From Hillbilly Highway to Gourmet Row

Sometimes life in your neighborhood can change for the better. Commentator Daniel Pinkwater has proof. The culinary landscape in his Hudson Valley town has suddenly been transformed, and he says it's almost impossible to believe.

On a certain stretch of country road in New York, where the folks "are on the evolutionary track to country music but have yet to arrive," food offerings used to include cardboardlike pizza, a scary hot dog and the "jitterbug" – Wonderbread topped with meatloaf, mashed potatoes and brown gravy.

But more recently, Pinkwater has stumbled on an excellent pizzeria, a great new Mexican place and an Italian establishment serving "the best ices and gelato there can be."

This stretch of hillbilly highway is all of a sudden turning into slob gourmet row.