Cornbread is a Southern thing.

Cornbread is as Southern as grits, although not as exclusively Southern. Native Americans were eating variations of cornbread centuries before the Europeans arrived. more...

My son used to scream like a banshee every time he ate in a restaurant.

Last year we placed him on restaurant probation for 12 months. Occasionally we would bring him out of exile and give it another shot, each time to the same result – not yet ready. Two months ago we attempted a dinner in one of my restaurants that ended up with the whole family walking out the door, entrées packed in Styrofoam, before we finished our salads. more...

Over the years, school cafeterias have changed drastically.

Today’s lunchrooms seem more like mega-mall food courts than cafeterias. My elementary school had a true-blue, line-’em-up-at-the-back-of-the-room, single-file-grab-your-tray-and-silverware, mashed-potatoes-and-gravy cafeteria. more...

In the beginning, the Junior League of Jackson said, “Let there be cooking” and it was good.

For me, eating is a religious experience. more...

The quest to defend the Napoleonic Code brings out the worst in people. From Huey and Earl Long to Edwin Edwards, Louisiana politicians have a long and storied history, nowhere more notorious than in the governor’s office. Now one candidate is trying to drag us into the quagmire. more...

Notes from a weekend spent cooking on the road.

NATCHEZ – Key West. Fla., might be the southernmost city in the U.S., but Natchez is the most Southern city. more...

I frequent local haunts.

Small diners and cafés that are tucked away in back alleys and on side streets always have held a special place in my stomach. more...

I just ate a pancake on a stick.

That’s it. As of this day, August, 2003, I am officially declaring our society too busy. more...

The reality-show genre has swung around to my reality.

To be on television today, one doesn’t have to spend a month roughing it in the Amazon, eating bugs or strange animal organs, trying to marry a millionaire, redecorating someone’s house, racing around the world or even getting radical reconstructive surgery. All one has to do is open a restaurant. more...

My children eat pre-packaged, individually wrapped, frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In the 21st century, kids have many funky foods to choose from. I am embarrassed to say that the St. John offspring eat colored butter. My 6-year-old daughter puts pink squeeze margarine on her breakfast biscuits, my 2-year-old son opts for blue. Today’s dairy products are color-coded by sex. more...

The cooking process is filled with mistakes and false starts.

Whether developing new restaurant dishes or cookbook entries, one barely gets it right the first time out of the chute. Recipe development can be a long, tedious and sometimes frustrating process. more...

Fondue hit Bellewood Drive the same year the Beatles broke up.

My mother purchased the first fondue pot on our block. It was avocado green and stood on a metal plate, supported by three stainless steel legs. There was a space for Sterno under the pot and high above sat an avocado-green top with a small walnut acorn for a handle. The fondue set came with six long color-coded forks to be used for stabbing and dunking foodstuffs and imaginary swordfights between siblings. more...

New Yorkers are a strange breed.

The island of Manhattan probably offers more restaurants per square foot than any place on the planet. I have eaten some excellent food there. I also have encountered strange food there, none as strange as blowfish ovaries. more...

I love my job.

I am the executive chef at the Purple Parrot Café and Crescent City Grill in Hattiesburg and Meridian. Executive chef is a fancy culinary term for “Doesn’t do any of the work but gets to eat the result and receives way too much of the credit.” more...

Summer is here and it’s time to clean out the freezer.

Later this summer my freezer will be filled with sweet corn, butter beans, peas and peaches. Right now it is filled with freezer sandwiches. more...

I love to eat.

I always have been able to eat a lot. I sometimes can eat an entire meal then eat another entire meal 45 minutes later. Of course, these days I can’t eat as much and get away with it. When I was a child I could do more damage at a dinner table than most. more...

2003 was an interesting year in the life of this column.

I was seriously threatened by livid PETA members who called me a “predator” (among other things). I upset hundreds of loyal and devoted Atkins dieters and received an interesting letter from the Atkins corporate office. Many readers took offense at a tongue-in-cheek piece I wrote about my son’s behavior in restaurants. Angry chitlin eaters wrote hate mail, angry possum eaters wrote even more hate mail, and a group of dyed-in-the-meal, no-sugar-adding, Jiffy-hating cornbread eaters threatened to hit me over the head with their cast-iron skillets. A food column shouldn’t stir up this much flack. more...

Someone needs to build a better mousetrap.

I was in a chain-operated pizza parlor (whose name shall remain anonymous for reasons you will soon find out) and witnessed one of the oddest occurrences in my 41 years of eating in restaurants. It quite possibly was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen anywhere. more...

One day I will lay on my deathbed and say, “I didn’t cure cancer, I didn’t resolve the Middle East peace problem and I didn’t stop world hunger. But doggone it, I rode in the Weinermobile!” more...

A group of prominent French Master Chefs are petitioning Pope John Paul II to remove gluttony from the list of seven deadly sins. Hallelujah, amen and pass the Hollandaise sauce! more...

Theme restaurants are strange animals.

Trader Vic’s started the movement in the 1950s with a Polynesian-influenced menu and overly-fruity rum drinks garnished with miniature toy umbrellas. The modern-day version of the theme restaurant started in the mid-’70s with the London opening of the Hard Rock Café. more...

Have we finally taken this convenience thing too far? 

While watching TV with my family, I saw a commercial advertising pre-made, frozen and crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They are sold by the bagful and can be found in the freezer section of your local grocery store. more...

Last week I walked up on a conversation between two friends. They were discussing the difference between a gourmet and a gourmand. Assuming I would be an authority in this category they turned to me. I was expected to resolve the dilemma. more...

The Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded once again, and amazingly enough, my column did not win.

In what can only be called a historic, gross oversight, this weekly column – a surefire candidate to win in the feature writing category – didn’t even get an honorable mention. more...