Fast Food in L.A.

Here's an article from the New York Times about a year long moratorium on building new fast food restaurants in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Conversely, there are incentives for people and businesses that open new grocery stores or table service restaurants in these areas. I think it's a great idea. Quite obviously there are some people out there who are unable (or unwilling) to find good grocery stores with quality items to feed their french fry eating machines, I mean children. You can see here the son of the Michelin Man reaching for more fries. Enjoy the article.

Woodfire Grill & Chef Michael Tuohy

Chef Michael Tuohy gazes at the wood fired grill before his last service at Woodfire Grill on Tuesday. Photo: Marcus Yam, AJC

Woodfire Grill has been one of my favorite restaurants to visit in Atlanta. I say that like I've been there numerous times. Actually, I've only been thrice. The first time was with Liv in the Fall of 2002. We had started dating more seriously at the time and it must have been only a few months since the restaurant had opened. She lived in the area and I had driven by Woodfire Grill and noticed the dark wood and brushed aluminum signage and smelled the wood smoke. It seemed like my kind of place. When we got there we were a few minutes early so we took a seat at the bar and ordered a couple cocktails and snacked on the Spanish almonds. I think we both had Woodford Reserve on the rocks... who was this girl that kept ordering straight bourbon? Anyway, we were eventually seated and had a great dinner. We ordered a salmon Carpaccio appetizer and split a Rocky free range chicken with steel pan greens. There was a bottle of Pinot Noir in there somewhere too. I know I had a 3 course cheese plate for dessert, but I'm not quite sure what Liv had... my memory must be fuzzy. Liv and I ate there two more times, once on New Year's Eve a year or 2 later and once with Lauren, Kevin, Dad, and Marilyn.

The reason I'm posting this is because this past Tuesday, August 12th was Chef Michael Tuohy's last night as executive chef and owner at Woodfire Grill. He is moving back to his native California to accept a position as the executive chef at The Grange restaurant inside the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento. He has been in the Atlanta area for the past 20+ years but seemingly came into his own while at Woodfire Grill. He gained attention and admiration in the Atlanta area and throughout the Southeast because he promoted and practiced using fresh, local, organic, seasonal produce and meats (aka: farm-to-table) whenever possible. I know there are countless chefs and home cooks including myself, who watched Chef Tuohy and have been inspired by his mantra and seek out these ingredients whenever possible.

Woodfire Grill will continue to live on with new owners and a new executive chef Kevin Gillespie, promoted from within, but it is sad to see Tuohy leave Atlanta. I wish I could have had one last dinner there with him at the helm, but I'm glad I got to experience his cuisine more than once while he was still here. With that said, Atlanta says goodbye. Go buy yourself a local free range chicken, fire up your charcoal grill and open a crisp bottle of sauvignon blanc to celebrate the upcoming weekend. Thanks for the great meals and memories! Good luck to Chef Tuohy.

Hot Damn! Bigfoot!

As you can see from the image, a couple of guys have found the body of a creature most commonly known as Bigfoot. You know, Sasquatch. Here's the website: http://searchingforbigfoot.com/ The story goes that a couple of guys in North Georgia (of all places) came across the body in the woods. Maybe I should change the title of this blog to Sasquatch & Beer and buy a bigger pellet gun.

In all seriousness though, I doubt that these guys found much of anything, but if they did I'll truly be amazed.

DNA and photo evidence will be released in a press conference this Friday the 15th.
Below are some statistics:

*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.

Working Nights

I'm in Alabama working the night shift at several Walmart stores this week. Walmart is a pretty big client of ours and when you're #1 on the Fortune 500 list, you tend to get what you ask for. I started this past Sunday and I'll finish up after my Friday night shift. I start around 8 p.m. and work until about 3 a.m., sometimes later depending on the work load. After that I still need to complete paperwork and send off emails so I'm not in bed until around 4:30. It's not too bad, it's even kind of fun. The only downside is being away from home for 6 days in a row... that and I'm now working during the time when I'd usually be having a beer. I think I was made to work hours like this. I adjust to the hours almost immediately. Maybe I should apply to work at a gas station or something. Back in college I would stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning and sleep until the mid-afternoon, when I got the chance. That was back in the days when Dumb & Dumber was on regular rotation on TBS. Right now I can catch the late night re-runs of the Olympics.

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the week.