metal-urges

The best piece of art I saw on my last trip to St. Louis was not in one of the city's famous museums but in a restaurant. To be fair, I didn't get to any museums this time but that shouldn't take anything away from the interesting wall hanging at the trendy pizza place π. They have a map of the 48 contiguous states made from pieces of license plates. Each state is represented by a plate from that state. Rhode Island is only the size of the letter R from its plate.



The map got me thinking about the seven states I haven't visited yet. I had tentatively planned to go to Mount Rushmore this year, however some news from the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association has changed my mind. The group has rescheduled its annual field trip to Washington and Quantico. The new dates are in August, when I am allowed to take vacation.

buon appetito

Two St. Louis foodie experiences got checked off our to-do list this weekend. My wife, our son and I went to the trendy π to try their deep-dish pizza with cornmeal crust. Fortunately it lived up to the hype. I enjoyed my Bada Bing salad too.

Even better was our trip to the Italian neighborhood known as The Hill. I had found a low-cost place called Amighetti's in the AAA TourBook. It wasn't until we got there that we realized it is a sandwich place that was just about to close at 5:30 p.m. I was looking for a place where we could sit down for dinner. While she would have been happy to serve us, the clerk suggested a restaurant a few blocks away, which turned out to be a great idea.

The dining room at Rigazzi's was packed. We were told to expect a 45-minute wait. Some potential patrons started giving up and going to other nearby restaurants. As a result, our wait was shortened to about 15 minutes.

We were sitting close enough to the people at the next table that we could easily converse with them. They mentioned the large portion sizes of all the menu items, which affirmed my decision to split an entree with my wife. We chose the Chicken Romanoff, which had an amazing sauce with pancetta pieces and bleu cheese crumbles.

Our waiter was extremely apologetic that our salads arrived moments after our meals. He offered to bring us a free dessert. Since we were celebrating my son's birthday, I accepted. The waiter went over the top, bringing us four desserts: tiramisu, regular cheesecake and two pieces of chocolate cheesecake. We took two of the cheesecake slices back to Aunt Dee's and saved them for the next day.

first you take a little bit of honey

Nine years ago, I hosted a weekly radio talk show with streaming video, audio and live chat. The concept of Knoxivi reminds me yet again that Comedy World was too far ahead of its time. Their studio is located in a storefront on Market Square. It shares space with The Lunchbox, and they hope people will come in, watch the show and grab a bite.



I was complimented to be invited as a guest on today's episode of Eleven o'clock Rock. The show is hosted by Lauren Lazarus and Brent Thompson. Since we would be live on the Internet, I used Twitter and Facebook to encourage people to watch. I appreciated the positive response I got from a Twitterer named Rusty.

The program was immediately archived and can still be viewed online. You may have to click on "Monday" and then choose today's date. I'm on the show twice. Brent and Lauren asked me to improv something with them for the cold open. It's on the feed at two minutes in. My interview begins at 40 minutes in to the show. I didn't know it at the time but my microphone failed within the first minute. Fortunately Lauren's mic picked up my voice reasonably well.



The segment focused mostly on my involvement with Einstein Simplified and our upcoming performances at First Night Knoxville. Don't forget to buy your admission buttons in advance to save $5 each!

one word or two?

Throughout November, my friend Bean's Twitter feed has been sprinkled with occasional references to egg nog and pumpkin pie. I have been encouraging him by posting Twitpics of Flav-O-Rich pumpkin pie spice egg nog as well as egg nog taffy samples and pumpkin nut fudge at Dollywood. I've been an egg nog fan for years.


When Chef Walter made an egg nog cake on the noon news today, I was inspired to list as many current egg nog flavored menu items as I could find. Bean already mentioned that he was psyched about Holiday Hotcakes at IHOP. A reviewer at LAist disagrees. Bean's reference to a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks prompted me to try a combination egg nog and pumpkin spice latte after my wife's recent concert.

Baskin-Robbins has sold egg nog ice cream each year for as long as I can remember. I saw a sign for an Egg Nog MilkQuake at Krystal while on the way to Dollywood on Saturday. If there was a Jack in the Box near here, I might have seen a sign for their Egg Nog Ice Cream Shakes.

Can you add to the list? Use the comments section to tell me what you think of egg nog treats and where I can find them.

shouted out with glee

Before getting dressed for the March of Dimes Signature Chefs Auction, I had a thought. What if I accidentally wore the exact same thing as I did at last year's event? I happened to be on the phone with my daughter at the time. She went to my blog entry from 2008 and described the red tie and striped shirt I had on. I knew to wear the blue tie and a solid shirt this year.

Once again, the delicious food made it a night to remember. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't possibly taste everything that was offered. My wife and I got there early enough to see the elaborate Cabot Cheese and fruit tray before anyone disturbed it.



I got to chat with talented young singer Logan Murrell and her parents before the ballroom doors opened. Logan did a great job performing during dinner. She sang four or five songs including "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" and "Over the Rainbow." Julie Murrell emailed me recently to say they had seen some of my previous blog mentions of her daughter. She gave me a copy of Logan's Christmas CD to review.



No offense to Logan or to energetic auctioneer Bear Stephenson, but the main attraction at the Signature Chefs Auction is the food. 19 chefs from different businesses set up shop at tables around the perimeter of the ballroom in the Knoxville Convention Center. I found it funny that The Inn at Christmas Place was serving goose (seared foie gras over roasted corn polenta with port veal broth) while The Crown & Goose was serving reindeer (seared porcini dusted venison on top of pumpkin mash with candied pecans with apple cider spice glaze). The venison dish was my favorite entrée of the night. Not all the food was hoity-toity. The pork BBQ from Chandler's Deli had a delicious seasoning that I liked but couldn't identify.



Dessert was no slouch either. There was a long line for ice cream from Marble Slab Creamery. They brought a portable slab and offered two flavors. Their Double Dark Chocolate with Fudge was as good as it sounds. Rosa's Catering Service provided an End of the Rainbow cake with different flavors of icing.



My favorite overall dish was also a dessert. The Bananas Foster from Club Le Conte was so good I went back for seconds.



As in past years, I was there as a volunteer. My contact at the March of Dimes asked me to solicit donations from three tables. My wife made a small contribution when she heard that it would be doubled if we used our MasterCard. I also worked as a spotter at the live auction again this year. I saw some local celebrities in the room. WVLT anchor Alan Williams was as gracious as always. The event emcee was WATE anchor Kristin Farley who was representing Fox 43, where she does the 10:00 p.m. news. Kristin asked my wife if she could ham it up for the camera.

can't be choosers

KFC attempted a do-over today. A few months back they suffered through a public relations fiasco when they offered free chicken dinners via Oprah.com. They were overwhelmed with coupons, many of which were copies of the actual computer printouts. Today they offered a single piece for free, without a coupon.

Thanks to Twitter, I went to a different KFC than last time. Wendy of Magic Mulch suggested I head to Farragut, which was ideal because I needed to go there to pay a bill at the Knox County offices sometime this week.

The KFC website said that the piece of free chicken would be "manager's choice." When they started to give me a thigh, I asked the clerks if I could wait until the manager might choose to give me a chicken breast instead. They told me that the district manager had already decided that all the free pieces in his district would be dark meat. If I wanted white meat, I would have to buy a piece for $3 and some change. Unlike the last KFC I visited, the Farragut store did offer side salads. I bought one for $1.63 to show I was a good sport.



The thigh was small but the taste was okay. It was good enough to make me appreciate that it was free, but not good enough to make me want to pay for it in the future. Thinking of other folks on a budget, I posted a note on Twitter and Facebook about my free chicken. Unfortunately my animal-loving friend Bean did not like it. He twitted tweetered twote said that he objects to KFC's chicken raising practices. He later told me that he is okay with the chicken at McDonald's and Popeye's. I need to find out if Popeye's ever offers anything that is grilled and not fried.

scene of the crime

The audience watching "Fish Bait" at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort surprised me. They laughed at different parts of the movie than the audience at Patrick Sullivan's did the night before. The folks at the saloon responded well to the scenes where four of us from Einstein Simplified were driving and talking. They've seen us do that on stage for years. The people on the boat dock responded well to the mishaps we encountered on the water. While the Knoxville crowd said "ewww" to a quick shot of a floating dead fish, the Speedwell viewers said nothing.

The staff at Flat Hollow went all out to celebrate the movie we filmed there last year. They made some large posters and redid the menu in their restaurant to include items like Chum, Chicken Parts and Fried Fungus. The restaurant was converted into a movie theatre for the night. Enough boaters and marina regulars showed up to warrant showing the film twice.



After the screenings, the cast members in attendance were asked to autograph several DVDs at the sales counter. While the others were using the Sharpie markers, Dave Snow and I amused each other with some tea candles. When all was finished, the cast and crew raised a toast on board one of the two houseboats where we would spend the night. Coincidentally, my wife and I slept aboard the White Lightning. This morning I woke up to a lovely view of the fall foliage.



After breakfast, the remaining cast and crew posed for a photo in front of The Lady, the decrepit houseboat that we used in the movie. I was wearing my new FBI Citizens Academy hat, which we joked now stood for "Fish Bait Inspector." The Lady looks even worse than she did last year. Some family members of the man who used to own the boat came to the screening last night. They were a little chagrined that the boat their relative lost to foreclosure was used to represent all that is janky. Some of the other audience members pointed out that shots of particularly redneckish houseboats were filmed downriver in Union County, not in their nice part of Norris Lake.

in da (865)

Most local radio commercials can be divided into two categories. I write and record my own endorsement spots in which I speak in the first person about my experience with a product or service such as Massage Envy, for example.

I also do voiceover spots for all four radio stations in our cluster. I read whatever scripts are in my mailbox each morning. Sometimes listeners will call me to ask about a script I read, thinking that it's a product I endorse. The difference between the two spots can be slight. I often have to change a script from first person to third person.

One of those third-person spots came down the pike on Wednesday. It promised 99¢ pizzas, which prompted me to immediately post something on Twitter about it. I drove past Mama Mia Cuisine that afternoon and happened to see the radio station's sales representative in the parking lot. He brought me into the pizza shop to meet Mac, the owner. He used to run other shops near the UT campus, including one with the clever name Salvador Deli. I pictured melting pizzas, a la The Persistence of Memory.



Mama Mia Cuisine is scheduled to open on October 29. They will sell their 14 inch cheese pizza for 99¢ with the purchase of $5 worth of other stuff. A couple of side salads at $3 each would do the trick although Mac and his business partner did a good job of convincing me to try their Greek salad or shepherd's salad instead.

mallow inn

Middleburg is in the heart of Virginia's "hunt country." Riders on horseback and their hounds hunt foxes the way they did in the cartoons we watched as kids. On Sunday, my wife and I met some relatives for a delicious brunch at the Hunter's Head Tavern in nearby Upperville. I had heard that the restaurant's owner was not a fan of fox hunting and designed a logo in which the fox gets the upper hand. There's even a comical mounted head near the bar.



If I had been eating alone, I probably would have gone to a shop called Mello Out, despite their inability to spell marshmallow. They specialize in handmade marshmellos [sic] but have other menu items too. I would have ordered the Adam's Apple, which is apple, peanut butter, bacon and honey on brioche.



My wife and I did stop in to get a package of their marshmallows. Our friend Maureen from Fox Chase Farm was with us. While we were there, the staff was taking some Cosmic Cupcakes out of the refrigerator and putting them on display for the day. Fortunately for us, the frosting on one of the cupcakes had gotten stuck to the container. Since it was unsuitable for sale, the manager gave it to the three of us to split. The frosting was rich and tasty and the cake was exceptionally moist. It was the best cupcake I have had in quite some time.

grab a bite to tweet

There was something very familiar about today's Knox Tweet Lunch despite the fact that I was meeting new people and that it was my first time going to Wright's Cafeteria. The experience reminded me of the blogfests I attended a year and a half ago. For example, I met a lady named Wendy and a lady named Jennifer but didn't realize who they were until they identified themselves as @magicmulch and @BattLady respectively. The same thing happened when I met bloggers who use something other than their name in their blog title.

Some people I knew from real life were there too. My friend Krisha, known as @niftykrisha, said the get-together reminded her of blogger night at the Knoxville Symphony. I'm sitting next to her in a photo that Tearsa Smith posted. My waving hand looks blurred out like something on Jimmy Kimmel's Unnecessary Censorship bit.

The menu at Wright's definitely qualifies as Southern comfort food. They had country style steak, fried chicken livers, chicken 'n dumplings, fried salmon cakes and much more. I chose a piece of fried chicken, a side salad and a small dish of baked apple slices.

Saul Young of the News Sentinel took some candid shots with his gigantic camera. However it was Twitpics from cell phone cameras that really documented the event. Wendy asked to have her picture made with me. Then four other women wanted to be in the photo too. How can a guy say no to that?

book of Janus

Chick-Fil-A showed the world the right way to do a chicken giveaway yesterday. You know who I'm talking about, Colonel. All day on Labor Day, they gave their classic sandwich to anyone wearing a sports team logo.

The employees who served my wife and me were cheerful and courteous even after handing out thousands and thousands of free sandwiches. The guy who brought us our free drink refills at lunch suggested that we come back for a free dinner. We did, while wearing our two-headed Redskins poncho.



Before getting my free chicken, I enjoyed some free coffee. Thanks to Coupon Katie, I printed a coupon for a free cup of Seattle's Best Coffee at Borders. I made a reference to the free coffee in my Twitter and Facebook status updates.

I've mentioned before that I have a Facebook account for listeners and another for people with whom I'm better acquainted. The reaction to my update was very different on the two accounts. The listeners know that I started drinking coffee recently after years of being caffeine-free. They said nothing about the coffee but commented on the serial killer book my daughter showed me at Borders. On the other account, some former co-workers saw nothing unusual about my family's interest in H.H. Holmes but were shocked that I had a cup of coffee.

So for my friend Jessica and others who care, I started down the slippery slope of caffeine addiction last fall while filming "Fish Bait." A company called Coffee Fool made a product placement deal with the filmmakers. During my all-night shoot, I had a cup or two to stay awake.

I sampled the free coffee at work when they switched to a different provider. I found that I really liked the taste of the Javarama Jamaica Blue Mountain Blend served black with Splenda. Working a couple of weeks of split shifts this summer had me appreciating the caffeine lift it gave me. To make sure I didn't get drowsy on my drive home from Nashville last month, I had a frozen coffee drink from Starbucks.

Before long, I decided to avoid the possibility of withdrawal headaches by drinking coffee on normal weekends too. I work a lot of Saturdays, which means I can get free coffee at the station. They serve free coffee after most Masses at All Saints Church, so Sundays are covered. Since yesterday was a holiday, I used the coupon for a free cup at Borders. My goal is to spend next-to-nothing on my new habit, so I'll be constantly on the lookout for discounts and freebies.

boom boom pow

Most of the food being sold at the 2009 Boomsday Festival event was typical fair fare, such as corn dogs and funnel cakes. My wife and I spotted a logo that wasn't like the others. Mixed in among the signage was a banner for the tony Ruth's Chris Steak House. We each had a steakburger slider that was so good it didn't need condiments. The restaurant manager told us that the little burgers will debut on their happy hour menu tomorrow. Down the street, one of the guys handing out free Duke's Mayonnaise looked like Chris Daughtry to me.



My wife and I had the good fortune to watch the fireworks from the old Baptist Hospital, near where John Becker and Robin Wilhoit anchored WBIR's coverage. This year the smoke from the explosions drifted away from us, meaning we had a clear view of the spectacular "waterfall" effect off the Henley Street Bridge and the rockets that came up from the lake to the tune of "Smoke on the Water."



After wishing we had done so last year and the year before, we remembered to bring portable radios this year. While big speakers saturate Neyland Drive with sound, the music cannot be heard on the south side of the Tennessee River unless you bring your own receiver.



I was impressed with the Star 102.1 soundtrack this year. There was a three-song tribute to Michael Jackson and a good mix of today's hits and yesterday's favorites. (That's an inside joke for my radio friends.) My wife wanted to know the title and artist of the Christian rock song played near the end off the show. Out of curiosity, I clicked over to Yes.com to see if their bot had identified the tune. It was "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe. The site registered many, but not all, of the songs played.



My daughter and two of her friends traveled to East Tennessee to experience their first Boomsday this year. Although I've lived in Knoxville since 2002, this was only my fifth Boomsday. Thanks to my blog, I'm just a click away from the photos of my first Boomsday in 2005. I looked very different back then.

iCarly

Over the years, a few of my blog entries have covered topics similar to Carly Harrington's excellent "The Bottom Line" blog. She reports on the openings and closings of local businesses. I'm especially interested in her restaurant coverage. For example, I certainly thought of Carly when I happened to be the first person to show up on opening day at Two Sisters Sandwiches & Sweets.

A couple of things happened today that also reminded me of her column. I drove past Pup's Pit and noticed they had moved. A sign on the window announced that their new location is on Northshore Drive at Rocky Hill. The most obvious reason I thought of Carly was the notification I received this afternoon that knoxgirl75 had started following my Twitter feed. It's no wonder that Carly is thought of as "the face of newsroom innovation."

"The Bottom Line" crossed my mind last Friday when I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new location for Academy Ballroom. As I was taking a picture of their new sign, another new sign caught my eye. Hard Knox Pizza recently opened a few doors down from the dance studio. I stopped in to look around and promised owners Dean and Jill that I would be back for a meal with my wife. I'll be sure to wave at their webcam.

you're not gone till you've been

The line to get in to Jack's Bar-B-Que on Broadway in Nashville was too long. My friends from Wise Brother Media had to catch a flight back to Los Angeles after the Morning Show Bootcamp. They wanted to grab a quick lunch and decided to keep walking down the street to someplace less popular. I went with them but made a mental note to come back to Jack's next time I was in Nashville.

Last week my wife and I were on our way home from Missouri. We were approaching Nashville around dinner time when I saw a billboard along I-24 for Jack's. The sign told us to exit on Trinity Lane, a couple of miles before we hit downtown. We found ourselves at Jack's other location in Talbot's Corner.



We ordered chicken for dinner but will positively plan ahead to have pork the next time. My wife ordered greens as her side item. I thought they might have been collard but they were probably turnip, based on what I read on Jack's website. The people behind me in line laughed when I couldn't identify which of the three varieties in front of me was chess pie. The other two were chocolate and pecan. Next time I'll try a piece of chess. Or should I say chess piece?

malt o meal

St. Louis has an interesting combination of restaurant chains that I recognized from my time living on the East Coast and on the West Coast. Just this past weekend, I saw White Castle, Del Taco, Jack in the Box, Church's Chicken, First Watch and El Pollo Loco.

The flame-grilled chicken at El Pollo Loco is a favorite of mine. Bill Smith, a former co-worker from KROQ met me there for dinner on Friday. Bill is now in a band called Glitch Factor. Our food beat the heck out of the supposedly grilled chicken I had at KFC a few weeks ago.

Without taking anything away from El Pollo Loco, the best meal of the weekend was not at a chain restaurant but at a St. Louis original. A former radio guy turned successful real estate agent, Bruce Butler, invited me to meet him for lunch at the Crown Candy Kitchen, a local institution since 1913. Bruce said the BLT and the milkshakes were "strong." He was right.

feast of the consumption

Even though Michele Silva has taken herself off the air and gone into sales, I was happy to continue my tradition of posing for a photo with her at Feast with the Beasts. She was sampling some foods with Beth Haynes, who was nice enough to have her picture made with me again (and again). My wife and I also enjoyed another visit with former WBIR reporter Jim Ragonese and his wife Jaime. We last saw them at an event I think of as "indoor Feast with the Beasts."



The most interesting thing that I saw at the annual fundraiser for the Knoxville Zoo was a woman in a leafy costume on stilts. My best guess is that she was dressed as kudzu. We watched her make several graceful moves. There's probably a ballet dancer or gymnast under that green makeup.



I could have used a zoo map to help me find some of the food booths that we heard about from other party goers. The ribs at Texas Roadhouse had completely fallen off the bone, as usual. Someone said to be sure to go to The Crown & Goose for raw oysters.



The "homemade" turkey and cranberry sandwiches at Kroger featured the Martha Stewart-like tip of the day. They used pretzel sticks as toothpicks to hold the sandwich together. By the way, somebody should tell the people who put together Kroger's current advertising campaign that a truly homemade TV commercial would look more like a YouTube video and less like Terry Gilliam's style of animation



My wife thought her piece of alligator from Bayou Bay Seafood House was too tough and too spicy however mine was just right. I normally don't like to eat reptiles because I am such a fan of them when they are alive. On the other hand, a cake shaped like a turtle would be perfect for me. The folks from Mango Cakes were auctioning off a sweet tortoise. They said it was a copy of a groom's cake they had made recently. Unfortunately it's pose reminded me of my beloved pet Mo after he had died but before I had him preserved.



One of the people we chatted with was a popular local Twitterer who goes by the name The Fool Monty. He and his wife warned that the gumbo at New Orleans on the River was very spicy, which made me want to try it all the more. They said the Cajun food was in a booth just past The Carousel. I was surprised that particular bar was represented at the event and wondered what they were serving. Turns out Monty meant a real carousel.

focus on the family

The recognizable voice of John Waters was on NPR this afternoon when I got in my car. I knew that I knew the voice but it still took me a minute to identify it. When I tune in to the middle of an interview, I like to play "guess the guest," a game made possible because so many of us in radio are bad about identifying interviewees once the conversation has begun.

In today's case, it was a trifle more challenging because Waters was not talking about himself but about the Tate/LaBianca murders. Apparently he has befriended Leslie Van Houten, a member of the Manson family who was convicted of the murders of Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca. Waters says that Van Houten has been rehabilitated in prison and should be paroled.

The broadcast was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the murders, which took place August 9 and 10, 1969, a mere three weeks after a much happier event. While looking online for another link, I found a blog that commemorates the murders. It has a lot of recent entries because of the anniversary but was actually started over four years ago.

I remember reading "Helter Skelter" while in grammar school. Years later when I met Vincent Bugliosi at KLOS, I told him that I still had a vivid memory of a crime scene photo in the book. In it, Leno LaBianca's body was whited out but a fork was still visible protruding from his abdomen.

My friend Lisa Burks, who writes "Adventures in Grave Hunting" among other blogs, sent me a DVD titled "The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter." It is hosted by her friend Scott Michaels of Dearly Departed Tours and FindADeath.com. Scott serves as tour guide and takes the viewer to the crime scenes, the homes of the other victims and more significant locations. The most effective parts of the film are when he retraces the steps of the murderers.

I found Scott's trip to Barker Ranch in Death Valley to be especially creepy. I was also surprised to learn that Sharon Tate and her friends ate their last meal at El Coyote, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants during the time I lived in California. It wasn't until I moved to Tennessee and started watching "The Beverly Hillbillies" reruns that I appreciated Sharon Tate's talent as an actress.

beau faux

The free newspaper I picked up at Patrick Sullivan's said it was not intended for the general public. Naturally, that made me all the more interested. "BOH - FOH News" is a publication for employees of the restaurant business. The initials in the name stand for back of house and front of house.

One article in the summer issue is by a server who writes that she always blames the kitchen for any mistakes with an order, even if the error is entirely her own fault. Another writer, who is a kitchen worker, describes his dislike for making club sandwiches because they require ingredients from every station in the kitchen.

I found the most interesting article to be one about an upselling technique called the Sullivan Nod. Its creator, Jim Sullivan, urges servers to smile and slowly nod their heads while suggesting an item such as a more expensive brand of liquor. The BOH-FOH writer thinks the Sullivan Nod could be used to convince bad customers that they don't want dessert.

in this corner

When you're looking for a great cupcake, the first place that comes to mind is probably a bakery like Magpies or a specialty shop like The Cupcakery. Another contender has emerged in the most unlikely of places; a little shack on Middlebrook Pike called Two Sisters Sandwiches & Sweets.

I happened to stop by Two Sisters on their first day of business. Shortly before my vacation, a nice write-up by Carly Harrington reminded me it had been a while since I promised Ruby and Dixie that I would return. The opportunity presented itself yesterday. The sisters told me they will soon have a new signpost. They also plan to paint the gray cinder block exterior with a brighter color.



I got a great pulled chicken sandwich for only $2.50. For dessert, I chose a banana cupcake with chocolate icing. The sisters insisted that I also try one of their Death by Chocolate cupcakes, saying it was their best. Another customer swore by their Red Velvet cupcakes. There's no place to eat at the shack, so I took the food home for lunch. The cupcakes got knocked around a bit when the bag fell over in my car but still tasted great.



Banana cake has always been a favorite flavor of mine and I would definitely order one of the cupcakes again. However, the ladies were right about Death by Chocolate. I cut it up and shared it with my son, who agreed that it was outstanding. The frosting was perfect, the cake was moist and the chocolate chips interspersed throughout were a nice surprise.

on the Rhode again

Massachusetts and Rhode Island were part of our itinerary two years ago during my son's college search. We made a three thousand mile road trip that circled from Knoxville to the Midwest, the Northeast and back to Tennessee. This year we did a 2,500 mile circuit to New England as part of my quest.

In 2007, Massachusetts was a "do over" for me. Technically, I had been in the state as a kid when my parents took us to a Boston Pops concert at Tanglewood. Two years ago we made a campus visit and drove through Boston although we really didn't have time to do anything touristy. This past Tuesday we ate dinner in Lowell at a popular local chain called The Ninety Nine, which is owned by O'Charley's. The next morning we had time to do a quick "drive by" at Lexington and Concord.



The Lexington Battle Green is in the middle of a suburban setting. It almost looks like a nondescript city park. The visitor center has a helpful diorama of the battle and a gift shop, where my wife bought a Christmas ornament. If we weren't rushing off to a lunch appointment with a college friend of mine, we would have done more than just drive through Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord.

After lunch, we headed to Rhode Island for another "do over." In 2007, we took I-295 around Providence, stopping only at a Panera Bread. This time, we took Route 24 into Newport to see the mansions on the Ten Mile Drive.



Right before we got to the Claiborne Pell Bridge, my son spotted a big red lobster above the door of Long Wharf Seafood. We had heard that lobsters might be cheap in Newport and we had promised my sister we would get some if the price was right. A chalkboard out front advertised "New Shell Lobsters $4.99 a pound."



Once we got inside, a very friendly clerk named Eddie informed us that new shell lobsters are a little deceiving. The claw may look big but the meat inside has not yet grown to fill it. Just for fun, he showed us the biggest lobster in the tank.



As we did the calculations to see how many lobsters we needed for four people, Eddie sensed that we were looking for a bargain. While I played with the behemoth, Eddie suggested we buy five culls for $33, which he would pack in ice for us to eat the next day. A cull is a lobster that is missing a claw and can't be sent to a restaurant or supermarket. He even threw in a bullet, which is what he called a lobster with no claws. Other places call it a pistol. You could always just ask for a nice piece of tail.

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.

simplified complicated

The power came back on just as Paul Simmons unplugged the last of our three stage lights. It was as if that bulb had somehow caused last night's blackout in the Old City. The electricity went out at Patrick Sullivan's and other nearby businesses at 8:14 p.m., preventing us from starting the weekly Einstein Simplified performance. A full house of people waited patiently as the lack of air conditioning made the third floor room warmer and stuffier. After consulting with the saloon's management, we canceled the show and sent the audience home around 9 o'clock. The electricity came back at 9:04 p.m. D'oh!



When the blackout struck, I was standing by the stage taking a picture of dozens of Einstein bobbleheads from McDonald's. Last week, Brad Bumgardner suggested that we each go to McDonald's and buy as many of the "Night at the Museum" Happy Meal toys as possible. He got $15 worth. My wife and I got $25 worth. They'll be used as audience participation prizes in the weeks to come. Electricity permitting, of course.

hang a name on you

RT Lodge should not be thought of as the world's fanciest Ruby Tuesday, although it is owned by the same company. It is also a hotel, a corporate retreat and an ideal setting for a wedding reception or other gathering. The restaurant at RT Lodge opened to the public in January. My wife and I went there for dinner last night with another couple. The rustic decor made me think the lodge might have more in common with its upscale cousin, Blackberry Farm, than with any Ruby Tuesday restaurant. Someday I'll have to go to Blackberry Farm and see for myself.



As much as I enjoyed our dinner, I could not wait for dessert. Yesterday, I mentioned that I had already looked at their offerings online and decided on the triple chocolate "moon pie." When I got the dessert menu, I saw that it had been renamed "lunar pie," so as to avoid any legal entanglements with MoonPie of Chattanooga. It did not disappoint. Even my wife, who shared the dessert with me, loved it. She is not normally a fan of the chewy texture of marshmallows. The white stuff in the lunar pie was smooth and creamy. The chocolate chocolate chip cookies were just right too.



Generally speaking, I find the cracker inside a MoonPie to be too dry. However, I learned a trick about five years ago at the RC & MoonPie Festival. Cut a MoonPie in half and place the two pieces on opposite sides of a microwave-safe bowl. Zap it for a few seconds until the marshmallow expands. Drop a scoop of ice cream between the halves for MoonPie à la mode. If you're going to be near Bell Buckle, Tennessee next weekend, you might want to swing by the 15th Annual RC & MoonPie Festival in Bell Buckle on Saturday. Or just go to the RT Lodge in Maryville.

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.

your mileage may vary

One of these days I hope to get back to Seattle to visit my friend Bean. For that reason, I've been trying to hang on to some frequent flyer miles that are in danger of expiring. I'll admit that I could have gone to the Emerald City by now if I hadn't been using all my vacation time for family trips. In 2007, we went on a 3,000 mile college search road trip. Last year's vacation was planned to coincide with freshman move-in. Earlier this year, my son and I went on Spring break together.

To keep from losing my accumulated miles, I need to have some sort of activity on my account every eighteen months. The last time I had this problem, I donated a few of the miles to charity. At that time, the American Airlines representative suggested I sign up for their dining rewards program to earn miles at participating restaurants. You would think that I would have no problem spending $25 at one of the eateries on the list. However, my year-to-date total is still zero.

I specifically looked for a restaurant in Florida where my son and I could eat, I could earn a few miles and more importantly have some activity that would save the 26,000 miles I am on the verge of losing. The decision was easy. We went to Cheeburger Cheeburger.



On Wednesday night I called the number for the rewards program to ask why my Cheeburger purchase hadn't shown up on my statement. In fact, my pork salad at La Costa should have earned me some activity too. The nice lady on the other end of the line explained that the credit card I had used had been taken off my rewards account. As it turns out, my wife had inadvertently assigned our joint credit card to another cause.



When we lived in Burbank, my wife was co-chair of the scrip program at St. Finbar School. She and another mom would sell gift cards from local grocery stores and other retailers. The school made a 3 to 5% profit on card sales. All Saints Church has a similar program with Food City and Kroger.



A few months ago my wife responded to a request from eScrip. She could donate a portion of certain credit card purchases. As a result, St. Finbar got 57¢ from my bill at Cheeburger Cheeburger. eScrip and the dining rewards program are operated by the same company. Any given credit card number can only participate in one program at a time. My wife logged in to her eScrip account and swapped our joint account number for some other cards in her purse. Meanwhile, I logged on to AAdvantage Dining and re-added the joint account number.

I'll start looking for restaurants we can patronize on our summer vacation in New England. Locally, I was glad to see that Pimento's Café has joined the program. I think I can talk our vegetarian friend into meeting us there for salad the next time we get together.

pity the fils

Sharing a meal with a vegetarian friend of ours usually means we'll be eating at one of three places: Trio Café, Panera Bread or Ruby Tuesday. On Friday night, my wife, our son and I met our friend at Ruby Tuesday in the mall for the salad bar.

During dinner I told him that I had talked about him on the radio recently. He had backstage passes to a Gavin Rossdale performance but didn't know much about him. When he met the singer, all he could think to ask was, "so, you're married to Gloria Estefan?" Brush with greatness fail. (FYI: Rossdale is married to Gwen Stefani.)

We talked about a couple of celebrity encounters from my past including the Donny Osmond "don't you wish you were me" story. My wife remembered the 7-Eleven shopping sprees I used to do at WAVA. After a celebrity was on the air with Don & Mike, I would escort them across Lee Highway to 7-Eleven. I used the phone behind the counter to provide on-air play-by-play as the celebrity grabbed as much stuff as he or she could in 30 seconds. It's hard to remember all the stars who made the walk with me. Mr. T came to mind because I still have a picture of him walking back to the radio station. I spent the better part of an hour looking for it in a stack of photo albums in the basement.



The series of anecdotes prompted my son to point out that I have never told him many of my old tales. They just don't come up in our normal conversations. It's as if I need to be prompted to remember them. I wonder if any of you former WAVA or KROQ or KLOS listeners can suggest some stories my son would enjoy.

stabba-slabba do

When the lovely Carol Bass invited us to lunch, I thought it might be fun to go someplace that had bones on the menu. Her husband is, of course, the renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass. My wife, our son and I met Dr. and Mrs. Bass at Calhoun's on Bearden Hill. We had a great visit, mostly talking about mutual friends and about my son's experience at college so far.

The talk of college led Dr. Bass to ask if I had seen the Washington Post's favorable review of "Bones of Betrayal." The column was written by a professor at my alma mater, George Mason University. I told him that Jon Jefferson had emailed me a link to it. Jon is the co-author of several books with Dr. Bass.

The mention of Jon's name reminded me of the anecdote that had prompted me to suggest Calhoun's in the first place. Dr. Bass was happy to use the bones from my son's order of ribs to demonstrate how a knife leaves marks during a stabbing.

chicken little

KFC blew it. They had a perfect opportunity to make a good impression and really reinforce their "Unthink" advertising campaign. They even had the almighty Oprah behind them. Other businesses have been able to figure it out. Ben & Jerry's hands out free cones every year. Denny's gave away two million Grand Slam breakfasts the Tuesday after the Super Bowl.

Instead of picking a day and doing a simple giveaway, KFC asked people to go online and print a coupon. They stopped honoring the coupons after a day or two and now require patrons to apply for a rain check. The letter (and press release) from KFC President Roger Eaton makes it sound like they don't have enough grilled chicken to go around. There was no line and plenty of grilled chicken available when I got there last night. The clerk behind the counter said he thought that counterfeit coupons were the real problem.



KFC's public relations fiasco made me wish El Pollo Loco had a restaurant in Knoxville. Not only did one of my favorite fast food places do a successful chicken giveaway in April, they are honoring KFC's coupons on Mother's Day.

Frustrated by last night's inconvenience, I chose not to buy my dinner at KFC. On the way home, I realized that I was fairly close to M&M Catering. Considering how often I used to stop by their old location (now home to Two Sisters Sandwiches & Sweets), I was surprised that I had not yet been to their new place at Middlebrook and Chert Pit Road. A memo in the window points out that they were chosen as best barbecue joint in the 2008 Metro Pulse survey. They made runner-up this year.

I ordered a chicken sandwich with a mixture of hot and mild sauce. Like their previous spot, there's no place to sit and eat. All orders are to go. While I waited, the lady behind the counter told me that the reason their website didn't work when I clicked on it last week was because it was being rebuilt. The sandwich looked good but the meat was only lukewarm. Bummer. I picked the chicken off the bun and zapped it in the microwave at home.



An inscription in the concrete caught my eye as I carried my sandwich to the car. It read "In Memory of Robert; M&M Catering; Love, wife & kids."

first pitch

By accident and design I found myself at two grand openings on Monday. Danielle and Wes Hope invited one and all to the opening of their new gallery for Hope Photography on Bearden Hill. My little camera was in my pocket the whole time but I was too self-conscious to take snapshots at a professional photographer's event. I felt like I had already been there thanks to the beautiful pictures of the construction progress on the Hope Photo blog.

The Hope's gallery space is inside Lisa Foster Floral Design. The open house was a showcase for several wedding services. When my wife and I arrived, we saw a white tent, a deejay, a wedding cake and servers offering sandwiches from the neighboring Pimento's Café. I especially enjoyed some red velvet cookies from a small specialty company. I think Wes took a picture of the cookies and the tent card for his blog.

I only had my cell phone camera with me earlier in the day when I was the first person to show up for the grand opening of Two Sisters Sandwiches & Sweets on Middlebrook Pike. Ruby and Dixie have taken over the old location of M&M Catering, which moved down the road last summer. Instead of the many large BBQ pit smokers that M&M had, the ladies have an inconspicuous electric smoker around back.



The sisters offered me a small sample of a smoked bologna sandwich and a nice moist mini cupcake. Their full size cupcakes looked great too. Perhaps best of all, they will offer frosting shots, like the cupcake bakeries in the big cities.



I promised Ruby and Dixie that I would eventually be back to buy a smoked chicken sandwich and a full sized cupcake. For now they are sticking with basic flavors but can make anything by special order. I told them I might just challenge them to whip up some Rocky Road or S'mores or Elvis-themed cupcakes. They'll also be selling soft-serve ice cream and slaw dogs, among other things.

me gotta go

There was no "Underdog" moment for me in last night's Dogwood Arts Festival parade but I still enjoyed myself for the most part. The parade remained completely stopped for a long time while some performances were taking place for the lone working camera from WVLT. I later learned that a high school group did a scene from their production of "Guys and Dolls." You would think that the young thespians would then walk or ride down the rest of the parade route. They didn't. For those of us a block or two down the street, it was just awkward.

The parade feature two character balloons and two dogwood flower balloons. My wife thought they had too many petals to be true dogwoods, as did a blog reader last year. The colorful dragon dragon might explain why I was craving Chinese food on the way home. My wife and I got some take-out from the new China Lee on Middlebrook Pike. It was very good.



While the dragon made it past us okay, the Garfield balloon got a flat tire. It appears to be the same one I saw two years ago and is starting to show its age.



The annual parade is obviously a kid-friendly event. The crowd went "ooh" to the flaming-baton twirler on Gay Street and "aah" to the cute little cowgirl with an amusing costumed horse.



WVLT anchor Lauren Davis rode past in the Channel 8 mobile. She was also at the secret Miley Cyrus event earlier this month. I didn't get a good look at the driver of the convertible but I thought it might have been Bob Yarbrough, who was at the goodbye party for Stacy McCloud.

Barney Fife impersonator Sammy Sawyer was being followed by a high def video camera. It made me wonder if they were making a reality show or documentary about him. Wouldn't you watch it?



It's not a Knoxville parade without Marshal Andy. Earlier this week he wished me well in "Star 102.1's Dancing with the Knoxville Stars" competition. He said that he and his wife used to regularly win shag dancing contests in the Carolinas.

The Grand Marshal of the parade was Mary Costa from "Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty." Tired of waiting for the parade to come to me, I had walked up the street to see that while Mary's coach was stopped, some young dancers performed to "Once Upon a Dream" while mouse-eared volunteers (or as they called them in Burbank, VoluntEARS) held flags and "Sleeping Beauty" signage celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film



The Dogwood Arts Festival is 49 years old. Instead of their regular uniforms, the Powell High Panther Band wore 1950s attire like white t-shirts and jeans or poodle skirts. Three different high school bands each played "Louie Louie," a song technically from the '50s but made famous in 1963. Hearing it reminded me of the time I arranged for a marching band play that song accompanied by rock guitarist Slash in the KLOS parking lot.

My favorite float in this year's parade was from Laurel High School. It took me a moment to recognize the Sunsphere due to either the rat tail or graduation tassel hanging off the back.

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."

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.

karfreitag

To close out the series of Lenten Friday Forbidden Treats, here is a slice of German Chocolate Upside-Down Cake from Connor's Steak & Seafood at Turkey Creek. My favorite bit of trivia about German Chocolate Cake is that it's named after Mr. Samuel German, not the European country. But you probably already knew that.

april fail

After the fun I had making my own pseudo Fail Blog entry, my son has now made one too. He found a card promoting some restaurants in St. Louis that don't understand the concept of a designated driver.

here a lee, there a lee

After seven years in Knoxville, I have still not found a satisfactory neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Sure, P.F. Chang's is great for special occasions. The last time I was there, the place was so packed that a server brought out free samples to those of us enduring the long wait for tables. I have been meaning to try a place called Hong Kong House that I read about in the News Sentinel. Supposedly they have a world-class chef from the Chinese embassy. As many times as I've been on Kingston Pike, I've never actually see the place. All I know is that it's somewhere near Toys R Us. Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurant closest to my house is the troubled China Star Buffet.

On the way to church this morning, I spotted a sign for a new Chinese restaurant called China Lee, which is probably not affiliated with an actress named China Lee. Unlike PF Chang's and Hong Kong House, I will drive past this place at least once a week. It's on Middlebrook Pike, in the same strip mall as Clean Sh, er Smart.

There's no indication of exactly when China Lee will open, just that it is coming soon. They still have some work to do on the inside. An unidentified Bama fan was parked in front, probably as anxious as my wife and me for some moo shu.

smelly pizza face

There is still more to share from my recent Florida vacation. Here are a few leftover photos that didn't quite rate their own blog entries.

Is it so embarrassing to buy ProActiv that you can't face the sales clerk? The Treasure Coast Square Mall has a ProActiv vending machine. Once your skin clears up, you can have your picture made at the booth next to it.



Dan Quayle never lived down the way he misspelled potato by adding an e at the end. The folks at Nick's Tomatoe Pie don't seem to care about Quayle's mishap. They have a restaurant in Jupiter and a bar inside Palm Beach International Airport.



The neon sign at Jimmy John's got a smile from me. They offer free smells to passersby.

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.

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.

kick it

Something in the News Feed on Facebook intrigued me last week. One of my acquaintances posted a note titled "Memphis Bucket List" containing items such as "been to Graceland" and "met Justin Timberlake." There were also dozens of things that would only make sense to a Memphis resident. Technically, it is a meme for other Memphians to mark off their own accomplishments.

It got me started writing my own Knoxville Bucket List. It's not groundbreaking or anything, it's just for fun. All of the 25 items listed so far are things I've already done. I deliberately kept the focus on Knoxville, although it certainly would be worth writing an East Tennessee Bucket List too. Also, I have only listed things that could still be accomplished in the future. In other words, I left off "met Cas Walker," even though I think it would have been interesting to have met the man. I invite you to add to the list via the comments section and to help me think of the things I haven't done yet. If you want to turn it into a meme, copy and paste the list into your own blog or Facebook note and put an X next to the things you've done.

my Knoxville Bucket List

• been inside the Sunsphere
  
• can pronounce Krutch Park
  
• eaten at Regas
  
• eaten at Calhoun's on the River
  
• written your name on the chalkboard at Litton’s
  
• been to Feast with the Beasts
  
• been to Boomsday
  
• been to Sundown in the City
  
• been to the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade
  
• been in the Dogwood Arts Festival Parade
  
• followed a Dogwood trail to look at the blossoms
  
• been to the McClung Museum
  
• seen Einstein Simplified perform (14½ years, c'mon!)
  
• been to the Clayton Holiday Concert
  
• been to the Living Christmas Tree
  
• seen a show at the Tennessee Theatre
  
• seen a show at the Bijou Theatre
  
• been to a UT football game
  
• been to the Tennessee Valley Fair
  
• met David Keith
  
• met Tina Wesson
  
• seen a forensics slide show by Dr. Bill Bass
  
• worn a Medic Blood t-shirt
  
• sold some books or movies to McKay's
  
• not been bothered by the closure of I-40 through downtown

Okay, your turn!

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.

hella good

Chef Carol Scott was ecstatic that some of her less-than-shining moments were cut out of the side-of-beef episode of "Hell's Kitchen." My wife and I dropped in on our local contestant's viewing party at Peerless Restaurant on our way home from Side Splitters Comedy Club on Thursday night. We saw some people we knew from church including a family who, as it turns out, lives right across the street from Carol and her family. There were a lot of kids in the room, which seemed all the more noticeable every time Gordon Ramsay or one of the contestants had to be bleeped.



Carol went to culinary school in Las Vegas and worked at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill. She and her husband Curtis moved to Knoxville because it's a better place for them to raise their two daughters. Carol Scott also used to work at Edison Park Steakhouse, the favorite restaurant of Bill and Carol Bass. I saw Mrs. Bass at Garde Bien recently and told her about Mrs. Scott's appearance on "Hell's Kitchen."

I don't know how well Carol does on "Hell's Kitchen," but I would not bet against her. She has the drive and determination to remain on the scene after the TV show is just a memory. Thanks to her great personality and on-camera presence, we will be undoubtedly be seeing more of her in the future. After all, you can take the girl out of Vegas but you can't take Vegas out of the (show)girl.

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.

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?

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."

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.

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:

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.

some less

The plan was to go see an improv performance while in St. Louis. The Improv Trick is run by Bill Chott, who worked in the trailer next to mine at the Comedy World Radio Network and has appeared in "The Ringer" among other films. I emailed Bill to ask about his performance schedule in August and chose a night that fit my itinerary.

After a few wrong turns and much map consulting, my wife and I found our way to The Playhouse at Westport Plaza. It's among a cluster of restaurants, nightclubs and hotels in an office park just off I-270. I thought it unusual that there were restaurants named after local sports legends Albert Pujols, Ozzie Smith and Dan Dierdorf & Jim Hart all in the same complex.

We could hear peals of laughter coming through the doors of the Playhouse. However the box office clerk didn't know what we were talking about when we asked for tickets to the improv show. The performer inside was a comic named Sommore. The clerk suggested we try our luck down the hall at The Funny Bone comedy club. The guy at that ticket window knew the improv show was normally at the Playhouse once a week. They had gotten bumped for Sommore. My wife and I went back to the car, comedy-free.

Whenever I travel, I like to seek out a local improv show for inspiration. I often try to bring back some of their games to Knoxville and add them to our repertoire. I had especially hoped to see a show this week. This coming Tuesday, it will be my turn to emcee the Einstein Simplified show celebrating the group's fourteenth anniversary. Last I heard, recently retired members Todd Covert and Bill Slayden are planning on attending and performing. If any other former members (like Doug McCaughan) show up, I will bring them on stage for at least one game. C'mon out and see us on Tuesday night starting at 8:30 p.m. at Patrick Sullivan's. We're going to extend the show until 10:30, so plan accordingly.

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.

not a big Limp Bizkit fan

Over the years we've been married, my wife Jere has rarely been happy with her haircuts. All that changed last year when she and I got makeovers from Stacey Handel at Garde Bien Spa Salon. Yesterday, Jere went in to the salon with confidence that whatever Stacey did to her hair would be great. Stacey was excited that my wife, who had let her hair grow long, wanted to go short.

I think the impetus for this came a while back when Jere and I had dinner at Regas with Stacey and her husband. We went out to celebrate together because we happen to have the same wedding anniversary. The ladies thought it would be the perfect opportunity to look at each other's wedding photos, which started giving Stacey ideas for Jere's next haircut. Needless to say, my wife's hair looks fantastic. She kept asking me if I really liked it until I reminded her that she had short hair when we met and when we got married.

why I oughta...

Preparations are in full swing for my upcoming road trip to Branson, Hot Springs and Memphis. The first person I thought of in Branson was Little Timmy Padilla, who used to play accordion for us at KLOS before getting a job at the Lawrence Welk Resort Theatre. I was hoping we could catch Timmy in a matinée before seeing Jim Stafford at night. According to his website, Tim has moved back to Studio City. He will be in Branson for a week but unfortunately it's not while I'm there.

My wife and I went to AAA to get maps and TourBooks. We got there an hour before closing, which left no time for them to make us a TripTik. Not to worry, they said they would mail it to us. Meanwhile, I've been sifting through the TourBooks looking for restaurants in Branson. I also emailed Comedy World co-founder Kent Emmons who has connections there. He wrote back with several fine dining options.

Something else in the AAA TourBook is too weird not to mention. Here's the exact quote: "One of the flashiest shows in town is at the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre on Shepherd of the Hills Expressway. Tabuchi -- who has a Moe Stooge pudding bowl haircut..."

Wait just a minute here. Who is "Moe Stooge?" I don't know who should be more insulted, Moe Howard, all Three Stooges fans or Shoji Tabuchi himself. By the way I talked with someone over the weekend who believes that it is Yo-Yo Ma who has a theatre in Branson.

The AAA writer continues: "If nothing else, you must see this show just to experience the ladies' powder room or gentlemen's lounge; the rich wood paneling, potted palms, chandeliers, beveled glass wall tiles, onyx sinks, fresh orchids and hand-carved mahogany billiard table are all the last word in lavish." Too bad their stage is dark this month.

rocky road

It's bad enough when one of the restaurants you've patronized turns up on the "Food for Thought" segment on WATE. It feels even worse when you've been to both restaurants on the report. That's what happened tonight when Don Dare announced the failing score for Baskin-Robbins on Middlebrook Pike and the barely passing score for Mimi's Cafe at Turkey Creek.

Not only had we been to the two places, I wrote about both of them on the blog. Mimi's Cafe scored a 70. We had a good meal there back in March and brought home a S'mores dessert to eat the next day. It looks like Baskin-Robbins, which had a 57, got a 75 upon re-inspection. When we were there in April, we got grossed out by the server who let her hair hang into the ice cream tubs.

My wife talked with another swim team parent who works at a Cracker Barrel. He says that the local health inspectors have been more picky since getting shuffled around to different territories. If what the BBC said eight years ago is still true, Knoxville has the most restaurants per capita in the U.S. I wish that our restaurants had to post big letter grades like the places in Los Angeles and in St. Louis.

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?

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.

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.

feng shui

This meeting of the Waffle House Board of Directors is called to order. Any new ideas?

We could serve fried chicken with every waffle!

I have no idea what you're talking about.

We should buy the empty lot next to our restaurant on Papermill Drive.

Yeah, we could use it as parking for eighteen wheelers.

No, let's keep thinking. What would Marshal Andy do?

Maybe we could enlarge our restaurant to serve twice as many customers.

No, I want to hear some more ideas.

Let's build a brand new Waffle House, exactly the same size as the old one.

Okay, but why?

Because the new one will be rotated 90° to the right!

You know that sounds crazy, don't you?

Not if our business plan is to get more northern exposure.

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 meatless meals. I started rattling off suggestions. He seemed interested in trying Amy's Texas Veggie Burgers. He was surprised at himself for forgetting about cheese pizza, which my parents often ordered on Friday nights back in Crestwood. Like me, my friend was puzzled that eggs can be eaten on Fridays since they could grow up to become chickens, which are not allowed.

My wife is the one who had told me that eggs are permitted by the Church. When I questioned her about it, she said that she had previously looked it up on the Internet (no wonder I'm crazy about her). Turns out that Pope Paul VI gave eggs the okay back in 1966. I wonder if the American Egg Board asked Pope Paul for a blessing, similar to the way KFC asked Pope Benedict to bless their fish sandwich.

Since it was Friday and since my wife and I were going to be in South Knoxville on business anyway, we planned today's meals so that we could try a pizza place we have heard good things about. With a place named "I ♥ NY Pizza," my hopes were high. As a former New Yorker, I'm always looking for pizza that reminds me of the ones I ate while growing up.

I immediately liked the atmosphere at I ♥ NY Pizza. One wall is covered with graffiti and several of the ceiling tiles are decorated. The contents of the dessert case made me want to plan a return visit after Lent when I can eat sweets again. My wife and I ordered a whole pizza so we'd have leftovers to bring home to our son. Our meal began with a house salad. Instead of the cheap stuff we eat at home, our salad was made with fancy greens, similar to the Newman's Own package I've seen at Sam's Club. Their balsamic vinaigrette had the consistency of gravy but tasted great. Our pizza arrived just as we finished our salads. While it was very good, it had almost twice as much cheese as the pizzas of my youth. The crust was thin, the way I like it but the thick cheese oozed out when I folded a slice to eat it New York style. As we were leaving, we saw that the people at the next table had ordered some zeppole, which they were nice enough to let me photograph.



Would I go back to I ♥ NY Pizza? Absolutely. In my ongoing search for my favorite Knoxville piz