"Those who visit Jake and Earl's might ask where the name comes from. Mr. Schlesinger wanted to call it Jake's Dixie Barbecue because 'Jake is what older people in the South call young boys and it's my dog's name.' Ms. Wheaton wanted to name it for her father, Earl, a surgeon in New Jersey. They compromised."
"After all, everybody knows what ketchup is — it's that sweet-sour tomato sauce. Like fish sauce in Southeast Asia, this tomato condiment is fixed so firmly in the American culinary vernacular that it is often set on the table unbidden, with the unspoken assumption that it will be needed at some point in every meal."
"There is a lot of good meat out there, and there are lot of neat, fun, and tasty ways to cook it. So, walking up to the meat counter should be an occasion for excitement. But even for an experienced cook, it can often be a prelude to bewilderment instead."
"Early Americans also seem to have enjoyed all kinds of greens. Thomas Jefferson mentions, for instance, that the common markets of his day could supply the cook not only with a variety of lettuce but also endive, sorrel, corn salad (mâche), and cress."
"So these are the three legs that support my grilling inspiration: the good-humored, casual approach taught to me by my dad; the serious technique based on classical French dogma; and the never-ending resources of hot weather cultures, where cooks have many more centuries of grilling experience than we do. These all came together in 1985 when I opened my first restaurant, the East Coast Grill, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since I was in charge, it fell to me to train, teach, and help other cooks understand live-fire cookery in the same way that I did."
East Coast Grill & Raw Bar 