A former Simpsons showrunner spent Tuesday night in downtown Birmingham, handing chef Rob McDaniel a list of dishes most Alabamians have never heard of and watching him turn them into dinner for 30 or 40 diners at Helen. Bill Oakley, who co-wrote and ran the writers' room on some of the animated sitcom's most beloved episodes, hosted a special ticketed dinner at the restaurant, pairing his cross-country food obsession with McDaniel's Southern cooking instincts.
Oakley is best known for his work as a writer and showrunner on The Simpsons, a role that, as reported by AL.com, has since given way to a second act chronicling fast food and obscure culinary trends to what the outlet describes as tens of thousands of followers on social media. McDaniel, for his part, is the owner and chef of Helen, the contemporary Southern grill where the dinner took place.
A Secret Menu Pulled From Across the Country
The Birmingham stop is part of a 12-city tour Oakley calls Bill Oakley Presents: An American Culinary Curiosity Dinner, which sends him from city to city collaborating with local chefs to recreate distinctive regional dishes and tell the stories behind them, per the same AL.com account. Each stop's menu stays secret until the night of the dinner and is never repeated, meaning Helen's guests got a one-time-only lineup unlikely to resurface on the restaurant's regular menu.
At Helen, that meant dishes like Amish church soup, New England beef tips and Illinois atomic cake, none of them native to Alabama kitchens. McDaniel prepared the beef tips with cherry peppers and barrel-aged Worcestershire sauce, and built the atomic cake from layers of banana, vanilla and chocolate cake, according to the same AL.com report. Helen's staff turned out seven unfamiliar dishes for 30 or 40 diners at once, and Oakley praised McDaniel's Southern spin on the far-flung recipes.
Scouting Birmingham's Classics Before the Big Night
Before the dinner, Oakley made his own tour of Birmingham's food scene, stopping at Miss Myra's and Gus's Hot Dogs one day earlier, on November 2. He called Gus's hot dogs among the most delicious he'd ever tasted, the outlet's report notes. He also swung by Milo's to try its burgers with the chain's signature sauce, and came away impressed with those too.
The format echoes earlier stops on Oakley's tour. At a New Orleans dinner in September, he teamed with Turkey and the Wolf chef Mason Hereford on seven dishes pulled from far outside Louisiana, with Oakley emceeing and sharing Simpsons stories between courses, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage. Those New Orleans dinners ran at 7 p.m. on back-to-back nights and cost $120 per ticket. A similar write-up from NOLA.com / Gambit described the entire concept as sharing dishes outside the regions they come from, and noted that one dish, Cincinnati chili, had been banned from that particular menu.
Stops in Kansas City, Seattle and Beyond
Oakley's tour has also made a stop at Kansas City Bier Company, where staff designed a seven-course menu with him that paired beer with every course, according to The Pitch. Oakley, who lives in Portland, Oregon, has said the tour is a fun way to see the country, per the AL.com report.
His schedule keeps moving fast. Oakley is set to present Greatest Airline Meals of the 20th Century in Seattle on November 14, then carry the Curiosity Dinner format to Denver on December 12. Announcements for Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities are still in the works.
