Almost Famous?

I'm Associating With Celebrity...


Finally, after three months of research and development, I'm happy to report that I believe that I have my soon to be internationally recognized "Jamaican Me Cajun 'Green Butt' Chili" concoction completed, and scaled up to a 15 gallon recipe.

Late yesterday afternoon I called my good buddy and fellow Georgia Tech alumni John Howton, owner of Blackwater Grill, to give him the news and deliver the shopping list for Boston Butts and other stuff we were going to need for the Chili Cookoff.

John proceeded to blow me away...we hadn't spoken in about ten days...when he told me that Food Network's Guy Fieri's crew had just finished filming his restaurant to be shown on "Diner's, Drive-in's, and Dives" next month.

Isn't that TOTALLY COOL...or what?

I can't claim credit, but I did write to the show a few months ago to tell them about Blackwater and our Little Island in general, and turns out they called last week, said they had heard from a number of people about Blackwater, did a phone interview, then showed up last Sunday and again on Tuesday to film the show segment to be aired sometime in the next six weeks.

John's head was spinning I'm sure.

They also filmed a segment over at Southern Soul BBQ right around the corner from our old house on the island. We didn't spend much time there but it's still cool to have the people and places around our favorite spot on the entire planet featured for the rest of the world to see.

I wish we could have been down there because John invited a bunch of his friends and regulars to come out for the filming, but he knew we couldn't make it from Knoxtown with the trip next week already in the works.

This kind of stuff couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, a man who loves the restaurant business and has spent 45 years developing his skills and loves to deliver a superior dining experience to tens of thousands of satisfied customers every year.

Meanwhile we've got to start winding things down here going into the weekend and finish the last minute design details on the Chili Shack and some other professional stuff in anticipation of spending five nights in PARADISE.

It's 24 degrees outside here with snow flurries right now, and it's going to be near 60 tomorrow on St. Simons.

I just hope that the weather holds up for us there the following weekend...