Category: Food & Drink

At South Philly, there is a sign that hangs above the counter. It reads: HOW TO ORDER A CHEESE STEAK.

Step 1: Specify if you want your steak with (WIT) or without (WIT-OUT) Onions. (If you are not a rookie, this should come naturally.)

Step 2: Specify Plain, Cheez Whiz, Provolone, American Cheese and/or sauce.

Step 3: Have your money ready. (Do all of your borrowing in line.)

Step 4: Practice all of the above while waiting in line.

When Corey Miller and Mike Dinwiddie decided to open a restaurant specializing in Philly cheese steaks, they wanted to be authentic but not so authentic as to be rude.

“It’s like the Soup Nazi up there,” Miller says of cheese steak shops in Philadelphia. “If you get in line and don’t order it a particular way, you have to get in the back. Those guys do so much business, they can treat you like crap and get away with it. You’ll come back anyway. You’ll be there at four in the morning in 30-degree weather.”

Miller, 24, and Dinwiddie, 27, hope to be that busy someday. They opened the 3,000-square-foot restaurant, located downtown near W.C. Handy Park, in August. Inside, the walls are a mix of metal beams and brickwork. In the back, there are framed pictures of Philadelphia landmarks, places like Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s Steaks.

“Cheese steak in Philadelphia is like barbecue down here. There are a thousand joints up in Philadelphia. They all do it a different way, and everyone has their favorite place. They all take it really seriously,” Miller says.

So seriously, says Dinwiddie, that the staff at South Philly is already used to being called out by their customers.

“Everyone who comes in here who is from Philadelphia … none of them buy it at first. They say, ‘No way. You guys can’t do it like up there.’ We get lots of challenges.”

According to Dinwiddie and Miller, they have yet to fail a taste test.

One reason is that they get their bread and meat from a Philadelphia company that has been in business for more than 100 years.

“The roll is probably 90 percent of the sandwich. If you get a bad roll, it starts falling apart. These really hold it together,” Miller says.

“The cheese, the onions, the mushrooms, the peppers … they’re all chopped in,” Miller says. “It gives it a more consistent taste. Instead of just laying it down, it’s all mixed in so you’re getting that same amount of cheese in there.”

You can order American or Provolone cheese, or go really Philly and ask for the Cheez Whiz.

“People get confused,” Dinwiddie says. “Cheez Whiz is cheese sauce. A lot of people hear Cheez Whiz, and they think we’re getting it out of spray can. It’s similar to stuff they use in nachos, like orange liquid cheese.”

South Philly also serves cold hoagie sandwiches, burgers, and salads. For dessert, it features a Northeastern treat, Italian ice, in 20 flavors. It even has Tasty Kakes, another Pennsylvania specialty. (“We have a guy who has a standing order for a case a week,” Dinwiddie says.)

South Philly is busiest at lunchtime, but it also does well late-night. On the weekends, the restaurant is open later to take advantage of its proximity to Beale Street.

“There’s not really a lot of places downtown to eat that late at night, especially with the good bar crowd you have here,” Dinwiddie says. “For people who drink, this is great sober-up food. It’s even better than a big, greasy cheeseburger, and it’s safer than driving to Krystal because we’re right across the street from the bars.”

South Philly offers daily sandwich specials and runs beer specials during Grizzlies and Tiger basketball games at the FedExForum. It takes orders online or via fax and phone and makes deliveries within walking distance.

While they remain busy, Miller and Dinwiddie are considering expanding.

“We want to grow, obviously,” Miller says. “We think this concept could work anywhere, except Philadelphia.”

southphillycheesesteaks.com

South Philly is located at 250 Peabody Place (527-0007) and is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

ashby129@hotmail.com

With the release of his first cookbook, Frank Grisanti and Sons: The Main Course (Wimmer Cookbooks), lifelong restaurateur Frank Grisanti is doing a barnstorming tour of regional book stores and gourmet shops. He’s at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on December 14th and Forty Carrots on Sanderlin on December 15th. Throughout the month, he’s traveling from mall to mall, and from Collierville to Oxford, Mississippi, and points beyond, preaching the gospel of fine Italian cooking. Here’s some of what Grisanti has to say about passion, pasta, and having a famous name.

Flyer: What do you think about when you hear the word “tradition”?

Frank Grisanti: I think about history. And this cookbook is history. My great-grandfather Rinaldo Grisanti came to America and opened up a restaurant in downtown Memphis in 1909, and there has been at least one Grisanti’s restaurant operating in Memphis for almost 100 years. The restaurant moved to Ashlar Hall [in Midtown] and then to Airways and Lamar. These were run by my dad, my uncle, my cousin. … I worked in restaurants all my life and ran several either with relatives or partners and opened my signature restaurant in East Memphis [at the Embassy suites] 18 years ago.

How has a century in the American South changed the family’s approach to Italian cuisine?

You know, it’s interesting. When my grandfather had his restaurant, his name was Italian, and that’s about it. I think the menu had spaghetti and meatballs, maybe one or two pasta dishes, and not much else in the way of Italian food. The rest was all Southern-style vegetables, fried chicken, fried catfish, and other traditional Southern foods.

I’d say it was American and Italian. For people in the Delta, Italian food meant pasta, and pasta meant spaghetti. They hadn’t heard of veal, or manicotti, or cannelloni. The first time I ever served spinach pasta in my restaurant somebody sent it back because they saw the green noodles and thought their food was spoiled. But eventually, as more people moved to Memphis from the north and other places, there started to be more of a demand for the kind of food that we knew and the kind of food that we ate but couldn’t sell. Today, I have some steaks and seafood on the menu, but the rest is Italian.

Having grown up in the business, why did you wait so long to write your first cookbook?

I’ve had a lot of pressure to do a cookbook for a long time, but I wanted to do it right. You can put out an inexpensive [spiral-bound] cookbook like the ones all these clubs put out to raise money, or you can do a nice coffeetable-style book. We wanted to do a nice one, and by the time you have all the photography done, you’re looking at a $50,000 investment.

What made you decide it was time to invest?

About 25 years ago, John [Grisanti] did a cookbook that everybody really enjoyed. It went out of print and for some reason the family decided not to do another edition. We’d get calls all the time from people who wanted to find a copy of John’s cookbook. We also have people who are always asking, “Who’s Elfo?” or “How are you related to John?” or “Do you have anything to do with Ronnie?” We thought it would be fun not only to do a cookbook but to do a history of the family from the first restaurant on Main Street right up until the present. And, you know, I won’t always be around, and it’s good to know that when I’m gone there will be this piece of history for anybody who wants to know about the Grisanti family.

Are you one of those chefs who refuse to disclose their favorite dish?

I’ve always been partial to Elfo’s Special, which is a buttered pasta dish tossed with shrimp and mushrooms. That’s been a trademark dish for the Frank Grisanti family, and I think it’s got to be the number-one most published recipe in the region.

Any advice for someone looking to become an accomplished Italian cook?

You’ve got to have passion. If you can go to Italy, go and learn all you can while you are there. Surround yourself with people who are passionate about cooking. The more exposure you have, the better you’ll be.

frankgrisanti.com

Frank Grisanti signs The Main Course at Davis-Kidd, 6-8 p.m., Wednesday, December 14th, and at Forty Carrots, 3:30-5:30 p.m., Thursday, December 15th.

davis@memphisflyer.com

You know him as Parks. Everybody does. After tending bar for almost 20 years, David Parks could be the best-known bartender in Memphis. In a city where the shelf life for bartenders is usually short, Parks is the regular’s regular.

But according to him, he had a tough time getting started.

“It’s difficult to get into the business here, because Memphis is very cliquish when it comes to bar jobs,” he says. “You’d have to sleep with someone’s evil stepmother or agree to give somebody 10 percent of your income for the next year to get hired.”

When Parks first arrived in Memphis by way of Jackson, Mississippi, he was young, cocky, and already bar-savvy.

“I had probably more experience than a lot of the general managers who interviewed me, which isn’t good when you’re the new kid on the block,” Parks says.

It took him two years and a polygraph test (which he didn’t exactly pass) before he finally got hired as the bar manager for Alfred’s on Beale Street. Parks worked at Alfred’s only a few months, but that’s all it took to get him in the loop. Now his résumé reads like a laundry list of local hot spots — Wellington’s, Bistro Hemmings, Maxwell’s, Mélange, the Beauty Shop. His next stop will be the bar at The Inn at the Hunt-Phelan Home, scheduled to open this month.

He began his career essentially by accident. He was 16 years old, trying to make some money working at a gas station, a tire store, and a grocery store. A friend asked him to fill in as a bar-back — “the kid who does all the grunt work, hauls the beer and ice, restocks, and cleans the bar,” Parks explains — at a redneck biker bar in Jackson. His first night there, he made more money than he did during a week of working his three jobs.

He went on to the well-known Jackson restaurant George Street Grocery, where he learned the ropes from a Yugoslavian bartender in his mid-60s. “I just knew him as Cotton. His name had at least eight syllables, and nobody could pronounce it,” Parks remembers. “Cotton would quiz me on mixed drinks. Out of the blue he’d ask me to name the ingredients of a Bloody Mary or a Mojito, and if I didn’t know them, he made me give him a dollar.”

Twenty years in any business is a long time, but it’s an eternity in bartending. It’s a job in which it’s not unusual for your boss to accuse you of stealing, your customers to accuse you of being stingy with the booze, and your wife or husband to accuse you of cheating.

Parks’ secret to longevity? He and his wife of 17 years have three children who provide regular reality checks.

He also happens to be very good at his job. He is nice but doesn’t overdo it. He knows his customers but doesn’t favor the big shots. Plus, he can mix a martini that will make even your evil stepmother look good.

Most importantly, Parks takes the job seriously. “Slinging whiskey and making a mixed drink are two different things. It’s like being a great chef. When somebody walks into the bar and says, ‘I kind of feel like mango,’ a good bartender will mix a good drink.”

Shaken or Stirred?

Five elements of the Memphis drinker.

How does Memphis drink? We asked bartender David Parks, who has picked up a thing or two about Memphis drinkers. Here are five:

1. Memphians are becoming more sophisticated drinkers.

Beer, mixed drinks, and straight-up hard liquor are slowly feeling the threat of Sidecars and Manhattans.

2. Wine is more popular than ever.

When it comes to wine, a lot of people are still experimenting, so what they’re looking for is good taste for a good price.

3. Memphians don’t necessarily get wasted when they’re out drinking.

The “waste” factor depends on where the drinking is done.

Lounge: Drinking with a purpose — to be seen or to break the ice before a dinner meeting. The “waste” factor: low to moderate.

Restaurant: It’s all in the pacing and the tolerance. A drink at the bar before dinner, some wine during the meal, maybe another with a cigarette after dinner, can you handle it? The “waste” factor: low to moderate.

Nightclub: The conveyer belt of drinking. Purpose is to get drunk efficiently. The bartender might rarely see the face of his customers, just a subtle hand gesture to indicate that it’s time for another — and make it fast. The “waste” factor: high to extremely high.

4. Memphians don’t talk any more than anybody else.

The rule: Anyone who lingers around the bar has something to say — no matter where they’re from. What gets said is another story.

5. Memphis’ bar crowd is very disloyal.

Booze tastes essentially the same at every watering hole, so what’s the difference, really, between Bar A and Bar B? Memphians tend to leave the old watering hole behind as soon as the new place opens. It’s nothing personal. — SW

Thanksgiving at my house is a futile exercise in restraint. Which calorie-laden delight should we gorge on first? We load up on the traditional bread stuffing spiked with country sausage, roast turkey, and tart, homemade cranberry sauce, but we also have the less traditional spicy pork barbecue, which is made by Dad. Yes, we’re a gluttonous bunch, and then we add wine on top of all that. I imagine the excess and I feel fat just thinking about it. But excited too — I love Thanksgiving.

The holiday is the pinnacle of gluttony, a food bacchanal, an excuse to eat 20 pounds of bird. And a fabulous excuse to open bottle after bottle of wine.

First, there’s the walking-around wine while cooking. You don’t want to saddle one person with all the stove and oven work, and since most people in my family know how to cook, we share the duties. This calls for something light and not high in alcohol, like a Sauvignon Blanc, which unfortunately won’t go with the meal itself since the turkey’s flavor gets overwhelmed by the wine. Or you could opt for a festive sparkling wine from California. Hell, wine spurs creativity, so your buzzed brother might feel emboldened and sneak some fresh herbs into the gravy.

Another benefit of the walking-around wine: It promotes hunger and adds a party aspect to dinner, especially if you eat the big meal at noon. It’s a holiday, you know — 10 a.m. drinking is allowed, even encouraged, in some countries.

With the main meal, to match up with the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and the rest, my best recommendations are: 1) Drink what you like, no matter what food is in front of you. 2) If you don’t like red wine, drink white with everything. The holiday is about feeling good, right? Besides, a buttery but not too oaky Chardonnay from California is wonderful with Thanksgiving. 3) If you hate white wine, stick with lighter red wines, like French or domestic Pinot Noir, California Syrah, or Australian Shiraz. The heavier wines like Cabernet Sauvignon tend to overwhelm the food, but that could be an advantage in some households. Your call.

So basically, Thanksgiving is an excuse to break open three or four different bottles of the juice, adding pleasure to an already decadent holiday. And after the decadence, you’ll find my fat ass on the couch, numbly watching football.

Recommended Wines

St. Francis Red 2002 (Sonoma County) — A huge, fruity hit with everyone who tried this red blend of five grapes. Lots of flavor personality, but not too much that it wears out its welcome. The delicious, spicy black cherry will complement the meal and even make friends with it. $11

Byron 2003 Pinot Noir (Santa Maria Valley) — A classic California Pinot Noir with crisp acidity that matches well with food; has an earthy cherry flavor, like a fruit party on your tongue, and a velvety texture that makes you crave more. $25

Arrowood 2002 Grand Archer Chardonnay (Sonoma County) — Smooth, silky, and sophisticated with buttery vanilla, ripe pear, tangerine, and lemon. Creamy, rich, and thoroughly enjoyable. $16

Hardy’s 2005 Shiraz Grenache Rosé (Southeastern Australia) — This slightly sweet rosé smacks of juicy strawberry and the fruit goes perfectly with the Thanksgiving meal. Drink alone or with someone. $9

Palandri 2004 Boundary Road Sauvignon Blanc (Southeastern Australia) — A little sweeter than most Sauvignon Blancs I’ve had recently, but it floats on the tongue with a lemon-lime tartness as well. Crisp and clean, perfect as a walking-around wine. $8

corkscrew@creativeloafing.com

When I thought of sherry, my mind drifted to sweet little white-haired ladies sipping from thimbles. Then I tried a glass and gained some serious new respect for these hearty women. My first dry, high-alcohol sherry reminded me of nail-polish remover. Being an alcohol wimp, I mostly restrict my imbibing to wine and beer, since scotch and the like pretty much make me wretch. (Note: This harks back to childhood when my adventurous friend Ashley and I mixed orange juice and six different spirits into one large, vile concoction and drank it all; needless to say, we didn’t eat for two days and orange juice has never tasted the same.) But until I explored the different types of sherry — there are 12 altogether — I thought they fell into that same stomach-turning category. I was wrong.

Sherry is a fortified wine, like port, made from white grapes in southern Spain. There are basically two types of sherry that might concern us sherry neophytes: dry and sweet styles. Dry varieties are fino, amontillado, manzanilla, and oloroso. Smelling faintly of nuts and pungent alcohol, these are for the strong-of-stomach. By adding a sweetener to these dry versions, the winemaker creates sweet sherry, called pale cream or just cream sherry. These are more like port wines — with rich raisin, roasted nut, and caramel flavors. I swim in these waters.

Sherries are made like normal table wines until their fermentation process is complete. After fermentation, they’re fortified with grape-based spirits such as brandy and left in barrels. While they’re maturing, a yeast called “flor” develops on the wines’ surface, which helps prevent oxidation. The thickness of the flor determines the style of sherry each barrel will produce: The thicker the flor, the drier the sherry.

Next the sherry is added to a “solera” for blending. In the unique, traditional solera system, several rows of small oak barrels are stacked on top of each other, with the oldest wines on the bottom. When it’s time to bottle, a certain amount of each barrel on the bottom row is removed and replaced with sherry from the row immediately above it. This process continues until a complete transfer is made from top to bottom. In this way, consistent character and quality can be achieved from year to year, and they aren’t bothered by vintage years.

Here are some ground rules for enjoying sherry. If you’re seeking the dry varieties, find stores that have a high turnover of sherry, since the freshest are the best. Likewise, when ordering by the glass in restaurants, inquire as to how long the bottle has been opened. Drink sherry as soon as possible after opening — within a week for dry sherries and within a month for sweet ones.

Recork the bottle immediately after serving to preserve the wine’s freshness, and store it upright in the refrigerator. Finos should be served very cold. Amontillados, olorosos, and cream sherries are best at just below room temperature.

Sherry is okay by itself, but it’s even better with food. Finos complement tapas, seafood, and soups, while amontillado and oloroso go well with spicy foods, nuts, and strong Spanish cheeses like Manchego. Serve sweet sherries as dessert or with equally sweet desserts.

Recommended Wines

Harvey’s Bristol Cream — This Kendall Jackson of sherries fared quite well in a blind taste test. Deliciously sweet and creamy, nutty and caramel-y, like a Spanish flan. Cheap too, making this exploration not so intimidating. $9

Alvear’s Cream Montilla — A fantastic sherry. The label looks like my grandfather bottled it in his garage, but the contents are not amateur. Unctuous like liquid pecan pie, with burnt caramel, sweet honey, and an everlasting, lingering flavor of roasted nuts. Amazing deal. $10

corkscrew@creativeloafing.com

Never underestimate the power of boredom. It’s what eventually led Sheri McKelvie to open La Morinda, her Cooper-Young bakery.

About 10 years ago, McKelvie was housesitting in Oregon. “I was trapped on a really high mountain with nothing to do, but I had all the ingredients and equipment to bake bread and a book on how to do it,” McKelvie says. “I made more bread than anybody could possibly eat, and that’s how I got started.”

While many people find baking challenging, especially bread, McKelvie was a natural.

“I didn’t really think about bread baking as being difficult because I hadn’t thought about it at all,” McKelvie says. “I just needed something to do and I got lucky. My first loafs turned out beautifully. It just happened like that.”

It kept on happening.

When she came down from the mountain, McKelvie continued baking — at home first and later in different bakeries around Ashland, Oregon. Then she moved to Memphis six years ago and started baking for the now-defunct City Bread Company. When she left, she swore she’d never again work at a job which required getting out of bed in the middle of the night.

“As a baker you don’t have much of a life, and you kind of know that when you get into the business,” McKelvie says. She puts her flour-dusted hands to her cheeks to stress her point. “Look at me,” she says. “I must have aged 10 years during the three years at City Bread when my days started at 3 o’clock in the morning.”

McKelvie thought she’d never bake professionally again. She went back to school to finish her degree in elementary education but realized teaching wasn’t her passion. What she wanted was a place to bake where she could be her own boss and begin her day at 5 a.m. instead of 3 a.m.

What seemed like an easy-enough quest turned out to be more of an odyssey. It began at La Tourelle. Glenn Hays offered her use of La Tourelle’s kitchen and, much more importantly, its oven at night when the restaurant was closed. For five months, McKelvie worked through much of the night, taking catnaps while the dough was rising.

“Working like that was hard,” she says. “I mixed the dough, went home to take a nap, came back to bake some more, and then took another nap while I waited for the bread to cool.”

When Alice’s Urban Market opened downtown, she began baking her bread there, but there wasn’t enough room for both her and Alice’s cooks to work in the same kitchen. Then her friend Elizabeth Boyd rented a space in Cooper-Young to start Dish Catering and invited McKelvie to bring her bread oven, mixer, and bags of flour.

While restaurants serve La Morinda’s bread and Miss Cordelia’s and Mantia sell it, the bakery is strictly for baking. There is no sign to identify the shop, and that’s how McKelvie wants it — at least for now.

“Because we don’t do retail, there is really no reason to come in here,” she says. “A lot of people think, ‘It’s so cool. I can stop by and watch her bake bread.’ But really, it’s distracting us from getting our work done.”

Watching McKelvie mixing, shaping, and baking, you can see that the work takes a lot of concentration. Underneath her workbench are several buckets of dough sitting out to rise, and on one wall is a board marking mixing, proofing, and baking times. It’s like clockwork.

Although McKelvie is baking behind the scenes, chances are you have tasted her bread already. Maybe it was her ciabatta on the sandwich you had at Miss Cordelia’s or maybe you bought her focaccia there. Maybe it was the sourdough cheddar or cranberry walnut you tried at Otherlands or Café Francisco or Cielo.

Certainly, if you have eaten McKelvie’s bread, you are glad she had that housesitting gig when she had nothing else to do but bake.

Once upon a simpler time, camping food was its own, separate category. There was food you’d eat at home, food you’d eat in a restaurant, and food you’d eat in the woods: cheese and crackers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, summer sausage, cans of soup, tuna, and Tang. You would no more consume that stuff at home than you would think to have seafood fettuccini or risotto around the fire.

Here’s an example of how things have changed. On a recent campout with some annoyingly young and energetic fellow hikers, a certain, somewhat old-school travel and food writer busted out his favorite dinner: a box of Lipton noodles, a can of tuna, and some green beans. As he waited 10 minutes for the pasta to cook, drained off the hideous juices from the can, and chopped beans down to bite-size, the youngsters poured boiling water into a pouch and enjoyed a sip of whiskey from a plastic flask.

“What does that can weigh?” they asked, not trying to hide their contempt. “How much wasted space in that box? Are those beans organic?”

“Harrumph,” said the writer.

A while later, as he chowed down on his noodles and contemplated cleaning the cook pot, he asked the pipsqueaks what they were having for dinner from their little pouches.

“Oh, curried lentil bisque,” they said blithely. “Actually, we’re already done with that. Now we’re moving on to the Bavarian chocolate mousse.” They were eating with titanium “sporks.”

Folks, if you haven’t eaten camping food lately, you haven’t eaten camping food.

“Freeze-dried food has changed,” REI product manager David Fieth recently told The Seattle Times. “It tastes better than it did years ago, and it’s following food trends by offering healthier ingredients and more choices. I think people who haven’t tried it for a while would be surprised by how good a lot of it has become.”

Easy too. Here’s just a sampling of what you can get these days by pouring boiling water into a pouch and/or tossing something in a skillet: tuna in red panang curry sauce or yellow curry, wild or Spanish rice, various risottos, focaccia, wild blueberry scones, garlic fry bread, organic griddle cakes, minestrone couscous, mandarin orange chicken, vegetable risotto with turkey, chicken primavera, chicken polynesian, organic chili mac, tiramisu, and Organic Mango Almond Delicacy Delight … you get the idea.

There are also now about 257 varieties of trail mix, where once there was pretty much dried fruit and mixed nuts. And the bulk sections at groceries now bulge with options for making your own mix.

One thing about the new hiker food is that it isn’t cheap. That curried lentil bisque is $6.95 for a five-ounce package. A quick survey shows prices like $7.95 for a 6.5-ounce package of organic chili mac, $5.95 for four ounces of Southwestern couscous, $6.95 for four ounces of organic sweet corn and black bean chowder, and $6.50 for four ounces of Organic Mango Almond Delicacy Delight.

Brands to look for: Richer, Mountain House, Alpine Aire, Backpacker’s Pantry, and Mountain Gourmet. The last one is a line of all-organic, vegetarian food.

If you’re just a convenience hound, hit an Army-Navy store for Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE’s. Each one has several courses and, in some cases, a heating element.

Now, don’t think you have to write off fresh food entirely. On your first day out, eat fresh eggs, greens, and meat. Other produce like broccoli, peaches, and pears can last a couple of days in your pack, and peppers, herbs, apples, carrots, citrus fruits, and potatoes can last several days. Just buy under-ripe products, freeze them ahead of time if you want to, and pack them in cook pots or other hard containers so they won’t get squashed.

I know some backpackers who do a kind of potluck: They each carry one or two ingredients for, say, burritos: tortillas, dehydrated beans, cheese, Mexican rice, guacamole, salsa, black olives, sour cream, sautéed peppers and onions, and tortilla chips in a Tupperware container. There are even, yes, margaritas you can chill in a stream: see Margaritainabag.net.

A search on Amazon.com for “camping food” turned up 78 hits, so there’s no shortage of information out there. Just take two pieces of advice: Whatever you plan on eating, try it at home before heading out on your trip. Even accounting for what happens to your taste buds after a few days out, if it’s crappy or a hassle at home, it’ll be crappy and a hassle in camp.

The other is, if you’re taking tuna, don’t take cans. You can get it in pouches now — along with salmon and other fish, many of them smoked or seasoned — and besides, cans are heavy, bulky, and might lead your companions to make fun of you.

portlandpaul@mac.com

The new open-air malls — the Avenue at Carriage Crossing in Collierville and the Southaven Towne Center in Southaven, Mississippi — are not open-air malls. They are, in developer lingo, “Lifestyle Centers.” And, as in life, not everything always goes as planned.

On October 19th, the Avenue at Carriage Crossing opened with 25 specialty shops, but most of the Carriage Crossing’s restaurants were not ready. Some set up lunch trucks or tents and tables to serve patrons during the Carriage Crossing’s opening-week festivities.

Carrabba’s Fine Italian Grill was the first to open on November 7th. Carrab-ba’s is part of the Outback Steakhouse Company’s group of restaurants and serves steaks and specialty pasta dishes. The first Carrabba’s in the area opened in East Memphis in June. For now, the Carriage Crossing Carrabba’s will only serve dinner. Hours will expand to include lunch sometime around Thanksgiving.

Another Outback Company restaurant, Bonefish Grill, is set to open on December 5th. The restaurant, which specializes in fresh-grilled fish, is hosting a charity dinner to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on Saturday, December 3rd.

Cheeburger Cheeburger is a ’50s-style, rock-and-roll-themed soda shop with a menu that includes the “Famous Pounder,” a whopping 20-ounce burger. According to general manager Richard Ernst, Cheeburger Cheeburger’s original opening date was the same as the Carriage Crossing’s, October 19th, but due to construction delays is now slated for late November to mid-December.

Chris Sumner, franchisee of the Memphis-area Blue Coast Burrito, was serving burritos through the window of a rented sandwich truck on Carriage Crossing’s opening day. Just across the parking lot, painted sheets of plywood covered the windows of his newest location, which he expects to have open by December 1st.

Sumner says that Blue Coast isn’t really behind schedule; they simply made a commitment to lease the space later than other restaurants. Blue Coast Burrito’s other Memphis location is on Walker across from Tiger Bookstore.

At the Southaven Towne Center, Logan’s Steakhouse is the only restaurant to have opened its doors after the shopping center’s debut on October 9th.

“It’s standard in the retail-development industry for the major thrust to be opening the retail stores first, then the restaurants and peripheral businesses come later,” says Deborah Cary Gibb, marketing director for CBL Properties of Chattanooga, the developer of Southaven Towne Center.

Smokey Bones BBQ and Grill, Red Lobster, and the Olive Garden are scheduled to be in business at the Towne Center before the holidays. The Olive Garden is opening first on November 21st.

Although dates have not been confirmed, Towne Center will also feature a Lone Star Steakhouse and a Fox & Hound English Tavern, which will be its first Mississippi location.

On Sunday, November 13th, from 1 to 4:30 p.m., the Memphis chapter of the American Culinary Federation is hosting the Great Chef’s Tasting Party, a benefit for United Cerebral Palsy of the Mid-South. Just a few of the more than 25 participating venues include Grill 83, Paulette’s, Three Oaks Grill, LoLo’s Table, and Cafe 61.

The event is being held at the Memphis Marriott East, located at 2625 Thousand Oaks Boulevard. Tickets for the Great Chef’s Tasting Party are $25 (children under 6 free) and can be bought at the door or by calling 761-4277.

Capriccio Grill at The Peabody hotel unveiled a new menu in October.

In addition to increasing portion sizes of some of the most popular dishes, Chef de Cuisine Jeffrey Quasha created a few new menu items, such as the Insalata Mista and a dish of sautéed mussels in tomato broth. There are two new pizzas, a Venetian seafood stew, and the Veal Chop Milanese, plus an updated pasta menu with made-to-order lasagna and a Cappellini D’Angelo, seared shrimp served with angel-hair pasta and a light wine-based garlic sauce.

Capriccio Grill, 149 Union (529-4199)

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