November 2007 Archives

Date: 09/10/06

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The hottest restaurant in Nashville, hands down, is Prince's Hot Chicken Shack. Harold's Chicken Shack in Chicago was the king of hot chicken until I tried Prince's.
If you want it "hot" at Prince's, you order "medium." A pickle slice on the side calms the effect. You also avoid Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew. I quickly learned carbonation accents the heat. Nashville food writer Pat Embry -- whom I've known for years -- brought two glasses of backup water during our visit to Prince's. Then I got my own water........

5:20 pm. Saturday, Nov. 24
I found my way to the "Maps: Finding Our Place In the World" exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago over the weekend. It was impressive despite falling flat on roadside Americana.
After spending two hours looking at globes and maps I perused the gift shop for relevant map postcards. There were none. What's up with that?
I know with the advent of the Internet, sending out a postcard is becoming a lost practice, just as the art of lighting a cigarette with a match from a matchbook. I've always collected matchbooks and postcards because they frame a sense of place---and they are easy for a pack rat to store.
The Chicago Postcard Museum seems to figure that if you can't beat 'em, join' em.
The museum opened Nov. 1 at www.chicagopostcardmuseum.org...........

Another Favorite Restaurant,
Feb. 29. 2004

SIKESTON, Mo. -- I have been to Paris once. It was during a honeymoon on the Ile Saint-Louis. My wife and I stayed in a little white hotel on the banks of the Seine River. After an afternoon of sightseeing, we returned to the hotel only to find our bed had not been made. I called the front desk and requested fresh linens. Several minutes later there was a knock on the door. I opened it. A hotel employee threw the sheets across the room. My wife screamed. I ducked. (We got divorced six years later.)
Hey, you don't have to go all the way to Paris to get treated like this.
The original Lambert's Cafe is at the junction of Interstate 55 and I-57 at Sikeston in rural Missouri. Every day a server walks through the restaurant pushing a cart of 72 hot rolls. If you request a roll, he will throw one at you. No one screams. No one ducks. Everyone is happy. That's why Lambert's Cafe is America's "Only Home of Throwed Rolls.".......

May 5, 2002

COLUMBUS, Ohio--The Chef-O-Nette restaurant in the Upper Arlington suburb of Columbus is an American classic. Its charm can be attributed to the triumvirate of 1960s architecture, comfort food and a name that is obviously free of focus groups.
The restaurant with squiggly Formica tables and surfboard-shaped chandeliers is on the west side of the Tremont Shopping Center. All 16 stores in the mid-20th century limestone center are independently owned. There is not a chain operation in sight. So there are a few real good things already going on here.........