My job as a restaurant critic is great fun, but there’s a sad irony. I never become a regular customer. Budget and time limitations conspire: after a second or third visit I rarely have the opportunity to go back to a place I’ve written about. The job has the novelty…
Tis the season, so I thought I’d share my own recipe for deep fried tarantula, in case anybody out there wants to serve them at tomorrow night’s Halloween party. Usually I try to allocate one tarantula per guest, so you’ll have to adjust the recipe depending on how many diners…
There’s nothing like a dame, particularly if the dame cooks good. And no dame cooks as good as Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international group devoted to supporting and mentoring women in the culinary professions. The new cookbook Les Dames have just published was almost enough to make me get off…
There are a couple of rules for visiting the West Palm Beach Greenmarket, pictured here. You gotta bring a lot of dough. You gotta bring a dog…
Getting ready for a slooooow night. I managed to get the world’s worst photos of the lovely Navajo Churro lamb dinner hosted by Slow Food Miami on Wednesday night at the Standard Hotel, so I’ll have to rely on whatever powers of description I have left. The dinner was one…
I don’t know how the Italians managed it. They’ve infiltrated the collective consciousness so thoroughly that even a WASPy Irish/English daughter of the American Revolution like me feels that her childhood must have included some old nonna cooking gnocchi in a sweaty Brooklyn kitchen. In fact, my old nana was…
Editor’s note: New Times food critic Gail Shepherd stopped by Barack Obama’s rally in Lake Worth on Tuesday, snapping the photos below of the pandemonium. “I don’t want to, Dad.” “You’re committed now, babe,” a father says to his eight-year-old. They’re making tracks through the parking lot toward what looks…
Fruit and veg, for display only The pretty display of fruits and veg courtesy of La Reina supermarkets was the only healthy food you were gonna get a look at Saturday at Lake Worth’s Hispanic Fest. Otherwise the groove was decidedly meat-centric…
We have more reason than ever to get our drunk on this weekend, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it with a little class. Josef’s in Plantation, New Times’ favorite Austro-Italian restaurant, debuts its Friday night wine flights this evening, with tastings of Austrian, Spanish, and Italian wines and…
Rat: It’s What’s For Dinner From today forward, whenever I’m worrying about the questionable sanitation practices of my local restaurants and fast food chains, I’ll only have to remember today’s breaking story of the Wolverhampton Pappu Sweet Center. The owner was discovered by police broiling up some kebabs while the…
The illusion of plenitude, at least We’ve got a breeze. Hurricane season’s almost over. And the Greenmarkets are opening again. It’s everybody’s favorite time of year, and starting this Saturday we’ll be getting used to the quaint sight of folks tottling along our streets with a loaf of bread under…
Crepes are one of the world’s simplest foods: As long as you’ve got flour, egg, milk, and a pat of butter on hand, it’s possible to produce a dish that works for most occasions. Sprinkle sugar on your pancake and breakfast is a done deal. Add a grating of cheese,…
“Baaa…the chef will prepare me four ways.” The Slow Food event of the season is coming up at the Miami Standard Hotel’s Lido restaurant on October 22nd, when Lido chef Mark Zeitouni wows locavores with a menu focused on Navajo Churro lamb courtesy of the Navajo Churro Sheep Association…
[The curious Mayport shrimp A friend called yesterday and said he had a delivery of “head-on Mayport shrimp” for me — was I gonna be home? I’ll tell you I hardly knew how to comport myself all day until he finally arrived about 7 p.m. lugging a cooler full of…
Too cool. Just received in the mail a book called The Flavor Bible, and although I’ve only perused the first few pages I’m already hooked. There’s a big part of me that’s totally a list person, so I love the way authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg go about breaking…
That, folks, was a “raisin sausage,” a delicacy evidently delightful to Turkish people. Basically this magic wand is fashioned out of walnuts encased in a jellylike substance made from grape juice. Although purported to be aphrodisiac, I used mine as a fly trap: simply hang in a sunny window and…
I take no pleasure in seeing a restaurant fail, especially one that had as much going for it as Cuban café Brisa Atlantica in Delray Beach. But it does allay the fierceness of the sting when the joint that moves in to replace it has as much to offer as…
Thatsa bruciata! I don’t usually approve of chains, but Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza is definitely one of the good guys: Born in SoFla, where not long ago you couldn’t get a decent slice of pie to save your soul, Anthony’s has recently managed to put a coal fire pizza joint…
The hippest little wine bar in this wicked little town. The Grateful Garden has been flitting around like a psychedelic butterfly for the last couple of years in search of a permanent home. Gayle Coursol and friends have been trying to get this market/cafe/meeting place/music venue/spiritual retreat a place large…
A peripatetic friend of mine brought me this amazing, rumored-to-be edible item recently. The label clearly states that it is “Aphrodisiac,” which would be very exciting if I could bring myself to try even the tiniest bite of it. The package label does assure us of the snack’s healthful qualities:…
There’s some seriously saucy Sunday shenanigans coming our way in the form of the American Institute of Wine and Food’s Annual Rib Cook-off, scheduled for Sunday, October 12 at 4 p.m.. Local students from Florida Culinary, Johnson and Wales, The Art Institute of FTL, Cordon Bleu, and Florida International are…
I never believed that bit about little girls being full of sugar and spice. My experience has been that little girls are mostly made up of piss and vinegar and that they don’t even begin to sweeten up until around age 20. Then they have a moderately “everything nice” decade…
