We are great lovers of food. From Angela’s start as an extremely picky eater and Paul’s start as a latchkey child and connoisseur of all things frozen, we have become talented cooks and devoted advocates of food issues.
We started this blog as a family diary so that our son Patric would have mementos of our travels and our meals. Eventually, the blog became more than a simple journal. Now folks ask us for cooking and dining advice, and somehow we find ourselves interviewed by the media from time to time.
In addition to the blog, Angela has been a contributor to Edible Memphis magazine, writing pieces about urban backyard chickens and the emergence of Mexican tamales in the area as the Hispanic population has increased. Paul wrote the magazine’s travel column, where he detailed food-based day trips out of the city. We have both written pieces for the Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Flyer. We have also co-written several pieces for Taste of the South magazine.
We have written three books, The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover’s Tour of the New American South, Farm Fresh Tennessee, and Catfish, A Savor the South Cookbook, all published by the University of North Carolina Press. Additionally, we co-wrote a chapter on barbecue and the Slow Food movement for the book The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South. We are currently working on A Seat at the Big Table, a book of southern food and food history for families.
Angela studied English and music at Rhodes College while introducing her non-Southern friends to the flavors of the South. Paul studied Spanish at the University of Memphis and first expressed his combined love of food and writing as arts and entertainment editor and food critic for The Daily Helmsman at the University of Memphis. Although we both left our fields of study for more lucrative careers in information technology, we left neither our fascination with food nor a desire to write behind.
Angela has traveled extensively in England where she enjoyed studying Pakistani immigrant culture and eating a lot of curries. She has also traveled in the United States, exploring the Irish pubs of Boston, the foods of the Pennsylvania Dutch, San Francisco’s Chinatown, the Japanese cuisine of San Jose and the taquerias of southern California as well as the foods of her native South. Paul has traveled in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala where he was careful with the water but dove into the food. He has had everything from greasy-fingered meals bought through a bus window from a street vendor in Belize to cochinita pibil in fine dining restaurants in Mexico to armadillo in rural Guatemala.
We try to do more than just talk — and write. We are heavily involved with food as a social and cultural issue. We do all we can to support our local farmers markets. We are members of the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, and Slow Food International. In Memphis, one of our greatest joys has been working in the farm-to-chef movement, helping several local farmers place their products with restaurants ranging from neighborhood joints to four-star fine dining.
When we are not cooking or writing about food, we are out looking for it. From travels across the country to experience Michelin stars to trips to questionable neighborhoods to seek out the most authentic ceviche or biryani, we have a passion for discovering and sharing food.