OK, so I’m not the only one who is totally weirded by Mr. Peanut.

TImothy McSweeney collects fictional monologues, and in this one, everyone’s favorite legume sheds his British affectations.. Well, some of them.

Now on the way home from Ole Miss, via Memphis and Houston. It was a great trip from the work perspective, giving me a chance to talk to Ole Miss business and computer science students about directions in software, privacy, security and trust, and how their work will shape user experiences in the next decade. Got to do the longer version of the same, looking at the evolution of the data center, for the dinner segment of the ACM Southeast Conference. But it was the context around those talks – good food and good people – that made the trip one that will leave me smiling for a few days.

Leaving Memphis, you’re struck by the rich musical history of the area. It’s the Mississippi River delta blues, BB King’s roots, and Graceland honoring Elvis the King, all within shouting distance of the airport. Crossing the state line, Mississippi’s welcome sign claims the “Birthplace of American Music.” From New Orleans stomp, all the way to Memphis (with apologies to Mott the Hoople), you’ll find the head waters of rock and roll. If you haven’t seen Memphis on Broadway, do so before it sweeps the Tonys this year. Or least check out the show’s blog.

When I’m lucky, a business trip will include some local food and color. I like to know what an area proclaims to be its favorite dish, best flavor and unique experience. I got the hat trick in the last day, ending with a Randy Pausch head fake. The tour started at the Ajax Diner in the Oxford, MS downtown square. It’s what you’d expect from a college town eatery, with quick service, iced tea in 32 ounce plastic cups, and a filling menu. My host selected it because it’s where he goes if he’s working on an all-night project and only gets one chance to get a rib-sticking meal. It was a good choice.

Listed as the first lunch special is a chicken fried steak, mashed potato, gravy and butter bean layering called “The Big Easy.” The cross references should have been obvious, but I missed the backstory: Eli Manning, QB for my hometown Giants, is a folk hero at Ole Miss. The sandwich is supposedly one of his favorites from his (non) salad days, the moniker a tribute to his own down-river roots. Tempting as it looked, I feared falling asleep in front of a dinner crowd armed with cheesecake and rolls, opting for the Jumbo BBQ sandwich. Another good choice — the sauce was mildly sweet and had a great vinegar and pepper tang. A half dozen napkins later, I was ready to make Ajax programming jokes with the students.

One of the downsides to work travel is that following the home teams – family, sports, politics – is much harder, even with good internet access. Last night we went in search of the Devils-Flyers playoff game, and our first stop back in downtown looked promising. A round of local beer on the table, the bartender offered to search for the game, eventually finding it but without a subscription to MSG+ for viewing rights. The bartender gave us the beer on the house because we couldn’t watch the game in his place. That redefines customer service and experience. We eventually found the Nashville-Chicago game on Versus, a Devils highlight reel, and George Dickel sippin’ whiskey to cap a great day.

A bit sad that I wasn’t able to pick up an Ole Miss football tee to prompt some Eli storytelling back home, I left the hotel before dawn this morning. Without coffee, a big map, or enough light to read the signs, I managed to get lost on the edge of campus. A passing car stopped, and directions were given, along with “I’ll show you the way there,” from a man who was probably leaving the night shift and eager to get home. That kind of hospitality beats a tee-shirt, every time, as a souvenir of the trip.

I have often wondered why it’s impossible to find a good bagel west of Pittsburgh. Some argue it’s the water, and that only the Eastern seaboard has appropriate quantities of bacteria and minerals in the water to make a good, pluchy bagel (If you need a definition of pluchy, imagine a really chubby baby’s feet. They are pluchy – mushy, dense, loveable all at the same time). I refuse to eat bagels in California, because the entire state has the strange notion that a bagel is merely round bread, and not boiled and then brick-baked to get the proper mix of crunchy outside and chewy center. Last week, I toasted a bagel at Nerd HQ in Menlo Park, California, only to have it crumble like, well, over-toasted bread with eggs, cheese and breakfast meat on top.

In addition to baking them the right way, a bagel must be cut and schmeared properly as well. As evenly across the radial axis as you can get, so the halves hold up in the toaster or under the weight of what your Aunt Ruth piles on top. If you’re going for a to-go bagel, then cutting the torus in half is also acceptable, especially if it creates the potential for melting butter to hit your dress shirt and tie on the way to work. But just when I thought I’d mastered the art of bagel topography, along comes a sculptor and master of food surfaces to redefine the art of breaking bread.

Those of us in the six-pointed faith love to argue. We argue about what we’ll eat, and when, and where, and sometimes even with whom we’ll break challah. The Old Testament is accompanied by sufficient volumes of discussion, debate, dialogue, dissection, dissent, and rabbinic dissin’ to make Jay-Z blush: It’s the Talmud, not to mention the Gemarrah. Wrapped inside those wonderful logical puzzles, you’ll find an entire treatise on the laws of kashrut, or more colloquially: What’s kosher?

Why limit these arguments to real flesh and blood creatures? If E.T. landed in your backyard, and you were hungry, could you eat him with a nice cholent on the side? What about Bigfoot? If these food-related questions have kept you up, or kept others awake as you’ve pondered them late into the night, check out The Kosher Guide To Imaginary Animals.

My nose has been running for nearly an hour. Too much information, and certainly not food-related, you think? The root cause of the gentle stinging, near numbness and heightened sense of individual molecules passing over my tongue is a mere teaspoonful of B’s Mango Chutney, direct from Orient Bay, St. Martin.

Clockwise from upper left: (1) B’s tamarind chutney, and the (2) label promoting her support of local animals. (3) A veritable plethora of ways to torment your tongue, palate and lips with a medley of scotch bonnet peppers, chili peppers, and local fruits. (4) The View Point liquor and spice store, open for business, with one of the best views of Orient Bay and the eastern shores of St. Martin.

My story of B and her eye-watering condiments goes back about a year, when we last visited St. Martin and I decided to stop into her long, narrow literal storefront as the rest of the family browsed the other shops on View Point. It was a rainy, somewhat dreary day, and local vendors believe that your first customer sets the tone for the day – so I felt encouraged and empowered to buy something. A small taste of the tamarind chutney left me wanting a plate of eggs and perhaps some BBQ ribs on which to slather it, so I bought a jar. For $15. When my wife discovered what I’d paid for a small jar of local color, not discounting for (what I discovered later) was a large percentage of tamarind seeds, she questioned my sanity. I had visions of something out of a Neil Gaiman novel – the stuff of Creole legends visited upon me if I didn’t follow through and set a good retail example for the day.

A year later, I got to talk to Bernadine (the B in B’s Local Spices) a bit more. She personally tends to local animals, supporting the wild dogs, feral cats, local yellow breasted birds (reminiscent of our own Jersey state bird), and six dozen chickens. The proceeds from her retail operation really do support local animals. She is as gentle and caring as her chutneys are intense and vicious on the tongue. The mango chutney I added to the collection combines hot peppers, mangos, and a local fruit she calls a pomserat, essentially a small, green apple like, sour fruit that complements and enhances the acidity of the peppers.

I’m stocked up for another year, with enough island heat to offset the depths of a Jersey winter.

I am a creature of habit, and a good breakfast is one of those habits. Particularly when travelling, starting the day off with a solid helping of protein, fruit, something sweet and at times a kick of spiciness is your best bet for good attention, energy and focus. Sometimes it’s one bookend of a long day that ends with a fancy dinner, lunch typically involving breath mints and coffee in someone’s car.

My favorite breakfast in the world is the morning buffet spread in an Israeli hotel. I’m not particular about which hotel; they’re almost all universally good and plentiful and full of foods far outside the typical breakfast field. Sure, you can get cereal and eggs and pancakes, but why not start your day with Yemenite delights like yachnoon (philo dough rolled with sugar and other goodies, baked into a rare earth density of goodness) topped with a bit of schoog (oil based hot pepper sauce). It defines “hot and sweet” – all of the tastes of good Italian sausage, with the added benefit of opening your sinuses for the day.

My personal favorite is the fresh and dried fruit selection: oranges from Yafo (check your oranges in the supermarket; they’re as likely from Yafo as they are from Florida) and dates that resided on a palm tree bordering the Negev desert not too long before ending up on your plate. The difference between the dates you buy in a US market and the dates in Israel is like the difference between sushi-grade tuna in New York and a flash-frozen halibut in Iowa. Eat at the source, people, it’s always better. Add in a bit of local cheese (especially the somewhat mysterious “Safed cheese”, which I believe to be a colloquial name for a mozzarella variety), and something from the assortment of breads and pastries (there cannot be a Jewish themed breakfast without danish; it’s in the Talmud) and you’re full, content and ready to wash it down with coffee so thick it’s chewable.

Pictures from the road as this week’s travel takes me to Tel Aviv (with a chocolate infused stop in Zurich).

I’ll admit it: one of the potential names for this adventure was “Magical Food Gentleman.” Yes, it’s full of yaoi references and yes, it’s risque and conjures up the wrong kind of images depicting a man and his, well, sausage sandwich fixation.

If you’re wondering, it’s a play on Jeph Jacques’ Questionable Content comic arc involving manga, a “compelling and nuanced story,” and two standard deviations to the right (or left) obsessions. QC is not entirely safe for work, but it’s how I get my first laugh of the day, every week day. I read QC before coffee, and sometimes again once I’ve had the first caffeine shot. Through Jeph’s guest strips I found Yuko Ota, who did the logo and made me look 20 pounds lighter and 10 years younger. Kind of.

After some discussion around the dinner table (where all serious life decisions should be made), I was advised that “Magical Food Gentleman” was both too obscure and inviting of more jokes than would befit a mild PG rating for this site. I have enough issues such that I don’t need to be involved in the first recorded food-moe manga reference.

But for the curious, yes, magicalfoodgentleman.com exists. You’d think I’d let this bit of intense obscurity escape?

I’m finally getting around to spicing up (pun intended) my blog with some graphics that look like they’re more advanced than a 2nd grader’s failed art project. I never much made it past stick figures (and my attempt at business graphics clearly demonstrates this), however, I have friends who are starving artists and know others in the same situation.

Thanks to Yuko from Johnny Wander for coming up with the manga-inspired Hal-cartoon based on some photographs of me and an egg and provolone sub from White House Sub Shop in Atlantic City. Seriously. She’s as talented as I am hungry. The font work, image placement and other graphical elements that make your eyes beg for mercy are all my own work, and demonstrate how much I totally suck at Photoshop (or in this case, Pixelmator).

Pork roll has a new friend in the ranks of the Foodie Blog Roll. I discovered this consumption-oriented consumer of blog content while looking for references to National Cupcake Day in various flavors, and decided to join. You’ll see the update list in the widget on the right; you’ll find this blog on their aggregator site; you can follow the foodies on Twitter as well.

I’ve been to Japan twice, and both times have been experiences in new food textures, tastes and presentations. My first trip was in 1992 and earned me the nickname bento-san, literally, “Mr. Box Lunch.” The guys from Nihon Sun hosting me discovered that I loved the equivalent of New York City hot trucks, except in Tokyo they are bento lunch places in subway stations. My typical bento box included sushi, meatballs, noodles, and radishes. My typical lunch included multiple bento boxes, hence the nickname.

My second trip was much less relaxed, much more “big tent” presentation focused and included almost no time for sampling local cuisine. Even my thoughts of going out to the Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi were washed out by jet lag, a bad rain storm, and a fear that I’d had beginner’s luck navigating the Tokyo subway fifteen years earlier. But this trip didn’t let me down in terms of textures and tastes, as “western sandwiches” were provided for me in between meetings.

Let me say up front that I’m a huge fan of potato products mingling with meat. Hamburger on a potato roll: satisfying. Gnocchi with bolognese sauce: always. Primanti Brothers sausage sandwich with on-board fries: required Pittsburgh consumption. However, these sandwiches fit the pattern but perhaps not the intent. The meat in the center sandwich was ham (or possibly smoked turkey?) and the white salad in the far left was — drum roll — potato salad. It was definitely the most creative mixture of potato and protein I’ve seen. The yellow salad mixture was obviously egg salad, although it was made with Cheez Whiz or the Japanese equivalent as definitely lacked the creamy consistency of mayonnaise. I found that even more troubling than the potato salad, because cheese is just not part of Japanese cuisine, Western-influenced or otherwise. My only previous experience with cheez-u was ordering a slice of cheesecake during the bento expeditions, and explaining to my Nihon Sun office mates that “New York Cheesecake” had nothing to do with New York but everything in common with cheez-u. “Fear” is not too strong an adjective for their reaction. The new Sun office cafeteria gets points for being adventuresome, nice presentation, and creative use of potato salad, but Primanti Brothers has nothing to fear.