• photoby Will Kirk, from nationalcornbread.com

Here's just a partial list of the activities scheduled for the National Cornbread Festival. There's a run, a church service, a jam tent, a cornbread eating contest, a beauty contest, tours, arts and crafts, a 4-H cook-off, an auction, a street dance, a film and more. There's not a minute of the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, Tenn., that isn't stuffed with activity.

The festival, April 27-29, showcases Lodge cookware, Martha White products, South Pittsburg (population 3,100) and Five Star ovens, made in nearby Cleveland, Tenn.

(Side note here: My oven is a Five Star, and not only is it a superior piece of equipment for the money, but the one time I needed help, an actual guy from Tennessee answered the helpline, then got in his truck and drove to my house. That's what they call customer service, right there.)

Cook-off finalists were announced last week, and they're from all over: two from North Carolina, two from Tennessee, two from West Virginia and, in an unusual twist, two from that legendary cornbread producing state, Connecticut.

The festival's Cornbread Alley lets you sample all the miraculous recipes and uses for cornbread that local organizations can devise. The result is a mix of traditional, unusual (Tooti Fruity Cornbread Balls, with pineapple and maraschino cherry) and others new but so smart you think "Why didn't I think of that? — like this recipe for Pork Puppies from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in South Pittsburg:

Starting with practice round and the Par 3 tournament early in the week, patrons stream through the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of their golfing idols and hopefully witness something miraculous. (Did I mention I was greenside when Louis Oosthuizen holed out from 253 yards away for the only double eagle in the history of the Masters on hole No. 2? Don't be a hater.)

Other than the thousands of folks cramming the golf shop to happily part with their money in return for Masters insignia-embroidered swag, the concession stands at Augusta National are probably the site of most of the commerce that happens in the city during the week. And usually in transactions of $5 at a time.

Lines are long, but they move quickly and efficiently thanks to the incredibly friendly well-oiled machine that is the Masters brand of customer service. Young ladies in green shirts smile as they wave people from the line into available registers and quickly total their sandwich wrappers and beer cups. All products are available via self-service, so the counters are covered with beer cups, racks of sandwiches and tubs of chips and fruit for patrons to select as they proceed down the cafeteria-style line.

As an aside, this sort of customer service and polite obedience by the patrons also makes the restrooms at the Masters the most efficient in all of sports. In one of the few places where the lines for the men's rooms are at least twice as long as for the distaff set, the queue fairly flies around the serpentine ropes, exactly not like any amusement park line you've ever been stuck in.

Each restroom has a team of Maître D's (Maître pees?) who greet each patron and get them to focus on the task as hand as they efficiently direct the process. “We got a 10-second rule around here, folks! I need two standers and a sitter on the back nine! I got two shakers on the left, step up boys!” You'll never see a more convivial communal experience at a sporting event unless your team wins the Stanley Cup at home.

But back to the food. Brand names are not emphasized or even allowed for most products sold at the Masters. If you try to enter the grounds with a bottle of water, you'll be told to strip the label off of it, lest Dasani receive any free airtime. In the one place where beer companies don't display their logo absolutely everywhere in a NASCAR fashion, the brands of brew are completely obscured. Your choices are “regular beer,” “light beer” or “import beer,” and are only discernible from each other by the fact that the imports come in a green cup instead of a translucent one so that the cashiers know to charge you $3.75 instead of $3. Intrepid journalists could find out the truth though by simply taking a look the mountain of empty kegs stacked out behind the concession buildings. (It's Coors, Miller Lite and Amstel. Shhh!)

Non-alcoholic beverages are even more generic with options of “classic cola,” “diet cola,” “lemon-lime” and my personal favorite “sport drink.” Now me, I drink beer when I watch sports, but was unable to use that logic to save two bucks on my fourth round of the day.

Last year the lovely and talented Jennifer Justus wrote an excellent article in the Tennessean about a ramp hunt led by the king of the smoker, Allan Benton. Since ramps are frequently cooked up alongside bacon to intermingle their wonderful garlicky funkiness with the smoke of the pork, Benton is certainly an appropriate guru for leading such an excursion.

Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, our local daily has not allocated the disk space to keep this entertaining account of the adventure online, but Justus fortunately republished her article on her personal blog A Nasty Bite. I hope she doesn't mind extra eyes looking at her slightly embarrassing story of almost running out of gas on the trip, because you should really read it. Besides, her fellow Nashvillians Thomas Williams and Chef Matt Bolus should be more chagrined, anyway, by her account of Benton picking through their hauls of what they thought was the mother lode of ramps. "Lily, lily, lily, ramp, lily, lily, lily..." Heh.

If you'd like to go ramp hunting on your own, North Carolina is the place to head. There are at least three major Ramp Celebrations coming up over the next month or so in the Tarheel state. Courtesy of the N.C. Division of Tourism, here's the skinny on the great search for Allium tricoccum:

• Catfish sandwich, Fish Camp restaurant, Centerville, Tenn.

That was due in part to our stop at Papa KayJoe's barbecue in Centerville and also to an outstanding meal at Fish Camp, also in the greater Centerville area.

Fish Camp is situated near Defeated Creek, and photos on its walls demonstrate just how near. The May 2010 floodwaters rose almost to the porch roof. They rebuilt right away and reopened.

The menu centers around Tennessee River catfish; says so right there on the cover. It's freshly caught and freshly fried, and available in about six different permutations. The largest option is all-you-can-eat ($11.49), and the smallest is the catfish sandwich ($4.29), a thick slab of fresh cat fillet fried crisp outside but still tender inside and tasting of clean water, fresh fish and cornmeal.

• Barbecue at Fish Camp

Fish Camp goes the extra mile, too, with the sides: homemade potato chips, hush puppies from scratch, cooked to a deep brown crackle outside.

Owners Troy and Kim Bates have a place to rightfully be proud of. In fact, Centerville — who knew it? — has at least three terrific places to eat. Throw in a trip to the Pink Cadillac drive-in movies, and I'd call that an ideal warm weather outing, practically in Nashville's back yard.

• Fish Camp's homemade potato chips

Family cemeteries are much more interesting than memorial gardens. In a family cemetery, the stones tell the story, if you know how to read them. My great-great grandfather had the grim task of establishing a cemetery when his beautiful, smart 27-year-old daughter died giving birth to her fourth child. Seventy-two years later, that son chose burial beside the mother he never knew in a small, remote cemetery instead of a busy, cheerful family cemetery among a sprawl of his siblings, cousins, aunts, grandparents, and everyone else with his last name.

You have to listen carefully to cemeteries, and brace yourself for what you might learn. That's the dark side venerating deceased ancestors.

While it's good to know where you came from, it's also relief to leave the dead to bury the dead and seize life.

So with "barbecue eyes" on, we turned the car back toward Davidson County and found Papa Kay Joe's, which got its own sweet write-up by the Southern Foodways Alliance (it's a stop on what they call The Southern BBQ Trail). Here's a quote from a 2008 interview with pitmaster Devin Pickard:

"There’s no knobs, there’s no gas lines, there’s no eyes, there’s no thermometer; there’s — there’s nothing. It’s just coals and a shovel and you do it — you do it long enough and you begin to learn how to fire the meat. ..."

• Gardenandgun.com

I mean, this tidbit of Boston butt, swaddled in a pair of lard-griddled corncakes, was adjudged one of the 21 finest barbecue sandwiches in the South by Garden and Gun magazine.

Smoky, pink, juicy and irresistible, the meat is offered with a choice of three sauces, but it doesn't really need them.

There are two locations in Centerville: the mothership on the Linden Road (which Nashvillians call Highway 100) and a satellite on Ward Street (that's by the McDonald's, behind the gas station). Papa Kay Joe's has been operating for years; not having eaten this fantastic barbecue yet is an indication I need to drive out and see the family more often.

You'll have to decide whether to head east or west.The James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour Dining Series is coming to Atlanta Feb. 3-4, while over in Memphis, the Cochon 555 Tour stops in the Bluff City on Feb. 4

Executive chef Robert Gerstenecker of Park 75 Restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta is the host of the James Beard event. The festivities begin with a cocktail reception hosted by the chefs on Friday night, Feb. 3, in Park 75 Lounge at Four Seasons in conjunction with the Atlanta’s Bartender’s Guild. Some of Atlanta’s best bartenders will create specialty cocktails with local spirits and favorite ingredients. Throughout the event the chefs will mix and mingle with guests. An array of delicious appetizers will be prepared by Park 75 to complement the creative libations.

The roster of participating chefs reads like a "who's who" of Southern talent: Top Chef contestant Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Ky.; Chef James Lewis of Bettola Restaurant in Birmingham, Ala.; Chef John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford, Miss.; Chef Bob Waggoner of Nashville's Watermark; Chef Josh Feathers of Blackberry Farms, Walland, Tenn.; Chef Hugh Acheson of Five & Ten and Empire State South, Atlanta; and Chef Andrea Litvin of The Spence, opening this spring.

Meanwhile in Memphis, the Cochon 555 Tour features five chefs and five winemakers creating a snout-to-tail menu made with five heritage breed hogs, paired with wines from family wineries.

• puckettsgrocery.com

The Leiper's Fork Puckett's usefulness as a gas station and grocery store, along with its good food, great music and beer, boosted it to the top of the list. One intrepid Carolina couple loved the cherry-smoked barbecue so much they intend to drive the nine hours to experience it again.

On the Road, a blog of travel sponsored by Rand McNally and USA Today, offers quirky posts by "McNavigators" from quirky spots, plus useful lists, like great antiquing towns, food festivals and more. Puckett's got the No. 1 spot on the list "10 Road Stops You Haven't Heard of." Though you've heard of Puckett's, you may not know the other nine (except maybe Mimi's in Jackson, Miss.). You can read about them here.

It's nice when local favorites are "discovered" by the traveling public. So long as we can still get a parking spot.

• prichardsdistillery.com

I've taken winery tours but never a distillery tour before, because, really, seen one concrete-floored room with a drain and lots of tanks, seen 'em all.

But Prichard's captures the fancy by being in the old Kelso schoolhouse. The world maps are still in the classrooms. Bathrooms are still marked Girls and Boys. The basket lights still illuminate the gym, and the basketball goals and the disco ball are still in place.

The stills, which will soon be replaced, are of a manageable size — you do really get the feeling that small batches are being made, because you can get your brain around how much 500 gallons is.

The tour is brief because the school is smallish. It starts in a large classroom that serves as the tasting room and moves through the warehouse, fermenting and distilling rooms in the bottling and labeling room, where employees spend a day a week bottling and another day each week labeling.

And then back to the tasting room for a sip of Sweet Lucy, a bourbon cordial, some Double Barrel bourbon, a thimbleful of Phil Prichard's zany flavored rums and, treat of treats, a drop of the Private Stock rum, a caramel-vanilla confection that's the only liquor sold from the distillery.

Prichard's is growing rapidly, and considered moving to another facility but decided to add on instead. It's a fine stop for a road trip. (It's about an hour and and a half south of Nashville in Lincoln County.)

To make it a fine afternoon, drive down the road to Elk River Canoe Rentals with your purchase and float a couple of lazy, rummy hours down the river.

Pictures from my visit after the jump.

• Dollywood.com

Yep, Dollywood! The place where all dreams of Dolly come true, or at least that’s what I’m expecting!

In my research for the trip, I ran across this gem, sitting pretty in the heart of Dollywood:

Dolly Parton’s Sausage Works

Here is the description from the website: