Eat My Florida

Recently, Todd English (celeb chef and owner of about 1 metric bazillion restaurants) called Peruvian cuisine “the next big thing.” Bon Appetit’s new food blog quickly weighed in, declaring it a trend that needs an ambassador, and pointing to Peruvian celeb chef Gaston Acurio as — possibly — the face that could launch a thousand tiraditos.

I hate to say I told you so, but Sarasota chef Darwin Santa Maria of oft-lauded Selva Grill made the same prediction about Peruvian food almost a year ago. Sarasota is home to no less than four decent Peruvian joints. Only question is: what about the Bay area? Know any great places to grab some ceviche, causa and sauces laced with glorious aji pepper?

(Thanks to Grub Street.)

Rocky Aoki, the man who brought Japanese culinary showmanship to America with Benihana, died last week. According to the AP story, Aoki was surrounded by his wife and six children during his final moments, which must have been awkward considering he sued four of those kids — two from each of his first two wives — after they tried to take over his restaurant chain. Apparently, they don’t like his current wife.

Forget the gossip and dirt, though, and let’s remember the man for his accomplishments: teppan-yaki, stateside. Aoki opened his first Benihana in New York in 1964, starting an empire that’s blossomed into more than 100 restaurants and thousands of imitators. Every time a chop-socky chef flips shrimp tails into his hat, builds a smoking onion volcano, or tells a tired karate kid joke before serving you griddled steak and barely cooked veggies doused in soy, you have Aoki to thank.

Beyond Benihana, Aoki was a cool cat who wrestled on the Japanese Olympic team; raced cars, boats and motorcycles; was the first man to cross the Pacific in a hot air balloon; founded classic eighties porno mag Genesis; won backgammon championships; participated in a Cannonball Run-like cross country race in a stretch Volkswagon Beetle limousine; and once had a horrific boating accident that required 10 hours of surgery and multiple removed organs. When he came to three days later, he saw his wife and his mistress waiting for him bedside. Damn, player!

That’s a life well lived, worth a raised Mai Tai or two at whatever teppan-yaki joint you favor.

Sort of. Greenpeace recently released a study that ranks supermarket chains by their commitment to sustainable seafood. Since GP essentially advocates taking a break from any type of fishing — not a bad idea, considering the apocalyptic scenarios outlined here — they are understandably a bit harsh in their ranking system. In our area, Whole Foods ranks highest, with a whopping 4 out of 10 points. Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Target manage to eke out a 3, while all the typical supermarkets — Publix, Sweetbay and Winn-Dixie — fill the bottom of the list.

In other news, food personality Alton Brown announced he’ll be shifting the focus of Good Eats. “”I’ve been busy being clever, but now I want to use what credibility I may have to help people think about sustainability,” he told grist.com in an interview. He even offered to ride along with Greenpeace, saying “somebody needs to sink the Japanese tuna fleet. Everyone’s willing to point the finger, but nobody’s willing to pull the trigger.”

Damn, concerns for sustainability on the Food Network? Maybe they should have a talk with Paula.

From our wine maven Taylor Eason comes inexpensive wines with our inexpensive menus (bolded wines will work for the whole menu, if you don’t want to go with course-by-course wines):

David Miller, Savant Fine Dining:
Sweet Potato Soup: Big Fire 2006 Pinot Gris, $15
Heirloom Tomato Salad: Columbia Crest 2007 Two Vines Rose, $10
Braised Lamb in Peach Gastrique with Sweet Potato Scallops and Baby Eggplant: Jaboulet 2005 “Parallele 45” Cotes du Rhone, $15

Fabrizio Schenardi, Pelagia Trattoria:
Polenta with Sauteed Mushrooms: St. Francis 2004 Red, $12
Open-Faced Ravioli: Masi 2006 Masianco Venezie, $15
Seared Salmon with Green Beans: Beringer 2006 Pinot Noir, $20
Fruit Crepes: Banfi 2007 Rosa Regale, $18

Seble Gizaw, Queen of Sheba:
Mashed Potato Salad: Bonny Doon 2005 Le Cigare Blanc California, $20
Lentil Soup: 7 Deadly Zins 2004 Zinfandel, $13
Lamb Tibs: Onix 2006 Priorat, $12

Grass Root Tofu Scramble: Sokol Blosser Evolution #9 11^th Edition

Elements, vegetarian menu:
Mushroom Medley: whatever red wine you use in the recipe OR Campo Viejo 2004 Rioja Crianza, $12
Ravioli: S.A. Prum 2006 Riesling, $12

Can demonstration cooking sell-out a stadium? Probably not, but considering how much people shelled out for Food Network’s old lady, uhm, Grande Dame last week, Top Chef’s tour of 20 cities might generate a little buzz. I think it’ll depend on who the “four cheftestants” turn out to be. Anyone buying a ticket — Sep. 20 here in Tampa — for a Lisa, Mark, Nimma and Nikki cook-a-long? Me neither.

New details have emerged about this year’s American Bocuse D’Or chef team, to be coached and managed by Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud. Keller, Boulud and other chefs have created a non-profit organization to take care of the details of making a team that can beat the world’s best chefs. Some of those details: a special training facility next to Keller’s French Laundry, $15k for team members, a paid 3-month sabbatical from whatever job they happen to have, and housing during training.

Not only that, but they’ll also be paying the expense of the eight teams they choose to compete just to make it to the final team, which I talked about here.

Since I can’t summon enough energy to care about this season’s Top Chef, here’s a missive from CL Sarasota’s Amanda Schurr to fill you in on last night’s finale:

Those of you who indulge me enough to read this week’s Morning After column are aware of my general disappointment with this season’s Top Chef. It should be a no brainer: I love to taste, I love to cook, I love to veg (no pun intended) on occasion in front of the TV — I should be in culinary arts heaven. But the Chi-town installment has been an underwhelming affair.

I can sleep tonight, though, for piercingly blue-eyed head judge Tom Colicchio and Co. anointed Stephanie the Top Chef. Still, I felt finalist Richard’s pain and admit that Lisa, after squeezing by time-after-mediocre-time, redeemed herself nicely, cooking-wise. (And welcome back, Chef Ripert! My, how you’ve been missed.)

In other TC news, the Bravo network just announced plans for a junior version of the show. We can only speculate what the 13-16 year-old-friendly tests will be. Quick Fire challenges concerning pizza? Elimination contests themed to favorite movies?

Oh right, they already did that with the adults this season.

Of course, my palate is embarrassingly unrefined compared to that of our own foodie extraordinaire, Brian Ries. Check out his blog while I crack open a celebratory bottle of Lagunitas-bottled, [Frank] Zappa estate Lumpy Gravy beer, comforted by the knowledge that a nice gal finished first (even if a bad apple lasted far longer than she should have).

Paula Deen will be in town tomorrow at the Florida Aquarium, brimming with “aw’ shucks” and butter. I could have devoted an entire blog post to the fact that this cooking demonstration, hosted by Publix’s Aprons Cooking School, costs $150, they had to limit the tickets to two per person and the the thing has been sold out for a while. She’s popular, no doubt.

Instead, though, I’ll just slap up a bunch of links documenting her ties to an oppressive organization known for intimidation, abuse and hogs. Yep, she’s the public face of Smithfield Ham.

Sure, Smithfield’s not the Khmer Rouge or Wal-Mart, but they apparently aren’t too nice to the fine workers in their North Carolina plant. And Deen, though confronted by information and questions about her ties to Smithfield numerous times, just brushes it off as the price of having a job. She even told Larry King that she’d meet with Smithfield worker organizers and discuss their concerns. She hasn’t, except under Smithfield’s aegis at their plant.

My favorite part of the whole controversy, though, is that chefs have been travelling around the country to her appearances and organizing picket lines. Do they hate Smithfield’s practices, or do they just hate Deen? Hard to tell.

For the record, I sort of like Deen, except for her ties to Smithfield. And her new show on the Food Network. She’s been rumored to chain smoke and swear like a sailor, so it’d likely be a blast to catch a beer and some hot wings with the ol’ union bustin’ lady.

Open invitation Paula, you hear? I’ll buy.

I’ve waxed mildly poetic about Tampa’s raw/vegan restaurant Grass Roots (the miso soup is worth a visit all by itself). I was less enthusiastic about Veggie Magic, a Sarasota raw food shop involving raw ambassador and amateur filmmaker Jenna Norwood. Hey, I support amping up everyone’s consumption of raw fruits and veggies, but on the whole I find this particular dietary fetish — no food cooked over 105-115 degrees, no flesh, no dairy — to be philosophically and scientifically flawed. More importantly, most of the “cuisine” created by raw chefs runs the gamut from blah to blecch.

That’s not stopping raw food impressario and culinary hottie Matthew Kenney from transplanting himself from progressive New York City to the most dreadful city in Florida. Yep, he’s opening a raw restaurant in Orlando called Cafe 118 (referring to the max temperature it’s food will reach). The place isn’t open yet, but the website already features a link for anyone interested in franchise opportunities. Before you jump on the burgeoning raw food bandwagon and start shelling out your uncooked dough, be forewarned that one of the reasons Kenney may be expanding out of his home base in NYC involves litigation and bankruptcy relating to some of his previous businesses. Whatever, Florida is all about second chances, right?

I’ve avoided the inevitable Top Chef blog posts this season because, well, there hasn’t been much to talk about. The crew of Bravo’s chef competition — set in Chicago this year — has got to be the blandest of the show’s four-year run, with challenges to match. I still watch the mild culinary drama, if only to see that evil-Lisa gets knocked out or to ponder how the three best chefs (Richard, Stephanie and Antonia) continue to be so darn upbeat, pleasant and polite. Curse them!

Last week, though, saw a teensy bit of controversy. The elimination challenge was held at Rick Tramonto’s high-end Tramonto’s Steak & Seafood, where cheftestants were supposed to create an appetizer and entree from what they found in the pantry and coolers. Eventual eliminee Spike (he’s from Clearwater!) had the ill-conceived notion of utilizing a bag of frozen scallops he found in the freezer. That’s a no-no, since frozen scallops almost inevitably turn out dry, rubbery and odd. These were no exception.

At the judges table, Spike continued his poor decision-making by calling out Tramonto for having the bag of scallopscicles in his kitchen in the first place. That’ll be good for your future job prospects, Spike.

Still, not a bad question. And Tramonto didn’t have a good explanation handy. Until now. Both he and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio recently blogged explanations (Tom, Rick), claiming that some of the food was brought in just for the show. That sounds about right, wouldn’t want a reality TV competition to have to deal with a real restaurant kitchen, would we?

Coming up this week on Top Chef: someone wins! Don’t know who and — as long as it is not Lisa — don’t really care.

I spent some time yesterday with chef David Miller of Savant Fine Dining in Clearwater for a section of our upcoming Food Issue (June 11). You’ll read more about this young, impressive chef then, but one tidbit that stuck out was how he made a name for himself through cooking competitions while he was still a teenager. His skill in some of those elaborate contests gained him a free ride to the Culinary Institute of America. To me, the most surprising thing is that he still hungers for the competition and laments the lack of local contests for chefs.

Screw the local stuff, David, why not go back to the big leagues? Uber-chefs Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud will be heading up Team USA in next year’s Bocuse D’Or — the most prestigious culinary competition in the world — and they’re planning to have an old-school chef-off in Orlando this September to pick a team. Judges will include a who’s who of culinary luminaries — Trotter, Batali, Ripert, Colicchio, Pepin and many more — and the competition will be judged on a long list of criteria.

Interested? Most teams are being invited by Keller or Boulud, but you can fill out an application and dare to dream. (More info at Grub Street.)

The Bocuse D’Or is named after French culinary icon Paul Bocuse. I met the guy while pouring wine at an event in Sarasota a bout a decade ago. He’s a bit of a jerk. Go Team USA!

I’m currently lining up chefs to participate in our Tampa Food Issue for June — the $20 Menu Challenge. All they have to do is create a meal for two with at least three courses and keep the ingredient list to under $20. (We did this last year in Sarasota, without the course requirements. Jose Martinez’ contribution was amazing.)

Not too difficult, in my opinion, but I had a chef yesterday who was shocked. “That’s impossible,” she explained, trying to wrap her head around the concept. “Maybe these people don’t want to eat very much?”

I suspect that she’ll come up with something after she thinks about it, but later that day I was telling China Yuan owner Peter Chan what she’d said. Maybe it’s just a stylistic difference, but he had different take on the matter. “If a chef told me that, I would tell them to go to hell!” he said. “You want dinner for four I can do that. You want dinner for eight, I can do that for less than $20.” Chan explained that he’s had to feed his family for a lot less than that in the past and he knows how to stretch a dining budget.

He’ll be providing us with some recipes for the issue, so if there’s anything special on his menu you want the details on, just drop me a line. And, if you know a chef who could turn a $20 bill into haute cuisine, let us know. We’ll add them to the list if they’re willing.

What can you do with $20?

Hopefully Molto Mario learned a lesson from that ill-fated Food Network show where he traveled through Italy with his nameless (at least, I don’t remember the name) pal through nigh unwatchable scenes of vaguely food-related hi-jinx. Even the clogged, redheaded demi-god of chefs couldn’t save that bland endeavor.

You may have heard that he’s since contracted to give the same treatment to Spain, albeit with better companions, a much bigger budget and thankfully free from the aegis of those tunnel-visioned goobers who run the Food Network. The result is Spain: On the Road Again, a PBS food show that appears, at least from this sneak peek recently plopped on Youtube, to be mostly about the lifestyles of the rich, famous and hungry. It’s set to air in the fall, in primetime, no less. Of course, PBS’s primetime might be Saturday at 9 a.m.

I love Batali. I like Mark Bittman (at least in print). I can even stand the waspy, prim Gwyneth Paltrow. But the show? We’ll see. Check it out above.

If you remember, DeSanto Latin American Bistro was reviewed negatively by both me and Laura over at the Times after they opened, so owner Doug Illman made the surprisingly smart move of closing the restaurant and hiring local super-chef Jeannie Pierola to come in and re-do the menu and train the staff to improve quality. Early returns I received from friends and readers were overwhelmingly positive. Not surprising, considering Jeannie’s talents and Latin food skills.

But wait. This weekend I received an email from a reader who has been frequenting DeSanto of late. Here’s what he said:
“Ate at DeSanto last night, my 3^rd meal there since JP’s arrival, blown away the first 2 times, last night – Awful. I asked what was up, they told me Jeannie was gone. Sounded like it happened all-of-a-sudden. Perhaps the owners couldn’t stand the heat (expensive ingredients) in the kitchen?”

I called over to the restaurant and they confirmed that Jeannie was gone from day-to-day operations, although she’s still consulting. That’s a bit sooner than the three months she was originally scheduled for, but the manager indicated that “she’s got a lot of her own things going on right now.” Maybe her own project is ramping up. Early rumors had her negotiating for space at downtown Tampa’s Skypoint, but that hasn’t been confirmed, and Jeannie’s been tight-lipped about it.

As for DeSanto, we’ll see if that one reader’s experience was an aberration or a sign of things to come. I’ll be checking it out soon.

Anyone else have a similar experience at DeSanto in the past week? Or any gossip about Jeannie’s new project? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sadly, he’s only replacing him on the Food Network’s Dinner Impossible. The show will also be extended to 60 minutes, now that there’s no pinheaded Brit to get on the viewers’ nerves.

If only this accomplished Cleveland chef, beloved by fellow Ohioan Michael Ruhlman and recently crowned the new Iron Chef America, would take a look at liar-liar-pants-on-fire Irvine’s abandoned project in downtown St. Pete, too. We could use a real celebrity chef in the area, especially one with chops like Symon, in spite of the soul patch.

Whaddya think, Mike? [cleveland.com]

Damn. First he gets so obese that he has to design a kitchen around his fat-guy wheelchair, then he loses all that weight and starts making the television rounds, now he dodges bullets! Paul Prudhomme is a badass.

Well, he didn’t dodge it, exactly. While cooking at the Zurich Classic golf tournament near New Orleans yesterday, Prudhomme felt something hit his arm. He brushed it away only to discover a .22 caliber shell that failed to penetrate his skin. No biggie, he just went back to flipping fish. Happens all the time when you work in New Orleans, I guess, except usually it means that someone’s going to the hospital.

Which still might happen if Prudhomme decides to take a break from cooking Cajun redfish and fly around the area, using his x-ray vision to locate the perp. All these powers are likely the result of a failed experiment in the eighties when he attempted to replace his blood with equal parts blackening seasoning and pork fat.

If that’s all it takes, I guess I’m well on my way to being bulletproof too.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the James Beard Awards’ leaked ballot, which featured doth Bern’s and Jeannie Pierola on the short list for a couple awards. Well, ballots must be in because that short list has become even shorter, and guess who’s been left out of the finals?

Bern’s, which was up for Outstanding Restaurant, fell to the likes of restaurants in SF and NY (surprise), and local chef-at-large Jeannie Pierola was dropped from the Best Chef: South category in favor of a few mooks from the Miami area. The Beard Awards are often described as the Oscars for food and, like the Oscars, nobody ever votes for restaurants and chefs they know nothing about. More importantly, the judges must only vote for food they’ve actually eaten. No surprise, Tampa isn’t a prime destination for a lot of those folks.

It was just an honor to be nominated, I guess. Or pre-nominated.

Over the last couple of years Norman Van Aiken — Florida’s only celebrity chef and creator of real Florribean cuisine — closed his eponymous restaurants in both Coral Gables and Los Angeles. When he shuttered his place down near Miami in June of last year, he said that he’d be spending time in the Keys on a new place at the Beachside Resort, as well as his joint at the Ritz in Orlando. Looks like he’s been booted by the powers that be at Beachside:

Tavern N Town, the restaurant at Key West’s Beachside Resort & Conference Center, which opened October 2007, has been repositioned, according to Beachside developer Robert Spottswood. The concept has been changed, and James Beard Award winning chef Norman Van Aken is no longer at the helm.

“I have the utmost respect and admiration for Norman; however, his creative vision doesn’t coincide with what we feel Beachside Resort needs at this time. Our parting is amicable, and Norman is remaining on as a consulting corporate chef for Spottswood Hotels. In that position, he will be exploring our participation in high end food and wine events and other culinary projects we have slated for the Florida Keys,” Spottswood said.

“We’ve created a simple steak and fish house menu for Beachside that adheres to the high standards of quality that Van Aken instilled in the project. The new menu at Tavern N Town focuses on wood-grilled local fish, prime steaks, poultry and savory daily specials, along with steakhouse-style side dishes and a menu of small plates, served in a beautiful but laid back atmosphere,” according to Spottswood.

Van Aken continues to oversee his acclaimed restaurant, Norman’s at the Ritz-Carlton, Orlando, while also conducting culinary demos and seminars across the country, finalizing his memoir, and launching his own line of signature cookware on QVC.

Both of his cookbooks are out of print and he seems to be on the downward spiral of success, despite his appearance as guest judge on last season’s Top Chef. Still, the man’s too young to be closing up his life in anticipation of his memoirs, and that QVC deal doesn’t sound like it’ll be very fulfilling. I’ve been to Norman’s at the Ritz and it was spectacular. We can’t lose Norman Van Aiken. Help us Norman, you’re Florida’s only hope!

Maybe somebody should call him up and introduce him to the fine waterfront restaurant location abandoned by Robert Irvine.

During the South Beach Food and Wine Festival a few weeks back, garrulous food entertainer Anthony Bourdain and enviable food writer Michael Ruhlman debuted the first annual Golden Clog Awards. Some of the awards — like “best achievement in offal” or “chef’s chef award” — were designed to recognize the duo’s favorite guys in the industry. But nobody cared because the other awards were juicy, inside-baseball slams of the biggest names in food.

One of the victims was GQ Food Critic Alan Richman, who won the coveted Douchebag Award “for the best example of twisted, repressed, or compromised “I’d rather be making lemon bundt cake with My Cat, Mr. Mufflesworth” journalist who actually HATES food and hates the people who make food even more.”

As if to prove the point, Richman penned a revenge review of Bourdain’s restaurant Les Halles. He hated it — perhaps rightly, most folks recognize that Les Halles is nothing to get excited about — and spent an inordinate number of words on Bourdain’s “Chef-At-Large” status at the restaurant. Bourdain doesn’t make any bones about the fact that he rarely works a line anymore (just check out the episode where he sweats through a night in the kitchen at Les halles with Eric Ripert), but Richman was gunning for Bourdain, no matter what. The thing is, Bourdain has a sense of humor about his distance from the kitchen and is largely unfazed by the attack. He told Grub Street: “It was like being mauled by Gumby. Afterwards, you’re not sure it even happened.”

Maybe Richman’s lobbying for back-to-back Douchebag awards. Way to hog the glory, dude.

Shaka Zulu! It’s Week 2!

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll maintain this weekly re-cap of Cooking with Coolio (check out Week 1), but with lines like this, how can I resist?

• Coolio -”I’m gonna take a dime bag of seasoning salt…” College kid – “Can I get that on any street corner?”
• Coolio – “While D-Rez cuts up them bell peppers, I’m gonna hit you with this garlic bread.”
• Coolio – “Of course, we ghetto so we don’t have a top to our Pyrex dish, so we gonna use some aluminum foil … and a lot of people do that.”

It’s also hard to argue with a man who puts a jar of mayonnaise in his garlic bread spread. Sure looks tasty, though.