Twenty years before Elvis was drafted, the San Diego Chicken Pie Shop was expanding hips instead of shaking them. With a different war looming, southerners flocked to California for work and were rewarded with a little piece of home: chicken pot pies, mashed potatoes and gravy. Business boomed. Lines snaked out the door. More chicken [...]
What makes for a proper Chinese feast? Some might say diversity of flavor, but I prefer the known quantities that are dumplings and camaraderie. Really, there’s no better time to test out the adage, “Liquor before beer; you’re in the clear,” than when you’re among friends – friends who care about such things as being [...]
Last weekend I went to North Carolina with Joon and The Inspector for the 26th annual Lexington BBQ Festival. Departing from Alexandria, we cruised down I-95 toward the holy land of traditional American barbecue. A detour towards the Skylight Inn promptly resulted in our getting lost for an hour and a half in Eastern North [...]
After almost a year away from the Deep South, I’m finally back in North Carolina. I’ll be bouncing around the state for the better part of a week, tearing through the Hold Steady catalogue and conducting small n research for what I hope will be the book proposal that gets me a publisher’s ear in [...]
Comrades, I wasn’t able to write a column this week due to personal medical issues and preparations for my upcoming trip to North Carolina. I would like to take a moment, however, to thank fellow food blogger Wasabi Prime for presenting The Eaten Path with a One Lovely Blog Award! I don’t typically spring for [...]
I’ve never made friends by campaigning on the good eats platform; most of my friendships were wrought by geographical circumstance and a love for all things geeky. James is no different: We originally began correspondence as I blogged from Moscow and eventually found friendship in science-fiction television, but I’ll never forget the first time we [...]
I spent this past weekend in Pusan, Korea, ostensibly for the purpose of covering the best that Asian cinema has to offer at the 2009 Pusan International Film Festival. I say ostensibly because while there are a number of worthwhile pursuits in life (avid filmgoing among them), I consider them all ostensible when stacked against [...]
When you’re as obsessive about food as I am, it’s tempting to eat your way to clarity. Pizza crusts exist in constellations, hamburgers form concluding paragraphs, and frozen yogurt opens a window into economic impulses. Overwriting ensues. BBQ is far from exempt when it comes to the feedback loop between thought and appetite. After reaching [...]
Lunch in Anglo-Saxon offices is usually quick. Scores of articles in lifestyle magazines have been written for busy working men and women on how to make their lunch a bit more exciting than the sandwich bought from around the corner. Nevertheless, when readers are just too busy to prepare food at home, a sandwich hastily [...]
Mele came up with the mantra that we would “eat New York” when we visited the city last March, a style of travel that basically translates into “meals before museums.” While I won’t always condone pizza before Picasso, I’m a big fan of eating out often when visiting a new city, and that is especially [...]
