More at 11

We're a week or two into hurricane season; there's a ferocious thunderstorm roaring directly above my head right now; the weather was a favorite topic of conversation at market today, and so, of course, my thoughts turn to Bob Caldwell.
Bob Caldwell, for anyone who has been living in a cave for the past twenty years, is the weatherman on WLOS and probably the most trusted man in America since Walter Cronkite bid us all farewell oh so many years ago.
But there's a lot more to Bob Caldwell than even many weather junkies know. He's more than a figure on the screen explaining the movement of high pressure systems. Yes. The man is also a connoisseur of epicurean delights, and, an all around regular guy.
A friend of mine, a caterer, was interviewed on a cooking segment that Bob does for the midday news update. That's how I learned that Bob can identify bread from a wood-fired brick oven by taste alone. "That's a real connoisseur," my friend said. Bob, as everybody knows, is a Madison County native. And the most important thing to him, he reports, is leading his grandchildren up into the woods and teaching them to identify ramps. This all gives me a new found appreciation for this simple man from the mountains. Perhaps he isn't relying on the National Weather Service, as I always suspected, but, perhaps, his forecasts are so superb because he has the ability to intuit weather patterns. I don't know. No one ever will. Bob would be too modest to say.
Bob was simple and down to earth as he interviewed my friend. Lights and cameras were all around, staff people were running here and there, Doppler radar was sweeping it's ever so regulated arm around the greater Asheville area, but Bob didn't act the star. He sat down and talked about food. And when it was all over, he helped with the dishes.