Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1,332 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 13,450 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
Most of us know someone like Lucy Van Pelt, the irascible, bossy, highly opinionated diva in the syndicated Peanuts comic strip. Since her debut in 1952, Lucy has been the perpetrator of two long-running gags. One involves her holding the football (ostensibly so that Charlie Brown can kick a field goal or extra point) and pulling the ball away…
For many of us barbecue is a noun as in “a social gathering at which barbecued food is eaten.” For others it’s a verb (to roast or smoke food over wood using smoke at low temperatures over a long cooking time). For the most passionate and devoted, barbecue is a way of life…even a religion. That religion is practiced by…
“Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes.” ~The Dorling Kindersley Book of Nursery Rhymes While planning our culinary exploration of the Salt Lake City restaurant scene, there were a number of restaurants we categorized as “must…
A-Team leader “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard) used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” We learned during our trip to Salt Lake City that sometimes baking in a little flexibility into a well thought-out plan can produce results even better than expected. Such was the case with our trip to Salt Lake City. Capably assisted by…
Park City consistently ranks as Utah’s most expensive place to live with a $1.4 million median home price (as of July, 2021). Not bad for an old mining settlement which was in danger of becoming a ghost town until a group of miners pitched the idea of a ski resort in an effort to save their town. That was…
The best lobster in the world? In Salt Lake City? That’s as improbable as the Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl, as unlikely as drivers in New Mexico developing the motor skills to use turn signals, as far-fetched as a conservative NRA member driving a Subaru in Santa Fe. As a landlocked state some two-thousand miles from the cold New…
Television would have you believe Mars and Venus have different ideas as to what constitutes the proper way to eat a burger. Representing Venus (women), as depicted in a Wendy’s commercial from the 1980s, is a geriatrically advanced woman who takes a small bite of her juicy burger then daintily wipes off the detritis with a napkin. Representing Mars (men)…
About fifteen years ago, Becky Mercuri, a highly-regarded food writer from upstate New York contacted me about a book she was working on to recognize the best breakfasts in every state. I was already a huge fan of Becky’s writing so when she asked for my input on the best breakfast in New Mexico, I considered it a huge honor.…
In 2008, Natchez, Mississippi, was officially named the Biscuit Capital of the World, a process which took three years of research by Chef Regina Charboneau. Just our luck, the Natchez native and French-trained chef began serving her famous biscuits at her Twin Oaks Bed & Breakfast in Natchez a decade after our last visit to the “Antebellum Capital of the World.”…
My Kim didn’t buy my explanation that Moab is an acronym standing for “Mother Of All Buffets.” She did find my legitimate explanation viable. I explained that Moab means “a land just short of the Promised Land,” a name bestowed because the Moab valley was a verdant oasis in the middle of a desert. Moab first appears in the Old…
