Nashville Food Blog

​This picture is a photo of a McDonald's Happy Meal taken on the day of its purchase. A writer at blog BabyBites -- a site about transforming picky eaters -- decided to see if the rumor she'd heard that a Happy Meal will last for years was actually true.

So she bought a Happy Meal on March 3, 2009, stuck it on her desk at work, and waited. A whole year. Guess what happened?

Man, fast food chains are really scraping the bottom of the grease fryer to find a loyal audience these days. Remember how Hardee's sold us turds wrapped in roast beef and dipped in saltwater all by tossing a few faux French maids in our faces (ahem: none of my male co-workers seemed to mind one bit)? But not before they equated cinnamon dough balls with their own balls--so literal! Of course, what a wry wit must have led to Carl's Jr. wanting us to think handjob alongside milkshake--which last I checked, was only the, duh!, second reason I like a milkshake, the first being a straight-up facial. And, of course, what woman doesn't have tender memories of the hot beef injection BK served up with a creamy load of mayo? Consider this meat lover sizzled!

So, let's recap: Based on my informal poll, fast food chains aren't interested in catering to anyone who isn't white, male, stupid and now... racist. Clip above.

Lee Stabert

Oeuf!

​Remember former Scene staffer Lee Stabert? Fearless foodie? Music journo? Philly loyalist? Yalie? Obama campaigner? She was out like trout from Nashville shores back in May, and she's since kept up with her food obsessions on her underemployment blog which is, in fact, a food blog.

Recent visits find Stabert is spending an enviable month in Paris, where she's confirming her love for all things croissant, fromage and cafe in delightful prose. The above shot comes courtesy of breakfast in the Le Marais district. Not only does this shot provide a triple threat of awesome for its combination of travel, French things and breakfast, it's also nearly identical to the perfect breakfast I discovered in Los Angeles at the French bistro Le Pain--except, for me, it was a wild mushroom omelette with arugula and baguette. Psst, Marché: Please adjust your omelette du jour to include the crucial baguette, and Stabert: Please allow me to continue living vicariously through your trip.

Via NYT.

​I've only seen one of those cake competition shows--I think it was called Cake-Off or Last Cake Standing or Crazy Cakecapades or something. At first I sneered at a couple of teams of pros battling to create some cake that pleased the man in charge of putting on some pirate convention. It sounded terribly tedious. But 45 minutes later, I was watching with giddy schadenfreude as chocolate fondant peeled tragically off a 4-foot tall concoction, shattering hopes and dreams in the process.

Turns out decorating cakes is no cake walk. And since this article about cakes wrecked beyond recognition ran about two weeks ago in the Times, it's ancient in blogspeak. But that hardly makes it any less amusing to scan images of professionally decorated cakes gone horribly wrong, as one can now do thanks to Cake Wrecks.

There are Hello Kitty cakes that look more like gerbils with glandular problems, fondant ribbons gnarled into hideous nests, and squishy inscriptions that read, "Happy 3th Birthday, Evan." As Ms. Yates, 31, defines it, a Cake Wreck is "any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate -- you name it."

When these folks aren't misspelling your kid's name, they're translating your instructions too literally--for instance, actually putting the words "in small letters" on a cake instructing the word "congratulations" to appear in small letters. So many levels to enjoy, both aesthetic and grammatical. Take a gander, and do please tell us your own cake-decorating foibles, whether experienced personally or professionally.

​

Not being especially fond of hops, or burping, I'm not much of a beer drinker. Take that as a starting point when I say I liked Trader Joe's generic suds, Simpler Times.

A six-pack bought for research purposes turned out to be not Big Fella's cup of tea, so to speak. That left five beers from the six pack for me. Served really cold, it was light, dry and refreshing, which is what I like in a beer. Maybe it was a little like Pabst, but the beer it most reminded me of, the Proustian wave of familiarity, was Pearl, the beer from Texas.

It's been more than a decade -- no, two decades -- since I drank a Pearl beer, but there's no denying that happy homecoming between Simpler Times and my tongue.

Recaling that there's no accounting for taste, what's the popular verdict on Simpler TImes?

Over at Pith in the Wind, Ashley Spurgeon expounds on how the New York media have caught on to this culinary revelation: You can bread poultry, fry it in hot oil and eat it! Honest to God!

Via NYT -- Mitchell Feinberg

​I don't want to kick off some broiling debate about whether vegetarianism is smart, or kind or stupid or unrealistic, but I would like to point you to an elegant essay on the subject of wrestling with vegetarianism by novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. If you know his stuff--his first novel Everything Is Illuminated angered as many as it fascinated because the author was a mere 24 when he wrote it--you know he's a funny, thoughtful writer. Here, Foer takes on the complicated relationship humans have with animals and food, and particularly, the very compelling anchors that foods become in our most cherished memories with family and friends. (For me, that's biscuits and gravy--for him, that's chicken and carrots.) He talks about giving that up, and about what you gain in the meantime. What you non-vegetarians (and I'm one of them) will find so pleasurable about reading this story is Foer's honesty: He doesn't pretend not to miss meat.

While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced--my mother and I now eat Italian, my father grills veggie burgers, my grandmother invented her own "vegetarian chopped liver"--there is still the question of pleasure. A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable, but I couldn't honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it is as rich as a diet that includes meat. (Those who eat chimpanzee look at the Western diet as sadly deficient of a great pleasure.) I love calamari, I love roasted chicken, I love a good steak. But I don't love them without limit.

Elsewhere, he confronts all the attendant paradoxes that the act of eliminating animal protein raises, whether it's explaining to irritated relatives or questioning children. But in the end, it's a choice that changes entire family histories and requires embarking on a quest for new ones. Will his children, never having experienced his grandmother's chicken and carrots, establish equally profound memories over veggie burgers? It's a salient point for anyone who knows both worlds--much like those of us who remember a handwritten-letter, pre-Internet romance.

Remember all those Activia commercials--with Jamie Lee Curtis as spokesgoddess, hawking yogurt at grocery store display counters? If you recall, they promised "a positive effect on your digestive tract's immune system." Now that they've been sued successfully for false advertising and are settling by paying out $35 million dollars--up to $100 bucks per settlement-joining customer--they're not going to be putting that euphemistic language on containers anymore. Guess what they're going to be saying instead?

Gosh, I miss the days when former Scene editor Liz Garrigan would break from her normal daily routine of dog-cussing politicians and treat the newsroom to a forwarded email containing really cute pictures of kittens and puppies getting into mischief.

In the spirit of those days, I offer Evian Roller Babies.

​

Sun-kissed and road-weary, I just returned from the beach, where the pristine cleanliness of the vacation-rental kitchen inspired a purging of the Fox fridge. After unpacking the mildewed swimsuits and dustbustering the sand from my duffle, I attacked the icebox, jettisoning my body-weight in moldy blocks of cream cheese, calcified bricks of cheddar and half-empty jars of relish. (Yes, Pollyanna, they were half-EMPTY.)

I even poured steaming water on the glass shelves to melt away the crystallized pools of last summer's Breeden's Orchard peach preserves. The exercise left me feeling about as good as any other painful constitutional--à la the annual prophylactic dental cleansing or license tag renewal--and my empty, gleaming Kenmore is a sight to behold.

The Family Procurement Officer is on his way to Kroblix to start afresh. With such an unprecedented opportunity to start with a clean slate--a clean plate, even--I want to get it right. What should I put on his shopping list?

By now, we know that Hardee's can put an ejaculatory spin on anything involving their latest line of grub. Well, step right up, 22-year-old stunted adolescent male--it just keeps getting better! The latest oh-oh-OH! offender: the new Hardee's French Dip Thickburger.

OK, so even a reviewer who typically likes Hardee's burgers said it tasted like water, salt and black food coloring. But the egregious ad campaign Hardee's cooked up to sell this Merdeburger is even more tasteless. Stereotypes include: regular maids are old and fat (OMG, like that is SO true, you guys), French maids are all totally babelicious smokin'-hot hotties (yea-UH), and everything French is just better. Wait, now I'm confused. Red-blooded meat-eating American douches like France again? I thought that country was, like, as gay as it gets.

But I digress. Hardee's isn't just content to offend us online, on TV and in radio spots. According to a press release, they're now sending "four gorgeous* French maids" (from France! who love sports! with names like Sophie, Antoinette, Gabrielle and Isabelle!) to ride around on Segways passing out coupons at key sportin' and drankin' events 'round town next week. Now, do they play the same kind of football in France they do in the good ole US of A? Who cares--did someone say "hot chicks feeding me"? Boing-g-g!

Anyhoo. Check out the clip above if you don't get my meaning. Only safe for work if your boss is cool with you "popping your toast" in your cubicle. (Hot dripping icing not included!)

Nashville stops and locations after the jump, mais oui.

* "Gorgeous" has in fact been universally defined, so you can be sure that no matter who you are, male or female, you'll agree aesthetically with Hardee's selection of meat--er, women.

In an essay in New York magazine, writer Hugo Lindgren argues there's a new leading economic indicator:

The hotter the waitresses, the weaker the economy. In flush times, there is a robust market for hotness. Selling everything from condos to premium vodka is enhanced by proximity to pretty young people (of both sexes) who get paid for providing this service. That leaves more-punishing work, like waiting tables, to those with less striking genetic gifts. But not anymore.

An interesting theory. While I would argue that journalists in Nashville are getting hotter and hotter, I can't speak for the local waitstaff. How about you? Have you noticed an uptick in the pulchritude of your servers? Does it help compensate for the decline in your 401K?

​

I found a hair in my noodles the other day. I'm not pointing fingers, because, hell, we all shed. And as far as bodily detritus goes, hair's certainly not the worst. I mean, it's not fingernail. And for further perspective, I once toured restaurants with a health inspector who didn't even flinch at dead cockroaches, because--she pointed out--they're dead, which means the restaurant has the proper roach-killing systems in place. Hurray, I guess?

Looking around the restaurant where I found the hair, I could identify the long-maned servers from whom the offending strand likely exuviated. They looked like a well-kempt cast of Bumble & Bumblers, so that hair was probably every bit as clean as the fork that I was so blithely licking.

Still...hair...noodles. Blech.

In the end, I abandoned my hairy noodles, leaving about 80 percent of the dish on the table. Frankly, I could stand to do that at more meals, so it was a BMI-beneficial event, at least.

When the server asked if anything was wrong with my food, I really wanted to say--at the top of my lungs--"YES THERE WAS A DAMN HAIR TANGLED UP IN MY NOODLES--CAN'T Y'ALL WEAR NETS OR SOMETHING? GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!" But I said nothing. For one thing, I don't really like looking at people in hair nets.

What would you have done?

If your name is Jonathan, and you were the server for a table of three women at ChaChah last week, I'd like to apologize on behalf of all of us and thank you for your patience and help.

Southern women usually say, "Oh, I'll eat anything." But that wasn't true for our party of three. First of all, we couldn't decide how much food to get. No one wanted to overeat, but we were highly motivated to order because we couldn't have more drinks until we ate.

The bargaining began. We couldn't agree on big plates or small ones. One of us wouldn't eat lamb or octopus. One of us wanted the stuffed dates. One of us would not touch dates. One wanted sausage and potatoes. Another refused to eat potatoes. Two small plates and one big racione didn't seem like enough. The bargaining began again over which additional racione, then, we should order.

Then the wine selection. A sparkling pink was summoned from the bar. Too sweet. A non-sparkling pink was summoned from the bar. Somewhat vinegary. The wine list was brought out. Red? Or white? One only drank white, one drank red or white, one got headaches from Chardonnay, one found pinot grigio too tasteless to pair with food.

For the record, the barbecue bison was the entrée, with pinchos of crab fritters and lamb meatballs, plus the three-dip selection. Hours later, everyone left happy, possibly the happiest being our server.

Servers, do you dread seeing that table of Southern women?

Last one to Twelfth South buys the beer!

Every stage of this Tour de France is the most exciting one ever,  for a Tour watcher. Yet even in this tour of thrilling firsts and jaw-dropping athleticism, today's grim five-mountain climb stood out. It had everything you want in a film about the Tour: intuitive teamwork by Luxembourg's Schleck brothers, the smile on that cute Andy Schleck. The sportsmanship of Contador, who rolled across the line in second place in tribute to the hard work of Frank Schleck, with Andy Schleck behind. Commentator Phil Liggett, the suavest and smartest in all of sports, dubbed it The Luxembourg Sandwich.

Ripped from Versus.com

There was a spectacular near-crash and recovery by Thor Hushovd, and a heart-breaking interview with Levi Leipheimer, back home in California nursing a broken wrist. The California dewd-ness of Christian Vandevelde, the gritty relentlessness of Britain's Bradley Wiggins, the wiley strategy of Lance Armstrong, the thinking man's strongman.
And the package on Contador! Can it possibly be real?

Tomorrow is the time trial, and all the factors are aligning to make it the most exciting time trial in several years. Too exciting to watch alone, so I'm heading for Twelfth South Taproom to join other tour watchers. The tour "highlight" broadcast -- an edited two-hour version -- is on from 4-6 p.m. and again from 8-10 p.m. with enhancements like interviews and commentary. Guys, how about a Luxembourg Sandwich for the occasion?

In the Scene editorial department, we have a file cabinet where we dispose of excess food, promotional swag and other things that we feel guilty about chucking--like those misguided booze-flavored potato chips that made some of us puke in our mouths.

On a recent stroll past the File Cabinet of Despair, I caught sight of a name that made my food-loving heart skip a beat: Escoffier. The name synonymous with modern French cooking was emblazoned on the spine of a shiny hardback book entitled Bigger Than Life.

Expecting a page-turning biography of Auguste Escoffier, creator of Peach Melba and Melba Toast, among other culinary innovations--I grabbed the book to spirit it away to my office, to place it on the shelf with the Joy of Cooking, Larousse's Gastronomique and other treasures gleaned from the file cabinet over the years.

But just as I was walking away with my booty, I realized booty, indeed!

This was not a volume of culinary literature about or by the legendary Auguste Escoffier. No, this was Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore by Jeffrey Escoffier, author of Sexual Revolution and American Homo.

Just as I was turning red with embarrassment, Mr. Pink rounded the corner by the file cabinet, no doubt looking for some margarita-flavored potato chips or some of his beloved Pub Corn.

When I hurriedly began to over-explain why I was clutching a volume with a naked male torso on the jacket, Mr. Pink said only, "Well, you'll still get coq au vin." To which Brent Rolen added, "Or at least coq et vin." Fun-nee. See if I share the next alcohol-flavored snack item that passes my way.

Seems like a 1969 Farm Journal predicted the outcome of 40 years of research and endless cultural feuding. The magazine came from a distant family reunion in the Midwest earlier this summer. Reunion of my distant family: It was once owned by the brother-in-law of my grandmother's sister. Along with the story "Lamb Weights Still Climbing," and an item about a family who raises 1,000 head of cattle is the article "Do Animal Fats Really Cause Heart Attacks?"

Faced with a film produced by the American Heart Association that urged viewers to leave whole milk, butter, cheese, fatty meats and eggs behind and choose vegetable fats instead, Farm Journal posited that perhaps high cholesterol levels are the symptom of heart attacks, not the cause.

Farm Journal 1969

OK, well, that turned out not to be true. But the article did cite several studies that didn't find much link between high-fat foods and heart disease. And it did point to studies that inactivity, junk food, smoking and stress seem to be the culprits, illuminated by drawings like this one, apparently of P.J.Tobia at his desk.

And although it took 40 years of research to work it out, and a marketing firm to come up with the name, it seems like The French Paradox--how a fat-eating, smoking, drinking nation has less heart disease--may first have been reported by a magazine in the Midwest.

Ladies, you already knew that the only thing that will ever make you truly happy is a man. But did you know that the path to that happiness was lined with cream cheese, while an idyllic brook of milk babbles alongside? Didn't think so.

Scene intern Caroline Hallemann contributed this post.

I was in high school when I first heard of The Gallon Challenge, a dairy dare to drink a gallon of whole milk in under an hour. While the notion of such lactose excess would repulse most people, keep in mind that 11th grade guys are not most people. In their testosterone-addled minds, the statement that a human cannot ingest that much milk in an hour without regurgitating morphed into a modern-day sword in the stone.

Rumors flitted of mere mortals who had achieved such a feat with 2-percent milk, and fueled by that spurious evidence, the brave and the stupid took up their yellow jugs. I have never seen so much vomit in my life.

A few weeks back, I penned a review of Cantina Laredo that received an unusual amount of feedback. The funny thing about the responses was that some of them said I was too harsh on the Gulch's shiny new Mexican chain--with its high-dollar margaritas and tableside guacamole--while others complained that I had effectively given a bye to an insipid and overpriced interpretation of Tex-Mex.

Therein lies a crystalline critic's dilemma: The food was good, fresh, plentiful. In and of itself, I enjoyed it. But was it a groundbreaking spin on--or even a faithful interpretation of--the indigenous food of our Southern neighbor? Not so much.

So how should it be judged? Against a standard of what it is, or against a standard of what it could be?

It's safe to say I'll continue to wrestle with that question, and I appreciate the opinions of Scene readers who feel strongly about my reviews. Please keep them coming.

In the case of the Cantina Laredo review, I actually felt like I had been a little harsh. I haven't checked, but I'm guessing management didn't exactly laminate and post my review, which predicted that Cantina was "not going to change the way you think of Mexican food, except maybe how much you think it costs," and likened a grilled steak to a "small steel-belted radial." But such criticisms weren't enough for some people, including one reader who rebutted that Cantina Laredo was "a pseudo-Mexican take on Shoney's where you feel like you should wear better clothes."

Perhaps the disconnect between what I wrote and what I thought I wrote about Cantina Laredo could be summed up in this characteristically hilarious article from The Onion, in which the kid-gloved reviewer is--at least in his own mind--one bad mo'fo on a warpath of gastronomic ass-reamings.

Something to aspire to...

I wish I were making this stuff up folks: First, Carl's Jr. wanted you to conflate a milkshake with a little handjob action. Then Burger King wanted you to deep throat a seven-inch burger. Now Hardee's is dangling a sweet pair of biscuit balls right onto your face, and would like very much if you would munch on them. Hey, they're drizzled in a money shot of white icing!

The ad above asks would-be customers to "name their holes." I, for one, think it's great when commercials bring us all together. Just as everyone can have a Coke and a smile, now we can all embrace our stunted 22-year-old inner douche together, as a community, in service of the one thing we all agree on: Only fratty, 20-something brohammers eat fast food, but everybody wants to be in on the hazing party. So thanks, Hardee's, for allowing the rest of us to lick your balls, too.

[Via Jezebel.]

This titillating ad is making the rounds on ad blogs for its, er, low-hanging-fruit approach to selling a seven-inch slab of grilled beef.

"Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the new BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER," the ad copy reads, while a pallid, blow-up-doll like model opens up wide and ready for intake. It's so over the top I almost didn't believe it, but here's a link to the shot of the ad in Singapore. I guess if Hardee's and Carl's Jr. can invoke handjobs to sell a milkshake, why can't BK offer a BJ in their ad to move burgers?

Hell, I'll even forgo the expected feminist reading and just ask these assholes to level the playing field. (Oops--I guess asking for a level playing field is kinda feminist.) Women are constantly sold products using sex as well, only we're shown in casual slacks "getting off" on the Herbal Essences shampoo, or the scent of Febreze, or our husband's laundry-fresh scented polo shirt. Commercially, it seems our greatest sexual pleasure is being romanced by an old mop. Always relegated to the domestic realm, our only pleasure's a moment of respite from our real passion: clean houses.

Can you imagine an ad with a woman eyeing a vacuum cleaner like its vibrating power might do more than pick up dust mites? Or stopping mid-scrub of the bathroom tiles when she sees that sleekly powerful new shower head? How about this same BK ad targeted to women, but with a hot dude, oh, I dunno, fingering some chicken nuggets? What? Too tacky?

Hell, our supposedly torrid romance with ice cream could produce at least one ad with a young, tan, ridiculously attractive beefcake giving an ice cream cone a promisingly naughty lick, stopping an otherwise harried executive lady dead in her tracks.

Nah, leave all the fun to the boys. I'd rather be told how to find an exciting new way to prepare chicken tonight.

[Via Jezebel.]

Ladies and citizens of Gaymenistan! Are you hot? You are? Then you need a License to Chill.

From Del Monte comes this ice treat to fill the hole, so to speak, in the adult ice treat market. And to look incredible doing it--it's modeled on the world's most famous torso. That would be Daniel Craig's. Mmmmmm.

Here's the plan. Take it to the bathtub and reenact that scene where he's emerging from the waves in, uh, whichever 007 film that was.

The limited edition also looks good on you: It clocks in at less than 100 calories. Insert swallow joke here.

Well, apparently not everyone loved the Scene's Summer Guide. Tallahassee May (pictured above), for one, objected to the use of Delvin Farms as a backdrop for beefcake instead of as a centerpiece in and of itself.

May, whose Turnbull Creek Farm partners with Drury Family Farm to create Fresh Harvest Co-op, drafted a response to the Scene's cover story in a May 23 posting on her blog. You can check out her rebuttal and get a gorgeous photo tour of life on a farm during the growing season.

(Tally, you may not know this, but it's thanks to you that Yvonne Smith, a.k.a. the Traveling Vegetarian, graces the Scene's cover this week. That's because I first met Yvonne two years ago when we were both picking up vegetables at Fresh Harvest on a Wednesday afternoon at the corner of Sharondale and Hillsboro.)

Call it Tongue Trouble at La Hacienda. I like the taste of tongue, so on our last visit to La Hacienda, I ordered the tongue plate. But my tongue isn't as cannibalistic as it used to be. When the lengua was judged to be too tongue-textured, as well as tongue shaped, my tongue said "Basta!" Eating it involved emotional duress, which is the opposite of what comfort food is supposed to be about.
Next time I get a taste for tongue, it's tongue tacos, cut up and modestly wrapped so they're unrecognizable.

OMFG. Nick Jonas (a.k.a. the HOTTTT one!) was totally spotted chowing down on Burger King at the Nashville Airport.

I mean, they like, totes rulz, but I think it's kinda bogus that his whole "purity" thing doesn't extend to what he puts in his stomach. There is no way that premarital sex is worse for you than factory farming and fast food. Maybe Miley was right about him!

This Australian ad for cookware is getting a little play on the Internet for its clever viral marketing effect. But then when you visit the product's website, you see very quickly what it's actually an advertisement for.

We don't have West Coast burger chain Carl's Jr. here, but we do have their good-times lil' bro-hammer Hardee's. And according to some of my male colleagues, some of their TV ads are the same, though we tend to get the considerably tamer ones in these Southern parts.

Nonetheless, I wanted to post what we're all missing out on--the part of the Carl's Jr./Hardee's ad campaign that has the inflated cojones to ignore literally everyone except dudes aged 22 in its quest to further the monster burger. It taps into all the relevant issues facing the 22-year-old douche--juggling multiple girlfriends, naggy chicks who won't shut up (and how to manipulate them) and how milkshakes, when done correctly, are actually a hell of a lot like handjobs. Didn't see that one comin', did ya?!?

Hell, maybe they're just smart enough to focus on their true demographic. But either way, these ads get the same near-pornified treatment of practically everything in popular culture today. File it under Things I'd Be Insulted By If I Were A Dude, or: The Dumbing Down of the American Male--but also, Ads Where the Ladies Are Always About a Bajillion Times Hotter Than the Dude We're Supposed to Believe They're With. (See also: most sitcoms.)

Check out hilarious comedian Sarah Haskins' breakdown of the ad series:

In an effort to keep up with the way its readers consume media, Nashville Scene has decided to move Bites to a Twitter-only format.

"There was a time, about three years ago, when our readers could sustain attention for a 150-word post, but that time has passed," said managing editor Jim Ridley. Instead, contributors will pen posts that conform to the Twitter format of 140 characters including spaces.

Scene studies determined that Twitter will eliminate long descriptions of dishes and atmosphere, cutting right to the chase. "Stk is gr8, fries, meh." "OMG, light fixtures sosososo nice."
 
"Focus groups indicate that people love to read about food, but they want a quick, Judge Judy look at a restaurant," said Ridley.

The format will also allow readers to closely follow Bites staff eating habits. "Ugh. Pita is damp." or "Nearly out of p-nut bttr! :(" or "Storebrand cheerios on sale @ Krgr!"


Ridley also cited the interactive possibilities. "If we get 20 comments on any given Bites post, which are relatively difficult to compose and type, think how many tweets we'd get, all consisting of people saying 'LOL! p-nut bttr runng lo here 2!" and "Fake Cheerios=taste o punshmnt."

Stay posted for instructions on signing up to follow Bites on Twitter.

I recently had the honor of speaking to a group of fourth-graders at career day, for which I just received a bundle of thank-you letters. Written in pencil on blue-lined paper and adorned with eraser marks and the occasional illustration of pizza, the notes were flavored with such enthusiasm for writing and eating that they reminded me how much I love my job. (One note, signed "The Future Food Critic," even has me watching my back a little.) One particular letter, which was unsigned, reminded me the most of own early career ambitions. I share it (slightly edited) below:

Dear Ms. Fox,

I was the person with the details? I wish I'll become a food critic. I think it is a easy job. It was the best section of the day. All you have to do is eat and write about it. Have you ever been to Sonic?