My Smoky Pilgrimage to Helen’s BBQ

Fewer than 10,000 people live in dusty Brownsville, TN. It would be easy to blow right past downtown if you were, say, trying desperately to find anything at all worth listening to on the radio. But even if you did, you still wouldn’t miss the town’s biggest attraction, Helen’s BBQ, which sits a mile removed,…

Accidental Chef in the Wild West

PORTAL, AZ – As if we were all Wild West outlaws lowering our bandanas for the first time, my neighbors in tiny Portal, Arizona and I are finally seeing one another’s faces. Never having seen their mouths, I made many of them extravagant Thanksgiving and December holiday dinners, alongside my friend Zola, who’s pushing 90…

Polish Donuts: The Finest Pączki in all of Chicagoland are at Polish Pączki Cafe

CHICAGO – Don’t feel bad if you didn’t sound it out. [Ponch’-key] wasn’t my first guess either, on my pilgrimage to what I was informed is the best place in Chicago to taste these delightful Polish donuts, the Polish Pączki Cafe. Made from a yeasted dough, hand filled with not-too-sweet plum jam and shaped by…

Postcard: Shirley’s Cafe, Mancelona, MI

Have you ever eaten a meal that was too good to leave but too big to finish. My agony at Shirleys Cafe in Mancelona, MI.

Charlotte the CouchSurfing French Chef Cooks Vegetarian Shakshuka Eggs

Charlotte the veg chef makes spicy shakshuka eggs.

Paella and Pinxtos at the Basque Market in Boise, ID

[Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of articles about the foodways of the Basque immigrants who settled in the West and Northwest, including Boise, ID, whose population of 16,000 is the highest of anywhere in the US.] Tony Eiguren spins his paella, which he makes outdoors every Wednesday and Friday at the Basque…

Southern Fusion Pork Belly Recipe: Hot Cracklin’ and Radish Sprout Kimchi Salad

Oh my goodness I created a simple Southern fusion salad today, a pork belly recipe with spicy and crunchy elements! I tossed fresh hot cracklin’s with spicy radish-sprout kimchi and perched it atop of a bed of baby spinach leaves lightly dressed with sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. It’s a play on a spinach…

A Pie Tasting: Lea’s of Lecompte

Monroe, LA — The days leading up to Thanksgiving can be overwhelming for the pie-bakers at Lea’s of Lecompte (which is a confusing name for outsiders, who don’t know it references Lea’s Lunchroom, the original Lea’s, which IS in Lecompte, a small town almost 110 miles almost due south on State Highway 165.) Lea’s of…

Cubs Fans Still Dig Doug’s at Wrigley as the Hotdog Turns 125

Coming up on four years after he shuttered his “encased meat emporium,” Doug Sohn remains a Chicago treasure. That will come to no surprise to the three hundred people who patiently waited in lines, some as long as five hours, to get one of the final red-basketed sausages at his beloved Avondale institution, Hot Doug’s. Still,…

Travel: Foodie Tour of Hobart Curated by Cally Lyons of Rathmore House

Cally Lyons, who I am lucky to count as my second Tasmanian girlfriend, has a lot in common with Greg Ramsay, owner of Ratho Farm, who ‘hired’ me to come and cook pop-up dinners of American Southern Food at Australia’s oldest golf course in February and March. Beyond being charming, well-spoken, and delightfully cheeky, both of them are…