New Orleans

I was in South Louisiana this week on business. I flew into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Monday and drove to a few cities in and around the area. As Hurricane Gustav spins towards the Gulf of Mexico many were wondering if lightning can strike twice in The Big Easy. Time will tell...

I got to visit my cousin Tyson and his family (Sarah, Elizabeth, Cornelia, and Henry) in Baton Rouge which was nice, and I got to hit New Orleans for a couple hours on Wednesday morning. I figured if I was in the area I better saddle up at Cafe du Monde and Central Grocery if nothing else... so I did. Enjoy the pictures - I'm keeping the Muffaletta.

Beware the White Squirrel

I saw something horrible today. At first I thought it might be a squirrel ghost coming back to haunt me (squirrel kill count is at 54) but then I remembered a conversation I had with a coworker about white squirrels in the Brevard, North Carolina area. I'm up here working and I saw one of the little guys while I was driving through town.

The story goes that these squirrels were accidentally introduced to the wild after a carnival truck overturned in the area back in the 1950's. The squirrels got out and the rest is history. The folks here love them. In fact, in 1986 the city passed an ordinance that states this:

"The entire area embraced within the corporate limits of the city is hereby designated as a santuary for all species of squirrel ( family Sciuriadae), and in particular the ' Brevard White Squirrel'. It shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, kill, trap, or otherwise take protected squirrels within the city."

I hope they know what they've gotten themselves into...

Don't believe me? Here are some links.

Brevard White Squirrel Festival

White Squirrel Research Institute

History of the White Squirrel

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.

What's in a Name?

Why squirrels and why beer?

The beer is probably self explanatory, but after killing squirrel #52 yesterday I thought it was a good time to explain the title of this blog. For those of you who haven't heard (where have you been?) I've been killing pesky squirrels in our backyard since February. After 6 months, it ends up being about 2 squirrels per week. Some weeks are better than others... Now I've dispatched 52 of the little rodents. Anyway, it started off as a population control measure because squirrels were EVERYWHERE. In the front yard, in the back yard, on the roof, digging holes in the garden, eating my birdseed - just all over the place. It's now become a bit of a hobby, but in truth I still feel that I'm helping keep a natural balance. In fact, just this afternoon there were 2 squirrels chasing each other through the backyard in what I could only imagine was a territory issue.

Now you might ask, "Why not leave the poor furry squirrels alone? Who cares if there are a few running around the yard?" First, squirrels are the sons of Satan. Don't believe me? Look here: http://www.deadsquirrel.com/links.html They are nowhere near as cute once you get to know them. Second and more seriously, you might have missed one crucial location where these squirrels were running and frolicking... on the roof of our house. Get into a conversation with someone and you might find out that they have had squirrels in their attic. Then ask them how much it cost to rid their attic/home of squirrels. The cost can very easily run into the $2,000-$4,000 range. That is if you still have a house to rid them from. Squirrels love to chew on electrical wires which can cause house fires. I don't know about you but I don't think either a burned up house or $4,000 out of my pocket is desirable. I decided that a $50 pellet gun from Walmart was not only fun, but truly useful too. The dead squirrels have created quite an interesting situation in our backyard, but I'll get to that in later posts.

So that's my squirrel story. I hope next time you see a squirrel running across the road you hit the gas, not the brake.

Fall TV

Like many people, I too look forward to the new season of Fall TV. I mean what's more American than spending a few quality hours staring mindlessly at the television? Got any favorites? I'm a big fan of The Office, Heroes, and while not exactly scripted programming... football. There's just something about waking up late on a cool Sunday morning, starting a fire, and popping open a few beers. In a couple years (2010) I'll even be able to get up on Saturdays and get behind my alma mater, Georgia State, as they start a college football program of their own!

Anyway, as many of you know I'm also a big fan of cooking shows. None of them have yet to tackle cooking squirrel - maybe there will be more on that from me this fall (?!). Now that The Food Network is 99% full of bullshit programming like Rachael Ray, Sandra Lee, Paula Deen, Down Home with the Neelys... (get a fucking room, you two) etc., I've turned most of my attention to PBS. There you can find some great food shows and none look greater than a new show coming this fall called "Spain... On The Road Again." It looks more like a documentary than a how-to cooking show, but I'm betting it will be fantastic. The show follows Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Claudia Bassols on "the road trip of a lifetime" through Spain. How cool is that. Even the theme song is recorded by who else, Willie Nelson, doing a Spanish inspired version of "On the Road Again."

http://www.spainontheroadagain.com/

Watch a preview below.

First Post

Here's my first post on my first blog. It's about nothing in particular, just my journey through life and the things I find interesting along the way.

I'm writing this a couple days after a relatively small earthquake (5.4) hit Chino Hills, California. While some earthquakes can be destructive and deadly, this one was just strong enough to knock some stuff off shelves and "rattle" some nerves. In that light, I found this video kinda funny. Enjoy.


Earthquake Rocks Chino Falls - Watch more free videos