Bring it! Let's get this city turned around! (image swiped from ABC)

Dear Mark,

I am addicted to Shark Tank. And because I am too lazy to jump through the hoops to get on the show and present my idea, I’m using the power of my pudgy fingers to reach you. Let’s pick and roll:

I walk on the set of Shark Tank. “Daymond John, you are so out,” I say. “Barbara, if I wanted to sell my cellulite-reducing sous-vide hot dog you’d be my best friend, but I’m keeping it to myself. You’re out.”

I watch the other sharks glance around, really scared at this point, and go for the kill. “Kevin, don’t even open that ugly mouth. You’re out. Robert, you can buy me dinner after the show but, for now, you are dead to me.”

Cameras swing: Close-up of Cuban. Music swells.

Mark. We live in the same city. We love the same teams. More importantly, we eat in the same restaurants. Last night, our city’s finest chef, Bruno Davaillon of the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, lost Best Chef in the Southwest at the James Beard Awards in New York City to a young chef in Austin who appeared on Top Chef. It has been 18 years since a Dallas chef won this title. We need a local version of Shark Tank geared towards Dallas restaurateurs. That way, you and I can work together to tighten up our game and turn it around. We have the talent, we need the exposure. And that exposure shouldn’t have to come from the Food Network or Bravo.

I propose we put together a panel of experts and ask  restaurateurs to pitch their ideas BEFORE they decide to sink their life savings into an upscale seafood and sushi restaurant in a bad location. Let’s kick the steak house wannabes to Fort Worth. Mark, I’m asking you to invest whatever it takes to help us bring the talent of the Dallas restaurant community to the international scene. In exchange, I offer you fifty percent of my idea. Oh, and you can keep the Mavs.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Nancy

P.S. If this helps illustrate my talent: I promoted women’s basketball in Dallas before the Mavericks were a thought in your brain. Just ask Nancy Lieberman.

Chicken pot pie at Lady & Sons in 2008. One serving could feed a family of four.

In August 2008, I traveled to Savannah, Georgia where I dined at Paula Deen’s restaurant Lady & Sons. We ran a post titled “Paula Deen Wants to Kill You.” I wrote:

I can still smell the rancid butter that hit us in the face when we walked in the door. I’ve got to find the pictures I took of the food I ate–everything was dripping in butter. I remember the chicken pot pie was big enough for four and almost everything was fried. OK, she admits she’s “not your cardiologist,” but she really is contributing to the delinquency of dieters. The night we went, at least 75 per cent of the diners were beyond overweight–they were obese. It was sad–like people watching at the slots in Vegas–everyone was gambling with their lives.

Last week Paula Deen confirmed the rumor: she has Type 2 diabetes. I wonder how many of her dedicated fans also suffer from Type 2? This really chaps my sass because two members of my family didn’t have a choice: they both were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when they were young. They have to continually monitor their diet and control their blood sugar. However, Ms. Deen, and other people who put on blinders and continue to fill their body with fat and sugar, had an option. Like not eating a burger made with Krispy Kreme donuts. It’s now rumored that Deen may become the spokesperson for Novartis, a company with a drug designed to treat diabetes. If she personally profits from developing Type 2 diabetes (Hey yáll, I’m your endocrinologist!), I’m going to go berserk. I can already see the talk show circuit lighting up. It makes me sick.

My perfectly boiled egg.

As you can tell from the headline, I am deep in the process of procrastinating. While my real job calls for thousands of words about dining, I am convinced it is far more important that I drop what I am supposed to be doing and answer a question sent to me by PR boy toy Jef Tingley. Yes, he spells his name with one “f,” but I will save that analysis for a later procrastination post.

“Jef with one f” asked me how to boil an egg. Don’t laugh. How many times have you had tiny shards of shell pierce the delicate skin beneath your fingernail? I shared my secret with “Jef with one f” by private message on Facebook which made several people curious enough to email and ask (BEG!) for my secret.

You are going to have to jump hard.

How is it that I hold the key to the secret method of boiling an egg? My first job in a kitchen called for me to make 300 deviled eggs every morning for 2 years. Do the freaking math. I have peeled a ****load of eggs in my day. Okay, don’t say I never gave you anything. I’m opening a vein and spilling it now:

Place ROOM TEMPERAURE eggs in lukewarm tap water. Add (a lot) of iodized salt. Bring the water to a boil slowly and allow it to “soft rumble™” (MINE!) for 3 minutes. Turn off the heat. If you are cooking on electric heat soft rumble for 2 minutes and leave the pan on the element.  NOW, and this is critical: how fast they are ready will depend on how many eggs are in the water. If you have a couple dozen, leave them in the water until it is cool. Otherwise, usually 20 minutes will do. BEFORE you proceed to the next step, fish one of the eggs from the water, dry it off, and spin it. YES, SPIN IT on the counter. If it wobbles around like Stephen Doyle at 2AM, it isn’t done. If it twirls around fast and steady like Leslie Brenner when she lived in LA, it’s ready to peel. Pour out the water, NOT THE EGGS YOU NINNY, and refill the pan with cool water. Peel the eggs while they are submerged in water. Sometimes I toss a little ice in there if I find a difficult egg. If your eggs crack while cooking, like me on deadline, you’re totally screwed. Repeat the above process.

Your nubby little fingers can now type me a thank you note.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled work load.

Mi Dia: The best bite I put in my mouth in 2011.

There’s a common sentiment among restaurant critics: We have to eat a lot of poor quality and mediocre food before we taste something memorable. But, oh baby, when that over-the-top bite hits your mouth, you know you’ve found it. Something about the drink, dish, or dessert pushes it above the hundreds of thousands of other bites you’ve taken over the year.

The following items rocked my senses in 2011. In no particular order, and off the top of my head, they are:

1. Italian “English” muffins at Eatzi’s. (Extra points for the McCutcheon’s preserves.)
2. The Scarf Dancer cocktail at Marquee Grill and Bar.
3. Fried avocados at The Commissary.
4. Ox eyes stacked enchiladas at Mi Dia From Scratch. (Blue corn tortillas, beef, cheese, and onion enchiladas, topped with New Mexico red & green chile sauces, crema & fried eggs. (The best bite of the year.)
5. Lemon cake at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse.
6. Steamed swordfish with a salad of fresh summer greens at Lucia.
7. The salad of chopped iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, crumbled blue cheese, avocado, and crispy prosciutto at Maggiano’s. (A good chopped salad is hard to find.)
8. A double-double animal-style burger at In-N-Out Burger. However, the fries are forgettable.
9. I got straight past the pizza and Cane Rosso and dive face first into a Cuban sandwich: a magnificent mess of tender Berkshire pork shoulder braised with beer and onions; layered with prosciutto, baby Swiss cheese, and horseradish pickles; and piled on puffy, hot bread spread with spicy mustard and Calabrian chile aioli.
10. The green curry chicken served in an iron pot at Malai Kitchen.
11. The charcuterie plate at The Grape.
12. The slow-cooked oxtail scented with hoja santa and served with a cob of roasted corn and masa dumplings at Mesa.

Most Pleasant Meal of the Year: Dinner at Lavendou. Sometimes the taste of the food is elevated by the overall dining experience. Usually it happens spontaneously. One cold, rainy evening I went to dinner at Lavendou with two dear friends. The dining room was crowded and festive, but not loud. The service was friendly, but not in-your-face. The food was delicious and the French wine stimulated our conversation for hours. We left full of more than food. We shared a meal that was more than just a sum of its parts on a cold, rainy Monday night.

Good wines gone bad.

Forgive me Master Sommeliers and wine collectors around the world, I have sinned. I am here to confess my deepest darkest wine secret: I improperly stored four bottles of fabulous wine. For nearly 35 years.

Look at the photos and weep with (for?) me. I recently uncovered these bottles in a box buried beneath a pile of old Christmas decorations in my garage. Yes, my garage, where it sat for close to 35 summers, winters, springs, and falls. I am a human species of Phylloxera.

I could have pulled another Billionaire’s Vinegar and called Sotheby’s and claimed the wine was given to me by Richard Nixon and I’ve kept it hidden in a bricked-up Paris cellar. Instead I’m posting pictures of my crime. Perhaps there are others who have committed the same dirty deed.

Full confession below.

Yes, $19.79 before my employee discount.

Self portrait.

I used to collect wine, especially French wine. Specifically those of Bordeaux. I worked at a wine bar in Dallas called La Cave and spent my off time learning about French wine. My former boss, François Chandou, still runs La Cave Warehouse.  He is my witness. I bought hundreds of bottles of French Bordeaux. I wore a laminated vintage chart around my neck and scoured wine shops and wine lists looking for the best.

Eventually, I drank it all. Well, except for these four bottles. Is there anything I can do? Do I even attempt to drink them? (Does anyone want to buy them?)

I would like to take this moment to apologize to Bacchus, Dionysos, the early colonists of Southern Gaul, the concept of terroir, Baron Philippe de Rothschild (and subsequent Barons), James Tidwell, and Drew Hendricks. My deepest regrets to the chateaus: Latour, Mouton-Rothchild, Margaux (oh, sweet Margaux), Haut-Brion, Petrus, Pomerol, St. Emilion, and d’Yquem. Sorrows to you dear Cabernet Savignon, Merlot, and Cab Franc grapes. You gave your lives only to sit in a bottle in a box underneath a pile of old Christmas decorations in my garage. I am unworthy of your grace.

There is about a half inch of sediment in the neck of this bottle.

Sorry lion-guarded fortresses of France.

This wine was my first true love. We sold it for $4 a glass at La Cave. At one point I owned two cases.

Heinous. Painful. Wrong.

We reaped the fruits of their labor last night. (We being Cathy Barber from the Dallas Morning News, Teresa Gubbins from Pegasus News, Robert Wilonsky from the Dallas Observer, and Dave Cathey from the Oklahoman.) We judged the ribs on texture, tenderness, appearance, and sauce. We judged the crust, the cut, the rub. We wondered if the ribs were too spicy. Too sweet? Was the fat cooked down? Was there too little fat? Did we like the pumpkin-y sauce? What about the hot sauce? How about that pickle? After about two hours and sampling 35 ribs apiece (don’t worry, we didn’t all of them), we were stuffed. And we’d made a decision.

The winners are all below. Go.

We went out to the patio (one of my favorite patios downtown) and the winners were announced. The Texas winner was Cousin’s Barbecue from Fort Worth. The ribs are picture number 6 (I took the pictures as we went, but never knew whom the ribs belonged to. I found out the order this morning). These ribs had a deep smokiness that won most of us over. Some of them were just slightly overcooked, but the great flavor of the meat and the barbecue sauce was enough to make it the winner. That pickle may have had something to do with the win as well. Have some water nearby if you try it, though. It is a spicy vegetable.

The Oklahoma winner was Leo’s BBQ from Oklahoma City (picture number 3). I liked how they presented their sauce. On the left side, you had a medium sauce, and on the right, you had their hot sauce. The hot sauce’s texture was a bit grainy, but the medium was just about perfect, as were the ribs.

So now it’s your turn to do some judging. The winning pitmasters have been at work in Main Street Garden since 5:30 this morning. They’ll be out at the park tonight from 5 to 10 p.m. Get a plate of ribs from both Leo’s and Cousin’s. Then vote for who you think is the best. The winner will get $1,000. (And all proceeds that DRG Concepts makes will go to Kidd’s Kids.) You can also talk to and test the barbecue sauces and spices from the other pitmasters. And while you’re there, you’ll hear performances from bands from both Texas and Oklahoma.

My only little bit of advice: don’t even look at 35 ribs. You’ll smell like barbecue for the next day and you may get a little sick.

New Herrera's on Maple. (photo by Kevin Marple)

In 1971, I spent most of my Sunday mornings in a line around the original Herrera’s on Maple Avenue. My friends and I would sit under a dripping window AC unit for hours, waiting for our turn at one of the nine tables inside the tiny, lard-based Tex-Mex restaurant. Once seated, you popped open the six-pack of Coors you brought with you and watched founder Amelia Herrera hand-pat flour tortillas by the front door. The food was such a religious experience for me that, 17 years later, I got married at Herrera’s, which by then had moved into a bigger building across the street and expanded into more locations all over Dallas. Recently, they moved into a newer building down Maple.

Jump for more.

Nancy, I am in the mood for a real hot dog. Not a boiled on like the guy outside of Home Depot (YUCK!). Every time we go to New York I go to Nathan’s (YUM!) is there anything like that here?

Even though she used both “y” words, I think we should help her. Here are some links (HAH!) to several places we’ve hit: Costco.  Eddie’s. Wild About Harry’s. Double Dip Frozen Custard in Frisco.

I hate it all as much as I hated eating in Paula Deen’s restaurant in Savannah. I can still smell the cloud of burnt butter that met me at the door of Lady and Sons Restaurant. The portions were obnoxiously huge and I had to shower when I got back to my hotel.

The last time I visited the Fair, I sat at one of the picnic benches and watched a family of three eat their way through a pile of food. The husband and wife, maybe in their early 40s, were obese. The woman was in a wheel chair with an oxygen tank. The husband, who weighed at least 350 pounds, was shoveling food in his mouth using both hands. The saddest sight was their son. He couldn’t have been 12 years old and already on the verge of obesity. He was listlessly staring at the ground and gnawing on a huge turkey leg.

I can hear you crying: “It’s only once a year. Live a little. Have some fun.” I can’t. That isn’t fun or funny to me. It’s gross.

Also, apropos the holiday, back in the early 1990s I went to hear Studs Terkel speak on the topic of labor and will never forget what an eye-opener it was to finally understand what the holiday was all about. It’s a fine thing to have gotten dressed-down by the cigar-smoking big pappa of the working class. I have to admit, I was a little bit in love with him after that. So every year I offer a toast Studs (and promise to name a child or dog after him someday). Often there’s a signature drink involved. One year we created a drink called “The Working Poor,” but that bummed everybody out. Another year it was a gin concoction called “Not In My Bathtub,” but the gin made everybody mean. So a new drink is in order.

Problem is, I’m flat out of ideas. So, I’m going to steal some from you. What dishes are you making for your Labor Day gathering? And while you’re at it, any suggestions for a Labor Day-themed drink are welcome. Hell, if I get enough good ones I might even mix up a few and let the guests decide.

Anqullkah Udama, Elaine Vasquez, John Tesar, Maria Mejia, and Rich Lacamana (Photo by Desirée Espada)

I snuck in to John Tesar’s Hater’s Party last night. My friend Laura and I arrived early and watched them set up. Tesar was running around organizing the seating and the free booze and tacos in the Camanera Tequila truck parked outside the restaurant. By the time we left (7:30PM), there were about 40 people on the patio. I witnessed no hate; only love for John Tesar. Our photographer, Desiree Espada, took pictures.

Jump for the love of John.

Gloria and Dan Burrows (Photo by Desirée Espada)

Shannon Silver, Drunk guy "Matt", Lisa Strouv, and Michael Miller (Photo by Desirée Espada)

The Camanera Tequila taco truck parked in One Arts Plaza. (Photo by Desirée Espada)

Lailani Mckeel and Lance McFarland (left); Greg and Angie Barrett brought their pup Grace Kelly to escape the heat. (Photos by Desirée Espada)

The sign advising Haters to party on the plaza (left); Anqullkah Udamaand Elaine Vasquez (right). (Photo by Desirée Espada)

Tacos, nachos & beer. (Photo by Desirée Espada)

Empties (Photo by Desirée Espada)

John Tesar hands off pork tacos from inside the Camanera Tequila taco truck. (Photo by Desirée Espada)

Hunky Town, Twin Pricks, Tooter’s, Pecker’s Hot Italian Sausage, Tube Steak Junction, Cake Balls to the Walls, Nuts and Butts, Quickies, Long Dong Silver, Tally Whacker’s, Love Mussels, Wee Willie’s, Twig and Berries.

Ladies, the floor is open.