It never made it out of committee. By committee, I mean my wife.

My son presented a better idea to his teacher. He wanted to soak some teeth in Coca-Cola to see if they would dissolve. When she said no teeth, I suggested that he use rib bones from a pig. We were heavily into smoking pork at the time and finding a surplus of bones would be easy. The teacher then made it clear that she would reject anything organic. My son had to do the experiment with iron nails, which had only the most minuscule change in weight during their time in the soda.

A teacher named Stephanie Chavez at Washington Union High School in Fresno would have been more receptive to my scientific method. According to the Fresno Bee, she wants to create a "chicken body farm" using store-bought chickens. My son says that she should make sure to buy the kind without preservatives.

Description of Project: The "Chicken" Body Farm: Scientists have put together an ongoing study of how bodies decompose in different scenarios. I would like to have my AP Biology class perform a similar experiment but instead of using cadavers, we would use store-bought chickens. Students place their chickens in various created scenarios such as: submerged in water, enclosed in a box, covered in clothes and wrapped in aluminum and will track the rate of decomposition. They will also observe how long it takes for insects to show up, learn the insect life cycles and how it affects the decomposition of the chicken. The grant will provide the equipment necessary to create a secure environment in which to study as well as all the equipment needed to create each "chicken" decomposition scenario.

meet me in St. Gooey

Toasted ravioli is the food that most people associate with St. Louis. One of the local radio clusters even has a website called ToastedRav.com. My wife's family is from Missouri. Thanks to them, gooey butter cake will always make me think of the Gateway City.

My wife and son spent the weekend in St. Louis after moving him out of his freshman dorm. When they got home last night they were bearing gifts. The supermarket where we found the cakes last December was closed yesterday morning. They looked on my blog and found the link for Park Avenue Coffee, which promises 64 flavors of gooey butter cakes. The shop in Lafayette Square was only a short drive away. She brought one cake to have at home and two to share with others.

Here's a peanut butter and chocolate cake with powdered sugar on top:



The clerk told my wife that most of the sugar is absorbed by fruit-flavored cakes like this banana chocolate chip delicacy...



... which is why he told her to add her own confectioner's sugar to this white chocolate raspberry cake in a heart-shaped tin, decorated for Mother's Day.

hard to hide the kid inside

College students like my son are dealing with the stress of final exams this week and next. He told me something they did to loosen things up in his dorm. The story begins at the end of the fall semester when a girl on his floor ate an entire package of Oreos during exam week. She felt guilty about it and confessed to all her floormates.

When school resumed in January, my son and his friends began plotting. They used their extra meal plan points to buy packages of Oreos from the campus convenience store. At first they planned to leave a small pile of America's favorite cookies outside the girl's door. Momentum started to build and more students got involved in the plot. The idea changed from a pile to a pyramid. Each week, they bought more Oreos and hid them inside their empty suitcases. All the while they kept their purchases secret from the victim of their prank.



As the number of Oreo packages grew, tasks were assigned to each individual. When my son described it to me, I thought it sounded like the first season of "Prison Break." My son and another engineering student were to design a plan for stacking 144 packages. Someone else would be the lookout while somebody organized the transfer of cookies like a reverse bucket brigade.



A date was chosen for the denouement. The girl in question would soon return from track practice. While she was in the shower, the Oreos would not be stacked in a pyramid. Instead they decided to wall in her doorway. They figured out how to leave space for the door handle. When the girl opened her door and saw the blockade, she used that space to deliver a one-finger greeting to her friends.

one for you, one for me

One of the items on Rich and Lissa's wedding gift registry appealed to my wife and one appealed to me. We gave them a set of four little trifle dishes and an ice cream scoop. We threw in a jar of Mrs. Richardson's hot fudge and a package of Oreo crumbles.

My wife made a chocolate trifle for Father's Day last year. This year she wanted to make two fruit trifles for Easter, one for the choir at All Saints Church and one to have at home. That meant she needed another large trifle dish. We looked up Rich & Lissa's registry again so she could get the same style at Bed Bath & Beyond. She got both the large dish and a set of four smaller ones.



The recipe is simple. She layered angel food cake with thawed-out frozen berries and topped it with a mix of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. It sat in the refrigerator overnight to allow the cake to soak up the juice. She's talking about making it again when we have to bring a dish to a reception with the Bishop after the Rite of Missioning at Sacred Heart Cathedral. It's part of my responsibility as an RCIA sponsor.

salad days

A trip downtown on Friday turned into a nice date for my wife and me. After seeing Julia Nunes perform and getting a free cupcake, we used another coupon to get a discount on lunch at La Costa on Market Square.

Because I planned to eat my free cupcake for dessert, I wanted to order a salad rather than a sandwich. However the very tempting daily special was a pulled pork sandwich with mango BBQ sauce. My wife ordered a delicious Ancho Chicken Salad Wrap and had them add some enticing Benton's bacon bits.



There was a smoked duck breast salad on the menu which sounded okay except for the duck. I asked the waiter if the chef would be offended by me asking him to create a salad with the pulled pork. He reported back that the chef was excited by the challenge. I said that I wanted them to name the dish after me if it was good enough to get on the menu in the future. The waiter said it depended on whether or not I had a cool name. I said, "fortunately for you, my name is Pork Salad."

eight days a week

The eggs that my wife and I colored on Saturday will last us for the entire Octave of Easter, assuming that we each eat one a day. I picked out a dozen and arranged them on the egg plate that I gave her as a birthday gift a few years ago. Before you ask, I bought it at Cracker Barrel. Since our son is away at college, my wife took it upon herself to replicate his annual Earth egg.



There was an Easter surprise in our basket this morning. My wife found some of the elusive Peeps Chocolate Mousse Flavored Marshmallow Bunnies that I wanted. She also got me some Sunsweet Chocolate Plum Sweets. I guess they're like Raisinets, except these would be Prunettes.



The same friends who gave me homemade marshmallows for Christmas have done it again. In addition to the marshmallows, Kathy made some chocolate peanut butter eggs and peanut brittle. She has a true gift for candy making. Maybe she could turn it into a business someday.

alleluia time

This year's Lenten season was especially meaningful to me. In January, I was asked by a friend to be his sponsor in the RCIA program at Sacred Heart Cathedral. As a child he had been baptized into a Protestant denomination. The Catholic Church recognizes that as a valid Christian baptism. After completing the necessary classes, he was ready to be received into the Church and to receive the sacraments of Confirmation and First Holy Communion.

Even though my wife was singing at All Saints on Thursday and Friday, I chose to attend all three parts of the Triduum at Sacred Heart. Bishop Richard F. Stika was the main celebrant each night. My wife joined me at the Cathedral on Saturday evening. She even walked through the rehearsal as my proxy on Saturday morning because I had to work.

The Easter Vigil starts outside the church with the blessing of the new fire and the lighting of the paschal candle. Bishop Stika and the other priests and deacons waited under the dogwoods by the rectory while Fr. Al Humbrecht lit the fire. Unfortunately it didn't take right away. One of the parishioners stuffed a couple of newspaper pages into the woodpile and the second attempt worked fine.



One eager sponsor, who reminded me of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean character, tried to light his handheld candle from the bonfire. He was told to stop. The Bishop used a brass candle lighter to transfer a flame from the fire to the paschal candle. Once the candle was carried into the cathedral, the flame was passed to each of us.

The bilingual service reminded me of trilingual masses I would attend at St. Finbar Church. As I stood with my hand on my friend's shoulder and the Bishop anointed him with chrism, I was also reminded of the two times I served as an RCIA sponsor in Burbank. The Easter Vigil usually runs about three hours. We had already passed the three-and-a-half-hour mark when I thought that the Bishop saw me check my watch. I must not have been the only one. As he ended the Mass, Bishop Stika said that he had seen people checking their watches to see not what time it was but what day it was.



Afterwards they had cake! I gave myself a little bit of a sugar buzz from the icing, which made me feel like I needed some protein. We took my friend and his wife out to IHOP at midnight for a very early Easter breakfast. My wife and I almost ordered omelettes until we remembered that we have 16 hard boiled Easter eggs waiting for us at home. I'll show you some of those tomorrow.

the emptiness inside

One of my wife's friends gave her an unusual gift at church on Sunday. The friend's husband makes Easter Bunnies out of balloons, yarn and starch. It looks like there's some glitter thrown in for good measure. I tried looking on the Internet to see how he does it but only found instructions for simpler items like eggs or nests.



The starch-soaked yarn solidifies around the balloons, creating a hollow center. The same basic idea is used when making Resurrection Rolls. A listener e-mailed me the recipe, which I had never heard of before. Instead of a balloon, a melted marshmallow leaves the empty space, which represents the tomb of Jesus on Easter morning. I wonder if it would work with a Marshmallow Peep instead of a standard marshmallow.

While we're on the topic of putting candy inside things, Chef Walter made a leftover Easter candy cake on Tuesday. He mixed two cups of chopped up chocolate candies into a standard cake batter. I enjoyed watching it even though he said that he hates Peeps. Sacrilege!

chicka boom

The first person to make a donation toward my fundraising-by-dancing efforts was my good friend Bean. He is also responsible for today's blog post.

After his wife's recent trip to Japan, Bean sent me this photo with the question, "Japanese peeps?" She had brought the Hiyoko box home as a souvenir.



While the Hiyoko confections look a lot like Marshmallow Peeps, they are actually bean cakes. The Engrish English translation of the page explains exactly how the little treats are deliberately mushed:

The secret of Hiyoko's daintiness is the carefully selected ingredients. The savory bun is made of flour from Kyushu to give a distinctive flavor. Mildly sweet yellow filling is made of fine choice of haricot beans. We select well-grown beans only and mush them deliberately. After our experienced confectioner puts the bun and filling together and bakes it in an oven until it becomes moist, melting texture, a delicious "Hiyoko" is ready for you!

what brings us together today

Because my wife's birthday always falls during Lent, the loophole in our Lenten observance is celebratory cake. This year we expected to find cake at the Bishop's ordination but did not. However there was plenty of cake his past Saturday at the marriage of Shots Across the Bow and Oh... Really? er, I mean Rich and Lissa.

Our Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat consists of both the German chocolate wedding cake and the red velvet groom's cake. The former was beautifully covered in fondant, the latter was decorated with the banners of the lovebird bloggers. Both were homemade. Before the cake was cut, Rich responded to his best man's toast by quoting an Impressive Clergyman.

brownies and cookies and cakes, oh my

Shopping at Sam's Club can be especially challenging during Lent. They usually offer free samples of meats I can't eat on Fridays and they always have plenty of delicious sweets that I have given up for the season. Today's Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat is a Sam's Club three-fer. Take a look at some brownies that look like cakes, some cakes that come surrounded with cupcakes and some gourmet candy cookies made with Heath Bars, Reese's Pieces and Ghirardelli Chocolate.

piercing wit

People of my grandparents' generation had a joke about a brand of pipe tobacco. They would call a store and ask if they had Prince Albert in a can. The clerk would say "yes" and the prankster would say "well, you better let him out!"

With the passing of time, that joke has run its course. I may have found a product at Publix that could take up the slack. An Arnold Palmer is a lemonade and iced tea drink named after the famous golfer. The country club staple is now available in cans.

lucky devil's food

Today’s Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat comes from parts unknown. While in Florida last week, I needed to make room on the memory chip in my camera. As I was deleting pictures I didn’t need anymore, I came across this shot of a Snicker-ama. I remember seeing it. I remember photographing it. I just don’t remember exactly where I was. At least I know that I was at a café somewhere in St. Louis. But who really cares? All I can think about right know is a cake that is made from Snickers.



A Google search for Snicker-ama leads me to believe that the café gets their supply from Truffes, Inc. On their website, they describe a Snicker-ama as "a chocolate crumb crust layered with caramel, peanut butter mousse with snicker pieces, then finished with chocolate ganache." If you are feeling particularly resolute, take a look at their Very Chocolate Cake or their Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Torte. Personally, I'm interested in trying their Banana Cream Cake. I was impressed that a bakery in the heart of Cardinals country had the guts to put a New York Mets cake on their site (let's go Mets!). However they proved their allegiance to the Gateway City with a Lemon Gooey Butter Cake that looks good enough to drink eat.

sláinte

A long line of soldiers stood waiting to board a plane at the Atlanta airport on Friday, each with a hint of green in their uniforms. They were taking a charter flight aboard Omni Air International. Where were they headed a scant few days before St. Patrick's Day? To Shannon, Ireland, of course!



Have a great holiday. Maybe I'll defrost one of the small loaves of Irish Soda Bread that have been in the freezer since last year.

nannerpuss

After the town hall meeting at All Saints Church on Saturday, my wife and I made a beeline for the mountains in an effort to catch a movie at the Gatlinburg Screenfest. The meeting had run long and the rainy weather slowed our drive which made us miss the beginning of the film. Fortunately, my pal Brad Bumgardner is one of the festival organizers. After the screening room cleared, he restarted it for us. He happens to be in "Boys of Summerville," the movie we drove all that way to see. Most of his screen time comes early in the film including the corn dog scene that I mentioned last year. Brad stole the show, as expected. I told him I would have enjoyed seeing his character more. How about a "Summerville Origins: Murr" prequel?

After the movie, we looked for a place to get something for dinner. Driving past all the pancake joints in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge left me with a craving. I hadn't had a pancake since that Oreo concoction last summer. Obviously I wasn't going to wait six or seven hours for one of the breakfast restaurants to open. The problem was solved as a familiar sign came into view.

The only Denny's within 50 miles of my house is in Pigeon Forge. We walked in around midnight, thinking that getting a table would be easy. Not so much. The place was packed with church group kids who were in town for the Smoky Mountain Winterfest at Thompson-Boling Arena. Note to the KTSC: the chaperones told us that even though the event moved to Knoxville, they continue to stay at hotels in Pigeon Forge because there is more there for the kids to do.

The large groups taxed the restaurant staff. Our waitress disappeared after taking our order. She had to serve a group of 70 kids from Georgia who were wearing matching t-shirts. Half an hour after we placed our order, another server delivered our Grand Slam Breakfasts and refilled our water glasses. While we waited, some women approached a large man with Elvis hair and glasses at an adjacent table. They wanted a picture with him.

The delay gave me plenty of time to study the amusing Rockstar menu featuring items named after alternative bands and a plug for the Warped Tour. The menu got me thinking that the last time I was at a Denny's was either in Burbank or maybe at the rock 'n' roll Denny's on Sunset Boulevard. Oh, and the two pancakes satisfied my craving for another six months or so.

cheez whiz

Just inside the doorway of the Cheeburger Cheeburger in Jensen Beach is a sign that says "Pepsi Pepsi – No Coke," an obvious reference to the Olympia Restaurant sketch that I wrote about on Tuesday. The sign is held by a cardboard cutout of the Three Stooges.



Our waitress was pleasant but not especially knowledgeable about the business. She knew nothing about the Lenten Menu being promoted on their website. She also forgot to deduct a 10% discount for showing her our movie ticket stubs. My son and I had just seen "Watchmen" which was okay except for Blue Man Group's numerous nude scenes. Fortunately, the restaurant manager quickly fixed the discount. The Lenten Menu wasn't a factor either, since we weren't there on a Friday.



The minor inconveniences did nothing to ruin our meals. My son ordered the Semi-Serious burger and I ordered the Classic and a salad. Both come with a choice of dozens of free toppings. I chose lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, and onion rings. I'm pretty sure they left off the A1 Steak Sauce I had ordered but our waitress brought me a bottle when I spoke up. Everything tasted good and made me want to visit one of the other Cheeburger Cheeburger locations during my next trip.

a sometimes food

The food court at Treasure Coast Square Mall had several businesses that were new to me. I saw dueling-but-related Chinese restaurants called Asian Chao and Chao Cajun. Fancy Flavors served a red, yellow and blue ice cream named after Superman. Interesting, but not enough to make me crave it.



Today’s Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat comes from a place in the food court called Your Kind of Cookie. They let you choose your dough and your toppings for cookies made to order. The list of 40 available toppings is comprised mostly of popular candy bars with some fruits and nuts thrown in too. A tray of delicious-looking S’mores cookies grabbed my attention as I walked past. The label said they were made with Hershey's bars, marshmallows, fudge drizzle and a graham sprinkle. I would have loved to try one, however this picture will have to suffice as I’ll be flying out today to spend the rest of Lent at home.



The idea of building your own dream cookie made me think of a British website I read about the other day. PimpThatSnack.com features giant recreations of popular treats like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat bars.

fish tale

South Florida may be a long way from New England but my son and I found a place for Maine lobster without even trying. The sign for The Lobster House caught our eye as we drove along Federal Highway in Tequesta. Once inside, we saw a flyer for a Two for Tuesday special that was exactly what we wanted: two lobsters for the price of one. I was surprised when they told me that the two lobster meal was intended for only one person. Despite their intentions, we ordered it and each had our own crustacean.



If not for the special, we could have tried to win our dinners by each putting $2 in the Love Maine Lobster Claw machine. I had read about these machines over the years but didn't realize that any were still in operation. The price card next to the joystick shows that a determined player can get 14 chances for $20. The lobster at the front of the tank was enormous. I wonder if the machine's claw is even strong enough to lift him.



The talk of the gigantic lobster led the restaurant host to tell us about a huge great white shark that his boss once caught off Montauk. Lobster House owner Tony Gambino was fishing with his uncle and some others when they saw a dead whale being eaten by sharks. They stood on the whale's floating carcass and hooked a behemoth using rod and reel.

Before long Tony himself had come out to meet us and to tell us that his uncle was famed shark hunter Frank Mundus. His autographed photo hangs in the kitchen near a model of the big shark. Next thing we knew, Tony was leading us through the kitchen to see his live lobster tanks and other mounted fish heads.



I told Tony that I had been to Montauk and that my grandmother used to have a place in Noyac. He said we should try to visit his family's other restaurant, Southside Fish and Clam, next time we're up that way.

hold the pickle, hold the lettuce

A restaurant that I plan to visit in Florida later this week has brought back some old memories and I haven't even been there yet. The restaurant is Cheeburger Cheeburger and the memories are from high school.

"Saturday Night Live" was a favorite of mine while I was in high school. I still watch it today, thanks to the invention of the TiVo. There were many years in the middle that I missed. Back then, it seemed that everyone knew the latest catchphrase by the time school started on Monday morning.

One such phrase was "cheeburger, cheeburger" from a skit set in the Olympia Restaurant. John Belushi would tell his customers that they had "no Coke, Pepsi" and "no fries, chips" before shouting out their cheeseburger order to Dan Aykroyd on the grill. The burgers and the grill were real. I know because I smelled them.

My father used to play tennis with NBC announcer Bill Wendell. Mr. Wendell arranged for my wife and me to attend a taping of "Late Night with David Letterman" during our honeymoon. Years earlier, I had asked Mr. Wendell for tickets to "Saturday Night Live."

A couple of factors came into play. I was only in high school and there may have been an age limit for attending the show. Plus, at the time, SNL was a hot ticket. Mr. Wendell said he couldn't get me any tickets to the show but he could get me into the next best thing, the dress rehearsal. The dress rehearsal was held about three hours or so before the live show. It would be recorded and could be used all or in part if something went terribly awry later that night. Also, skits that didn't get a good enough reaction could be cut or rewritten before 11:30 p.m.

I just barely got up the nerve to ask a cute girl from a neighboring all-girls high school to go with me to the dress rehearsal. I figured that the hot ticket and the earlier showtime would guarantee a "yes" from her. They didn't. Instead of just saying no, Margaret Finneran turned me down because she planned to go to a father-daughter communion breakfast the next day. I ended up calling Ed Gough, my friend from seventh and eighth grades, who met me at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. By the way Margaret, I was home in time to watch the 11:30 telecast. And I made it to church in time the next morning.

That week's host was comedian Robert Klein. The musical guest was a newcomer named Bonnie Raitt. In that episode, they introduced some new skits and characters that would turn up again in later shows. Bill Murray and Gilda Radner played nerds Todd and Lisa for the first time that night and the Olympia Restaurant opened for business with its real "cheeburgers" on the grill.



During "Weekend Update," there was a joke about giant lobsters headed toward Manhattan. The show concluded with the lobsters attacking 30 Rock. Comedy writer Al Franken came up into the audience during a break and sat next to Ed and me. He informed our section that we would need to react in terror to the news of the lobster attack. The director was going to superimpose an image of a giant lobster coming toward us. Franken said that if we got it right, they would repeat the process with the live audience. If we messed it up, the bit would get dropped from the show. We must have done well enough because the shot stayed in the actual broadcast.

stew in your own juice

Because we were directed around to the back of the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum on Saturday, my son and I found ourselves in the entertainers and vendors parking area of a local street festival. Before heading into the museum, we made a quick tour of the various tents and booths at the Jupiter Jazz & Art Festival.

In one tent, a man and his wife were offering tastes of their barbeque sauce on tortilla chips and small pieces of rice cake. I tried both the mild and hot varieties of Rodney’s Backyard Barbeque Sauce and ultimately bought a bottle as much for the story behind it as for the taste of it.



Rodney had been making his own sauce at home for years. He got hooked up with a Florida company called IPAC, which bottles products for dreamers like him to sell for themselves whether online, at festivals or door-to-door. Rodney said that the head of IPAC was some sort of well-educated genius who got tired of the corporate rat race. I found an article about another guy who uses IPAC to bottle his comically-but-crudely-named hot sauce.

My son and I used Rodney’s sauce to season some boneless, skinless chicken breasts that we bought on sale at Publix. We’ll have to try to finish the bottle while we’re in Florida because I don’t think the TSA will let me bring more than three ounces of it on the plane.

a favorite mistake

Last Friday's post started with Lenten dinner and ended with a picture of a cake. Along the way, we took a detour through a fish fry or two in St. Louis. Today I'll post a photo of another delicious thing that I gave up for Lent.

St. Louis is almost as famous for gooey butter cakes as it is for toasted ravioli. My wife's family used to get theirs at the old Lake Forest Bakery. That place has closed but the cakes are plentiful enough to warrant a category on the "Best of St. Louis" list. On a recent visit to the Gateway City, I was impressed by a supermarket display of gooey butter cakes made by Park Avenue Coffee.



The ooey gooey goodness was invented by accident when a baker used ingredients in the wrong proportions. Fortunately, gooey butter cakes are no longer just a St. Louis thing. I gave high marks to a pumpkin gooey butter cake at a dessert cook-off last fall and my wife made a peanut butter gooey butter cake to bring to our son on parents' weekend. Both recipes probably came from Paula Deen. I'll keep an eye out for something delicious and worth photographing (but not eating) for next Friday.

cod is good

On Fridays during Lent, many Catholic churches offer a meatless supper before or after the Stations of the Cross. My wife and I plan to partake of the meal at All Saints Church tonight although we don't know what is on the menu. Different parish groups take turns serving the Lenten suppers. Each week brings something different. In the past we've had pizza, fish sticks, soup, salad and a baked potato bar.

Sacred Heart Cathedral has a Friday fish fry during Lent. For the health-conscious, the cod can be had baked or fried. Side items include french fries, coleslaw and macaroni & cheese. Their event seems more like those in St. Louis, where the local newspaper maintains a list of churches hosting a fish fry on Fridays. A local radio station does a "Fish Fry World Tour" which includes a live broadcast from a different church each week. A TV station has an interactive Fish Fry Finder map that is easy to use. I unexpectedly discovered a Facebook group for St. Louisans who socialize at the events, regardless of whether they are Catholic or not. Considering that Knoxville's Bishop-elect Richard Stika is a St. Louis native, maybe we can eventually have a Fish Fry World Tour of our own.

Like a lot of Catholics, I'm giving up sweets again this year with the probable exception of a slice of celebratory cake after the bishop's ordination and installation. Maybe he'll give us all a dispensation and it will be a moot point. However just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu. Here's a photo of the delicious cakes that were served a couple of weeks ago at the World Marriage Day dinner at All Saints. I was told that they came from Rita's Bakery in Fountain City.

fat Tuesday

Comedian Pat Godwin wrote a note on my wall Sunday that asked "who is that thin guy in your profile photo?" It was a callback to our conversation at the old Comedy Zone a year and a half ago. I wrote back that I might dare to post a "before" photo that he would recognize. The inspiration to do so came during lunch today when I chose a sauce for my chicken.

When my wife and I went to the fancy Kroger this weekend, I noticed that they carry the delicious Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce that I love. They sell the 15.75 ounce bottles for $7.49, which is more than the $6.87 I used to pay for a 40 ounce bottle at Sam's Club.

The word chipotle caught my eye on another label I knew. Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q has a new Spicy Chipotle B-B-Q Sauce that I wanted to try. I bought a 16 ounce bottle for $2.99. It's noticeably spicier than their regular sauce, which I've used in the past.

The message from Pat and the bottle of sauce combined to make me flashback to a trip my family took to Atlanta in May, 2005. We ate at the Williamson Bros. restaurant in nearby Marietta. It was still four months before I started the weight loss program that changed my life.

downtown revitalization

Former New Yorkers like myself never stop looking for a pizza that replicates their memories of what they had back home. Tonight my wife and I had dinner at Dazzo's Italian Castle Pizzeria on Gay Street, between the Bijou Theatre and the Tennessee Theatre. It's actually sandwiched between the offices of two law firms.



Dazzo's got some publicity from WBIR last month, shortly after they opened. We went there between shows at the Bijou Jubilee and were lucky to get the last two seats in the place. From the chatter around us, it sounded like some of the other customers were planning to see Henry Cho at the Bijou while others were headed to a movie at the Regal Riviera.

The back of the menu says that the owner grew up in Ozone Park in the 1960s and that he started working for the best pizzerias on Long Island in the mid '70s. Like a true New York pizza joint, they offer it by the slice for $2.75. Except at night. The waitress told us we would have to order a minimum of four slices, which is half a pie. It was more cost-effective to buy a whole pie for $15.95 and take home the leftovers. We ordered a plain Neapolitan, which is the best way to truly judge a new pizza.



Dazzo's crust is the way I like it, very very thin. In addition to salt and pepper, our table had shakers of garlic, chili pepper flakes and oregano, my favorite pizza topping. As my wife paid the cashier, I watched the pizza chef smother somebody else's pie with sausage, pepperoni and bacon. Next time we go, we might try one of their specialty pizzas called "Grandma's Pizza." It's a thin crust pan pizza. Or we might stick with what we know we like.

clap on

The promise of free cake brought a crowd to Gay Street this evening. The city closed off a block to accommodate all the people. The cake came from MagPies Cakes, which has sent a competitor to a Food Network Challenge in the past. A chewy white fondant covered two layers of chocolate cake. The best part was the chocolate stuff between the cake layers. The cake itself was a bit too dry, like most wedding cakes.



While we were all there, the Bijou Theatre board threw the switch to illuminate their new marquee and vertical blade sign. Fans can buy a bulb and get their name on a plaque in the theatre as part of the "Light Up the Bijou" campaign. Einstein Simplified bought two bulbs to commemorate our performance at the Bijou on Friday at 5:00 p.m.

To me, it looked like all three television stations sent their own cameras to the press event. WBIR's story is already online. State Senator Tim Burchett and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam both read from proclamations honoring the Bijou's 100th anniversary. Burchett chose to fist bump everyone rather than shake hands while joking that he had originated the move. Haslam got a big laugh when he mentioned that throughout its history, the Bijou's building had housed movies, parked cars and ladies of the evening.

that would have me as a member

Over the holidays, the rest of my family climbed aboard the Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce bandwagon that I have been riding since last April. My wife poured some over cream cheese and served it to us with crackers. My daughter liked it so much that she asked if she could take one of the two 40-ounce bottles I had in the pantry. I was happy to give it to her, since I could just pick up a replacement bottle at Sam's Club, right? Wrong.

As usual, the cashier at Sam's asked "did you find everything okay?" I had to honestly respond, "no." I couldn't find the sauce that they had gotten me hooked on, then taken away, then brought back. Now it was gone again. The cashier said I wasn't the only one who had been asking about it. She said that a married couple had been buying the sauce regularly to serve in their restaurant. Apparently they had built a menu item around the magical condiment.

In mid-February, my wife has to bring an appetizer to a pot luck luncheon at her job. She plans to serve Raspberry Chipotle Sauce over cream cheese. She might want to try it with Ginger Snaps instead of crackers. I have been conserving whatever sauce is left in my bottle so she will have enough. Otherwise I can suggest that she try using the bottle of Pomegranate & Mango Chipotle Sauce or the bottle of Granny's Peach 'n' Pepper Pourin' Sauce that I have in the pantry. Granny says it's the easiest snack ever.

entice you with some bacon

Film director John Hudgens is a panelist at Chattacon this weekend. I assume he's at the sci-fi convention to promote the February 17th DVD release of his "American Scary." Or maybe he would have gone there anyway just for kicks. I wrote about John's movie prior to its Hollywood Film Festival debut in 2006.

John sent me a message last night after he had sampled some Elvis-themed, sushi-looking snack cakes at the convention. Imagine peanut butter, bananas and marshmallow creme wrapped in white bread and topped with bacon. Picture Twinkies sliced like California rolls and decorated with breakfast cereal. And it was all served by an Elvis impersonator dressed as a Japanese chef.

crusty cur

The flags were at half-staff at a rest stop in Illinois on Saturday. While the real reason was to honor a deceased retired judge, I thought that Governor Blagojevich might have ordered the flags lowered in mourning over his career. He had been impeached the day before.



Inside the rest stop I saw some funny tourism posters for Illinois attractions. The sign for White Squirrel Town says they have nothing to fear but stubborn grass stains. They sell t-shirts and other items with the same design.

The poster that amused me (and others) the most was for the Cozy Dog Drive In. It shows a nurse feeding a bottle to a corn dog with the caption "Visit the Birthplace of the Corn Dog." There's no need to wait until National Corn Dog Month to get yourself a t-shirt with the poster on it.

party quirks

More often than not, my wife and I stay home on New Year's Eve. One year we went over to the next door neighbor's house. Another year we went to the home of some church friends. We had three memorable New Year's Eves in California.

We rang out 1999 at a spectacular black-tie party for the film "Fantasia 2000." So many people were afraid of Y2K, that we got invited to fill out a table that had been purchased by a corporate sponsor. After a screening of the movie, there was live music by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Chicago. Maybe you've heard of them.

Another year we got tickets to see the Brian Setzer Orchestra at the House of Blues. Because the tickets had come from Setzer's management, we found ourselves seated at the same table as Brian's wife. I've already written about the New Year's Eve we spent in Pasadena, getting within smelling distance of the Rose Parade floats.

I had a great time saying farewell to 2008 on Wednesday night. I got to play improv games with my Einstein Simplified pals as part of the First Night Knoxville festival. The evening started early with an appearance on "Live at Five at Four" to promote our performances. Then we had dinner at The Tomato Head, which was packed with people. Despite the huge crowd, the staff found a way to seat our party of 16. I amused myself by ordering the vegetarian chef salad and then having them add free-range chicken to it. The words bacon and salad on the menu got me wondering if there is such a thing as bacon salad. It would have mayo and celery like tuna salad but with bacon instead of fish.

I was a little anxious about whether or not we would draw an audience. Our performance space was in a conference room in an office building across the street from Market Square. I said that I hoped ventriloquist Gene Cordova could draw a crowd. He had shows at 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. in the same room we would use at 9:00. When we got to the TVA West Tower, Gene Cordova had a standing-room only crowd that spilled out into the lobby area. Another conference room across from ours had musical performances by Bantry and Tennessee Schmaltz. They had a decent sized audience too, not Gene Cordova numbers, but decent. Most of the audience who filled the room for our two shows had never seen us before. I was surprised when a former WAVA listener in the crowd re-introduced himself to me. It was Don Samples, cousin of the late Junior Samples. Our shows went very well and I think more than a few of the people will come see us at Patrick Sullivan's in the future.

We ended our second show around 11:30 p.m. and went outside to see the "ball" drop. It was more like a balloon on a tether and not that impressive. Next year they should drop an orange construction barrel, as suggested by reader Cassie. A live band on the Market Square stage made the event feel like Sundown in the City, except for the bitter cold. Like the popular summer event, there were way too many cigarette smokers blowing their exhaust on others. We found a spot that was relatively smoke-free and watched the countdown to midnight. It was 25 seconds slow but who's counting?

fa ra ra ra ra

Are you thinking about Valentine's Day? Let me explain. Dave and Melanie, the full-time RVing married couple who work at the See's Candies kiosk in West Town Mall, told me something interesting yesterday. They will work here until the day after Christmas, then they will hop in their RV and head to Florida for January. The big news is that they will be back in Knoxville in time to reopen the kiosk and sell you some Valentine's chocolates for your sweetheart. In past years, the kiosk was only open for the month prior to Christmas.

I also went to Dollar General Market yesterday to get some River Ranch Garden Salad. At $1.25 a pound, it costs less than the so-called gourmet salad at Sam's Club. Last week, it was on sale for only $1 a pound, which is cheaper than even the bland, shredded lettuce I've been buying at Sam's. As I was leaving, I passed a guy delivering several cases of Valentine's Day cards from American Greetings. I will have to go back and find out if they put the cards on display before or after Christmas.

In other food store news, today was opening day for a new Asian supermarket on Kingston Pike. The first thing I saw as I walked in the door at the Sunrise Supermarket was a refrigerator case with fully cooked whole ducks, not far from some stacks of preserved duck eggs.



As I passed through the produce section I noticed that they had three kinds of apples: red, green and Fuji. They also had a sign warning "Caution Spiny Fruit" for something called frozen Durian. It's known for its foul odor, which must be why they keep it frozen.

"

Beyond the produce, I saw plenty of various pork parts. They had ears, feet, kidneys, livers, tongues and stomachs. I also saw large containers of pork blood, trays of beef honeycomb, fresh goat meat and individual chicken feet on ice. Over in the seafood section they had many fresh and frozen varieties of fish. I was fascinated by the things that were still alive. They had live blue crabs, lobsters, Dungeness crabs, catfish and Tilapia.



On my way out, I spied a stack of books in a rack near the door. Who knew there was such a thing as the Chinese Yellow Pages for the Southeast U.S.A?

ort report

For several days after each Thanksgiving, all my meals include leftovers. The cranberry sauce is always the first thing to get used up while the turkey lasts the longest. I've discovered that my new favorite condiment makes a great replacement for cranberry sauce. After I reheat four ounces of turkey for lunch or dinner, I pour some Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce on top. Its sweetness and spiciness give an extra zing that takes the boredom out of leftovers. I've been going through the stuff so fast that while at Sam's Club yesterday, I bought two more bottles without remembering that I still had one in the pantry.

I found some interesting Internet leftovers too. My friend Sandy posted some of her Thanksgiving recipes last week. While tracking back a link to my post about free symphony tickets for bloggers, I happened across a cute story about a kid who thinks sweet potato casserole is called "marshmallow basagna." Byron Chesney posted a picture of Thanksgiving cakes and pies that had me wanting to take a bite out of my screen.

As if my review of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade weren't complete enough, let me point you to somebody at NPR who wrote a blog post about the great Rickroll at the parade. Another blogger did a "live blog" of the event. I've thought about doing that but I ended up sitting back on the couch and jotting a note on a legal pad when something struck me as noteworthy.

short and sweet

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, it's a fun time to watch Food Network and to click around sites like Cupcakes Take the Cake. Today I watched part of a TV show about desserts that I had recorded over the weekend and looked online at a collection of holiday cupcakes.

Some of the turkey-shaped cupcakes looked great, some were laughable and some were just plain weird. What really struck me as funny was that the turkey cupcakes being held up for ridicule on the very entertaining Cake Wrecks blog looked better than many of the examples on the cupcake tribute site.

bids and squids

The March of Dimes Signature Chefs Auction has become one of my favorite events to attend. My wife and I got to experience it on Sunday night. As I wrote last year, it's up there with Feast With the Beasts as a great night of food and fun.

While all the other guests headed to the various serving stations around the room for roast beef, lamb and seared tuna, I went straight to the Sugarbuzz Bakers table and grabbed a slice of their Chocolate Toffee Cake. Why not have dessert first? The Caramel Apple Cake looked good but I waited too long to get some. There were only crumbs left when I returned to the Sugarbuzz table later in the evening.



The cakes from Sugarbuzz got third place overall from the judges. The Crown & Goose came in second with a duck cake (think crab cake) with pickled fall root vegetables. Sapphire rightfully took first place with an outstanding Ika salad -- ginger marinated squid with Asian vegetables and a sweet eel sauce -- and Caribbean tuna nigiri -- sashimi tuna served with pineapple calypso sauce and topped with toasted coconut.

Although they didn't make the top three, my wife and I agreed that the chicken Marsala and lobster ravioli from Carrabba's Italian Grill were excellent. We eat a lot of chicken and know a delicious chicken breast when we taste one.

Chef Walter was one of the judges. I was very impressed by his successful weight loss. He's been following a dietary program through the UT Medical Center. We caught up with him as he was leaving with some takeout containers for his wife, Miss Anne.



My wife and I also had nice conversations with Maestro Lucas Richman and Russell Biven. We especially enjoyed talking with former WBIR reporter Jim Ragonese and his wife Jaime. She said that I really need to read a book about cadavers called "Stiff." I recalled that the same author had written a book with a one-word title about sex and that it wasn't called "Stiff."

In addition to the live auction for big-ticket items like an emerald and diamonds ring from Lamon Jewelers, there was a silent auction in the lobby before dinner was served. My wife bid on a basket full of Thanksgiving items but was outbid. I was temped to place a bid for a custom website package until I saw that they offer "professioanl graphic design."

cookin' with gas

The new Christmas lights are on in Gatlinburg. By switching to LED bulbs, the four-month display will use the same amount of electricity as only three nights of the old incandescent bulbs. The Smoky Mountain city held its 19th annual Winter Magic Kickoff and Chili Cook-off this evening.



The headline entertainment was an incarnation of The Coasters. I doubt that there were any original members among the four guys we saw but they put on a good show nevertheless.



I was there to shoot some video for a feature called The Frank Files on the radio station's website. Inspired by the "Mascot Mondays" that I wrote about here over two years ago, I even tried dancing with a few of the costumed characters at the festival. With any luck, it will look funny on camera.

ooey gooey

The enticement of sweet treats was all it took for me to accept an invitation to judge a chili and dessert cook-off at Pleasant Ridge Elementary School’s PTO meeting on Thursday night. I almost didn't get there because the directions I was given didn't account for the long-term lane closure on Pleasant Ridge Road.



The other media judges were Michele Silva, Alison West and Brad Allen. It was the second time I had seen Alison in two weeks. We both showed up to judge a chili cook-off for the employees of AAA on October 16. As it worked out, Brad judged the chili along with two representatives from Food City. Michelle, Allison and I picked the dessert winner. The ladies preferred a Butterfinger Delight made with angel food cake. I liked the spice cake treats even though they were covered with a white chocolate bark. Its taste blended well with the cake inside, unlike the Halloween Oreo Balls I showed you yesterday.



The other judges and I had no problem agreeing on the Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake. It was almost as moist as actual pumpkin pie. I was pleasantly surprised to see it on the dessert table. My wife had recently told me about the recipe, which Paula Deen once featured in a cookbook. At the end of the instructions there are variations for pineapple, banana and peanut butter versions of the cake. My wife made the Peanut Butter Gooey Cake and brought it on our trip to share with our son and other family members just last weekend. She improvised by putting chocolate chips on top instead of chopped peanuts, as suggested on one site.

four out of five bullet points

Posting a blog entry about eating a cupcake yesterday helped me extend the experience long after the actual cupcake was gone. I like to write about the special treats, not about the vast majority of my meals, which are in keeping with the weight loss plan I started following over three years ago. I can afford a caloric splurge every now and again because of my normal vigilance.

That is the same word USA Today used to describe dietary success: "Food vigilance is key to keeping weight off," said the headline in Thursday's issue. I can follow all but one of the bullet points from the National Weight Control Registry. The people in the group lost an average 66 pounds and kept off at least 30. See if you can guess which of the following tips is the one that's too strict for me:

• Limit their calories to 1,800 a day
• Eat a low-fat diet
• Weigh themselves at least once a week
• Walk about an hour a day (11,000 steps) or burn the equivalent calories
• Watch fewer than 10 hours of TV a week

smoking section

An old blog entry helped me finally accomplish something that I wanted to do two years ago. Last night, my wife and I went to the St. Joseph School Fall Festival. As I finished writing about it, I checked my archives to see if I had mentioned the festival last year or the year before. I had, in a 2006 post which told of my dashed hopes to visit the Tennessee State Bar-B-Q Championship in Lenoir City.

I enjoy watching BBQ competitions on Food Network and had a great time at the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue a few years ago. A couple of clicks revealed that St. Joseph's festival and the Tennessee state championship were on the same weekend for at least the third year in a row. This year the cook-off moved out of Lenoir City Park to be combined with an antique car show and street festival on Broadway and Depot Streets.

Because of my work schedule, my wife and I got to Lenoir City around 10:30 a.m. and left around noon. We hadn't been there but a few minutes when we encountered Tammy Hudson, the official photographer for the event. I told her that I had recently looked at her photos from last year. She said she would get today's pictures posted as soon as her slow upload would allow.

The only vehicle in the car show that intrigued me was the Doubleheader Volkswagen Beetle. My wife said it was just like the pushmi-pullyu. Unfortunately it has one engine and only drives from one end. She also photographed a radio relic. And a piece of antique cabinetry.



What looked like an eighteen wheeler turned out to be a Peterbilt conversion RV. Just across the way, a friendly contestant told us about the chocolate cherry cobbler he was making. He cooked it in a dutch oven using a Boy Scout recipe.



We found three booths selling BBQ on one of the side streets between Broadway and Depot. One was serving Cades Cove BBQ, which had been cooked in a nearby factory. I opted to get a plate from the Smokin' Rednecks, who were cooking on site. I avoided their "Sissy Sauce" and used a combination of their medium and hot. Before we left, I followed a contestant from 4 Little Pigs BBQ as he turned in his chicken entry at noon.

in the pie hole

Which is better, cake or pie? It's an age-old dilemma that pits brother against brother. Or in my case, co-worker against co-worker. During my KROQ days, the morning show staff used to travel to New York for the MTV Video Music Awards. One year Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla posed the cake or pie question to the rest of us. The friendly argument continued during the award show as all the people sitting near us in the Radio City Music Hall balcony weighed in.

I had an opportunity to resurrect the debate in Knoxville at one of the now-defunct stations where I worked. Although I don't dislike pie, I argued convincingly for cake. I mean, who has birthday pie or wedding pie? I also opined that a cheesecake is actually a pie. I used to have an aircheck of the bit visible on my website but now it's stuck in a little-used subdirectory.

Last year I was asked to judge a cake decorating contest. I found out after I got there that there would be no tasting the cakes. Tonight it was pie's turn. When I was invited to judge a contest at the St. Joseph School Fall Festival, I made sure to ask in advance whether or not the judges would get to taste the pies.

St. Albert the Great pastor Fr. Chris Michelson, school booster Jim Humphries and I tasted small pieces of seven different pies. A very light pumpkin mousse pie barely edged out an excellent pecan pie as the winner. For third place, we had a very difficult time choosing between a chocolate chess pie and a Ritz mock apple pie that completely fooled us. After dessert, we had some of the festival's famous BBQ. I chose the chicken dinner over the ribs. Chopped pork gets added to the menu on Saturday.

the other forensics

This is not usually a blog about politics but occasionally something political catches my interest. For example, a Catholic blogger posted a link to an NPR story which reports that Starbucks customers prefer Obama while Walmart shoppers prefer McCain.

Meanwhile my wife's Aunt Ginny and some of our other family members in St. Louis will be affected by street closures for Thursday's vice-presidential debate. People visiting the site of the debate can buy donkey or elephant shaped cookies as a way of showing their preference. The elephant cookies won in 2004, which makes perfect sense to me. You get more cookie for your $1.25 with a big elephant than with a little donkey.

My recent posts about St. Louis restaurants must have caught the attention of somebody important. That's the only way I can explain why I got a press release about St. Louis Fashion Week from the Convention & Visitors Commission.

half dozen of another

Bringing cupcakes was my wife's idea. She and I were invited to have dinner tonight at the home of some friends we hadn't seen in a while. They are the same couple who first invited me to get LinkedIn and who we once saw at a Junior Brown concert.

I went to The Cupcakery in Bearden and chose six from among their ten available flavors. I picked Grasshopper, Community Cup, Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Cup, Orange and Confetti. Rather than each take a cupcake for ourselves, we shared. Our hostess was kind enough to pause while slicing the cupcakes so I could take pictures. The Orange cupcake had a marshmallow cream filling and the Community Cup had a raspberry filling. At this point, I'll let the photos do the talking. Enjoy...

have a long talk with that boy

The good chicken is on sale this week at Food City. I told my wife that I would use it to cook dinner for a change. My mother had suggested an easy meal that I was ready to try. As soon as I finished lunch today, I chopped up an onion and put most of it in the bottom of the Rival Crock-Pot we had received as a wedding gift all those years ago. I put some water in with the onion, which was probably unnecessary. Then I trimmed off what little fat was left on the boneless, skinless chicken breasts from Sanderson Farms and dropped them into the Crock-Pot. All I really needed to do now, was pour in a bottle of barbecue sauce and let it cook.

The fine folks at Fischer & Wieser recently sent me samples of their Beverly Hillbillies sauces. I cracked open the bottle of Elly May's Wild Honey Mountain BBQ Sauce and put some in the pot. Before emptying the bottle, I decided to improvise a bit. I didn't have any Liquid Smoke, as some recipes suggest. I did add in a few of my favorite spices like garlic, oregano, crushed red pepper and some of Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magic Salt Free Seasoning. I also poured in a couple of dollops of Roasted Blackberry Chipotle Sauce for additional sweet and heat. With the Crock-Pot set on high, I went to bed. After my afternoon nap but before my swim, I looked in on it and realized it needed a stir since some of the spices were still sitting on top. For future reference, do not stir hot liquids without a shirt. Even a tiny splatter will hurt. The chicken cooked for about five hours until it broke apart easily, which is what I was hoping for. My wife and I both thought it tasted great. There are plenty of leftovers to enjoy over the next few days.

To get in the proper spirit before cooking, I flipped on the daily repeat of "The Beverly Hillbillies" on WBIR. It was the one where the guy who played Dr. Bellows on "I Dream of Jeannie" was a chauffeur to a rich kid who was Jethro's friend. Max Baer, Jr., who played Jethro, partnered with Fischer & Wieser to create the Beverly Hillbillies sauces. I recall once hearing Max give a sales pitch for another of his pet projects, Jethro's Beverly Hillbillies Mansion & Casino. He had tried to get it built in six different Nevada locations before finally getting approval from Douglas County.

I thought of Jethro while on our road trip last month. All the difficulty he's had trying to build his casino made me wonder if he could have altered his plans and opened a non-gambling resort in Branson. After all, weren't the Clampetts from the Ozarks? Except for Granny, who was from the Smokies.

road tasted

The real reason my wife and I made a stopover in Memphis was to visit our friend Jessica. While we were there we toured Graceland and had an amazing piece of Oreo Cream Cake. There are still a couple of notes on my scratchpad that didn't make it into a blog entry until now.

The first billboards we saw after crossing from Arkansas into Tennessee had the giant face of attorney Corey B. Trotz. I had assumed that his repetitive, low-budget television ads were on in Knoxville only. He's actually a Memphis lawyer.

All of the BBQ joints I had thought about patronizing weren't convenient to Jessica's neighborhood. Because she knows I'm a fan of Food Network, Jessica asked if we wanted to try Neely's BBQ for dinner. The restaurant is owned by Pat and Gina Neely, hosts of "Down Home with the Neelys." It was not crowded that Wednesday night. Unfortunately, the service was bad. However the food was good. By the time our meals arrived, I was too hungry to remember to take a picture of the plate of Bar-B-Que spaghetti that my wife and I shared.

more leftovers

The cracker crust makes St. Louis pizza unique. During our road trip last month, my wife and I went to Imo's Pizza to sample some. The crust was okay but I didn't love the creamy sauce under the cheese. Some contributors on Chowhound suggested that it's the Provel cheese I didn't like. They mentioned a place called Pi that I should try next time.



We had a better meal at the City Coffee House & Crêperie. We ordered both a savory crêpe and a sweet one to share. They used a small rake-like utensil to smooth the batter over the griddle. The crêpes get stuffed with almost anything you can imagine.



The Cardinals were playing a home game as we drove out of town. During the radio pregame show, I heard a testimonial commercial for Kutis Funeral Home. Who did they get to voice the spot? Jack Buck's widow.

no need to feel down

Carbo-loading for tomorrow morning's Swim for Life is the excuse I'm using for eating fair food tonight. It was media night at the Tennessee Valley Fair. The organizers set up a buffet for all us media moochers. I sampled a few things including a corn dog and part of a funnel cake.

The featured attraction tonight was Village People. While we waited for the concert, my wife and I saw someone who looked exactly like David Keith going in the same stage door from which the singing group would eventually make their entrance. Maybe he wanted to say hi to them. I drew a red circle around him in the photo below:



This week's Metro Pulse has a couple of paragraphs by Jack Neely that perfectly explain what people like me thought when Village People hit the scene. I wasn't the only one who was too young or too naive to see the subtext at the time.

The Village People confused America more successfully than any other band in history. In 1977, some may recall, heterosexual men wore blow-dried hair styles, chartreuse pants suits, heels and jewelry. Old-fashioned institutions like the YMCA, the U.S. Navy, and machismo in general were withering, the rough equivalent of the Temperance League. Then, suddenly, all over TV, here came these guys dressed in unfashionably, boldly masculine costumes, as a cop, an Indian chief, a cowboy, a biker, an infantryman, a construction worker in a hard hat. And they sang, in commanding masculine tones over a driving disco beat, songs extolling the Y and the Navy, the old things our grandparents were always trying to talk us into. And even in the fruity '70s, these men boldly emphasized the necessity of being macho.

Good hippies cringed at what looked like a giant step backward into gender stereotypes. Conservatives rejoiced. Then America slowly realized that most of these guys were gay. What were we to think? We still haven't quite figured it out, even as we stand up to do the Y-M-C-A dance at baseball games.

At the end of tonight's concert, the Veepers (as they call themselves) taught us how to properly do the Y-M-C-A hand motions. To do the M, your hands should be in front of your sternum, pointing down, not atop your head. But I'm getting ahead of myself. "YMCA" was the obvious encore. The group sang their other well-known songs mixed in with a couple of cover songs and a part-medley, part-mashup thing called "Trash Disco." After pretending to end the show with "In the Navy," they came back on stage and said they would take a risk by letting the audience request their final song. Of course everyone screamed for "YMCA."



They had plenty of processing on their microphones but I was still left thinking that the members of Village People are very good singers whose voices blend well together. During their cover of "Iko Iko," it occurred to me that without their costumes and backing tracks, they would be indistinguishable from an experienced and talented a capella group. All they would need is a mouth percussionist.

When I was at Power 106, the station booked Village People to perform at a retro dance party for listeners. I was assigned the task of arranging for some celebrities to attend and appear on stage. The three stars I got were Susan Olsen, Hervé Villechaize and Norman Fell. It was the first time I met Susan. Who knew we would work together several years later?

The Veepers got to L.A. a couple of days before the concert. They came in for an interview on the morning show and had some free time on their hands. Meanwhile the station had a preview screening of a new movie that week. I will always remember that I saw "Jurassic Park" seated directly in front of the world famous Village People. The group will soon head back to California to perform at the L.A. County Fair and to receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Meanwhile back in Knoxville, my David Keith sighting was confirmed later tonight in the midway section of the fair. My wife and I were waiting in line for the Giant Wheel when I saw David getting into one of the cars. He gave a thumbs up for my camera:

sorry Charlie

Doug McCaughan used to have a picture on his site of a t-shirt that said "Don't Make Me Blog You." That was exactly my thought today when I was buying a can of tuna fish at Food City.

The shopping trip had started out well. I saw the Tennessee Traveler vehicle parked out front of the supermarket and knew that Alan Williams must be inside. He was just getting in the checkout line and paused to say hi. He said it had been a while since he had seen me. I mentioned that I had recently seen him on stage at the Tennessee Theatre when WVLT did their local upfront presentation. On the way home, I thought about the time I invited Alan, Gene Patterson and Ted Hall to judge a turkey cooking contest. I was with a now-defunct oldies station at the time. Each anchorman judged a different day of the three-day competition leading up to Thanksgiving.

I had driven over to Bearden to patronize one of the few Food City stores that still carries my favorite fat-free salad dressing. During my weight loss, I also switched brands of chicken and tuna. I only buy cans of StarKist that are marked not just "Low Sodium" but "Very Low Sodium." Tuna was a good choice for me on days I felt especially hungry. My serving size for chicken is five ounces. For turkey and most types of fresh fish, it's four ounces. For beef, it's only three ounces. However, I am allowed to eat a whole six-ounce can of low sodium tuna. That's why I got so mad at StarKist today when I took a can off the shelf and realized it had been downsized to four-and-a-half ounces. Boo StarKist! Now I have to look for a store that carries the very low sodium variety of Bumble Bee or Chicken of the Sea in six-ounce cans.

the water's fine

The broadcast networks are pitching in to fight cancer on Friday. ABC, CBS and NBC will all air "Stand Up to Cancer" at 8:00 p.m. that night. Dozens of celebrities will answer phones and take pledges.

I will do my small part to help on Saturday morning. I have long eschewed participating in any walkathons or fun runs because that sort of exercise makes me tired, sweaty and uncomfortable. However when Amy Fields of the American Cancer Society asked me to participate in a new event called Swim for Life, I said yes. It's an offshoot of their famous Relay for Life walking event. Swim for Life runs from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday at the UT Student Aquatic Center. I can't swim for four hours but I will swim as many laps as I can. Do you think I could get away with eating the same foods as Michael Phelps for a day? Probably not.

If you are so inclined, please make a pledge to support my efforts. I have a page on the ACS site where you can make a donation online or print off a form to mail in with a check.

how stuff works

Quick, what's the best part of an Oreo? Obviously it's the Stuf. When they want to improve an Oreo, they double the Stuf, not the cookie part. You may recall that during the NFL playoffs, I got all caught up in the Double Stuf Racing League theme song.

A restaurant chain called Country Kitchen is trying to hop on the Oreo bandwagon with their new Oreo Pancakes. They put two "oversized Oreo cookie wafers inside two of The Best Pancakes in Town." Sadly, they omit the Stuf. I guess the glob of whipped cream on the side is supposed to represent the missing Stuf. Before we looked at the murals, I tried some while in Cuba, Missouri. They were not bad, but I missed the Stuf.



The pancakes can take their place alongside the Oreo things that I wrote about one year ago. I still haven't tried an Oreo pizza or an Oreo sundae but the Oreo Cakester was good. Since the pancakes didn't satisfy my Oreo jones, I was drawn to a specific item in the pastry case at Sweet Desserterie in Memphis a few days later. Our friend Jessica took us there during our visit with her. The best thing I tasted during my vacation was that piece of Oreo Cream Cake. Before you give me a hard time, let me tell you that I've already lost the three extra pounds that I allowed myself to gain on vacation. And it was worth it. Just look:

move that bus

The light rain wasn't bad as we toured Hot Springs last Tuesday. It turned heavy overnight. My wife and I drove through several downpours on our way to the small town of Bigelow on Wednesday morning. Why Bigelow? Somebody there was getting a new house. A few days earlier, my friend Tim Puttre had called to say he was in Arkansas, working on the production crew of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Was I close enough to swing by for a visit? Now that Tim has moved from radio to television, he's gotten his own listing on IMDB.

Bigelow is near Conway, home of the annual Toad Suck Daze. The nearest big city is Little Rock, where the newspaper and television stations had coverage of the deserving family who received the new house. A local radio station's vehicle was on site when we arrived.



Tim instructed us to park in the spectator parking field. The water came halfway up our shoes as we stepped out of our car. From there, we rode a school bus to the muddy construction site. TV viewers won't see all the cars, trucks, trailers and tents that were set up on neighboring properties. Not wanting to schlep through the mud was one reason I had decided against going to Crater of Diamonds State Park. Yet here we were, following Tim through the mud to the catering tent. I told my wife that we should look down in case the rain made any diamonds visible. My friend Jessica says that digging for diamonds is for the truly desperate and the singly-focused meth heads.



In the catering tent, I noticed that volunteers had removed the labels from all the bottled water, soda, juice and tea. They do that in case one of the bottles is seen on camera. The green tea looked particularly unappetizing without its label. About Thyme, the catering company, had sent their truck all the way from the (818) area code. Maybe that's where they got the Sara Lee iced orange cake. Which reminds me, why can't I ever find any iced banana cake in the supermarket? I always loved that stuff.



Tim gave us some clear plastic ponchos and VIP guest passes. We were able to briefly meet designer Paul DiMeo as he passed us on his way to the house. Some nice volunteer gave us the same blue t-shirts that they all wear. The crew has a name for the image of all those blue-shirted volunteers arriving to demolish the old house. They call it the "Braveheart" shot.

the big four-oh

The itinerary for my just-completed road trip was designed so that I could add another state to the list of those I've visited. Arkansas is my fortieth state, filling in a gap on my coverage map.



My copy of "1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. and Canada Before You Die" helped me decide to head to Hot Springs, America's first resort. The book says that the word spa is an acronym for the Latin words for "health through water" (sanus per aquam) although other sources say the Latin is a convenient backronym.

We started out by touring the Fordyce Bathhouse, which is now the visitor center for Hot Springs National Park. We walked through the old locker rooms, steam rooms and massage rooms to see the equipment used back in the olden days. My wife was reminded of the way Hearst Castle in California is also frozen in time. The from-the-neck-down steam cabinets were something I had only previously seen in cartoons. Empty bottles are for sale everywhere in town. The hot water is available for free. In the AAA TourBook I learned that it takes 4,000 years for rainwater to soak into the nearby mountains and come back up through the springs, heated to 143 degrees.



Rather than just see history on display at the visitor center, we were able to experience it firsthand at the Buckstaff Bath House. We lined up early for the afternoon session, having been advised that those tickets often sell out. My wife and the other women went upstairs. The men bathe on the first floor. Everything inside the facility looked like it had been there since 1912. As I got in the porcelain tub, the attendant gave me a little cup of water from the tub's spigot and told me to drink it. During what seemed like a very long soaking, I occasionally twisted around to protect my parts from the whirlpool. I had plenty of time to think that I had probably never been more naked on a vacation. Eventually the bath attendant shut off the whirlpool and scrubbed my back, chest, arms and legs with a loofa mitt, which I got to keep. I also sat in a small steam room, took a needle shower. and sat in a sitz bath tub with water cascading over my lower back. After that, my lower back and shoulders were wrapped in hot towels. I think I may have dozed off for a minute while waiting for my massage.

After our spa treatments, my wife and I headed to another place mentioned in "1000 Places to See..." to get some dinner. We split an order of the famous ribs and fries at McClard's Bar-B-Q Restaurant. I didn't want so many fries, so we got it with half fries and half slaw. Two stickers on the front door at McClard's grabbed my attention. One said they were also featured in a book called "Eat This!: 1,001 Things to Eat Before You Diet." The other said "Warning: No Firearms Allowed." I wonder what happened in the past to make that sign necessary.

here comes Sander Claus

The first stop on our current road trip was technically a make-good for an old trip. About five years ago, my son and I went to the World Chicken Festival in London, Kentucky. Because the words chicken and Kentucky were involved, I thought the festival would be a little closer than it was to the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

After watching the parade, eating some chicken cooked in the World's Largest Skillet, having a deep-fried Twinkie for dessert, meeting a Colonel Sanders look-alike, meeting a Food Network camera crew, and watching the cluck-off competition, we just wanted to go home. Neither of us felt like stopping off in Corbin to see the original Sanders Cafe. By the way, the deep-fried Twinkie was not as good as it sounds. Oreos hold up much better to deep-frying.

The modern KFC attached to the old Sanders Cafe wasn't open yet when we got there last Saturday. The workers who had already arrived let us look around and take pictures. They asked if we were in town for the Nibroc Festival (Corbin spelled backwards), which happened to be that same weekend. Alas, we were only passing through.



The historical marker sign out front tells the story of how Colonel Sanders started serving food when the Depression slowed traffic at his gas station. Inside, there's a statue of a ghostly Colonel and a model of the motel and restaurant he opened to grow the business. He experimented with various ingredients and pressure frying methods until he came up with the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. His kitchen has been restored to what it looked like in 1940. In 1956, the Colonel heard the news that Interstate 75 would bypass his location. He sold that restaurant and began traveling and selling his fried chicken recipe to other restaurants.



The museum area has a display case with a Halloween mask of the Colonel. Another case has a record album titled "Christmas Eve with Colonel Sanders." While it would have been great to hear the Colonel sing, I can appreciate the fact that he included my favorite Christmas medley on his compilation disc.

muddy waters

As native St. Louisans, my wife's Aunt Margie and Aunt Ginny know a lot about the Gateway City. However neither of them had been to Fitz's American Grill & Bottling Works. I had a coupon for a free root beer float, so off we all went. The restaurant is on the busy Delmar Loop along with other eateries, nightclubs, theaters and at least two tattoo parlors. The weather was perfect for outdoor dining, as many were doing at sidewalk cafes. I decided that we would stay indoors, away from any smokers. Plus, our table had a decent view of the bottling line.



Our waiter recommended the Black and Blue Salad. Who doesn't want to eat something that sounds like a bruise? I asked him to make mine medium rare, the same way he would have them make one for himself. The salad was excellent but all I could think about was dessert. I had my mind set on a "Mississippi Float."



I was the only one at our table to order chocolate ice cream in my in my root beer. Everyone else got vanilla. They were less than enthused with their floats. Fortunately, mine was fantastic. Trading tastes with my wife confirmed that I had made the right choice.

sugar and spice

Food Network ran an old episode of "Good Eats" tonight that seemed familiar even though I had not seen it before. Alton Brown cooked up some homemade protein bars and a healthier alternative to Rice Krispies Treats. Last year, I wrote about the Brown Rice Crispy Bar when one of my brothers-in-law made something similar, using the "Good Eats" recipe as a guideline.



My sweet tooth must be acting up again. Earlier today I was reading a recipe for Roasted Blackberry Chipotle Brownies and wondering if I could talk my wife into making a batch the next time we need to donate something to a church bake sale or other event. Of course I would keep a few for myself. I like the idea of swirling the spicy sauce into the chocolate batter. Anne Traver at Fischer & Wieser sent me that recipe and several others along with a bottle of their new sauce.

I used the opportunity to call Anne to say thanks. While I had her on the phone, I asked about the Pomegranate & Mango Chipotle Sauce currently in my refrigerator. The sugar in the sauce crystallized in the fridge, the same way honey does when it gets too old or too cold. Anne is a former home economics teacher now in charge of testing recipes and creating new ones. She advised me to place the bottle in some hot water to melt the crystals. Or better yet, spoon out just what I need into a little bowl and then heat it. For lunch, I usually microwave five ounces of chicken and then top it with the pomegranate sauce or the Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce. Lately I've been putting the crystallized sauce on the cold chicken and then microwaving it.

UPS had trouble reading my house number on the package from Fischer & Wieser. They sent me a postcard saying that they had tried to deliver it to a non-existent address. Of course the postcard also had the wrong house number. Fortunately the USPS figured out how to get the card to me. The postcard came on Friday and said that they would return the package to the sender on Monday if I didn't come pick it up at their Callahan Drive location before they closed that night. Instead I called the phone number on the card, got them to correct my address and deliver the package to me on Monday.

almost a chicken and waffle

It was only my third time inside a Waffle House yesterday. When I first moved here, I went to the Waffle House on Papermill Drive to record a segment about what belongs on top of grits. My radio partner thought it was sacrilege that I put sugar on my grits.

My first experience with the House was in Tulsa many years ago. Don & Mike had planned on doing a live broadcast in front of Oral Roberts University on the day that Oral had set as a fund raising deadline. If he didn't get the cash, the Lord was going to call him home. Back in those days we would rent a big satellite truck for remotes from other cities. We were going to set up the truck in the parking lot of our hotel, right across the street from ORU. Our permission was revoked when the hotel manager figured out what we were planning. We were told that Oral also owned the hotel's land and virtually the whole neighborhood. Without a place to put the truck, we ended up calling in to the studio from various pay phones (remember those?) around Tulsa. I used a phone at a Waffle House for my live report.

My friend Sandy Weaver Carman and her husband were passing through town yesterday, so we arranged to meet for breakfast. Before heading out to our meeting, we tried to figure out how to make it sound like we were going to a fancy restaurant, similar to the way Target is often pronounced with a French accent. I asked my son how to say Waffle House in Spanish. He came up with "Casa de Indecisión."

It was great to see Sandy and her husband again. It's been a few years since we last visited her at a canine agility event near Atlanta. My wife and I were also happy to see her dog Billy who had come along for the ride. Once we were settled into the booth, we talked about Sandy's new voiceover business, my improv group, some former co-workers and radio in general. I would have liked to chat a lot longer but I stopped myself from bringing up new topics because I knew that they had to get on the road. Sandy's husband seemed very curious about improv. He has never seen "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" so I couldn't use that as a reference point. Maybe he can watch one of our YouTube videos.

For breakfast, I ordered one egg and split a waffle with my wife. I should have taken the extra calories and had the regular syrup. The sugar-free stuff tasted nasty to me. Sandy and her husband asked if I was sure I didn't want to eat anything more. After all, they said, it didn't look like I needed to lose any weight. I said that I was only trying to not gain it back. They must not remember how big I was three years ago, like in these before photos. Here's another one, taken while on a trip to Sandy's part of the world. That's me on the right, smart aleck.

chicken or pork?

There are a couple of shows on Travel Channel that could be on Food Network and several shows on Food Network that could easily pass for Travel Channel shows. A recent episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" got me thinking about where to have lunch the next time I'm in Memphis. It will be tough to choose between Tom's Bar-B-Q and Leonard's Pit Barbecue. A place called Marlowes didn't look bad either.

For me, food and travel have always been linked. When I think of places I've been, I remember specific restaurants and their delicacies. Whenever possible, I try to avoid chain restaurants at our destinations. Chains are fine for a pit stop along the Interstate.

I've been researching things to see and places to eat during our upcoming road trip. I decided to save Iowa for a time when I can also get to Nebraska. Therefore, the next state I will add to my list is Arkansas. As of right now, there are more restaurants on my list than tourist attractions.

My daughter gave me a copy of "1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. and Canada Before You Die" for my last birthday. And by last, I mean most recent, not final. The book recommends McClard's Bar-B-Q Restaurant in Hot Springs. I'm also intrigued by Gee Whillikers Soda Fountain and Eatery. My brother-in-law emailed to suggest a place called White Pig Inn in North Little Rock.

My plans for this trip also include a pass through Branson, Missouri. We won't have time to see or taste everything there. Any suggestions for the one or two best places to go?

it felt so wrong, it felt so right

First my local Sam's Club gets me hooked on Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce by offering free samples of it with cream cheese on a cracker. Then they run out of it and don't restock. Same with my bottled water. Now they have replaced the salad I eat every day with a more expensive gourmet version.

Because of all this, I have a confession to make. I cheated on my regular Sam's with the Sam's Club on the other side of town. We were over that way on Friday to see an ABBA/Batman double feature at the theatre inside Knoxville Center Mall. It didn't take long to discover that the other Sam's also carries Taylor Farms Garden Gourmet Salad (now with green leaf lettuce and radicchio) instead of the more affordable stuff I had hoped for. Things got better fast when I found plenty of Raspberry Chipotle Sauce and Deer Park one liter bottles. I put three bottles of one and two cases of the other in my cart. The different Sam's had done well by me.

No sooner had I gotten home from stocking up on my current favorite condiment when an email arrived from Fischer & Wieser. They are offering one free bottle of their newest flavor, Roasted Blackberry Chipotle Sauce, with any online purchase until July 31. Maybe I can make a little more room in the pantry.

björn again

A box office record was set this weekend by "Mamma Mia!" Huh? Oh sure, "The Dark Knight" broke all kinds of records but "Mamma Mia!" had the biggest opening for a musical. My wife was included in the 75% of the film's audience who are female, which makes me part of the other 25%. "Mamma Mia!" was okay. I only liked hearing the ABBA songs that I already knew, which was a little less than half of them. The unfamiliar tunes didn't do it for me. True ABBA fans would know all the songs.

I have seen enough clips on talk shows to know that Pierce Brosnan's singing voice is not in the same league as his co-stars. Meryl Streep's voice was believable as Donna, a former pop singer. Amanda Seyfried, the actress who played her daughter, sings well too. All through the movie, I kept trying to figure out how one of Donna's backup singers could possibly be Mrs. Weasley from the Harry Potter films too. Julie Walters disappears into both roles.

In the course of clicking around for "Mamma Mia!" information, I found a less than favorable movie review by Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News. I once did some work for her parents during Oscar week in Hollywood. Her dad is Stuart Weitzman, the famous shoe designer.

On Friday we met some friends at the Regal Knoxville Center 10. Our original plan to see "The Dark Knight" got modified when one of our friends suggested that we could see "Mamma Mia!" too. The show times allowed us to take a break for lunch in between. I got a salad at Chick-fil-A and somehow resisted the urge to get one of their delicious, hand-spun, 790-calorie milkshakes. In the end, we were all glad that ABBA was the opening act and that we made Batman the headliner. It wouldn't have been as enjoyable the other way around.

f-a-t-u-r-d-a-y night

This uplifting news came out just before the holiday weekend: dieters eat more on Saturdays. I thought about mentioning it last week but didn't want to ruin your (and my) celebration. If you've ever tried to lose weight, you probably won't be surprised that researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that their test subjects lost weight during the week but not on weekends. Fatty foods are the culprit. Participants ate about as much fat on the weekends as on the five weekdays combined. Hmm... were they allowed to visit Ted Drewes? The study results will be published in the journal Obesity.

For many of us, the pounds start to pile on during our college years. Last year, a Newsweek article spelled out the undergrad weight gain. A current Newsweek article points out the importance of keeping a food diary when trying to shed pounds.

I can relate. I kept a food diary during my weight loss in 2005 and 2006. To maintain my weight, I still weigh and measure my food portions when eating at home. This past Saturday I saved my starch allotment to have cake at a wedding reception. However I didn't plan for the mashed potato bar. It seems like every weekend lately there's been some cake or trifle or even a doughnut. At least it's swimming season and I can burn off some of those extra calories.

wherehouse store

Based on the big crowds at Sam's Club today you would have thought that a blizzard was coming. Despite the economy, people were stocking up for the Fourth of July. I was there just to get my regular groceries. They didn't have any of the one liter bottles of Deer Park water. The clerks told me they haven't had them for a while and probably never will again. Boo! I always take one of the bottles with me to the Einstein Simplified show on Tuesday nights.

It was no surprise that Sam's had run out of Jennie-O ground turkey again. That happens all the time. However the lack of Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce was a big disappointment. I hope it gets restocked soon. The sauce recently appeared out of nowhere to become my new favorite condiment. I wrote about it here when I bought my first bottle back in April. I just finished my second bottle of it this afternoon before heading out to Sam's.

My friend Bean gets some great responses to his blogs. For example, novelty singer Dr. Elmo recently posted a comment on Christmas Music Everyday and the son of novelty singer Dickie Goodman sent Bean an email. That's all well and good but I got a pretty good email response to my blog entry about the raspberry chipotle sauce. The company that makes it wrote to invite me to sample some of their other products!

My wife and son fooled me into thinking that I had gotten one extra present on Father's Day. They brought forth a large gift bag for me to open. In it was a box from Fischer & Wieser with the three free samples they had sent. I got a jar of Mom's Pasta Sauce, a bottle of Guacamole Starter and a bottle of Pomegranate & Mango Chipotle Sauce, which obviously is the first one I opened. Pomegranate and chipotle are two of my favorite tastes. The sauce is very good although I would have preferred a little more pomegranate and a little less mango.

In the accompanying press kit, I learned that the company also makes "The Beverly Hillbillies" brand of sauces. I think Jethro needs to send me a bottle since I'm such a fan.

when Hamptons wasn't cool

The Penny Candy Shop has gone out of business, reports my sister. She was visiting one of my favorite places on Earth, the east end of Long Island and saw the sign in the window. According to the real estate listings, the former Penny Candy Shop is for sale. The price? 200 million pennies.

The P.C.S. now joins Kathleen's Bakeshop on my list of former favorites in the Hamptons. Kathleen's sold the famous Crutchley's Cruller hearts (doughnut holes), which you would drop into a bag of powdered sugar and shake. Like the original Crutchley's Bakery, Kathleen's is closed now, as we discovered when we were in the area last summer. I saw online that Kathleen lost the rights to her own name. She has a new business called Tate's Bake Shop but there's no mention of whether she still sells the hearts.

One of my parents favorite restaurants in the Hamptons was Herb McCarthy's. It closed in the '80s. The microbrewery now in that location named a beer after Old Herb. It was the least they could do.

As far as I can tell, the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton and Sip 'n Soda in Southampton are still open and doing fine, even after the recent death of one of Sip 'n Soda's owners. And so is our local choice for pizza, La Parmigiana in Southampton.

could there be a connection?

There were two bottles of Henri's Fat-Free Honey Mustard Salad Dressing on the shelf at the Bearden Food City tonight. As my wife put them in our cart, I realized that they were the same bottles that remained after I bought all but those two last week. One still had their old-style label.

The Food City on Middlebrook Pike put Henri's on a close-out special last week. Does that mean it will be discontinued at all their locations or just that one? Chicken and salad dressing are the two main reasons we switched from Kroger to Food City. I may be looking to switch supermarkets again if I can't continue to get the fat-free Henri's.

Hometown Favorites charges the same price for Henri's as Food City. I have to decide if it's worth paying added cost of shipping and handling. I couldn't find a website for the Henri's brand, just for its parent company, ACH Food Companies in Memphis.

I wish I could buy Henri's dressing as cheaply as the two Chicago-area crooks who got it for only 3¢ a bottle. That wasn't their crime. It was relabeling the bottles to change the expiration date and reselling them to stores. Setting up a toll-free hotline to lie to customers didn't help them either. One of these creative criminal minds is was a movie director.

h-e-double toothpicks

For a recent birthday celebration, my wife and I bought some Culpitt Party Candles at Food City. As with almost anything nowadays, this product was made in China. Perhaps that explains why the letters that are supposed to spell "over the hill" instead spelled "over the hell." If you look closely at the back of the packages, you can see that one has an "I" while the other has an "E." You just know which one we had to buy.



Later, we played our own version of Jumble with the candles and came up with a few other possibilities, including some not pictured here.





PS: You can't get a fancy cupcake in this town on a Sunday. The three bakeries that I checked were all closed.

pucker up

The lemonade stands in the neighborhood where I grew up consisted of nothing more than a card table and a sign made of oak tag. That was what they called poster board around those parts. Today I spotted a lemonade stand as nice as the ones in the comic strips. Here's a photo I took from my car just as the kids were closing up shop. Next time I drive down that street I will have to drop 50¢ and buy a glass.

cool day, hot day, wet day

M&M Catering has to move. The landlord wants them out by July 9. It often seems to me that their little cinder block shack on Middlebrook Pike draws more cars than the laundromat on whose property it sits. When we first moved into our house, the locksmith we hired told us that he also owned the laundromat. I wonder what he plans to do with the extra space.

The M&M folks put up a new banner today announcing their relocation. They are moving down the pike to where Catinella's used to be. The staff told me that they're not turning into a sit-down restaurant. It will still be a takeout place. I should have asked if they plan to build another cinder block shack in the parking lot or if they'll use Catinella's old kitchen.



Even though M&M is only open four days a week, it's been a favorite of mine and of others for years. I root for their success, especially in light of a tragic hardship a couple of years back. When I drive past, I often roll down the windows to get a whiff of whatever is cooking, even at 5:20 a.m.

My wife and I wanted to pick up some BBQ on Father's Day after work. M&M is closed on Sundays so we thought of a place on Walker Springs Road that I've been meaning to try. Turns out that Pup's BBQ is closed Sundays too. Although I understand why they would want the day off (like Chick-fil-A), I wonder if either place considered being open on Sundays and closed another day instead. This wasn't the first time that I wanted some BBQ from M&M on a Sunday.

Since we had driven to Pup's only to find them closed, we went around the corner to the Buddy's Bar-B-Q on Kingston Pike to get our takeout. I knew we were having chocolate trifle for dessert, so I ordered the turkey instead of the pork. I was disappointed to find that the turkey was cold and sliced thin like the processed deli meat available in supermarkets. I was hoping for something more like the pulled chicken at M&M. I microwaved it and doused it with sauce before eating it.

trifle eyefull

The brownie was too dry, my wife thought as she crumbled it into a large glass bowl last night. She was making a chocolate trifle for Father's Day. She wondered if it was because she substituted Splenda Sugar Blend for real sugar. Or maybe the recipe she got from Hershey's Cocoa should list a slightly shorter cooking time.



A layer of chocolate mousse went on top of the brownies. It was made from Nestle's European Style Mousse Mix. That was topped with some store-brand fat-free whipped topping and a crumbled Heath bar. All that was repeated for a second set of layers. The bowl sat in the refrigerator for 24 hours. We thought the layers would smush together but they stayed fairly separate. We each had some for dessert tonight with a little bit of sugar-free Jell-O pudding (not pictured) thrown on top for extra moisture.

hot now

Happy National Doughnut Day! You can get a free one at Krispy Kreme just for stopping by today. I'm posting earlier than usual in case you happen to read this in time to go get yours.

It's been about a year and a half since my last visit to the famous doughnut shop. And that time I didn't get anything. Today, my intention was to get a glazed chocolate cake doughnut for free. Those were sold out so I had to look for my second choice, glazed sour cream. I asked the lady behind the counter to identify the doughnuts in one tray . She said they were glazed pumpkin spice. What about this other tray, I asked. She said they were also glazed pumpkin spice even though they looked very different to me. I chose the one that I thought might be a glazed sour cream despite what the clerk had said. I won't know if I was right for several days because I brought the doughnut home, put it in a Ziploc bag and stuck it in the refrigerator where it will wait until I can spare the calories. I'm not eating it today because there's supposed to be cake at the party my wife and I are going to tonight. Mmm.. cake.

The Bearden Krispy Kreme has a narrow red ramp to the window so you can watch the doughnuts being made. If I ate there regularly, there's no way I would fit on the ramp.

lowering the bar

All the Barenaked Ladies songs that I can think of are uptempo tunes with verbose lyrics. After a couple of listens, I tire of them and tune away when they come on the radio. "One Week" is a perfect example. You might also know "If I Had $1000000."

Given their penchant for clever lyrics, I was interested in hearing their new children's song, "Snacktime." I had read that the song named the favorite snacks of several celebrities including Lyle Lovett (watermelon) and Weird Al Yankovic (honey roasted peanuts). Plus, I enjoy a good snack as much as anybody. The song can be heard on BNL's MySpace page. Instead of intricate rhymes, the song is a sleepy number that repeats the hook: "Snack time, snack time, oh snack time." The celebrities literally phone in their snack choices. Janeane Garofalo likes microwaved chocolate donuts and Gordon Lightfoot enjoys pasta, which is more of a meal than a snack.

Most of the snacks of the rich and famous in the song would fail the "rules to eat by" that were on "Nightline" last night. A proponent of organic foods says we shouldn't eat anything our great-great-grandmothers wouldn't recognize as food. I know that Michael Pollan's point is to get us to eat mostly plants but my favorite part of the report (four and a half minutes in) was the old Twinkies commercial that claimed the snack cake gave your child "energy to go on and protein to grow on."

not a spoonerism

What makes a place one of your "regular" restaurants? Do you have to go there once a week? Once a month? Once a year? I thought about that question yesterday when my wife and I saw that our regular Fuddruckers had closed. I wonder what they did with all the wall decorations.



We drove by it yesterday on our way home from Grandma's birthday party in Fairfax County, Virginia. The restaurant was in Salem, about halfway between our house and Northern Virginia. My wife and I could each get a salad and split a burger or a chicken sandwich while taking a break from the eight-hour road trip. I'm pretty sure I had been to the Salem Fuddruckers more often than the one near my house in Knoxville, which is still open.

always more fun

The cupcake fad is about to hit Knoxville in a big way. We already have VG's Bakery and MagPies, both of which I still haven't tried. However I have discovered another blog devoted to the little treats, Cupcakes Takes the Cake.

Now The Cupcakery has established its first foothold in East Tennessee with a delivery-only location in Oak Ridge. They plan to open a Bearden store in June. I had the opportunity to taste a couple of their flavors one afternoon last week when a box was delivered to the office. There were enough for me to take two varieties home. I cut each in half and shared them with my wife. The Double Chocolate had a disc of baking chocolate stuck into the buttercream icing as a garnish. The Peanut Butter Cup had a crumbled Reese's on top. As you would expect, the creamy frosting steals the show from the chocolate cake. That's probably why a cupcake shop in Los Angeles sells icing shots for 75 cents. I think I would enjoy one of these gourmet cupcakes with some buttercream injected into the middle. Can't have too much frosting.

If the Bearden store were already open, I would be tempted to swing by this week for the featured flavor, the Graceland. It has banana cake with peanut butter icing. I've always loved banana cake. By the way, why can't I ever find the frozen Sara Lee Banana Cake I loved as a child? Anyhow, back to the point. The Cupcakery will offer Graceland cupcakes from April 28 through May 3. I wonder if they might be similar to the Elvis Cupcakes I saw online. One of the blog commenters suggests a Fluffernutter cupcake. This. Must. Happen.

Bearden will actually be home to two cupcake shops. Their online calendar says Cities Cupcake Boutique will have its grand opening on Sunday, May 18 but according to their store hours, they will be closed Sundays. When I was a kid, Sundays were the busiest day at the Crestwood Bakery. Everyone went there after church. Oh yeah, back to the point again. Cities cupcakes are each named after a different city. Knoxville gets an orange cupcake. In a bit of political commentary, the vanilla cupcake is named after Washington, DC. Maybe they can do a peanut butter and banana cupcake and name it after Memphis.

junior samples

Part of the fun of a trip to Sam's Club is getting the free samples in the food section. The pizza's not bad either. I've noticed that there are more sampling stations on Fridays than on Mondays.

Most of the products being sampled are things I would never buy. I can enjoy a small taste of a fattening food without buying a gigantic package of it. For that reason, I try to slip away before the Sam's staffers do their soft sell. They usually will say "those are only (price) and they're on the shelf right here." Some of the ladies will look right at you and wait for you to put a package of whatever it is in your cart. However the lady who usually serves fresh fruit samples is always pleasantly conversant. On her advice, I've tried a different type of apple and stocked up on navel oranges, which have been especially good this year.

My standard operating procedure changed the other day when I tasted a sample of a spread on a cracker. It was simultaneously sweet and spicy and fruity and smoky, all flavors I love. Without even looking at the price, I grabbed a 40 ounce bottle of Fischer & Wieser Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce. I hesitated just long enough to check the label for the amount of calories and sodium per serving. Only 40 calories and 60 milligrams of sodium. Sold!

Despite the shape of the bottle, its consistency is more like jelly than BBQ sauce. The sample lady had put a dollop of the jelly sauce on top of a schmear of cream cheese on a cracker. I don't bother with any of that. I just pour the sauce directly onto my five ounces of chicken. Next time we have turkey, I will use it instead of cranberry sauce.

how 'bout a monster for breakfast

The rain today made it feel right to stay in my pajamas and plop down in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal. The only difference from childhood was that my bowl now contained exactly ¾ cup of Kashi GOLEAN instead of something with marbits. And that I was watching EWTN instead of Saturday morning cartoons. I had another childhood flashback last week when I saw a box of Quisp at Dollar General.

After finishing breakfast, I clicked around the Internet for a while. Coincidentally I found more cereal reminders. First I saw a funny movie poster that wonders what it would be like if they made a live-action film about Count Chocula. Then I saw an older Count at an imaginary cereal mascot reunion.

Last Halloween Jimmy Kimmel dressed as the Count while the rest of his on-camera staff dressed as other cereal icons. Together they looked like Chris Burney's arm. A couple of years earlier my friend Bean wore a Count Chocula costume to the KROQ Halloween party.

Before last Tuesday's Einstein Simplified show, Dave Snow and I thought of a new twist for the "Race for Coffee" game. Instead of sending someone across the street for coffee during a guessing game, we can send them to the Knoxville Pearl for a bowl of cereal and milk. I visited the place when it first opened and saw the images of the General Mills cereal monsters painted on the wall.

onward and upward you must press

The Catholic Charities Annual Dinner Gala took place last night in downtown Knoxville. My wife and I had a great time, mainly because there were so many people there that we knew, including Fr. Ragan Schriver who greeted everyone as they arrived. We said a brief hello in the hotel lobby to Bruce Hartmann. I found out today that Bruce is number 39 on BusinessTN's 2008 Power100 list. Had I known last night, I would have congratulated him. Before dinner we had a nice chat with Fr. Eric Andrews near the cheese tray. All three have been my guests on a public affairs radio show over the past two and a half years.

At seven o'clock the crowd moved into the ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Our seats were at table 26. My wife and I both thought we were losing our minds as we looked for our table. Tables 24, 25 and 27 were all lined up in a row as were the rest of the numbered tables. Eventually we found table 26, out of sequence on the far right of the room. The salads and desserts were already in place at each of the tables. The salads were all the same but the desserts alternated between cheesecake and chocolate cake. People all over the room jockeyed for position so they could sit in front of their preferred dessert.

The after-dinner entertainment was by the Smokyland Sound Barbershop Chorus. The singers walked right past our table on the way to their risers. As soon as I saw them, I secretly hoped they would sing "The Roses of Success" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." While the senior members of the group sang their first couple of songs, two others stood against the wall near our table waiting to go on. My wife and I recognized one of them as Jim, a member of the All Saints choir. The two wore tuxedo shirts and bow ties but not the sequined vests that the others had on. At that same time, someone at our table wanted coffee. A helpful priest jumped up and asked Jim to serve our table. We could read Jim's lips as he explained that he was only there to sing.

Fr. Michael Woods interrupted Fr. Ragan's closing remarks to publicly thank him for all his hard work as director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. The thanks were delivered roast-style as Fr. Michael teased Fr. Ragan about his vegetarian diet and his casual attire. We learned that Fr. Ragan and several other priests got stranded in Atlanta when their connecting flight to Missouri was canceled. They were supposed to attend the ordination of Bishop Vann Johnston. Speaking of bishops and Knoxville's current lack of one, Fr. Michael jokingly put on a red skullcap during his remarks. When we spoke with him later, he was very relieved to hear that the Vicar General, Monsignor Xavier Mankel had gone home just before the comedy commenced.

exhibitionists

Two of my former hometowns are hosting exhibition baseball games today. One game is in a brand new stadium, the other in a throwback venue. The Nationals play their first game in Nationals Park while the Dodgers return to the L.A. Coliseum, where they played when they first moved to Los Angeles 50 years ago. Meanwhile my Mets are playing today in the Civil Rights Game in rainy Memphis. I'll watch the beginning of each game on TV. The Mets game came on ESPN at 5:00, the Nationals game started on MASN at 6:00 and the Dodgers game is on NESN at 10:00. The Nationals game is also available for free on MLB.TV. I clicked on to it just in case MASN was blacked out on my TV. The video is the same but the computer stream is using audio from the visitors' radio broadcast.

While the architects and environmentalists are gushing over the new stadium's design and eco-friendliness, I am most excited about the food choices inside Nationals Park. They will regularly have menu items like Milwaukee brats and Philadelphia cheese steaks that honor National League opponents. Some food items will only be available when the corresponding team is visiting, like knishes when the Mets are in town and California rolls when the Dodgers visit.

As a former Washingtonian, I think it is fantastic that local restaurants will have outlets inside the stadium. Who needs a brat when some Red Hot & Blue BBQ or a Five Guys burger is available? My wife will be able to reminisce over some Gifford's Ice Cream. She and her family used to get Gifford's on the way home from the airport.

My next scheduled trips to the D.C. area will be too short to take in a ballgame. When I finally do get to the new stadium, even I should be able to resist the temptation to bring in my own food.

you're it

A few of the blogs I regularly scan have been tagged with the same meme. I got tagged by missybw at The House of Flying Monkeys. Who can I tag? I think I've used up my quota on other memes. I either need to find some new targets or try something else. Here's my idea. Tag yourself. Go ahead and write your own responses in the comments here or post a link to your own blog.

Name one thing you do every day:
The obvious answer is that I post something on my blog. I also try to watch and delete something on the HD DVR or the TiVo.

Name five things/people that make you feel good:
dark chocolate
doing improv
reading my friend Bean's blog
a nice long nap
swimming in my backyard pool

Name four things you love to eat but rarely do:
Oreos dunked in milk until they stop bubbling
lobster
pomegranates
pulled pork BBQ

Name three things that remind you of childhood:
smell of my mother's Chanel N°5
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Batman

Name two things you wish you could learn:
to sing half as well as my wife
to deal with the anxiety that causes me to procrastinate (add link later)

with two you get eggroll

The White House may have had the Jonas Brothers perform today but we have our own Easter Monday tradition here on the blog. Last year and the year before, I showed off our family's decorated eggs. This year we take a look at how my son makes his annual Earth Egg. Using regular Paas dyes, he soaks one in blue until it reaches the desired hue. Then he uses a Q-tips cotton swab and a glass of water to erase the dye from the land masses. He dips another swab in green dye and paints on the continents. Obviously the North and South Poles are left white.



My son was happy with the way his Asia turned out. Below, he's displaying India for the camera. The finished product takes its place among the rest of our 2008 Spring collection, with Europe and Africa visible. Last year we showed you the Western Hemisphere before it got peeled and eaten.

eyes are smiling

The annual Women Today Expo happens this weekend at the Knoxville Convention Center. Wow. That means it has already been a year since my wife and I showed off our makeovers in the fashion show at that event. To promote this year's expo, the News Sentinel has a slideshow on their website. Look for me in photos 8 through 13. Those are the ladies from Garde Bien Spa Salon fussing over me in the first few pictures.

I think more than a few people will show up this weekend expecting to go to the Food City Food Show, which had been a part of the Women Today Expo for years. The line to get in to the Food Show was always so long, it made me think that more people came to it than to the main event. The Food Show's popularity has allowed it to be spun off into a separate event to be held in September. I guess that means Chef Walter has this weekend off for a change.

Food City sponsors Chef Walter's daily cooking segment on WVLT. Today he made an Irish Soda Bread that looked spectacular. It made me want a piece of my mother's soda bread, slathered in butter. I called Mom today to tell her about it and to ask if she would mind me putting the family recipe on my blog. Here it is, in time for the early celebration of St. Patrick's Day in some Catholic dioceses around the world.

My Great-Grandmother's Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup butter
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
• 1 cup of raisins
• 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
• 2 to 3 cups buttermilk

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter, dough becomes like pebbles. Coat caraway seeds and raisins with flour and add to mix.

Mix baking soda into 1 cup of buttermilk. Slowly add to flour mix, a little at a time. Continue adding buttermilk slowly, until the dough is moist and forms a ball (or pulls away from bowl). The amount of buttermilk needed depends on the weather.

Put a tablespoon of flour on a board and coat hands with flour. Knead dough a little and shape it into a loaf. Cut an X into the top.

Bake in two greased and floured 8 inch pans (or as one loaf on a cookie sheet) at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes, again depending on the weather. Test with a cake tester. Cool on a rack. Enjoy.