Looks like the coming week is gelling into yet another round of insanity: Two of the most intense people I know -  Chefs Cory Bahr (Cotton, Monroe. Fool does not have a website so here's a link to Urbanspoon) and Wesley True (Tru, Mobile) are coming to town—at the same time—and Sooz and I are supposed to drag around with them for various and sundry reasons  I love these guys.

Here are excerpts from this week's conversations with each of them:

At 9 p.m. on Thursday night as I was working feverishly, my phone rang. It was Cory. The man bellows into the phone : " JYLLLLLL! Dude, you've gotta help me.....Food Arts is calling and I need a bio, like, NOW. Pleeease, you've gotta do it. Pleeeease. I'll do anything."

"Cory, I'm slammed. I'll do it tomorrow."

"Noooo. I need to give it to them in the morning. Pleeease." This goes on for  a while.

"Cory, I'll own your ass. I mean it."

Cory babbles on and on, pontificating, on and on.  He's already talked me into shelving the 10,000 other things I have to do (this magazine is killing me) but still he feels the need to continue convincing me. I love this about him. I can relate because I do this, too.

"Cory, I cannot write your damned bio if you will not shut up and let me go."

"Okay, bye."

Cory got his bio.

One day prior my phone rang and it was the Madman from Mobile. This one does not bellow so much as rage.

"That's it! I've fucking had it! I'm coming  to New Orleans  and I need YOU to introduce me  to EVERYONE and help me figure stuff out. Really, really you have to do this. I need advice."

Me: "Huh?"

Both of them arrive on Sunday? Monday?

There  are far, far worse things than being needed by two brilliant kitchen wizards. Cory is the rising star darling of The Food Network (and  everyone else) and Wes was one of last year's nominees for the James Beard Award for Best Chef — South. Neither of them is too hard on the eyes, either, and they are both a ton of fun. They have also been informed that Sooz and I are "damned near totally broke as we launch this company which, well, promotes clowns like you. So you can take us to dinner: Let's go to Root."