Ultra Processed Foods, produced by a handful of the world’s largest food conglomerates, are proving to be one of the great drivers of disease, obesity, ill health, and malnutrition in modern society. Read More

Because believe me, no one comes back from the dead, the well and truly dead. Rolls the stone away, steps out into the light, and walks up the street, greeting the neighbors. Read More

“ A lot of these kids don’t have anywhere to go in the afternoons, or they sit at home playing video games and scrolling their phones. We’re trying to get them up and moving, doing something constructive.” Read More

Out in the yard a racoon is climbing to the top of a high straight poplar tree. Sixty feet up, swaying on the slim distant limbs, he is thoroughly licking the leaves one bunch after another. Racoons are climbers but I’ve never seen one this high. First I thought he was after bird eggs in a high nest but apparently it’s bugs or larvae he is feasting on and worth the climb. Read More

Short version is I’ve always loved these things, sometimes irrationally. Followed racing and motorsports like some people follow politics. Or golf. And in those days the element of danger was very real. Drivers I idolized were killed every year. Cars were dangerous. And don’t even get me started on motorcycles, another passion. Read More

On the way we stop for lunch at a place called Shooters. Because the food is good and the dock is large enough to handle the boat. We have peel and eat shrimp that tastes like it was just pulled from the water, some conch chowder, and heaping plates of fried calamari and salad. I’m beginning to feel that coastal groove coming on. Read More

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I went to live with my grandfather for the summer. To help take care of him, and to keep me out of trouble. My grandmother had unexpectedly passed away the year before, and he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and was beginning to go downhill. Me in my youthful naivete and he in his optimistic denial, didn’t realize it would be our last summer together. Read More

But even these days when I find a place that looks promising, the actual food leaves me wanting. No offense but the love just isn’t there. And if you don’t have some pride, affection, and yes, love for what you’re cooking, it shows. Add the inherent problems, the economics, of successfully staffing and operating an independent family style diner in this day and age and it only gets harder. Cracker Barrel doesn’t count. Read More