two great tastes

With the closing of the Fuddruckers in Salem, my wife and I had to find a different place to stop for dinner on our last trip. We picked a random Cracker Barrel along I-81 in Virginia and were immediately disappointed by the question: "smoking or non-smoking?" Our non-smoking table was in a direct line of sight and smell from the smokers. Even though the non-smoking section was much larger, we had to wait for a table. There was no waiting for a smoking table.

Cracker Barrel has a country store where we could bide our time. One corner of the store had a display that showed they know about the current popularity of cupcakes. In addition to the cookbooks and standard muffin pans, they had a pretty neat Ice Cream Cone Cupcake Pan. The cake looks like a cone. The frosting takes the place of ice cream.



Rather than cupcakes that just look like ice cream cones, some people will be celebrating summer with cupcakes that are mini ice cream cakes. You can make your own or buy some at a place called MaggieMoo's that I will have to try sometime when I'm out at Turkey Creek. The ladies at Cupcakes Take the Cake taste tested a brand called PhillySwirl that is available at Sam's Club. I agree with their assessment that these seem to stretch the limits of what we call cupcakes. Not that it's a bad thing.

Ice cream cupcakes would be great but what we really need for this weekend are some graduation cupcakes. Or the time to make them.

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.

little lambs eat ivy

Thursday nights mean big crowds downtown. My wife sings with the Knoxville Choral Society and didn't want to be late for their performance with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra tonight. The show didn't start until 8:00 but we pulled into the State Street garage at 6:00. There was still plenty of time to walk to Market Square and get a big salad at Trio. Meanwhile, outside the restaurant, people were arriving for Smokedown Sundown in the City. Because Sundown is an open air event, the smokers come out in droves.

While we got to the Tennessee Theatre with plenty of time to spare, several audience members and two violinists took their seats well after the concert started. Tonight and tomorrow night the Symphony is presenting the "Requiem" by Berlioz. It basically follows the format of a Catholic funeral Mass. In fact, the piece was commissioned for a state funeral in Paris in 1837.

I was impressed that there was too much music for the stage to contain. The KSO brought in musicians from surrounding areas on a "per-service" basis. In addition to several extra tympani players, there were about 140 members of the Knoxville Choral Society (including my lovely wife) packed onto six rows of risers. A soloist named Andrew Skoog had a chair near Maestro Lucas Richman. Best of all, there were four brass choirs surrounding the audience, two on either side of the stage and two more in the back of the auditorium. Horns, trombones and tubas in the four corners of the theatre created a great surround sound effect.

The Berlioz Requiem will be performed again on Friday night. My wife will have to get there early because of the rescheduled Dogwood Arts Parade that runs right past the Tennessee Theatre starting at 7:00 p.m.

blogic: the gathering

What do you call a group of bloggers? Several of us got together tonight for hot wings and conversation. Perhaps we could borrow a term from the animal kingdom. A pride of bloggers makes sense for obvious reasons. So does a parliament of bloggers. A gaggle could fit too. Or maybe even an exaltation. I suppose we could try making up our own term. A blaggle of bloggers reminds me too much of the Bob Loblaw Law Blog. Actually, a boggle of bloggers has a nice ring to it.

Most of the bloggers present were people I had already met. Rich, Lissa, Doug and Cathy used their various handheld devices to work on their posts from our table at the Wild Wing Cafe. Doug has already published his recap. He's not exaggerating when he says that the loud TV audio was a conversation killer. It was on just long enough to get us to leave. Once we got to the exit, the play-by-play was replaced with music.

Victor and his brother Joseph were, I think, first time attendees. Victor works for AOL, helping to maintain their Weblogs, Inc. Network. He often writes on the DIY Life site. I told him that I regularly read TV Squad, Engadget HD and Slashfood.

I forgot to ask my fellow blogateers if they had seen my post yesterday about Googlegängers. My former improv brother (now in the USAF) Lance Harwell turned it into a meme by posting a comment with a list of his own Googlegängers. Why not post your own list there too?

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.

s'möres-gåsbord

There are rules prohibiting me from clicking on the ads on my own site. However if one of them should pique my interest, I can easily open a new tab and navigate my way to the site mentioned in the ad. That's the path that brought me to some good looking pictures of Plush Puffs Gourmet Marshmallows. They make several specialty flavors including Simply S'mores. In the Los Angeles area, you can hire the Plush Puffs crew to set up a s'mores bar at your next party. I need to keep that in mind when I visit.

Last weekend my wife and I bought a s'mores dessert at Mimi's Cafe. Rather than eat it in the restaurant, we took it home for another day. Our waiter had the kitchen staff put it in a to-go box without heating it. They also gave us little containers of chocolate and caramel topping. The next day I put the dessert on some foil and stuck it under the broiler.



My wife drizzled the toppings over the warm s'more, trying to emulate the photo on the menu at Mimi's. We were happy with the results even if it didn't look quite as fancy as it would have at the restaurant.

reaches across the room

The time of our arrival at the local art house cinema would determine which Oscar-winning movie we saw today. If we could get there before 4:30, we would see "No Country for Old Men." As it turned out we saw "There Will Be Blood," which will always be known as the "I drink your milkshake" movie. I found it easier to stop trying to figure out the unexplained plot details and just concentrate on the character study of crazy Daniel Plainview.

Afterward we went to Mimi's Cafe for dinner. While we were placing our order, some other servers brought an array of huge desserts to the family sitting at the next table. We asked our waiter to tell us what five different things they had ordered. The Triple Chocolate Brownie and the Bananas Foster Mud Pie were especially large.

We behaved ourselves by each ordering a salad and splitting one entree between us. When we got our check we saw that the total was five dollars less than the amount of the gift certificate we had. On an impulse we ordered a dessert from the special, seasonal menu, choosing the one thing the family at the next table had skipped. My decision was pretty much based on the photo alone. Although the description of Mimi's S'mores sounded good too: "Layers of toasted marshmallow cream, chocolate crunch and a cinnamon graham crust. Served warm and topped with caramel and chocolate sauces."

We told our waiter that we were going to save it for another day. He had them put it in a carryout box without heating it up. They put the chocolate and caramel sauces in little containers on the side. Now we have to decide whether to freeze it until after Easter or to eat it tomorrow on the grounds that technically Sundays don't count as part of Lent. Either way, we'll need to toast the top of it and drizzle on the sauce to make it look like the picture.

survival of the fittest

The owner of a local restaurant says business is down by a third since the state enacted a partial smoking ban last October. Tennessee allows restaurants to choose whether to serve all ages in a smoke-free environment or to only serve patrons over 21 who are free to smoke at the table. In many other states, smoking is banned at all restaurants, period.

When a restaurant suffers because of the smoking ban, I have to wonder what it was that drew in their clientèle in the first place. Obviously, restaurants that can survive on the quality of their food will do so. Others that rely on their atmosphere, albeit polluted, can continue to cater to smokers. Some of the comments posted on the News Sentinel article are worth reading (especially this one and this one), if you can ignore the ones from smokers who somehow feel that their "right" to blow smoke in our faces has been infringed upon by the ban.

At the end of the newspaper article, Scott Bryan from the Knox County Health Department says that some restaurants have seen their business double since the smoking ban. Yet that doesn't make the headlines. Meanwhile, the story about the restaurant switching back to allow smokers gets picked up by TV stations in Alabama and Kansas and who knows where else.

i.h.o.b.s.

Did you vote on Super Tuesday? Did you eat anything that day? Apparently IHOP thought we couldn't do both. In addition to voting, I went to work, posted a blog entry, went to a business lunch at a client's, bought some salad at Sam's Club, picked up my son from school, took a nap and performed with Einstein Simplified. Who's to say I couldn't have eaten a short stack as well?

Pancakes were traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday as people used up the fresh ingredients that would go to waste during Lent. Because several states had their primaries on Shrove Tuesday this year, IHOP moved their celebration of National Pancake Day to February 12. Too bad the voters in Virginia, Maryland and DC will be too busy to enjoy free pancakes that day.

it's surreal thing

The face at the restaurant looked familiar to my daughter this past weekend. She wrote, "Look! It's you! I saw this at Macaroni Grill." I'd somehow been Picasso-ized by a stranger with a crayon at a restaurant 400 miles from here.



Maybe somebody should start up a website that lets you convert a photo of yourself into a Picasso masterpiece. Over the summer, my daughter ran my photo through the SimpsonizeMe website and tweaked it to come out with a fairly accurate result.



While we're on an artistic bent, you might recall the time I posted a doodle drawn by my daughter.

cheese and oxygen

The best known pizza place in East Tennessee used to be off limits to me. I had been to Big Ed's Pizza in Oak Ridge when I was new to the area but found the place filled with cigarette smoke. Despite my love of pizza, I knew I could never return. Fortunately the smoking ban that went into effect last month has opened some doors for me. The giant caricature of Big Ed in the window is probably inviting to most, however it was the no-smoking sign on the door that said "welcome" to me.



I asked our waitress if I could order a salad. "We only sell pizza," was her response. Without any acrid smoke to interfere with the taste, I could finally understand why everyone loves Big Ed's. The pizza was really good, especially the crust. They make their own dough at Big Ed's and it shows. The tiny paper plates and super thin napkins make eating a little more challenging than at most restaurants.



On my first trip to Big Ed's, I got one of their famous t-shirts. At the time I needed size XXL, which is now way too big for me. The thought of the smoke kept me from going back to get a free shirt on my last birthday. Now that the air is smoke-free, I can make plans to pick up a size L shirt next year.

stampede of dollars

The local chapter of the March of Dimes asked me to be a spotter for the Signature Chefs Auction tonight. I pointed out bidders in the crowd to auctioneer Robbie Franklin. The food at the event reminded me of Feast with the Beasts except more civilized. Several top restaurants served their best fare in a ballroom at the Knoxville Convention Center. Unlike the event at the zoo, everyone in the crowd was dressed up and the delicacies were served on china plates.

As much as I wanted to sample every dish being offered, I don't think it would have been physically possible even with the small portion sizes. Nama took first prize for their delicious seared tuna roll. I also liked the braised veal cheek from Northshore Brasserie and the pumpkin cheesecake served with gingersnaps in a champagne glass from Hunter's Bakery & Cafe.

A number of local celebrities were in attendance. I had a chance to converse with many of them. John Becker was the emcee for the evening. He and I mostly talked about our mutual friend Fr. Ragan Schriver. John and I recently did some volunteer work on a project for Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. I told John that I believe that Fr. Ragan could be a superstar on the national charitable scene if he wanted to. After all, he already has TV experience as a contestant on "Warehouse Warriors."

Kay Watson was sitting at the WBIR table. When I said hi to Kay tonight, I told her that we had once met at Dollywood. She responded by saying, "oh yeah, you were sitting behind us." By doing so, she as much as acknowledged that she has seen the picture of the back of her head that I posted here last summer. I mentioned the photo and she confirmed that she had heard about it and then looked at it online. Fortunately for me, she saw the humor in it.

Chef Walter Lambert was still on a high from meeting Betty White, who was in town on Friday. After her live interview with Stacy McCloud, Betty was ushered onto Chef Walter's kitchen set to taste his bran muffins.

Maestro Lucas Richman listened patiently as I requested he schedule a program of classical music that we would recognize from cartoons. His lovely wife Debbie remembered meeting me on the Knoxville Symphony's recent Blogger Night.

Diana Morgan, the recently retired host of the Scholars' Bowl on East Tennessee Public Television, talked to me about the value of participating in academic competitions when it comes to filling out college applications.

Scott Branscom from "HGTVPro.com Weekly" was stunned by my appearance. Aside from the weight loss and makeover, the fact that I was wearing a suit and tie tonight made the difference from the last time he saw me all the more noticeable. Scott was one of the master carpenters on "Warehouse Warriors" when I was a guest judge on the show about four years ago. Coincidentally, the episode I did will be repeated this Thursday at 5:00 a.m. Set your TiVo.

cereal port

After the Einstein Simplified show on Tuesday night, my wife and I left the delightfully smoke-free Patrick Sullivan's and started to cross Jackson Avenue. Halfway across the street I remembered a couple of blog entries I had read about the new cereal bar in town. We turned left on the sidewalk and walked a few doors down to The Knoxville Pearl, which is named after a type of tea. The sugary cereals are all-you-can-eat. The more grown up cereals are sold by the cup. The toppings that are offered might make you think you're ordering ice cream instead of cereal. I remember seeing some crushed up candy bars and Oreo cookies. The nostalgic decor brings back memories of eating cereal and watching cartoons on a Saturday morning. Ironically, the Knoxville Pearl is not open on Saturday mornings. Well, unless you count the fact that they stay open until 3:00 a.m. on weekends.

because you can can can

The good-spirited taunting went both ways at the annual meeting of two arch rival high school football teams last night. The fans from Webb School of Knoxville shouted "Where is Harry?" to which the Knoxville Catholic High School fans responded "He's on SportsCenter!" Of course, that's only wishful thinking at this point. As far as I know, KCHS alum Harrison Smith has yet to get any playing time for Notre Dame. Webb countered with "0 and 2," a reference to Notre Dame's dismal season record. If they keep losing, maybe Charlie Weis will give Smith a chance to show why he earned the Mr. Football award last year.

Because Webb hadn't beaten Catholic since 2001, the enthusiastic Irish fans reacted to the "0 and 2" chant by shouting "0 and 5!" Better make that "0 and 6." Catholic defeated Webb 28 to 7 last night. I was there for a presentation at halftime. Both schools collected food and money for the Second Harvest Food Bank. In that competition, Webb outscored Catholic 143.7 to 75.5 pounds of food per student.

Missy at The House of Flying Monkeys thought that the "CBFC was pouring haterade" on her. Can anyone tell me what those initials mean? From where I sat, both student sections seemed plenty loud, until the score got lopsided in the second half and the Webb fans got less noisy. The stands were packed. Some Webb parents were kind enough to let me sit in their section. The guy sitting next to me was the owner of Gridiron Burgers, which I promised to try soon, especially since it's a smoke-free restaurant. I may disagree with Missy about the "haterade" but I'll be the first to admit she is right about the talented Webb cheerleaders.

all toppings free

It's Burger Week on Food Network. I didn't know that yesterday when I suggested to the family that we go to Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries at Turkey Creek. The two episodes of "Unwrapped" that aired tonight were both about hamburgers. One was new, the other was from 2001. I watched the new episode, wondering if Marc Summers would mention Five Guys. Maybe next time.

The bathroom scale gave me some good news yesterday morning. There was enough wiggle room for a treat. Five Guys had been on my mind since the Sunday before when my son and I met local franchise co-owner Gibby Lepsig at church. One thing to remember is that the regular burgers have two patties. If you only want one patty, you have to order the "little" burger. One order of fries will easily serve three people.

The decor at Five Guys made me feel at home, or at one of my homes anyway. I had previously only eaten at the locations in Chantilly and Merrifield. Even in Knoxville, the walls are lined with Washingtonian magazine covers and articles. A large sign read "This place can't be beat." It was a quote from Sidewalk.com, a website considered to be one of Microsoft's rare failures. A small sign by the door asked customers to refrain from taking peanuts and peanut shells outside the restaurant "due to the possibility of severe allergic reaction in some neighborhood children." Above that was posted a photo of the Five Guys that will soon open on Emory Road.

top of the food chain

Feast with the Beasts is one of my favorite annual events. Attendees sampled food from some of the area's best restaurants while strolling through the Knoxville Zoo this past Saturday night. The weather was warm but not unbearably hot like two years ago. And it didn't rain like last year.

I especially liked the shrimp grits from the Green Hills Grille. I can't remember which restaurant served fried alligator meat. I felt a little guilty about tasting it mere minutes after viewing the living rare white alligator in his tank. I didn't try everything but almost everything I did try was really good. The only food I should have skipped was something they called a "boneless hot wing" from Applebee's. It was just a chicken nugget.

The darker it got, the easier it was to forget you're at a zoo. I could barely see the silhouette of an African elephant by the time we got to that end of the zoo. I wondered if the elephant was bothered by the noise and the all the cigarette smoke. I wish smoking was prohibited at the zoo. Heck, I wish smoking was prohibited in all public places. My wife and I knew it was time to leave at the point in the evening when it seemed to change from an eating event to a drinking event. The food booths had started to run out of samples. I heard one guy tell his buddy that he hadn't gotten his $60 worth yet. The friend advised him to "keep drinking."

drop and give me twenty

Morning radio personalities from all over the United States (and often a few from England and Australia) will be traveling to Chicago tomorrow for the annual Morning Show Boot Camp convention. I was fortunate enough to be sent there by my various employers each year between 1999 and 2003. The last two of those years I had negotiated to have the registration fee and travel expenses included in my contract, a tactic I recommend to any deejays who might be reading this. Three of the five Boot Camps I attended were in New Orleans. The other two were in Las Vegas and Atlanta.

The New Orleans gatherings were a lot of fun. Obviously I was there pre-Katrina. I hope to return someday with my wife. I always felt a little guilty telling her about the delicious Bananas Foster I ate at Brennan's or the about time I went to an incredible six or seven course chef's choice dinner with Billy Bush at Emeril's. I remember that one of the courses was quail. Billy was still in radio at the time. The rest of the evening deserves its own chapter in my memoirs, if I ever write them.

In 2000, I spent a night on Bourbon Street with Kevin Ryder from KROQ, New Orleans-based comedian Tim Coston (who also acted as our Big Easy tour guide), Tim Harrod from The Onion and Aisha Tyler, who was not yet well known. They had all appeared on a convention panel about comedy earlier that day with my then-boss, Tamara Rawitt.

This year's Boot Camp attendees will be treated to a session called "Truth in Comedy," led by Charna Halpern. I wish I could be there for it but at least I got to participate in a very similar session Charna did at the Children Miracle Network convention in April. I'm happy for all the deejays who will be able to see the close connection between radio and improv.

eighth wonder of the world

Rather than sit in weekend traffic through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, I opted to take a more scenic route from Morristown to Gatlinburg today. I drove south on I-81 to I-40 and headed east, where I picked up U.S. Route 321 in Cocke County. I was only passing through and did not see anything unusual. It was probably a greater distance than if I had taken exit 407 but I got to keep moving and see a less developed side of the Smokies. Along the way, I enjoyed some hyper-local radio. One AM station had some great cheesy jingles and frequent weather reports between their moldy oldies. A local FM station was in the middle of a four-hour remote from a client. Both reminded me a little of my favorite station, WLNG in Sag Harbor, New York.

My wife and I had been invited to a wedding and reception in Gatlinburg. The wedding was at St. Mary Catholic Church and the reception was at Lineberger's Seafood Company. The bride is a fourth grade teacher. During the reception, she read aloud from some essays her students had written on the topic "How to Be a Good Husband." One young girl wrote, "if your wife ever wants anything, buy it for her."

As I looked out from the restaurant balcony at the crowded sidewalks and shops below, I was reminded of a recent Metro Pulse article by an intern making her first trip to Pigeon Forge. A new tourist attraction is being built next door to the restaurant. It's the third location of the Hollywood Wax Museum. They also have one in Branson and one in Hollywood. I went into the museum in Hollywood when my friend Pam Baker and I were scouting possible locations for Mark & Brian's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As it turned out, their star was placed right by the museum. The new Gatlinburg wax museum has a gigantic likeness of King Kong to grab the attention of visitors. During the wedding reception, I tried to surreptitiously take a photo of the bride and groom with King Kong in the background. Ultimately it was just easier to ask them to pose for the blog.

brick and mortar

Occasionally someone finds my site after searching for information about a new strip mall on "scenic" Middlebrook Pike. It's between a liquor store and a laundromat near the intersection of Piney Grove Church Road. On the other side of the laundromat is my favorite BBQ shack, M&M Catering. The other day a banner went up announcing that one of the businesses in the strip mall will be Nixon's Deli. which usually scores well in the annual newspaper reader polls.

Another new restaurant is being built farther down Middlebrook Pike near the intersection of Cedar Bluff Road. A clerk at the Walgreens next door told me that the new building will be an Aubrey's Restaurant. I found some references on the Internet that confirm the good news. I've eaten at the Aubrey's near the Landmark Center office building a couple of times and found it to be quite good. In the very near future I will try another restaurant in the Aubrey's family when I have lunch with a local forensic celebrity and his wife at Edison Park.

sweet mystery of life

The menu items at Restaurant Linderhof in Farragut have mostly German names. My wife and I shared a fürstenteller platter and still had plenty of leftovers to bring home to our son. The fürstenteller included an oven roasted pork shank, which reminded me of a funny line from "Young Frankenstein." I could imagine Teri Garr saying instead, "He would have an enormous schweinshaxe!"

apply directly to the tastebud

Several restaurants brought samples of their food to Lenoir City Park on Sunday for the third annual Taste of Loudon County. I had a window of time between church and work that was just large enough for my family to get there, try some food and get back.

While everything was good, I thought the three best tasting items were the chicken and dumplings from the Dinner Bell Restaurant, the kettle chips from the Carmichael Inn and the salad with honey vinaigrette dressing topped with strawberries and bleu cheese crumbles from Aubrey's.



The table from Aubrey's was right along Fort Loudon Lake. The folks from Cracker Barrel offered some good looking berry cobbler. Loudon Mercantile set up a mini store. They had free samples of Amish-made cashew crunch sitting next to bags of it that were for sale.



One restaurant (or should I say resturant) could have benefited from using spell check on their menu. As we got ready to leave, we heard strolling violinist Al Colombo play some songs from "Fiddler on the Roof." If I had time to stay longer, I would have asked him to play a certain Bernard Hermann selection. That would make him my favorite violinist too.

say cheese

It must be the hot stone. At the urging of a blog reader (more about him later), my family and I stopped for dinner at Brooklyn's Original Pizza in Lenoir City on our way home from Atlanta. It says on the front of the menu that they are East Tennessee's only hot stone pizzeria. The crust was the perfect thickness, or maybe I should say it was the perfect thinness. It was the perfect softness too. My first slice drooped exactly the right way before I pressed down on the center and folded it the way New Yorkers do.



In the past few weeks, I've written about trying the pizza at Mangia Pizza & More in the Turkey Creek shopping center and at I ♥ NY Pizza in South Knoxville. A comment on one of those earlier pizza posts directed me to an online review of Brooklyn's Original Pizza, which in turn, prompted me to visit the place this week. The reviewer is right, the pizza at Brooklyn's Original is just like you'd get in New York. I loved it and will go there again when I can. Because Mangia is closer to my house, I'll go there more often. Mangia's crust has a delicious breadstick flavor to it that strays from true New York style but I liked it a lot. A whole heckuva lot.

The guys behind the counter at Brooklyn's Original Pizza were happy have me take their picture. They told me how they are now world famous because of the online review I had read at KnoxvilleYankee.com. They asked if my photos were for the Internet. I said yes without realizing that they might have thought I was going to post them on the Knoxville Yankee site rather than my own.



The author of Knoxville Yankee has written a very entertaining recap of what happened next. Here's my favorite part of his post (which you must read in its entirety):

Apparently some guy showed up that evening, claimed he knew me, knew my name, and spent about an hour there taking photos and talking to them all the while saying it was 'for KnoxvilleYankee.com'. Now there is the possibility that my friends at Brooklyn's Original heard wrong - they were short-staffed this week - but if they heard right, that's some creepy stuff because I have *NO* idea who that guy was. He certainly wasn't affiliated with me.

And so I'm putting a call out to identify this mystery Yankee who claimed he was down with this set. Here's what we know (pardon the 'Clue' like description):

• He was estimated to be in his early 40's
• He has a beard and glasses
• He was with a woman and younger teenager who were assumed to be his family
• The 'son' was described as around 14 - I didn't hear about the 'wife'
• He has a 'northern accent' which could either mean a real accent or the absence of a southern one.
• He has a nice camera, and spent a great deal of time setting up food shots, getting pictures of the guys tossing dough, etc.
• He ordered a large pie with oregano and three salads (good taste - nice).
• He was nice.

They may have gotten a few details wrong (I never claimed to be from Knoxville Yankee, I only said that I had heard of it) but at least they said I was nice. I've been recognized a lot lately, so I need to be on my best behavior.

abstinence

A fellow parishioner (and radio personality) told me his family was getting tired of eating fish on Fridays during Lent. He wondered if I had any ideas for other