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Price Club
St. Louisans are celebrating the 100th birthday of Vincent Price this week. The cleverly named Vincentennial is organized by Cinema St. Louis. If I were visiting St. Louis this week, I would enjoy attending a screening or two. I’ll have to stroll past his star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame next time I’m in town.
Naturally my favorite Price role was on “Batman,” where he played Egghead. I heard that he enjoyed it too. We we read Edgar Allan Poe stories in school, my English teacher showed “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death” to the class.
I was delighted to learn that “Theatre of Blood” was Price’s personal favorite. I hadn’t thought about the movie in years but as I saw the trailer online, I remembered watching it on late-night television when I was a kid. I may have to watch it the next time it’s on.
Frank and Beans
Three of the dishes in the Anything Bush’s Beans category at Sevierville’s Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass on Friday were mind-boggling in their appearance. Last year I thought the carrot cake made with beans was impressive. This year, I saw a chocolate trifle, a chocolate cake and banana pudding that looked even better.
The trifle came to the table where I served as judge. The cake was at the table next to me. As the judging ended, there was some chatter in the room about a banana pudding that was so close to the real thing that nobody could taste the beans. Before the pudding reached the grazing table, one of the head judges asked the cook team for a clarification. The word came back that the pudding contained pureed cannellini beans.
The meat categories were judged by certified Kansas City Barbeque Society judges on Saturday. According to the Twitter feed for Nibble Me This, the Grand Champion of this year’s Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass was the hometown Smoky Mountain Smokers. The guy I interviewed last year, Mike Davis of Lotta Bull BBQ, won the Kingsford Points Chase, which will help him compete for the $25,000 grand prize to be awarded this Fall.
Katz Food
Dr. David Katz, inventor of the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System, visited Knoxville last month. Katz is a dynamic speaker who is passionate about nutrition and exercise. Before appearing at a free symposium sponsored by Food City and UT Medical Center, he sat down with me for a 30-minute interview. We recorded our conversation for a future broadcast date, which happens to be today.
I first learned of the NuVal system last September when The Tombras Group hired me to do a series of endorsement commercials for Food City. NuVal scientists assign a number between 1 and 100 to supermarket products. The higher the score, the more nutritious the item. Fruits and vegetables score highest. In the interview, Dr. Katz said if the NuVal system had been designed for a third-world country, meats would score higher because protein is lacking in diets there.
As you’ll hear during the program, I switched brands of peanut butter because of the NuVal scores. Low-fat foods sometimes have extra salt or corn syrup added to improve the taste. When I first started a weight loss program, I bought Jif Reduced Fat Peanut Butter Spread. When I saw its low NuVal score, I started buying Peter Pan Reduced Fat Peanut Spread, which had a score much closer to regular peanut butter.
Media file: FrankMurphyInterviewsDrDavidKatz-04-26-11.mp3
Bloomin’ Barbecass!
An unusual bean dish amazed me last year at Sevierville’s Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass festival. This year, I was privileged to serve as a judge for three competitions: Anything Bush’s Beans, Anything Wampler’s Sausage and BBQ sauce. The festival allowed guest judges for those categories on Friday night. The meat categories will be judged by certified Kansas City Barbeque Society judges on Saturday.
I was seated between Sevierville Police Chief Don Myers and Leslie Koester, wife of Alderman Devin Koester who was sitting to her right.The evening began with an instructions and an oath.
Capcakes
It’s graduation season in East Tennessee. To celebrate, one of our talented friends from All Saints Church made special cupcakes for her granddaughter’s graduation from Sacred Heart Cathedral School.
The chocolate cupcakes were topped with white icing and replicas of mortarboards. Each graduation hat was made from a Pinwheel cookie, an after-dinner mint, a licorice shoelace and an M&Ms Mini. My wife loved the icing, which tasted like a York Peppermint Pattie.
Muerto, ¿y Tú?
Seattle’s KOMO-TV has gone back to the Body Farm for another sweeps story. Two weeks ago, reporter Elisa Jaffe covered the history and mission of UT’s Forensic Anthropology Center. This week, her report focused on Dr. Bill Bass and his wife Carol at their home. Although I had heard the stories before, I laughed again at Carol’s reaction to Dr. Bass using her blender to grind a cadaver’s finger.
At the end of the story, anchor Mary Nam directs viewers to the website to see additional video on the autopsy of the Big Bopper, which is one of the stories in the non-fiction book “Beyond the Body Farm.”
Right Outside of Bearden
The memory of my father’s Scotch must have still been rattling around in my subconscious the other day. As I drove down Kingston Pike, I saw that the new Thunder Road Wine & Spirits was now open and I decided to pull in. I had read about plans for the moonshine-themed shop a few weeks back on Carly Harrington’s blog.
While my father would drink a quality brand of liquor almost every night after work, I barely touch the stuff. When I do imbibe, I enjoy a sip of apple-pie flavored moonshine or a medicinal shot of Rock & Rye. Last summer, when I went to the grand opening of Ole Smoky Distillery in Gatlinburg, they did not yet have the flavored ’shine.
Thunder Road sells several brands of legal moonshine, including Ole Smoky. I bought a jar of Apple Pie to have on-hand for future sippin’. The store have lyrics from “The Ballad of Thunder Road” emblazoned on the walls. In addition to the shelves stocked with mason jars, they have a display that looks like a car crashing through the wall. My son noticed that the photo on the wall matched the actual view behind the store.
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