at the sign of The Pink Pig

Messin' With the Pig: Memphis is Smoking

[A Pig at Large by Wilfrid: August 31, 2007]

It's true.  Barbecue is an object of obsession.  When you haven't had good barbecue in a while, you start to think you could eat it in any quantity and forever.

I have to say, five consecutive days of eating barbecued pork - six, if you count a random smoked pork loin sandwich in a Nashville honky tonk - is kind of enough.  I started dreaming about sushi.

That's How I Got To Memphis: Blues In The Tennessee Heat

[A Pig at Large by Wilfrid: August 31, 2007]

So many songs.  "I'm going to Graceland..."; "Long distance information..."; "Saw the ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue..."; "That's how I got to Memphis, that's how I got to Memphis...".

I knew I had to go one day.  Heatwave or no heatwave.

New Orleans: Antediluvian Feasting

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: August 31, 2007]

Yes, I was in the Big Easy when Diana Spencer died in that car accident back in 1997.  I was in a blues club, when the singer paused between songs and announced the news.  I had no idea if he was serious, or indeed reliable, until I got back to my hotel (a refurbished French Quarter brothel) and switched on the news. 

Red Hook Ballfields: Chewing the Chicharrones Again

[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 31, 2007]

Optimism about the fate of the Red Hook Ballfields food vendors proved short-lived.  Attention from senior state politicians and the media, and signs of compromise from the Park Department...

Why Snoot If At All?

[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 24, 2007]

I stumbled across one of "Luscious" Lucius' masterworks at the Argosy Bookshop.

(Illustrated by Rea Irvin)

Ten Years Ago: A Duck Pancake and a Grand Pot-Au-Feu

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: August 24, 2007]

Lazy dog days, reading some of Stephen Crane's old New York City journalism, exploring some of the bars around Hell's Kitchen.

A for Aquavit

[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 17, 2007]

It was the waterfall put some people off.  Made them dizzy.

Or perhaps it was the Ryvita. Reminded them of calorie-controlled diets.

Quick Bites: WD-50 Update

[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 10, 2007]

We looked at WD-50 soup to nuts back in May of this year, but it's one of those restaurants wise diners keep an eye on.  Chef Wylie must brood constantly, because he's always hatching new dishes and sneaking them onto the menu.

But first - what's up with the bread?

Gerald Murphy: What Does One Wear?

[The Cunning Tower by Wilfrid: August 17, 2007]

I'd like to catch up with Gerald Murphy.  His paintings, I mean, or what's left of them.  Yes, happily we have the uncanny "Wasp and Pear" at MOMA (I don't know if it's travelling with this show*), but I don't know when else one will get to see the half a dozen or so works which survive.

Ten Years Ago: the March of Time

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: August 17, 2007]

We lost March restaurant at the end of 2006, and I wasn't the only diner to enjoy a miserably poor meal during (unbeknownst to me) the kitchen's final death throes.  Reconfigured as the more casual Nish, it until the early summer just past.