foodmuseumblog

A Picnic for Christmas

When you have abundant access to Florida's soft air and palm trees,  and a stellar park with a sweeping promenade along a bay, why not have a Christmas picnic?  So we did,  right down to the deviled eggs, cole slaw and potato salad. The smoked salmon came from Ted Peters' Smokehouse  nearby,  the avocados from the lustrous tree behind our rented bungalow. We hauled table and chairs, wine and bread, right to the edge of the water, the grass behind us filled with dog walkers, joggers, and flyers of newly obtained kites and model planes. And in front? Tens of terns, curious gulls, and water-skimming pelicans!

It was a Christmas dinner unlike any other.

Summit Springs Farm, Maine , Redux--The Damn Greenhouse

The young couple struggling to erect the first-ever greenhouse on their farm in Poland, Maine have made considerable progress since we last looked over their shoulders. But this entry comes in the chill gray of the onset of winter, with the greenhouse not yet complete, and the duo in the dumps. Wisely, they have laid down the greenhouse struggle for now, and will readdress it come spring, perhaps with the aid of a nimble band of volunteers.

Tiptoeing Into The Cuban Thing

Recently we wandered into a storefront Cuban eatery on 49th street North in St Pete to explore its black beans and rice, Cuban coffee and so on.

The waitress, NOT Cuban, as she told us, rolling her eyes, said all the beans contained meat, but you could try the white rice and tostones???  Hmmm. All veggie Son of Foodie wanted beans and rice...well, he ordered a cafe con leche and salty, dry as pressed wood, plantain cakes, while I leapt on the fish sandwich, having been told by the same waitress that the owner/cook caught his own, and at only $7.95 each.  Tatsy fish, lightly seasoned, was cooked just right, albeit smashed in the Cuban sandwich manner between two large slices of bread.

As I removed the bread casing, I found zero sauce, oil, nada, between fish and bread. And no garni of any kind on the plate. So the fish really rather resembled aquatic roadkill. When I got to talking with Cuban-born Nelson Guerra of The Cuban Delight Cafe, he said that the stark presentation was "the way we always do it," and then elaborated on the differences between Tampa Cuban bread--authentic!--and Miami Cuban bread--Not!  Apparently the earliest immigrants brought their traditional breadmaking ways to Ybor City, the cigar-making section of Tampa I have blogged about before and Fidel crushed this bread style once he took power in Cuba. Huh? Really? Did it represent freedom and rebellion?  ( Will research further. Miami Cuban bread is loaded with lard, apparently.)

Anyway, when I asked about the grouper, and was it REALLY grouper ??, Nelson said that he had been among the whistle-blowers on the Chinese catfish-sold-as-Florida grouper story of recent months. "So this fish I ate today was real grouper you caught? " "Not exactly," said he.  While he has negotiated with a distributor to buy only verifiable grouper, that fish family is large and widespread and, in fact, the fish I had just eaten was South American.

So what about the whole sustainable fish thing? Nelson shrugged: "My customers want and expect grouper." But neither they nor I check piscatory passports, most likely.

(The non-Cuban waitress not only tried to sell us the false fresh-caught by Nelson fish story, she also misinformed us about the beans--the black ones, as we figured,  never have meat.)

( Photo by Bob Croslin of roast pork plate appeared in the St Pete Times review of this cafe, probably before Nelson took over...http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/05/Weekend/Home_cooking__Cuban_s.shtml)

Toiling Under the Spreading Avocado Tree

In response to a Post from fellow Blogger Kathy F. at

http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/what_do_i_know/ , I wrote the following.

"Usually I am not blogging from a small cafe table outdoors under an enormous avocado tree. Yet since I am in St Petersburg, Florida, for several weeks, working on a food history book, this site seems appropriate to a Blog dedicated to all things eclectically food. ( My usual workplace is a messy home office in New Mexico.)
My new workspace is not always tranquil. Acorns from surrounding live oaks hammer down on adjacent sheds and squirrels natter loudly.
If only my new digital camera worked with this traveling laptop, I would enclose a pic. Maybe later, after a huge avocado and grapefruit salad. The adjacent yard has numerous gfruits and friendly neighbors..."

This reminded me that eons ago, in our parlor floor apartment on the Lower Eastside of New York, just off the Bowery, we had a lovingly nurtured scrawny avocado tree in a pot, grown from an actual seed, as urban pioneers did in those days.  It did have extravagent arms, as I recall, and it became woefully dusty, but it gave a shot of rich, ripe greenery to a windows-at-each-end, none-at-the-sides little pad. It may have gone to a friend when we moved to Brussels, or perhaps it was the plant my mother found a home for at a car dealership in the 'burbs.

In any event, its cousin, the exuberant tree under which I toil, connects me with the Florida of old--the lush acres of trees and citrus groves planted by Hamilton Disston's people in this very neighborhood that later sprouted 1950's bungalows. Initially, Disston bought 4 million acres of FL land for 25 cents an acre back in 1881 and proceeded to create agricultural land. He is perhaps best known for his tireless effort to drain" the worthless swamp you people call the Everglades."

A complex fellow with vast influence over Florida, Disston's dealing went sour in the late 1890's and he died in 1896, either from a heart attack, or, as one report has it, by a single shot to the head. He was found in his bathtub.

Disston Heights, the small neighborhood where I am staying, is the one area in the entire county that does not require flood insurance. It's a dizzying 40-60 feet above sea level, thank you, and its inhabitants need not evacuate in times of hurricanes.

But if the hurricanes doen't get them, the squirrels will--the avocados, that is. We are vigilant each morning, ready to pick up the heavy fruit that have tumbled to the ground during the night. Most of them have tiny toothmarks by dawn.

They Eat Pizzas, Don't They? Food Issues and the Pols

I  don't know if you are as weary as I am of the non-issues making headlines among the current crop of pols vying for our attention. Who has religion and what kind, and what about those pesky gay people, who have always been here in every area of endeavor, and always will, and so on.......

As many of you know, the motto of The FOOD Museum On-Line, of which this blog is an offshoot, is a line from writer M.F.K.Fisher, " First we eat, then we do everything else." So as a member of the Foodie political persuasion, I thought I would examine some of the Presidential candidates' websites to see where food, the major national security and health issue for Americans, appears on their agendas.

In my informal and incomplete survey,  New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson, Arkansas' Mike Huckabee and John Edwards of North Carolina give space to food issues. Richardson pledges new legislation to protect the safety of America's food, as well as anti-trust legislation to support the farm sector.  Huckabee states that America's security in part rests on its ability to feed itself. ( A factor Huckabee, a famously successful dieter, is familiar with.) Of the three, Edwards has the most detailed plan for food safety on any website. Chris Dodd of Connecticut has this item--he wants to open new markets for American agricultural products.

Massachusett's Mitt Romney's wife Ann is intent on gathering American family recipes for his website, incluidng the current one posted for Welsh skillet cakes. In her words, "the kitchen lies at the heart of our home."  I certainly agree. Filling our tums and hanging out in kitchens are cherished pasttimes for us all.

Obama? Hillary?  Fred T. ? Rudy G? Nothing readily apparent.

Ron Paul, MD, of Texas, everybody's favorite maverick, says this on his website:

"Americans are justifiably concerned over the government’s escalating intervention into their freedom to choose what they eat and how they take care of their health.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to comply with standards dictated by supra-national organizations such as the UN‘s World Food Code (CODEX), NAFTA, and CAFTA, has been assuming greater control over nutrients, vitamins and natural health care providers to restrict your right to choose the manner in which you manage your health and nutritional needs. "

  ps I've always loved Joe Biden and I'm sure he eats and cares. His Iowa team created this hilarious corn-themed visual to point out his vast experience, as compared to, well, a couple of front-runners.

( "Ears" from Biden's website; official headshot of Hil, who also eats, from hers.)

Walnut Gorgonzola Ravioli!

Yes, I have previously blogged about St.Pete, Florida's magnificent Mazzarro's Italian Deli. But last night I savoured 2, only 2, fresh walnut gorgonzola ravioli.  Kissed with olive oil and a  tad of chile dust. Rarely have I spent so much time on one exquisite raviolo( ?) at a time. Sometimes less is decidedly more.

Finding Food---First Steps in Florida

Somewhat settled into the Florida lifestye now--real Floridians do not swim in "winter" even if it's 80 degrees out, so maybe not--I am just beginning the search for decent food sources. ( I plan to be here through March.)My own brother, not known for his gustatory interests, is begging me to find him "good bread." ( In Vermont in the summer he has access to the best.) Truly, NM and environs are solid good food spots. Anyway, cruising through Pass- A- Grille, a beach village previously blogged here, we saw a sign for Fresh Produce. It's sold at a place named The Front Porch, where the goodies out front truly are grown by local farmers, and if the two women who run the joint aren't there, you can leave your money in a mailbox, and take the tomato or bunch of herbs you want.

Not bad, for a start. Not bad at all.

Road Food--The Good, the Bad and the Unmentionable

Yesterday lunch was the gustatory highpoint of our trip to St Pete thus far. We are currently trying to digest the rubber scrambled egg, decent but oily biscuit, and tasteless pancake served up by the roadside joint I always call Country Kitchen. ( To their credit, they offer real butter, and actual Canadian maple syrup. Too bad the food that lies under such ingredients is so flabby.)

But Shaggy's, a seafood and drop dead marina-views-place perched on pilings--the restaurant moves, gently--on the Gulf at Pass Christian, Mississippi, was a treat. It is one of the only establishments serving up anything on this coast flattened by Katrina. I mean flattened--a few new places across the coast road from the water have risen up, and a couple more clearly have been rebuilt--but there are dozens of foundations sporting For Sale signs along that route between Bay St Louis and Gulfport.

I ate a first, for me---crawfish spicy mashed potatoes, on which was perched a huge crab cake. The combo was girdled with a perfect roux. Oh yes.

The unmentionable?   ---------------------------------------------