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Okay, TheFoodTutor has clearly been kidnapped, or maybe she's just hanging out gawping at IKEA. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and say that the walk-in in question is most definitely not the Varsity's: they likely use a frozen product, and I'm furthermore guessing that they actually get their fries delivered in dump trucks. The real tip off is that the Varsity most likely doesn't grind its hamburger meat on site.

Feh. The natives are resilient and adaptive. They will and do adjust their travel times and routes to suit the conditions and their needs. That's how they live there. ← Exactly. They stay home and eat great food. I know because I lived there myself. It's not a question of time and effort, it's a question of imminent death.

Absolutely. Note that you weren't really eating in a restaurant, but in a home.

In Nebraska, sure, but not in the mountains. Ten miles is a long way on mountain roads with hairpin turns, never mind the fog that rolls in many evenings.

My grandparents (who were from southwestern Virginia) never ate in restaurants, and the mere idea of doing so filled them with horror. Not only did restaurants serve substandard food (store-bought produce and meat, stale baked goods, margarine instead of butter) that was poorly-prepared (typically by a male, not the natural order of things---why didn't he have a real job? was he an alcoholic?), but eating there labeled you as either too shiftless to cook (if you were a woman) or too ugly or spineless to marry a woman who'd cook for you (if you were a man). A couple dining in a restaurant evoked all sorts of dark scenarios: were they having an affair? Were they plotting a crime? Even when traveling (to visit family, of course---there was no such thing as an actual vacation) the woman was expected to have packed sufficient food for the trip and thereby avoid eating bad restaurant food. That said, I've had some pretty terrible meals in rural France. One of my worst meals in recent memory was in a small town in Languedoc, the name of which has fortunately been erased from my memory.

A cool site, but TheFoodTutor needs to update her photograph. lambfries looks just the same as always.

Grits are typically served on a plate, actually, a side dish to breakfast items like eggs and ham (so functionally the same as hash browns). You eat them with a fork, because of course you're eating all those other items with a fork. Eating grits with a spoon is decidedly not the sort of behavior that will induce a Southern Belle, glamorous or not, to sit in your lap. She will think that you are insane, and very possibly degenerate, as eating them with a spoon suggests that you've put sugar and milk on them. They're actually quite good this way, but if you do it just tell people you're eating Cream of Wheat. Most grits are served either plain or with cheese mixed in. Shrimp and grits is a classic combo, and the other is grillades and grits (or grits and grillades) which is grits topped with strips of meat (stewed rather than grilled, actually). Again, topping with fruits would be a bit odd. Would you top your mashed potatoes with a blueberry smiley face?

Atlanta this Saturday: Blueberries Arugula Tomatoes (several sorts, including some cool ones striped with black and a few unripe green ones) Summer squash Zucchini Lemon cucumbers (about the size and shape of lemon, yellow peel, with higher seed to flesh ratio---you slice them in wedges like lemon, very pretty and nice flavor) Redskin potatoes Pole beans (rattlesnake and some other type that are sort of magenta) Eggplant (first of the year---it's a sort of mottled yellow and white stripe that I've not seen before)

Absolutely. The breakfast of civilized people everywhere. Really looking forward to this blog.

Kebabs. Marinate meat chunks (I use beef---there's a cut here in the U.S. that's specifically for kebabs, I don't know what it's from) in some oil/vinegar/spice mixture (I use olive oil, red wine vinegar, bay leaf, and garlic), thread on skewers, and broil (it's very quick, as the meat's in small pieces). You can add onions, peppers, etc. if you like. You can do these ahead of time and arrange on a platter. Because you decide how much meat's on each skewer you've got instant portion/expense control. You can also do a variety of skewers---some beef, some chicken, etc.

Making it all the more interesting that is was, in fact, functionally toxic: maize was imported from America, but the appropriate means of corn meal preparation (pre-soaking in an alkaline solution) was not, resulting in niacin deficiency (aka pellagra), a widespread problem in areas where polenta formed the basis of the diet. As for the people/animal food question, a Dutch friend pointed out to me a couple of years ago (while we were driving through a rural area) that corn grown for animal fodder could be grown on land that would not have been approved for growing produce for human consumption, apparently due to soil contamination of some sort. So that might contribute to some wariness re corn on the cob.

Sweet potato pie too cold weather. Chess pie an option, and cobbler's the most seasonal traditional dessert but I'd actually just do watermelon. Eaten outside, of course: no worries about catching drips or where to spit seeds. If you really want to put on the dog you could do fried pies. Fried peach pies... Pole beans are in season now---pole beans would be the appropriate cooked green veg for this time of year. Corn bread (no sugar---prove to us once and for all that you've left your Yankee ways behind you). Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and onions. Pan-fried potatoes. No meat or main dish. Meat frequently not featured in a real deal southern meal.

Not officially summer pudding, but this is also great made with angel food cake (also from your grocer's aisle, of of course). I use raspberries and/or blackberries, currants being hard to find in these parts.

Sounds like there's consider appeal to the "forbidden" aspect of the enterprise. Good thing that smoking's now sufficient reason to do something that feels so glam and cutting edge.

Thanks for the link, jackal10. I do anticipate finding appropriate apples a bit problematic, but plan on hitting up some farming friends in the area. I may try the first batch with more conventional fresh cider just to see what I get.

Are there? Those are some dedicated smokers. A local community here in the Atlanta area, Decatur (actually swallowed up by Atlanta long ago---it's considered "in town", not a suburb), instituted a smoking ban in all inside areas of all restaurants and bars some time ago. There are lots of them, as Decatur's sort of a laid back nightlife sort of destination, and so far as I can tell it hasn't hurt business a bit: restaurants and bars remain packed (actually busier, it seems), and smokers either sit outside or go outside. We have an advantage over Chicago and New York in that it's not nearly so unpleasant to go outside (or even dine outside) most of the year. Lots of controversy (and confusion) here over a state-wide smoking ban that's supposed to go into effect July 1.

Any suggested starting points? Either a book or a web resource? How long does it take?

Another interesting possible point of confusion, as I'd have assumed that somebody asking for black tea was specifying that she wanted neither green nor herbal tea, not that she wanted it without milk.

I vote for an all veggie dinner (except for incidental meat used for flavoring), the quintessential southern summer meal.

Last night my husband and I were trying some of his most recent batch of home-brewed beer (very nice, by the way) last night and somehow the conversation got around to hard cider and whether or not it would be worth making. Anybody with any experience making it at home? My ideal is normandy-style cidre bouché, brut. I should be able to source some interesting apples later this summer.

"Chai" is used in these parts (Atlanta, GA) to describe any sweet milky spiced version of hot black tea. I've not seen it called "chai tea", though I don't usually drink it away from home (where I make it with a commercially-prepared masala that I also add to hot cocoa) so may just be missing that. Some people know that it means tea and some people do not, but everybody knows that when you ask for chai around here you're asking for the sweet milky spicy beverage, not for plain black tea. If you appeared to be Indian and were in an Indian restaurant and asked for chai the waiter might ask you to clarify your order.

Mosaic? I know them. They're a totally new concept -- a one-stop-shop for all your fine dining and cargo shipping needs (but you have to supply your own pallets). ← Exactly. I think the idea is to outfit the pallet as a raft, the better to visit all those decadent ports of call. Just throw a couple of them in the back of your Hummer and you're all set.

I'm generally with NulloModo and cakewalk on this issue. Languages change constantly, it's one of the cool things about them. I do find some things jarring: the use of the plural Italian in English instead of the singular, for instance, but that's because I speak Italian and hearing it used incorrectly sounds as strange as saying "I'd like a sandwiches, please." I don't expect somebody who is non-italophone to have the same reaction, and I don't think less of them for not having made the effort to figure out the fine points of Italian grammar. I do expect pretty much perfect spelling and at least reasonable sentence structure in printed material, particularly when the text is in the local predominant language, written by a native speaker and directed at other native speakers. The following text is from a glossy advert for a local upmarket-ish retaurant (that I've never visited): "Mosaic is a coastal Mediterranean restaurant with exciting worldly charm and cuisine. Our handcrafted menu and ambience take your pallet on a foreign voyage stopping at various French, Italian, Spanish and North African ports of flavor and decadence." They do, fortunately, offer "ample and secure parking".

Yes, just as one should order a single panino (instead of a panini) and if ordering more than one pizza ask for two pizze. But it really is too much to ask a non-Italian speaker to remember (or even know) how to make all the various genders plural, so I can't be too bothered about it when I see or hear it incorrectly (though I do point out the error to my kids). Since I find it a bit jarring to order a single "biscotti" and people look at me funny if I ask for a biscotto, I just make a practice of ordering more than one at a time.

Great stuff, Varmint. Though I think we probably need to see a picture of a split biscuit sometime this week.