Eating for the Soul
Like clockwork, my midlife crisis arrived when I turned 40. Watching all of my friends die from AIDS, I lived in a vortex of death and terror. At my therapist’s suggestion, I enrolled in a weekend workshop at t...
Atlanta’s Hidden Tamale Treasure
The last few weeks haven’t been fun. I had minor eye surgery followed by a stomach virus, followed by a cold of such ferocity that I began to wonder, “What would Jesus do?” Soon my nostrils and eyes cleared, I ...
Limp Fries and Sugar Highs
Many years ago, I used to hang out with Bill Cutler, a former academic who biked around the state and reported his adventures in restaurants for several publications. Maybe a year after his untimely death, I wa...
Son of a Bear: Where Spam is a Luxury
In my last column, I wrote positively about the new Ramen Station in the Larkin development in Grant Park. As it happens, the owners also recently opened a Korean gastropub called Son of a Bear in Decatur. I wa...
Eating My Words: A Very Merry Ramen Holiday
Cold weather has arrived, and that means you’ll be slurping a lot of ramen, the Japanese noodle soup that is absolutely everywhere these days. I dined last week at one of the newest venues in Grant Park called ...
Of Whining Queens, Mexican Flavors, and Halibut Nipples
Last Friday, my regular dining pals and I headed to Nuevo Laredo Cantina (1495 Chattahoochee Avenue). It’s been several years since I dined there and I’ve always liked it. It’s not for purists in search of so-c...
Brazil on the Beltline: Buteco
You remember 1965, right? You couldn’t possibly be gay, you would later think, because you totally hated Barbra Streisand, who won a Grammy for the song “People” that year. I mean you were a bullied kid and, un...
The Soup Nazi Meets Shakespeare at Melody Chinese Restaurant
In which our beloved Cliff gets told how to eat ... and he LOVES it.
A Halloween Tale: In Praise of Orange
Last week, I sat in my office eating candy corn with a client. Created in the 1880s, it is one of the nastiest substances on the planet, but my client and I were using it as a means of mindfulness training. The...
No Tex-Mex on the Menu? Caramba!
There’s barely an inch of intown Atlanta that hasn’t been deformed by “gentrification.” Gentrifiers hate the word because it alludes to a prosperous class that drives traditionally poorer residents from their n...
Summer Bodies Are Made in Winter (Or at Nam Phuong in Autumn.)
Autumn allegedly arrived last week and you know what that means: Soon your body will start gathering fat to protect you from the winter cold and feed you during your hibernation at Manifest and Flex. So, this w...