Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Anything by Calvin Trillin - great food travel stuff, "How to Cook a Tart" by Nina Killham-- a great fiction book written by a true food lover- full of romance, humor, satire and murder! "En Provence" is another great food book.

Mark Kurlansky has written some amazing books about different foods and how they've shaped and changed the world we live in ("Cod", "Salt", "The Big Oyster") Great, informative, fascinating reads.

I also like "The Botany of Desire" by M. Pollan

I though Boston Chicken was good before it became Boston Market. I like Morton's, The Palm, Legal Seafoods, The Ninety-Nine (I'm pretty sure its a North East thing- great prime rib), Maggiano's and Crackerbarrel (great pit stop on long drives!). I used to like Pizzera Uno, but my last few trips to them were disasterous.
What creeps me out is when you go to a chain that has photos of the food on the menu and the food comes out looking just liked the photo.

Do some chains start as chains or do they all grow out of one original place? I know McDonalds didn't start as a chain, but I can imagine that a place like Olive Garden was conceived as a chain.

My wife and I were walking into a butcher shop that also served food at a few tables while we were on vacation in Spain. As we entered, my wife (who can be a bit squeamish) looked to her left and saw a pig, split down the middle, hanging from a hook. She exclaimed "Oh my God!" A man who was leaving, glanced over his shoulder at her and, in a thick Spanish accent, gave this helpful comment: "Its not God, its a pig"

If its cold out, grilled cheese and tomato soup (sandwich to be sliced on the diagonal and dunked into the soup.) If it is hot out, red flavored jello with canned mandarin orange segments suspended in it.