We're highlighting local and regional bloggers we think you ought to know about. We can’t be everywhere at once, so we look to these passionate eaters, cooks and writers to keep us tapped into every facet of the food world. Consider this a way to get to know a blog’s taste buds, because, well, you should.

Meet today's featured bloggers and blog:
Who: Dave Bridges, of The Rooter to the Tooter
Where: Shreveport, Louisiana

Before we delve into the mind numbing reasons and philosophy of the who, where and why of TheRooterToTheTooter.com, I feel a proper libation is in order. I find it the perfect catalyst for a receptive mind. If indeed alcohol kills brain cells, then how come it never killed the ones that make me want to drink?

D’Artagnan and Tabasco-Cured Bacon
Serves 4 souls with an incredible thirst for life

Has anything in history with the christened name “D’Artagnan” fallen short of anything less than the superlative adjective of “exemplary”?

The D’Artagnan is a classic Champagne cocktail that contains a few liquors, some orange and quality Champagne. You will not see it at your local “all you can drink for an extra $5.99” brunch, in the same way that you would not see me there either. Since it is morning and we are drinking, we might as well push all of our chips into the kitty and have a noshing of bacon while we are at it.

D’Artagnan
1 bottle Fine quality Brandy
1 bottle Grand Marnier
2 oranges cut into halves
Simple Syrup
1 bottle of good true Champagne

Fill a Boston Shaker half of the way with some ice. Pour in 1 ounce of Brandy, 1 ounce of Grand Marnier, squeeze the juice of one of the orange halves into the shaker along with a splash of simple syrup. Stir very well and strain into a champagne flute. Top off your flute with the Champagne and garnish with a strip of orange peel.

Tabasco-Cured Bacon
1 pound of sliced Bacon
1 Bottle of Tabasco

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Separate all the strips of bacon and place into a plastic resealable bag. Season the bacon with the Tabasco. Try to be as generous with the Tabasco as if it was your wallet and the bacon was a new love interest. If you don’t understand what this means then you are probably single and your bacon will be unsatisfied.

Let the bacon marinate in your cooler for 1 hour. Take the bacon out of the bag and lay it on a non-stick pan or a pan that is lines with metal foil. Bake the bacon until it is crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and blot the excess grease dry with a paper towel. Serve your cooled bacon on anything. Bacon is such a loved vice that people will eat it off the back of a man dressed in corduroy if they have to.

Now that our mind is relaxed and unobstructed by the cloak of marketing and insincere celebrity chef smiles, I feel great food writing parallels a great meal. in that we continue to feed off them long after they have been digested.

"From the Rooter to the Tooter, A Southern Man’s Journey of Nose to Tail Cooking" is not your typical modern blog. My blog embodies the spirit of the “noble savage” - an educated man who lives by the laws of nature and is unencumbered by the prejudices of modern life. It is a throwback to teaching our fellow men and women respect for all through the use of cooking, etiquette and philosophy.

Cooking is not about toiling. Cooking is about pleasure and the recipes put forth in this blog reflect that ideal. A good blog is comforting and a delight to read. It is not only informative to how one prepares great food but how one creates for themselves and their loved ones an enjoyable life.

I am not interested in compiling a list of tasks to help Susie Homemaker get through her day with only four ingredients in less than eight minutes and 22 seconds. “Task” is just another polite word for “job”. This is a blog for people who take great joy in all of the pleasures of the table and the lifestyle that accompanies those joys.

TheRooterToTheTooter’s goal is to bring people together through cooking. It preaches respect for your friends, your family, your ingredients and most importantly yourself. I hold this collection of thoughts in high regard, not just for the magnificent recipes, but also for the valuable moral that it holds.

I wish I could say these reasons of unity and morality is what is pushing me to document these personal ideals. In all honesty, writing this book is just like cooking to me - it is very instinctual. Why did I add marjoram to the creamed onions? Why did I fry the skin of the salmon for a grilled squid salad? I don’t know. My brain told me to. In the same way that your soul told you to feed it the most delicious tomato sandwich during the height of the summer, my soul was telling me to write this blog.

TheRooterToTheTooter.com isn’t a series of events in my life. Like many, I’m just a few small events in the life of TheRooterToTheTooter. You see, cooks and artists are not so different. They both partake in a shared goal of making sacred out of the mundane. To some, a gallery may hold more intrigue. But kitchens are where the noble savages of inspiration and perspiration have been trained to nourish the mind and the soul three times each day.

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