It’s almost as if foreigners have a different word for everything. Really, it’s the fact that “beer” sounds like “alus” in Lithuanian, “sor” in Hungarian and “Budweiser” in Oklahoman that makes life so damn confusing. Dan Quayle admitted as much when he apologized for his inability to converse with Latin…

A couple of years ago, some innovative technical genius created Gaydar, a key-chain device designed to electronically sort straights and gays, up to a distance of 40 feet. It beeps–or perhaps vibrates–when activated by the presence of someone else carrying one of the gadgets. But Dennis Vercher doesn’t need electronics…

A gentleman moderates all impolite thoughts and activities. Indeed, no less authority than Charles Darwin implied that self-control represents the highest form of moral culture–just the sort of statement that confuses the hell out of Baptists who emblazon their SUVs with Darwin-chomping fish. Who knew the progenitor of natural selection…

It almost works as a riddle: A rare and expensive wine loses its value when opened, so collectors decant these items only in extraordinary circumstances. At a gala dinner in 1985, for example, The Mansion uncorked an 1870 Mouton Rothschild, then priced at $38,000. A year later, a Dallas-based distributor…

Perfect Peking duck requires elaborate preparation. One must massage the carcass, stuff a bicycle pump in the stump where the bird’s head once resided, bloat the thing with air, coat it with honey and spices and hang it somewhere until the skin hardens. There’s more to the recipe, of course,…

The cafeteria at Molina High School in Dallas offers a Tex-Mex line, a pizza line, a basket lunch line serving such zoological anomalies as steak fingers, something called the country kitchen line and a vegetarian menu. At R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton, a bakery rolls out homemade pretzels, kolaches…

In his classic book Into the Valley, John Hershey describes the fear that sweeps over a group of soldiers caught in an ambush. With the actions of men teetering between stunned confusion and outright panic comes the crucial moment between victory and defeat. All it takes, the author points out,…

A couple of weeks ago, the Burning Question crew chanced to sit at a bar next to Ron Dawson, a pleasant 63-year-old gentleman…well, his head still whips around violently at the sight of an appealing pair of breasts, but otherwise he seemed proper enough. “The problem I’m beginning to realize,”…

Thirty or 50 or 100 years ago, Dallas resembled every other American city. Hotter, perhaps, overrun by Baptists and maybe a bit chagrined over that assassination thing, but otherwise pretty much the same: dining on standard Euro-American fare, with a few exotic dishes tossed in. Then Chinese foods hit the…

Way back in grad school, the Burning Question crew devised a cunning plan to wrest free beer from our favorite nightspot. Our scheme involved weekly visits to the bar, befriending the owner and dating the waitresses–and it worked well. Indeed, even now, when we revisit our past, the DJ plays…

Steve Kelly describes 2001 as a series of irresistible shocks smashing against a once-solid food-service industry. “We went like gangbusters last year,” recalls Salve’s executive chef. “Then this year the convention-center remodeling drove convention business away, then September 11, and then down, down, down.” It’s no wonder Kelly feels as…

The French always complicate things. From brandy to sparkling white wine to butter, everything they produce succumbs to regional designations. While Land O’ Lakes tastes the same whether dolloped on bread at the French Room or melted over Eggo waffles in the Burning Question crew test kitchen, France labels butters…

Donald Eugene Lytle looked at Americans long and hard, then grappled with our very souls, extracting a truth both frightening and self-evident. We complain constantly about our government, our bosses, traffic cops, editors or anyone else in authority. We are, according to Lytle, a bunch of independent-minded bastards. Yet instead…

One fine day in the Big Apple, a restaurateur recognized New York Times food critic Eric Asimov scanning a menu. It was, in food-service industry terms, the equivalent of the moment before the landing craft hits the beach at Normandy–a brief and terrifying span between innocence and the unknown. In…

Emeril Lagasse has a nightly show on the Food Network, a failed sitcom and a catchphrase. He is, in the currency of the times, an American icon. Clint Stoerner quarterbacks America’s team. He is merely a future trivia question. Strange, but true. Flipping through cable, browsing newspapers or magazines, even…

Many, many years ago, a man named Peter Zenger defended the rights of a free press with such vehemence that the idea became sacrament. In the Gulf War–and today–the media chafed under censorship restrictions. Reporters protecting sources for a sensitive story occasionally end up in prison. But the Burning Question…

Inside Al’s Prime Steaks and Seafood the temperature hovers comfortably in the 70s. Wind and rain smack against the restaurant’s walls, belying one of Marx’s lesser maxims: “It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature.” It’s the same story downtown at Jeroboam, over at Brother’s Pizza or at…

The Burning Question crew returned from a vacation our editor described as “long-overdue”–a compliment, we presume–just in time for football season. Football is a confusing sport. To some it’s a metaphor for war, satiating our bloodlust in a confined space–a Coliseum for the modern world. To others the sport reflects…

Tom Fleming graduated from a top cooking school, Kendall College in Evanston, Illinois. He now serves as executive chef at Lombardi Mare in Addison. Marc Cassel cruised through El Centro’s apprenticeship program then gained fame at the Green Room, a Deep Ellum hot spot. Christopher Short, sous chef at Crescent…

Here’s a riddle: Take away the fine dining establishments that define Dallas nightlife. Remove the bright clusters of familiar chain restaurants that enliven Plano, Lewisville and Frisco. Close all liquor stores in The Colony and board up Addison’s strip. Do all this and what will you have? Mull it over…

Sometimes in our daily lives we unwittingly explore the fuzzy boundaries between brutishness and sophistication. It’s a tricky path between refined and plebeian, really. Purchase a steel frame chair with a cheap canvas seat from Wal-Mart, and you’re just some slob from The Colony. Call the same piece a Bauhaus…