Our Dallas friend Rawlins Gilliland, a writer, raconteur and bon vivant, stopped by to have a drink and dinner with us on his way through town. Naturally I had him wield Uncle Walker, and we drank juleps together. Then we made our way across the river to Hot Tails. Later, Rawlins told my mother that that was the best fried seafood he’d had in his entire sojourn in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

“There wasn’t a speck of oil on it,” he said. “Not one speck. You know how bad it is to eat a piece of fried fish that’s greasy? It’s like a blind date with a dead man.”

That’s our Rawlins. I wish I could go see him in his upcoming one-man show in Dallas. Click on the Archives section of that link to hear Rawlins’s radio commentaries. The man has one of the best voices in America. Deep, deep Texas.