Meet The Team / Hanna Raskin

Good servers are constantly questioning their guests: Would you like a cocktail before dinner? Is your steak cooked correctly? Are you considering dessert this evening?

But restaurant etiquette dictates that the questions stop as soon as the check's dropped. No matter how lousy the tip, servers aren't supposed to ask their guests whether they could have done anything to make their experience better – even if the phrasing's exceedingly polite.

Staying mum isn't easy, especially since servers are trained to make sure their guests are happy. A poor tip doesn't seem too different from a restaurant goer yelping, "I'm having a terrible time!", a cry no capable server would ignore.

While traditionalists still take their eggs in the morning and their 'cue in the afternoon, a few experimental pitmasters are putting their own spin on the "eggs on everything" trend that's lately seized high-end pasta joints and pizzerias.

At Luella's Bar-B-Que in Asheville, the most popular brunch dish is a scramble of pulled pork, collards and eggs. And over in Houston, restaurant critic Robb Walsh recently conferred 'favorite dish' status on Plantation BBQ Trailer's tortilla crammed with barbecued brisket and scrambled eggs.

"When you crack that yolk over a barbecue sandwich, you've just added creamy lusciousness," says Luella's owner Jeff Miller, likening the combination to the bacon lardon and poached egg that might surface on an Old World salad.

Mississippians have always known where to pick the plumpest blackberries and dine on the freshest catfish, but officials say a pair of new itineraries will help visitors find the state's choicest edible experiences.

Mississippi this month added culinary and agritourism trails to its tourism web site, showcasing nearly 200 restaurants, farmers markets, farms and fruit stands across the state. According to Sandy Bynum, bureau manager for Mississippi's tourism division, the project was designed partly in response to the current field-to-table craze.

"It's nouveau for some places, but we've always been close to our farms," Bynum says. "We've done this for years. But the trails are a good way for people to partake of our bounty."

Catfish growers say a recent USDA purchase of $5 million worth of their product could help put catfish on more school cafeteria menus.

The purchase, announced this month by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, will benefit federal nutrition assistance programs including the National School Lunch Program.

Roger Barlow, president of The Catfish Institute, calls school lunchrooms "the perfect venue for our product." While frozen breaded catfish strips are already a staple of many school kitchens, Barlow suggests catfish could be as prevalent as square-cut pepperoni pizza if administrators realized the advantages posed by the whiskered fish. "It's very nutritious, very versatile," he says. "I think there is room in schools for additional product."

Eating isn't the only thing people do in restaurants.

While seated at table, customers fight. They have sex. They sign contracts. And, sometimes, customers die.

At the busy restaurant where I work, we've had at least three customers suffer fatal heart attacks after their meals. That's not the restaurant's fault, of course, but it's always a strange situation for the server, who's stuck with a section full of traumatized diners and the knowledge that she served the victim his last-ever plate of lobster risotto.