Good magazine just came out with a list of "America's Tastiest Streets," and Miami's very own Calle Ocho made the cut. Here's what they had to say about it:

Little Havana’s main drag, Southwest 8th Street—Calle Ocho to locals—is renowned for its authentic Cuban cuisine and its robust hatred of Fidel Castro. The boulevard’s quaint and walkable blocks run from 14th Street to 18th Street. Disregard the “Viva Bush” stickers at Los Pinareños Frutería and focus on the guarapo (sugarcane juice), fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the recession-proof $3 lunch special. Also, if you time it right (the last Friday of every month), Calle Ocho between 14th and 17th becomes a street fair for Viernes Culturales. Go gallery hopping, catch a show and pause for tapas at Casa Panza, which also features Flamenco dancing three nights a week.

Immigration from Cuba and other Latin American countries has expanded Little Havana from downtown to the edge of the Everglades. As in most of Southern Florida, you’ll need a car to get around. Grab a pair of 75-cent Colombian empanadas at San Pocho Restaurant and continue a few blocks down to Taqueria El Mexicano for bistec a la Mexicana—beef chunks simmered with tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños. For the authentic Miami Cuban experience, dine with the common folk and power brokers at Versailles. Just don’t wear your Che shirt.

Where do you get your cheap eats on Calle Ocho?

America's Tastiest Streets [Good Magazine]

Photo, of the paella at Casa Panza: markaragnos [Flickr]

There's a short interview with Michael Schwartz on US News & World Report's "Inside Job" blog that's pretty entertaining. They give him the beginning of a sentence, and he has to finish it. Our favorite:

1. My job title should really read... "camp counselor and head baby sitter."

We imagine our parents laughing while reading New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov's article over whether or not to let his 16- and 17-year-old sons drink wine with dinner. He consults experts, some of whom tell him to give them sips, others who advise enforcing a strict no-alcohol policy until 21. (One even wishes the drinking age were 25!)

This was one issue that our parents never thought twice about, which is why, perhaps, Asimov's hand-wringing seems a little silly. Alcohol was never forbidden; if we wanted a sip of something, we could have it. For as long as we can remember, we had our own wine glass at dinnertime — it was just a lot less full than the other glasses. We were never offered beer or cocktails until we were 18 and had returned from college.

The other MenuPages editors had similar stories. MP: Boston's Leila was allowed a glass of wine with dinner throughout her teenaged years. Adam of MP: San Francisco was still in elementary school when he started taking sips from his parents' cups, although he didn't begin drinking wine or beer with dinner until he was 18. Neal of MP: Philadelphia was 14 when he was allowed a glass of wine on holidays and special occasions, and Adam of MP: Chicago wasn't all that interested in wine when he was first offered it at 14 or 15, but by 17 he was drinking wine with dinner and by 20 was sharing scotch with his parents.

So it's not exactly a representative sample, but it's telling that none of us has had any real drinking problems. Sure, we all drank more than we should have in college (didn't everyone?), but there are no stomach-pumping incidents or DUIs to report. Just a few bad hangovers. Which makes us think that Asimov should just chill out and let his kids have a glass of wine.

Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges? [New York Times]

Photo: gakrid [Flickr]

Today's South Florida Business Journal has a good story on how the sputtering economy is affecting the restaurant industry; it's worth reading if you've got a few minutes. Restaurateurs, like everyone else, are taking a hit, and it all goes back to the housing market (doesn't everything?):

And the slump at the dining table is also starting to take a bite out of state coffers at a time when lawmakers face huge budget cuts due to the housing bust.

Sales tax revenue collected on restaurants, bars, motels and entertainment activities is declining, according to Amy Baker, chief economist for the state House and Senate. "By the time we finish our estimates [for the year], we could probably be below last year's level. We believe that although it isn't officially called a recession yet, we will be in one. That affects all the other industries."

She said the real estate downturn is now leaking into other sectors.

"For most people, their home is their biggest asset, and when the market was doing well, people spent more and ate out more," Baker said. "When the housing market came out of the bubble and the national economy took a downturn, they didn't feel as wealthy and weren't as confident in spending."

Baker said she expects sales tax collections to fall even further.

This basically means that mediocre and bad restaurants are going to get weeded out. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. The good ones should be able to ride out the storm.

Restaurants starved for customers [South Florida Business Journal]

Fourth. Not too shabby for Michael Schwartz, considering the really great restaurants he beat out. Here's what New York Times food critic Frank Bruni, who listed his top 10 best new restaurants outside of New York, had to say about Michael's Genuine Food & Drink:

And yet genuine is how this restaurant comes across. Once it leaves the dictionary behind, there are few games, no nonsense: just refreshingly straightforward cooking by a chef, Michael Schwartz, exercising an impulse shared by many peers these days. He’s ditching the haute for the homey and focusing more on sourcing than on saucing.

Don’t get me wrong: you most certainly can’t do this at home. You don’t have time to round up the range of ingredients that Mr. Schwartz has, especially the Florida black grouper, swordfish and pompano. And you’re highly unlikely to be equipped with a wood-fired oven, which is what he uses for a whole snapper ($15 a pound) with bulbs of fennel and, separately, a fat onion stuffed with cinnamon-scented ground lamb and apricots ($14).

But Mr. Schwartz is indeed going for the warmth and robustness of home cooking, along with its guiltiest, least sophisticated pleasures: chips (potato) and dip (onion) are on the menu, and you’d be lunatic not to order this ($6).

4. Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [New York Times]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

The accolades keep pouring in for Michael's Genuine Food & Drink. This time, it's from New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, who recently did some restaurant research across the country. Michael's is on his top 10 list, although we won't know exactly how it'll rank for another couple of weeks since it's a four-part series. But here's what he had to say about it on his blog:

I can’t imagine Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink anywhere but Miami, and that’s not just because there are scattered palm fronds around the tables in its spacious outdoor area, usable even on an early February night.

It’s because of the prevalence and quality of the citrus in dishes, the freshness of the whole red snapper, and the adulatory attention servers draw to this fish.

Coast to Coast, Restaurants That Count [New York Times]
What New Yorkers Are Missing [Diner's Journal]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]

We just read on Deborah Hartz-Seeley's blog that Steve Petusevsky, who writes the Vegetarian Today column for the Sun-Sentinel, will be filming a pilot for the Food Network. He's also the author of The Whole Foods Market Cookbook.

We imagine it'll be a show focused on health and nutrition. Will it be exclusively vegetarian? As far as we know, they don't really have a meat-free show, so he could really fill a void there. At any rate, we're excited to see the pilot.

Did you hear? Martha Stewart and Emeril? Steve Petusevsky and the Food Network? [From the Test Kitchen]
Chef Steve's [Official Site]
The Food Network [Official Site]

Adam over at MP: Chicago led us to the James Beard Award ballot. Not the final one, mind you; the names on these lists are the ones that could be nominated for a James Beard Award. The voters will be whittling these down to just a few names, and then they'll vote for winners in each category. There are a few South Florida names on the lists, so we thought we should share. These are the people/restaurants who might be on the official James Beard Award ballots in a few months:

Best Chef: South
Florida is grouped here with Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. There's a whole other 'Southeast' region; we were a bit confused at first to not see Florida there.
• Zach Bell, Cafe Boulud, Palm Beach
• Michelle Bernstein, Michy's, Miami
• Hubert de Marais, The Restaurant at the Four Seasons, Palm Beach
• Ravin Nakjaroen, Four Rivers, Fort Lauderdale
• Douglas Rodriguez, Ola, Miami Beach
• Philippe Ruiz, Palme D'Or, Coral Gables
• Michael Schwartz, Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Miami
• Tony Sindaco, Sunfish Grill, Pompano Beach

Outstanding Chef
• Allen Susser, Chef Allen's, Miami

Outstanding Service
• Palme D'Or, Coral Gables

Outstanding Wine Service
• Palme D'Or, Coral Gables

Best New Restaurant
• Michael's Genuine Food & Drink

James Beard 2008 nominees (.pdf) [Eater]
James Beard Foundation [Official Site]
Is It Time For The 2008 Beard Award Noms Already? (Nom Nom Nom) [MP: Chicago]

Look at that. South Florida made it onto the list of the nation's best sandwiches, according to Esquire. The editors chose the Cuban sandwich at one of the Latin Americans:

Little Havana’s specialty, an eight-inch roll wet with butter, plus sugar-cured bolo ham, lechon asado (slow-roasted marinated pork), Swiss cheese, and pickle, toasted in a plancha (press). The later the hour, the better it tastes. (9796 Coral Way; 305-663-2600)

Go with the French bread, not the croissant -- it’s appropriately crusty and soft in the middle. And get it to stay -- the seating is outdoors, and the seafood salad (jumbo lump crab, shrimp) goes well with the salty air. (229 Fourteenth Street; 305-532-8934)

The Best Sandwiches in America [Esquire]
La Sandwicherie [MenuPages]
La Sandwicherie [Official Site]

Post columnist Frank Cerabino has a humorous take on how to get the golden arches onto the island, despite the Palm Beach City Council's recent vote to ban chain restaurants. Just imagine: Cafe Ronaldo, with valet parking and McCaviar.

Big Mac can use sneak attack to elbow onto island [Palm Beach Post]
Palm Beach Bans Chain Restaurants, Fun [Palm Beach Post]

Apparently Mark Bittman likes to show love the same way we do: with coffee-chile braised short ribs. We're using bison, he's using beef (the former has less cholesterol, by the way), but it's essentially the same. It made our morning to see the video of Bittman making his short ribs. He's using a different recipe from the one we're following, although we like his use of a chipotle pepper instead of the jalapeño called for in our recipe.

If you're craving short ribs, Michy's does a good version served with mashed potatoes. The ones at The Food Gang come with roasted root vegetables. Tuscan Steak offers chianti-braised short ribs with a chocolate espresso demi-glace. Bistro Ten Zero One makes a braised version (is there any other way?) with garlic and mashed potatoes, and Cafe Sharaku has a short rib stew in red wine sauce on the menu. And finally, one of the specialties at Vincent Restaurant is braised short ribs with wild mushroom gravy and creamy polenta.

Recipe: Short Ribs With Coffee and Chilies [New York Times]
Coffee-Marinated Bison Short Ribs [Epicurious]

Photo: Flickr

Top Chef doesn't premiere until March 12, but Bravo's giving us a chance to get to know the cheftestants early. This time around, there's only one with a South Florida connection: Andrew, who's from Fort Lauderdale and is a graduate of Johnson & Wales in North Miami. He lives in New York City now, where he's a sous chef at an unnamed restaurant. But here's the info on him from the press release:

AGE: 30
HOMETOWN: Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – currently resides in New York City
PROFESSION: Sous Chef in NYC
CULINARY EDUCATION: A.S. Culinary Arts, Johnson & Wales, North Miami
FAVORITE SIMPLE SUMMER RECIPE: Diced strawberries, mango, tomato, cucumber, and jicama. Thai dressing (sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and siracha). Thai basil and mint chiffonade.

For the past two years, Andrew has studied everything from the French cuisine of Raymond Blanc to the molecular gastronomy of Ferran Adria. With food influences that range from African, Spanish, French and Thai to Vietnamese, Japanese, Latino and Indian, Andrew prides himself on being diverse in the kitchen. When Andrew isn’t working, you can find him researching cuisines at a bookstore or shopping for spices that are uncommon and of multicultural influences to adapt to his cuisine. He believes in translating the flavors and techniques from different cultures into innovative interpretations that do not stray far from their origins. His goal is to leave a legacy like the chefs before his time, which shaped him and his fellow chefs minds and refined their techniques. He says he doesn’t make food for mere sustenance, but to create an experience that impacts the soul.

Andrew - Top Chef [NBC Universal]

We're sure you're all excited about Check Please! South Florida, so we thought we'd share the news we learned today about the possible internet expansion:

Once those checks are endorsed, their plan is to fund a new Web site found at www.check please.tv and expand to additional markets.

"Check, Please!," which debuted in Chicago in 2001, will premiere its third edition in South Florida on Monday -- hosted by South Florida celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein -- after first expanding to San Francisco in 2004.

Check, Please! company founder and CEO David Manilow believes the format of the show, which invites three "everyday" people to critique suggested eateries ranging from the exotic and ultra-expensive to the Superdawg Drive-In, is well-suited for the Internet.

"We always knew the idea of people watching shortened video clips of the show in segment form made sense," said Manilow, 48, a lifelong Chicagoan. "But the bandwidth [for video] was not there when we started the show."

'Check, Please!' plans 2nd helping on Internet [Chicago Sun-Times]
Check Please! South Florida [Official Site]

There are some restaurants that won't ever be featured on MenuPages, unfortunately. Romeo's Cafe for instance. Despite the fact that everyone we know who's been there has raved about it, the restaurant doesn't have any sort of menu, which is a problem for a menu directory site. Moveable restaurants, which in addition to having no fixed location also rarely have set menus, fall into that group as well. But the folks over at the Miami Herald have launched a new version of Miami.com, and in it we found a useful guide to food trucks in the area. We've already written about Orale!, but we were happy to learn of trucks that sell Haitian roasted nuts and smoked ribs.

Dashboard Gourmet [Miami.com]
Romeo's Cafe [Official Site]
Bayside Chatter: Tropical Fruit And Street Cart Tacos [Miami Herald]

Via Critical Miami

We thought we'd share this letter we found in the New Times from Josh Woodward, Govind Armstrong's partner in Table 8.

We're here!: Though we certainly don't mind being compared to restaurants such as those run by Michael Mina and David Bouley in Lee Klein's "A Pretty Good Year," (December 27), I have to say that when it comes to a comparison of how much time my partner, Govind Armstrong, spends in Miami, we are not so similar. Govind has been very involved in the Miami community this past year and has spent almost as much time in South Beach as he has in Los Angeles. We were blessed this year that Govind had the opportunity to release his first cookbook, a wonderfully exciting milestone for any chef! This took him all over the world on a book tour, but I can say proudly that our kitchen did not suffer in his absence, because Chef de Cuisine Jason Smith and his kitchen staff are second to none.

When not in our kitchen, Govind could be found all over town participating in local benefits and pitching in for local causes. Our restaurant in Miami is in no way a Vegas-style "licensing deal" where chefs are paid big money to lend their names to faceless businesses. Table 8 is a mom-and-pop operation. We have put our blood, sweat, and tears into our South Beach location. I have moved permanently from Los Angeles and have been in that restaurant day and night for the past year and a half. You wouldn't have to ask around too much to find that Govind and I have truly embedded ourselves in the local community, and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Letters from the Issue of January 17, 2008 [Miami New Times]
Table 8 [MenuPages]

We came across AOL's list of the top 11 annoying restaurant trends, which we thought we'd reproduce here for you:

1. Recitation of the specials (as opposed to writing them on the board)
2. Recitation of the specials followed by, "sorry, we're out of that last one"
3. Bottled water up-selling
4. Up-selling in general
5. Listing the birthplace of every ingredient
6. The ubiquitous 'tini suffix
7. "Would you like freshly ground black pepper on that?"
8. Trios and duos
9. Over-pouring of wine
10. Prix fixe only
11. Expensive after-dinner tea and coffee

So some of them are a bit annoying, but really, over-pouring of wine? It is definitely not a problem when the waiter comes by to top off my glass. Clearly, the people who write for AOL Food are lightweights. And we enjoy trios and duos; the list writers explain that one part of the trio is clearly going to outshine the others, and you'll end up wanting a full-sized portion of it. But we prefer tastes of multiple dishes to large portions of just one dish. Most of the other stuff, yeah, we can definitely sympathize.

What would you add to the list?

Annoying Restaurant Trends [AOL food]
via Slashfood

Preview 1

Preview 2

Preview 3

A visit with Michelle Bernstein

You'll need Quicktime to view the videos, but they're worth checking out. The show debuts on January 28 at 7:30 p.m. on WPBT2.

Check, Please! South Florida [Official Site]
Check, Please! South Florida previews [uVu]

A great article in the Sun-Sentinel about Check Please! in South Florida. The first few episodes have been taped, and the show will premiere in January.

David Manilow, who first created Check, Please! for Chicago's public television station, says it's successful because it's so democratic. Every show includes diverse guest critics and restaurants in different locations with varying price points and every kind of food imaginable. The secret is in mixing it up.

"What the show did was give people a sense of passion," says Manilow. "This is my place. I understand this place. I love this place."

It's great when everyone likes it. Even better TV if they don't.

"It's like, 'Are you calling my baby ugly?'" says Manilow, who was getting ready for a taping of a new episode featuring a "goth chick" and a "silver-haired attorney." She suggested a heavy metal burger bar.

"That's truly the beauty of it," says Manilow.

Everyone's a (restaurant) critic -- on a new show coming to Channel 2 [Sun-Sentinel]

The Palm Beach Post printed the winners of its Thanksgiving pie haiku (pieku!) contest yesterday. They're all pretty great. One of our favorites:

Bless this festive meal.
Please let these Thanksgiving pies
Not go to my thighs.

Blueberry filling
drips from my fork to my shirt
whipped cream will follow.

We asked readers to wax poetic about Thanksgiving pies – in a 17-syllable poem, of course! [Palm Beach Post]

We are geekily excited about this; back when we were in college in Chicago, we used to watch Check, Please! with our roommate all the time. (We watched lots of public television — couldn't afford cable.) The show, which started in Chicago, invites three ordinary people in each episode to name one of their favorite restaurants; then all three visit each restaurant and discuss the establishments afterward. It's become so popular that it's spawned spinoffs in the Bay Area and now in South Florida, which is scheduled to start airing in the last week of January. The South Florida version will be hosted by Michelle Bernstein. (Seriously, how does this woman find the time to do so much?) From the WPBT2 blogs:

Hosted by celebrity chef and local restaurateur Michelle Bernstein, the concept of the show is to allow South Florida residents the unique opportunity to be "food critics-for-a-day." The first four shows featured a variety of restaurants, from barbecue joints to high-end bistros, stretching from Miami-Dade up to Palm Beach county.

The guest reviewers were just as diverse, from a retired New York police officer in West Palm, to a hotel concierge on trendy South Beach, to a skydiving instructor from Ft. Lauderdale.....proof that everyone - from all walks of life - has an opinion on food! And speaking of opinions....when the cameras rolled, the sparks flew, as the guests passionately discussed, debated, and celebrated their dining experiences.

Yep, they're holding a casting call in Miami. (And thanks to Tere for letting us know!). Open call is on Tuesday, Nov. 6 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Metropole on South Beach. Good luck everyone!

The Next Food Network Star Search in Miami [FoodTastic!]
Metropole [Official Site]

Raw kale. Doesn't sound too appetizing, right? And this from a devoted eater of kale.* But according to this article in the New York Times today, if something on the menu sounds really unappetizing, like raw kale, you should order it, because the chef wouldn't dare put it on the menu unless it were really, really good.

THERE are some restaurant dishes that I order because they sound better than everything else on the menu, and there are some I order because they sound worse. My reasoning goes like this: If a chef dares to offer something as unappealing as, say, a raw kale salad, chances are it’s fantastic.
I’ve played this game at restaurants all over the world, with mixed results. But when I score I score big, with a perspective-changing moment that can inspire pure glee.

*Our preferred method of eating kale: take one can of white beans, sautee them in garlic and olive oil, and then spoon over steamed kale, finished with a little sea salt and black pepper.

If It Sounds Bad, It's Got To Be Good [New York Times]

We couldn't quite figure out how to "grab" the video, so we'll just give you a link for the knife skills tutorial that Top Chef Hung gave for New York Magazine. We can watch that man chop onions all day long. It's a thing of beauty. We also learned that the knife he uses for 90 percent of his chopping, slicing and dicing costs $240, although even with the knife, we sure couldn't chop vegetables like that.

'Top Chef' Winner Hung Shows Off His Knife Skills [New York Magazine]

We thought it finished tonight, but we were just informed that we were incorrect. Tonight is the pre-filmed segment of the finale, which takes place in Aspen, and as we learned from the clip above, involves a hot-air balloon ride about which Casey was very apprehensive. The season concludes next week with a live finale in Chicago, where the next season is currently being filmed. Enjoy!

Clip: Bravo

Lisa Petrillo of CBS4 recently did a segment, aptly named "Cheap Eats," on where to find 10 good meals under $10. It's going to be a recurring thing (you can actually suggest places for her to visit), but this list was her first try. And it's not a bad one:

• Little Saigon in North Miami Beach
• Zona Fresca in Fort Lauderdale
• Enriqueta's Sandwich Shop in Miami
• John The Baker in Cooper City and Pembroke Pines
• S&S Diner in Miami
• LaSpada's Original Hoagies in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
• Good Eats Deli in Miami
• Jack's Old Fashion Hamburger House in Fort Lauderdale
• Dogma Grill in Miami
• Tom Jenkins Bar-B-Q in Fort Lauderdale

The best bang-for-your-buck deals here are Little Saigon (which looked fantastic in the video), Enriqueta's (which is not "smack in the heart of Little Havana," as she claims), and Tom Jenkins. Of course you can always get a sub or a hot dog for under $10, but how often can you get ribs and sides for so little? Regardless, good selections all. We would add Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, Daily Bread Marketplace, Maia's Creole Cafe, and Las Totoritas.

Any other suggestions? Let us know!

South Florida's Cheap Eats: How To Dine On A Dime [CBS4]

Sniffle. Sob. Goodbye CJ.

We had a feeling when we saw CJ narrating so much during the first half of the episode that this was it for him. And it was, much to our chagrin. But oh well. On to the episode...

We're usually very early risers, but even we would not want to be wakened by a shrieking and giggling Padma jumping on our bed at 6 a.m. The cheftestants took that a lot better than we would have. And lucky them, they got to make her breakfast! Using just a small burner and a blender! Despite the difficulties, and spilled truffle oil on the floor (was no one else mourning the loss of expensive truffle oil?), the cheftestants did really well on the Quickfire. We thought Hung was nuts to serve a heavy breakfast like steak and eggs to a thin model who was raised a vegetarian, but then he won, so clearly we don't know what we're talking about.

(Aside: We LOVE condensed milk. Seriously. We always have at least one or two cans in the pantry, and we have been known to develop such serious cravings that we just stick a spoon into the can and have a taste. But it had never occurred to us to put it in a smoothie, as Hung did on last night's episode. In our minds, smoothie = healthy yogurt-and-fruit filled food. Well, we're not afraid of adding some extra sugar to our diet, so this morning we dumped mango, strawberries, half a banana, half a can of condensed milk, and mango juice into a blender. Delicious. Our only regret is that we did not spike it as Hung did.)

Continue reading "Top Chef Bids Adieu To Snarkiest Cheftestant" »

This elimination was a long time coming. One could say it's been coming since the first episode, when Howie failed to plate the second half of his dish. Everyone knew that Howie wasn't going to win the competition; at this point, it was just a matter of how long they'd keep him in for entertainment value. We can only hope that Hung will now step up and fill the role of villain.

Continue reading "Top Chef: Howie Finally Takes His Leave" »

We've been a little spaced out today, so Amuse-Biatch had to bring this Herald story, about tourism bureaus and reality TV shows, to our attention. There's a lot of stuff about shows we don't watch (Beach Patrol, Miami Ink, etc.), but there is some interesting information about the economics behind Top Chef. The first nugget of information, about the Fontainebleau:

The supporting role didn't come cheap for the resort. Fontainebleau executives traded six weeks of free stays at both the $8,000-a-night suite and roughly 100 rooms for producers and support staff.
''We think the value of the publicity more than offset our costs,'' said general manager David Feder. ``Shows like that are much more believable than running a 30-second ad during the program.''

Tourism bureaus try to wedge into popular TV shows [Miami Herald]
Amuse-Biatch Digs the Digs [Amuse-Biatch]
Fontainebleau Miami Beach [Official Site]
Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau [Official Site]

Photo: Bravo, via Miami Herald

We almost missed this New York Times story today about Edible Communities, a magazine group that starts newsletters in different areas that focus on eating local. For example, (and we think this is really cool), Edible Atlanta recently gave readers suggestions on how to use kudzu, otherwise known as "the vine that ate the South." The leaves can be used instead of spinach, kale or grape leaves. It might be a good way to help control the population.

There are Edible publications in a number of different parts of the US, but Florida, unfortunately, is absent from the list. The locavore movement has made few inroads in Florida, or South Florida at least; it often seems that the easiest way to find Florida produce is to go to a grocery store in a different state. A newsletter like this might help quite a bit in that department. The owners of Edible Communities list Florida as an "interested region," so it's on their radar screen. Now they just need someone to run it. And that someone needs to have $30,000 and a good amount of free time.

Continue reading "Florida's Late To The Locavore Game" »

Last night, we learned that Casey is something akin to the Angel of Death. As soon as she mentions getting close to someone (first Lia, now Tre), you know that person is going home. Yes, we lost Tre, and it is very sad, because we thought he had the skill to be a top-three contender.

Continue reading "Top Chef: One Executive Chef Wins, The Other Loses" »

We're sure by now you're all familiar with Lazaro Galindo, whose name has been in the papers all week because of his trial. Galindo was accused of murdering a romantic rival, dismembering his body, cutting off his fingers, and dumping him in two garbage cans in 2000. (Interesting note: none of the recent Miami Herald articles mention that Galindo also allegedly ate some of the man's organs. Perhaps it's too much for the print media, but OK for TV?)

Galindo's trial, at which he represented himself, was this past week, and the Miami Herald has run almost an article a day about it, all with the same photo of Galindo. On Monday, we learned that the avowed Satanist had found God. On Tuesday, despite his newfound faith, Galindo seemed keenly interested in learning of potential jurors' feelings about the Prince of Darkness. On Thursday, we learned that Galindo's defense relied upon claiming that a demon named Candelo had possessed his body and promised him special powers if he committed the murder. We were not surprised to learn that it took a jury only two hours to convict Galindo of murder.

Now that you're all up to speed, we'll get to today's news, and the reason we can get away with writing about this story in a food blog. Today PETA sent a letter to Galindo urging him to give up eating all forms of flesh, both human and animal, accompanied by a "Vegetarian Starter Kit":

On behalf of PETA, I am writing to ask that you consider doing something positive and healthy: reject all killing by becoming a vegetarian. Since it is alleged that you have an affinity for flesh, it might help you to know that there is now a terrific selection of vegetarian foods that have the same taste and texture as meat but without the cruelty or cholesterol. Some of our favorites include Boca Chik'n Nuggets, Gardenburger Riblets, and Yves Jumbo Dogs. Your prison may be able to order these products for you if you request a vegetarian meal on ethical grounds.

Um, right. We're sure that's going to go over with the prison guard about as well as the "Candelo-made-me-do-it" defense did with the jury.

PETA Urges Incarcerated Florida 'Cannibal' to Give Up All Flesh and Go Vegetarian [PETA]
Man On Trial For Cannibalism Tells Judge He's Found God [Local 10]
Satanist turns to God as murder trial starts [Miami Herald]
Miami murder has satanic twist [Miami Herald]