Eat My Florida

Apparently, the culinary world does not stop when your CL Food Editor steps out for a little staycation. Here’s your guide to the wide world of food for the past 10 days.

• Soy “milk”? It’s an aberration and,”as one British government report put it, manufacturing soy milk is closer to making fruit juice than cow’s milk.” (Slate)
• The Baconator causes worldwide hunger? “Potentially, and this is up for debate, a benefit of higher prices is lower consumption, and, in this country, that actually would not be a bad thing overall.” (Reuters)
• Bodyguard dining etiquette: “Your bodyguard (unlike your hairdresser, stylist and personal assistant) is not your friend.”(WMag)
• Food Network leaks results of own reality show: “In case you’ve already paid the caterer for your Lisa-Adam-Aaron watching party or you are really into the show, I am not going to tell you who wins, but I am truly astounded by the fact that they have posted the “Exit Interviews” for the two “losers” and the “Winning Moment” clip for the winner 3 days before the show airs.” (SideDish)
• Might be tastier than her human food, snap! “With Isaboo Bacon Flavor Booscotti, you too, can indulge your favorite pooch with the mouth-watering bacon dogs love. And if it’s peanut butter they’re begging for, then Isaboo Peanut Butter Booscotti will give them loads of lip-smacking flavor.” (RachaelRay)
• David Lynch sells good coffee: “as black as midnight on a moonless night”…and hot! (SeriousEats)
• Excuse me sir, but would you…”here’s your Grey Poupon, roll your f***ing windows up!” (SmokingGun)
• “We can’t just stay at home all day making Manwiches with the mailman and the stay-at-home dad across the street.” (Chow)

Thanks to Eater, GrubStreet, Grinder, SeriousEats.

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Scared to send your child out of the house for hours at a time to run off their summer vacation energy? Now you’ve got something else to fear.

According to a NYT article, kindergarten and 1st grade kids put on body mass two to three times faster during the summer, compared to the school year. Some of that has to do with the lack of scheduled eating and activity enforced by schools, some has to do with sitting around watching TV and playing video games. Sadly, kids who need to gain weight also did better during the school year, putting on more mass, likely thanks to the almost-guaranteed offer of two-to-three squares a day from the government.

School cafeteria food may not be ideal, but Sarasota has the right attitude to help kids with nutrition. Pinellas and Hillsborough are a little behind the curve.

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Hogs are running wild in 37 states. Florida is one of them, with the second largest population of wild porkers in the country. Why worry about a few feral pigs? They eat just about anything and can clear the ground of native plant and animal species at an alarming rate, wrecking the ecosystems of acres of protected land in a very short time. More development just means a higher density of hogs on undeveloped land. And they’re mean som’ bitches.

Check out these stats that show how Sarasota deals with its porcine problem. Yep, 2 trappers bag over 1,000 hogs every year, just in the SRQ. That might be a drop in the bucket of Florida’s pork population, but it sure is some tasty huntin’.

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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.

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• Ethical Seafood - “The portrait he paints is grim: oceanic dead zones that, because of pollution and overfishing, can no longer support organic life; salmon farms polluted by pesticides and disease; ruthless bottom trawlers with nets that can destroy entire ecosystems.” [Salon]

• Deadliest Catch - “Of all the dishes served in all the restaurants in all the world, you could argue, the particular seafood delicacy I’ve come fourteen time zones and 6,800 miles to ingest is the one that’s most likely to kill me dead.” [NY Mag]

• Not So Deadly Catch - “And a group of scientists served it in March at a Tokyo tasting event for some 40 chefs and restaurant-related businessmen. All ate. All survived.” [NYT]

• Paula Deen, Sweatshop Promoter - “Protesters like Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover are expected to show-up and chastise her affiliation with Smithfield, a North Carolina-based food plant notorious for brutal, inhumane working conditions.” [Serious Eats]

• Chain Restaurants? “Surprisingly decent” says the NY Times - “Their saintly patience might have been tied to the balmy weather, or perhaps to the knowledge, deep in their cholesterol-imperiled hearts, that the meal ahead would involve giant portions and joyous noise.” [NYT]

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Although it’s tied up in the courts thanks to a last minute injunction, this week was supposed to be the start of the New York City Department of Health initiative mandating posted calorie counts on the menus of any restaurant chain with more than 15 outlets nationwide. Here are some of the early reactions, thanks to a few chains that kicked it off despite the delay — NY Times, NY Post, Village Voice, Midtown Lunch.

If only Florida could be so enlightened. Sadly, here in the Sunshine State you have to dig deep in the murk to find out the impact of your morning Frap and scone, or the taco salad at the Bell. Here at Eat My Florida, we want to make it easier for you to wallow in the angst of your dining decisions, so here’s a list of links to the nutrition section of every chain in the area. Here’s a teaser — bloomin’ onion = 2275 calories.

Eat it and weep:

• Burgers: McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Evos, Krystal, Five Guys, Whataburger, Hardee’s, Fatburger, Sonic, Steak N Shake,
• Chicken: Chick-Fil-A, Popeye’s, KFC, Pollo Tropical, Church’s,
• Other Fast Food Sandwich Joints: Arby’s, Subway, Miami Subs, Quiznos, Blimpie, Jersey Mike’s, Jimmy John’s,
• Other Fast Food: Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s, Chipotle, Moe’s, Panera, Boston Market, Pei Wei Asian Diner, Panda Express,
• Pizza: Hungry Howie’s, Sbarro, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Godfather’s, Dominos, CiCi’s,
• Breakfast, Smoothies, Coffee and Sweets: Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Smoothie King, TCBY, Einstein Brothers Bagels, Starbucks, Denny’s, IHOP, Bob Evans,
• Casual Dining Chains: Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters, PF Chang’s, Chilis, TGIFiday’s, Outback, Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Ruby Tuesday’s, Carrabas, Sonny’s, Red Lobster

Who’d we miss?

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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]

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• “Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered.” Win a million dollars. [Pillsbury]

• “It’s nearly Earth Day: Time to consume more to save the planet.” [Ad Age]

• “I don’t believe that anyone has asked Bill Clinton what he’ll be looking for in a chef should his wife become president or what he’ll serve at his first state dinner. (As his family’s former chef, I can’t resist affectionately suggesting that this is probably for the best, given his predilection for comfort food.)” [NYT]

• WORLD FOOD CRISIS: “In Haiti, protesters chanting “We’re hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt’s president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment.” [Economist]

• WORLD FOOD CRISIS: “What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world’s rich consumers.” [New Statesman]

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• “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
• “Red Bull Cola: Strong and Natural.”
• “It gives me goose bumps,” says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. “It’s like witnessing a rape.”
• “At least 10,000 farmers have committed suicide each year over the last decade because of their inability of repay loans taken at usurious rates of interest from local moneylenders.”
• “Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue.”

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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.

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• “The Peeps came not like locusts but like meteors of great ambition and, yes, some arts-and-crafts psychosis.”
• “Ilja Gort slept soundly last night, finally safe in the knowledge that no matter what happens to the rest of him, his nose is insured to the teeth.”
• “Still, if this hunk of bearish man flesh Colicchio really wants to top the chef chart, he may have to don orange crocs and open a chain of airport pizzerias to compete with big boys Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck.”
• “This time around, a sober Kreisel said the meal “tastes like nitrates mixed with liquid smoke.”"
• “The Pope is scheduled to be in the United States from April 15 to April 20 and to visit Washington, D.C., before New York. While in New York, he is expected to address the United Nations, visit Ground Zero, celebrate Mass in Yankee Stadium and eat a Shake Shack burger.”

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NBC is casting a new reality show, masterminded by Granada America, the fine people behind Nanny 911, Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. You missed the casting calls in LA, NY and Atlanta, but there’s still time to make the tour stops in Houston, DC and Chicago.

There’s no news on what the show is about, just that they are:

“are seeking two-person teams, with pre-existing relationships, who have always dreamed of opening their own restaurant! Have you and your spouse, friend, family member, business associate or colleague dreamed of opening your own restaurant? Is one of you a whiz in the kitchen while the other is a front-of-the-house superstar? Do you have what it takes to open and run a successful restaurant? Has financing always been a problem?”

Well, they may be trying to keep the show a little hush hush, but anyone who’s watched TV in recent years can tell you where to look for answers. Yep, that’s right, this is another ripoff of a BBC reality show — Last Restaurant Standing, where a famous chef “puts nine couples through their paces to see if they have what it takes to run their own eatery.” The winner gets cash to open their own joint. You can catch Last Restaurant Standing on BBC America.

Ripoff may be too strong a word. Granada is, after all, the producer of the British version as well.

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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.

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• “The bizarre tasting pickle craze from TEXAS you can’t get enough of.”
• “…always going to have to worry about how the gratuity they leave will affect an entire race’s reputation?”
• “Has anyone else been traumatized by what Lewis memorably calls “cheese rape”?”
• “It always left me a little unfulfilled, since you never actually got to virtually eat anything you virtually cooked.”
• “The 32-year-old Anderson man was cooking a late lunch for his two sons Sunday when he accidentally stabbed himself in the heart with a knife.”
• “Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe … but if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.”
• www.thebestfortunecookieever.com

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The NY Times looked into MSG today, coming down heavily on the opposite side of folks who think the tasty additive causes health problems. It’s hard to argue with people like Marion Nestle.

Faithful readers will remember that I waxed about the hated seasoning last year and, if I do say so, my account is a bit more concise. Take that, Gray Lady.

This isn’t much of a blog post, to be sure, but I can’t pass up a chance to highlight my favorite, food-based band. You know, the funky trio from NYC: “Serving up deep-fried beats straight from the Chinese ghetto, they will not stop until they achieve complete world domination.” I bring you the Notorious MSG!

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• “If Winnie-the-Pooh ever took to the bottle, this is exactly what he’d want.”
• “I look forward to the next ad–of my head, photo-shopped onto Barney Fife’s naked body torturing a puppy.”
• Emeril’s new show focussed on local and organic ingredients? “The series is shot exclusively at Whole Foods Market.”
• Fish stick recall affects Florida: “At first the company thought the objects might be chunks of batter or bread crumbs, but they said today that they were indeed pills.”
• “And buy really expensive ketchups with it. That’s right, all the fanciest ke… dijon ketchups!”

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Need to cut the budget? Tampa’s own Victor Crist (no relation to the guv) wants to cut Department of Corrections expenditures by reducing the food available to inmates. Does anyone get the idea that Charlie Crist is a tad upset over this douche bag’s similar name?

Right now, the state mandates 3200 calories per day per inmate. Crist (no relation) wants that cut to 2700. That’s despite the fact that a 5′9″ male who weighs 160 pounds and exercises an hour a day requires over 2900 calories.Ya’ think most inmates are 5′9″ and weigh 160?

Besides the money saved, think of the unexpected results of such a change:

• Inmates will be slimmer, healthier and live longer, costing the state more in the long run.
• Prison economies will move from sexual slavery, toilet gin and cigarettes to pudding and fish sticks.
• Instead of being sent out on work gangs and road crews, inmates can be sourced to fashion shoots and couture runway shows — which equals more revenue for the state.
• Keeping inmates hungry is a tried and true way of controlling prison populations.

Although the Department of Corrections used to have prison farms and bought local foods from Florida growers, now the state contracts prison food service to large corporations like Aramark. And, to no one’s surprise, Aramark would like to cut caloric outlay to 2100 calories per inmate, claiming they could save $15 million per year. Why are you aiming so low, Aramark?

While researching prison food for a story I’m working on, a friendly, anonymous source in the department of corrections encouraged me to “ask about the loaf.” The “Management Loaf” is a diabolical tool that prison officials dole out to those lucky inmates who — often in solitary confinement — refuse to cooperate fully with the guards. The prison kitchen takes leftovers and untouched food of all varieties and mashes them together, slaps the resulting concoction (which one prison worker described as “chunky vomit”) in a loaf pan and bakes it into a solid, over-cooked mess of calories. The loaf is usually served cold and prisoners have reported that it causes “gastric distress, cramps, diarrhea, and bloating.”

Slice and serve. Yum.

Perhaps we could call it the Crist Surprise (no relation) and serve it to everyone in the system, regardless of behavior. Maybe next he’ll turn his attention to school lunches!

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Last year, the news that there was a worldwide shortage of hops sent chills up my beery spine. The little flowers that add complexity, aroma and bitterness to beer are grown around the world, but some of the biggest producers experienced huge shortfalls in 2007. Hops that sold in previous years for a few dollars per pound skyrocketed to OPEC-style levels, many at $25 a pound or more. And even if brewers could afford the huge hit to their bottom line, through price increases that customers aren’t going to be happy with, they often couldn’t find enough hops to buy. (more…)

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This flew under the radar last week, but Dave at Eating Tampa snagged it.

The James Beard Foundation sent out ballots for its annual chef and restaurant awards to the judging committee, and New York Magazine leaked the list. Here’s the shocker: Tampa has a couple of names on the list. And they’re related. Guess who?

Jeannie Pierola is up for Best Chef in the South Region, with a lot of stiff competition from the Miami area and someone, egads!, from Punta Gorda. Bern’s is up for the national Outstanding Restaurant award, a category filled with restaurants just as staid and tired as our local favorite. I wonder if Jeannie’s departure from the old brothel will help or hurt either of their chances? It’s probably bad news for Bern’s, and good news for Jeannie.

Let’s place bets: I’ll give Bern’s 2000 to 1 against and Jeannie 70 to 1 against victory.
Here are my predictions: Michael Schwartz of Michael’s Genuine takes the South chef award and Magnolia Grill in NC takes Outstanding Restaurant. New Yorkers love that Southern food.

Winners will be announced in June.

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