Davis-Kidd Booksellers, founded by two social workers, Karen Davis and Thelma Kidd, 25 years ago, will celebrate with a Silver Anniversary Gala on Wednesday, November 9th, at 7 p.m. On hand for the special occasion will be Daisy Maria Martinez, an actress who appeared in Carlito’s Way and Scent of a Woman and is currently the host of the cooking show Daisy Cooks! which airs on PBS. Martinez will sign her new cookbook, Daisy Cooks!: Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World, and serve up some samples of her zesty Latin cooking. In addition, Bill Smith, chef at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, will be signing his cookbook, Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home.
There also will be live music from vocalist Joyce Cobb as well as a silent auction, with proceeds benefiting WKNO-FM. Gala tickets are $25 and are on sale now at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, 387 Perkins Ext., or by calling WKNO-FM at 325-6560.
Bill Vest is back at Fox Ridge Pizza, the restaurant he opened in the Hickory Hill area more than 25 years ago.
He sold Fox Ridge seven years ago to devote himself to his other business, Portable Catering. Vest retained control of Fox Ridge after conditions of the sale were not met. (The Fox Ridge Pizza in Cordova is not owned by Vest.)
According to Vest, Fox Ridge Pizza wasn’t doing well because it lacked consistency. “Sometimes they would close at 7 p.m. or they would close from 3 to 5 p.m.,” Vest says. “That’s no way to make money.”
Vest arrives at the restaurant every morning at 9:30 a.m. to get ready for the lunch crowd. Throughout the day, he goes back and forth between his two businesses.
“My days went from 8 hours a day to 15 hours,” Vest says. “Since I’ve taken it back over, I got a lot of business back. The business is never going to do what it used to do, but we have people who have been coming in for 27 years and we have people who used to come here when they were kids and people who have moved to Olive Branch or farther east who still stop in on the way home.”
Fox Ridge Pizza, 5950 Knight Arnold Rd. Ext. (794-8876)
The Food Network Challenge is coming to Memphis to test the country’s best chefs on their pastry skills.
Host Scott Liebfried will be in The Peabody’s Grand Ballroom Tuesday, November 8th, from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. for the “Rock n’ Roll Pastry Challenge,” which requires the chefs, aka “pastry daredevils,” to create sugary concoctions demonstrating the two elements of rock-and-roll — both the music and the movement (rocking and rolling). On Thursday, November 10th, another contest will be held at the car museum at Graceland from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Contestants will bake and decorate a birthday cake fit for the King of Rock-and-Roll. Winners from each competition will receive a $10,000 cash prize.
