Gary makes me hungry.

July 27, 2010 by The Clever Kris · 1 Comment
Filed under: Deep South, family, food, humor 

I had a long, fun conversation with my friend Gary the other day, Sunday actually, over the telephone, and we quickly started talking about food, as our conversations tend to do. Gary, now a famous playwright/critic, who spends most of his days on a plane, as opposed to by a plate, always wants to hear about what Nana has cooked, created, invented, resurrected from her kitchen shelves. Nana’s kind of magical that way. And she has become something of folklore in my social circles, and many of my friends eagerly await for my Sunday dinner details. (I can think of one person who...

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After that, I ate my chocolate cobbler in silence.

June 22, 2010 by The Clever Kris · 1 Comment
Filed under: Deep South, family, food, health, humor 

This past Sunday, my youngest nephew, Wynn, who by the way is a few months shy of three and has already rightfully earned the nickname of “Chunk,” turned to me and asked for coffee. “What…did you…say?” I implored of him. “Coffee,” he responded, and then with a nod of the head as if recognizing that he’d forgotten the magic word, added, “pease?” It’s always precious when the little ones remember that fading concept known as “manners.” But, precious aside, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. I went in search of his mother. She wasn’t a bit thrown off by what I felt had...

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So, that one time, I committed a crime, OK?

May 21, 2010 by The Clever Kris · 2 Comments
Filed under: Deep South, family, food, humor 

Let me tell you why I like Lowe’s.  They’re not afraid to bend the rules, for you. I can’t say how far they would bend them—sharing trade secrets, “extras” given rather than purchased—but I will tell you this: they’ll go the distance to help you get mint. Every year around this time, this humid, wet, hot time, I get the notion that, once again, who I really am has nothing to do with theatre, writing, or teaching. No, who I am, in fact, is a Farmer. I drag out the tools from the side of the house and cultivate the small...

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Phenergan’s Wake

February 16, 2010 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deep South, faith, family, food, health, humor 

I’ve had an ill-behaving stomach, as of late. Which has kept me up at nights, uneasy and nauseous. I couldn’t eat much of anything yesterday; I had to practically force myself to eat the leftover cheese sticks, a bowl of soup, and half a chocolate bar (with hazelnuts). So, I did. But, I couldn’t bear to go another night with fitful sleep; so last night, to combat this, I took a Phenergan.  It’s a pill prescribed for upset stomachs, etc. We fear I might have IBS. (That’s quite a conversation-starter, there, is it not?) It took a couple of hours, but it did the...

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Pointing, by the way, is not polite.

February 11, 2010 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, education, food, health, humor, life, theatre 

I’ve become a little too close to the janitor, at the college. And it’s not that I mind, not one bit; it’s how we’ve become close that I find amusing and uncomfortable. It involves Miller Light. Sort of. Before I go any further, I want you to be plainly aware that this is not about an academic caste system. And I have a previous story to prove it. Though I rarely tell this story from my Disney Days, prior to having the high-class job of character entertainment and the allure of being an Attractions Host at Disney Studios, I will come clean and tell you that...

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Five foods that made me who I am.

February 4, 2010 by The Clever Kris · 3 Comments
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, family, food, health, humor 

I’m still stuck on the potato log. Meaning, since confessing to you about my lust and love for the said potato log, yesterday afternoon, I’ve not been able to think about anything else except food. And so, at the risk of offending some of you, I feel I’ve no choice to move myself past this obsessive food-thinking other than to write about it. So, I’m going to spend the next few moments with you, making one confession after another about a few dishes, recipes, snacks, and various other, sundry foods that I not only grew up with, but that, I feel, have defined who...

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So, you know…I really like a potato log.

February 3, 2010 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, education, family, food, health, humor 

Is there anything, even remotely, more wonderful than a gas-station-deep-fried potato log? I don't think so. No. I. Don’t. Think. So. I am, personally, mad-dog in love with the potato log. I look upon its tasty goodness as a drowning man would a life raft.  (I wrote that and then had this visual of being a drowning man and seeing a life raft and then, in that life raft I saw, like,  hundreds of potato logs and my heart started beating really fast and I almost had to take half a Xanax). So, you know...I really like a potato log. It has taken a place of supreme...

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I guess Boston has everything.

January 28, 2010 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: family, food, health, humor, life 

The other evening, Amanda and I were enjoying a small visit with some dear friends. We were sitting around their hip-looking, modern-esque living room (its style is one I envy: its openness and clean lines), and we were sharing a good bottle of Riesling, a bucket of something called Chivda, and a plate of chocolate and peanut butter squares, made by yours truly. Amanda was recounting her recent trip to Boston, in which she was finally able to satisfy a small bit of her boundless love for ethnic foods: Cuban, German, Haitian, Indian, to name several. I guess Boston has everything. And as...

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And this is why people buy cocoa butter.

January 7, 2010 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, food, health, humor 
This kind of thing can't happen over night.

I’m going to tell you a secret: I’ve joined a gym. I’m not going to tell what all my reasons for doing this were, but it doesn’t seem to matter because I’m losing weight, and discovering that the nice, firmer shape I had  way back during my halcyon tennis days hasn’t actually moved off to Wisconsin. It’s just been hibernating under a large, more-than-adequate supply of cheese, soft drinks, and vending machine goodies. Because let’s face it – that’s all a vending machine has. The one on campus, in Scooba, even has Necco wafers…two kinds. But, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to get...

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Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.

January 5, 2010 by The Clever Kris · 6 Comments
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, education, faith, family, food, health, humor, life 
Man cannot live by peppers alone...entirely. He will also need tomatoes.

You know what’s hard? Yoga. You know what’s harder than that? Trying to explain yoga to your precious family of aging Southern Baptists. Because if it’s not explicitly typed in the King James version of the Holy Bible then it’s most likely of the devil, who probably created yoga to trick Christians into performing exercises that would get them into positions they couldn’t get out of, thus holding them in place so he could catch them. But, yoga is a later issue. First, we have to address a more pressing item, though there are several items overall, not the least of which is the fact...

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