My fantasy summer includes afternoons lounging around this pool at the St. Regis, followed by a glass of pinot noir in their gorgeous wine bar.
I’ve found my new fantasy home for the summer – poolside at the new St. Regis in Atlanta. We had breakfast there and took a tour this morning and as soon as I stepped onto the terrace, I already pictured myself lounging with a cool beverage in one hand, and a trashy magazine in the other, with an attentive cabana boy nearby should I need someone to turn the page or fluff my towel. Read the full post »
by admin on April 28, 2009
A woodpile in front is a good sign of good 'cue and this place has it.
A trip to the coast is just not complete without a calorie-laden, hunked-up plate of fried shrimp. But it often takes a search to find just the right place –– and it usually is not the one where the hordes of sunburned, flip-flopped tourists line up forlornly grasping an umbrella-enhanced drink while waiting 45 minutes for their name to be called. Read the full post »
by admin on April 21, 2009
Flapjack fans line around the block at this Nashville institution
“Hey, honey – wanna get up, get dressed and go stand in line with dozens of other people on a street corner to go eat pancakes?”
This conversation apparently in many homes daily happens, judging by the lines outside the Pancake Pantry, a Nashville tradition that keeps the crowds comin’. Opened by Robert Baldwin in 1961, it is now owned by his son David, who hopes his two daughters take over one day.
According to David, the secret to the pancakes is in the flour, which he gets specially ground and fetches himself from the hills of East Tennessee. The syrups are homemade on grounds and the cinnamon cream syrup is especially prized. (Check out a similar recipe below.) Read the full post »
by admin on April 14, 2009
My daughter Catherine and me with Donny and Marie, backstage after their delightful 90-minute Vegas show
A recent email exchange:
Me: “Have you heard of Donny and Marie Osmond?”
Daughter: “There is a guy named Alex who is a senior. Maybe those are his parents.”
Such is the generation gap that my kids have no knowledge of the so-wholesome-your-teeth-ache Osmond brothers or little-bit-country-little-bit-rock’n-roll flavored “Donny and Marie Show.”
Truth be told, I hadn’t really followed them much in the past few decades other than to have scant knowledge that Marie was on Dancing with the Stars where I once caught a brief glimpse of her in an ill-conceived doll costume.
But I was offered tickets to see them in Vegas and despite my lingering reservations that we’d be in for an endless medley of “Puppy Love” and “Paper Roses,” we decided to check it out. Read the full post »
by admin on April 10, 2009
Gary Mennie takes his toque to the new restaurant Livingston, opening at the end of April.
I won’t go so far as to call myself a chef groupie – that term I reserve for the McMen of Gray’s Anatomy and a few members of the Rolling Stones, decrepit bodies and all – but after writing about restaurants in Atlanta for more than 10 years, I do have my favorites that I follow. To me, there are few things more attractive than a man who knows his way around a skillet and makes a living with fire.
One of my favorites is Gary Mennie, chef at Canoe for 10 years before opening the glorious, yet-strangely-unknown Taurus. I mourned the closing of the restaurant, but knowing that talent like this won’t stay still for long, waited for this “New Age Soul Food guru” to reemerge on the dining scene. Read the full post »
by admin on April 6, 2009
