The sun is shining, I've finished my Top 100 Restaurants story, and all is right with the world

Fine, I'm still in my bathrobe. And my lunch is stale Triscuits. But that can't bring me down. A few thoughts:

Thanks to Wade Tatangelo for the news that S. Howard Ave.'s Taqueria is closed. It's a loss for the neighborhood--we'll see what owner Tommy Ortiz has planned for the space.

Big congrats to the Perfect Caper in Punta Gorda. In the latest issue of Saveur, in a section called "State Plates: Florida" it talks about the "Mango Gang's" Allen Susser, Norman Van Aken and Douglass Rodriguez, but then it goes on to talk about creative up-and-comers and little Ms. Jeanie Roland of the Caper gets a nod. I love her food, and am planning my next visit to correspond to some spring training action.

I just heard that PETA is offering big bucks to the chef who can create the greatest faux foie gras (you know, fatty duck or goose liver). A $10,000 prize and much publicity will go to the winning chef in PETA's international Fine Faux Foie Gras Challenge. The winner must produce an original, purely vegetarian faux foie gras comparable in taste and texture to the real glob of prized bird fat, and it must beat out all other entries. Um, good luck with that. 

Then I also read that the tiny town of Yountville in the Napa Valley has, for the second year in a row, earned six Michelin stars, the largest concentration per city block short of New York City and more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere on the planet. Recipients include the French Laundry (3), Bouchon (1), Bistro Jeanty (1) and Redd (1).  Anyone been to Redd? I don't know it. Now if I can only convince Janet Keeler, travel and food editor, to send me to Yountville for some investigative eating...

All I want for Christmas: cupcakes, big cheese and Michael Pollan

It's official, the Cupcake Spot is coming to St. Petersburg, at 405 Central Avenue #102 (727-825-0572). Not sure of the opening date yet, but will let you know soon.

In the meantime, you can see the largest provolone ever shipped to the United States at Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg. This baby is 800 pounds and 9 feet long. As a Christmas tradition Mazzaro’s cuts a large extra sharp Provolone right before Christmas, this year on Dec. 20. Whoa: the extra sharp cheese took 8,800 gallons of milk to produce. The cheese will be taken out of Mazzaro’s cheese department with a small crane and forklift and moved to a special area for cutting.  Samples will be available and the cheese will be on sale while supplies last.

Wouldn't Michael Pollan make an excellent Secretary of Agriculture? If you think so, go here. Pollan, author of runaway New York Times bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma, NYT journalist, and unofficial guru of the local, non-industrial food movement, framed his agenda most recently in his essay ‘Farmer In Chief’ published in the NYT Magazine, the Big Idea being:

“Most of the problems our food system faces today are because of its reliance on fossil fuels, and to the extent that our policies wring the oil out of the system and replace it with the energy of the sun, those policies will simultaneously improve the state of our health, our environment and our security.”

Friday potpourri

Last week Mike Von Burg was promoted to the chef of Armani's Restaurant atop the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay located at 2900 Bayport Drive in Tampa. Mike has been with the Hyatt since 1996 and was previously the assistant sous chef at Oystercatcher's Restaurant also located at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay. He is currently at work on a new menu (but don’t worry, the antipasti bar isn’t going anywhere)—still Northern Italian, but not as fancy. The restaurant is also scheduled to undergo a renovation in January. The position of chef was left vacant by Valentin Castaneda’s departure on Sept. 26.

Now here's an interesting concept: Chef Tom Colicchio said he will turn a private party room in his highly rated Craft eatery in New York into a 32-seat restaurant-within-a-restaurant every other Tuesday, with guests served a prix-fixe meal prepared by Colicchio himself. Prices will range from $125 to $150 per guest, depending on the ingredients Colicchio chooses, according to the announcement. The meals will consist of “Tom’s personal, no-holds-barred cooking,” done in a display kitchen, according to a statement. Now that's going to be a tough reservation to nab.

And, um, my friend Dave Davisson at Re/creating Tampa brought this lovely tidbit to my attention. Ljubomir Erovic is author of the new The Testicle Cookbook - Cooking With Balls, in case you're looking for a recipe for testicle pizza or battered testicles (those two words together make one wince, eh?). And reader Bob Woerner just zapped me this link to his brother-in-law's commentary on the cookbook. Too good to pass up, but I'm immature that way.

Weird food science

I love these kinds of Mr. Wizard questions about why food does what it does. Let's pretend someone has asked me the following questions:

Why are some of the potatoes in my bag green? Are they okay to eat? How do you keep honey from crystallizing? My guacamole turns black when I leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Wassup with that?

Well, kids, let me tell you. When raw potatoes are exposed to light, they can turn green. The color itself, which comes from chlorophyll, is benign. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. A compound called “solanine” forms during this greening process, a compound that is both bitter and toxic. Avoid eating any potato skin or flesh with a green tint—just keep peeling until you reach snowy white potato. In order to prevent this greening process, store potatoes in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place, but preferably not in the refrigerator. In the refrigerator potatoes starches can turn to sugar, resulting in overly sweet potatoes and excessive browning during the cooking process. Don’t wash potatoes before storage (this hastens spoilage), and don’t store potatoes near stored fruit. Many fruits emit ethylene as they ripen, which in turn causes potatoes to sprout.

Honey is primarily made of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose. Those containing a greater proportion of glucose are likely to crystallize over time, especially at low temperatures—the glucose spontaneously precipitates out of the supersaturated sugar solution, leaving hard granules throughout. Most supermarket honeys have been filtered and cooked to decrease the likelihood of crystallization, but “raw” honey is especially susceptible. Store your honey in a sunny, warm spot, never the refrigerator or cold basement. If it does crystallize, all is not lost. Gently warm the honey in a double boiler to about 120 degrees F, stirring until the glucose crystals liquefy.

As per guacs, a vibrant green quickly turns to unappetizing brown when avocado is exposed to air. So how to shield your guacamole from oxygen becomes the challenge. The acid in lime juice retards the process—squeeze extra lime juice over finished guacamole to create an oxygen “barrier.” A swirl of olive or avocado oil achieves the same effect, as does plastic wrap nestled directly against the surface of the dip (not merely over the top of the bowl). Some avocado enthusiasts claim that storing the pit with the guacamole prevents browning, but it really only prevents browning in the guacamole it touches, again by shielding it from oxygen. Even after you’ve protected your guacs, browning will occur over time. Before serving, scrape the topmost layer of guacamole into the trash, revealing the still-vibrant dip below.

Guest blogger, we'll call him the earl of sandwich

a.k.a. Pete Couture:

Let’s face it: No matter our taste in food or our dietary philosophies, we all love sandwiches. Take Sirio Maccioni, the owner of the renowned Le Cirque restaurant in New York City. The New York Post reported recently that while at the Sundance Film Festival, Maccioni ignored the fancy restaurants in tony Park City, Utah, and had his driver take him to Burger King for a chicken sandwich. A man of simple tastes, after all. So Esquire magazine set out to identify the best sandwiches in America (and we refuse to call them “sammies”). Esquire obviously shares some of Maccioni’s passion for fast-food — why else would they include the McRib and the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich? Surely, we thought, the Tampa Bay area has a good chance of being represented, what with our grouper creations and our history of Cuban sandwiches. Sorry. The Florida entries are the Cubano at the Latin America Cafeteria in Miami and the Seafood Salad sandwich at La Sandwicherie in Miami Beach.

Alright, where are our best sammies, er, sandwiches? I'm tossing the offerings at Pane Rustica into the ring, but I had a mighty fine curried chicken salad today at the new Emma Rose's tea shop on Central Ave. in St. Petersburg.

Burger follow-up

Um, guess I touched a nerve there with the burger post. Who'd a thunk ground beef on a bun would prompt so much fervor? Dave Davisson did post a good list of top burgers here. Think I'll start plowing through some of them myself.

Also, in case anyone missed it, I got a thougtful comment about mercury in fish from Allan:

Actually not all pelagic gamefish are as bad. Fast growing but short lived species such as Mahi Mahi or Wahoo do not live long enough to accumulate the same quantities of mercury in their tissues as do tuna, swordfish, or sharks. The FWC continually monitors mercury content in fish caught locally in Tampa Bay.

Oooh, I feel so dirty

This is cheap and flagrant I-got-nothing-today-but-come-on-give-me-a-comment ploy. A few days back, Sean Daly got like five zillion comments on his pop music blog when discussing baby-name options for his impending progeny.

I thought I’d spend a little time talking about food words that make good baby names. There are, of course, celebrities who’ve already had this idea: Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s daughter), Chutney (Diana Ross’s daughter, but they flubbed on the birth certificate and spelled it with a “d”), Poppy Honey (Jamie Oliver’s daughter), and Saffron (Simon LeBon’s daughter).

I like Olive for a girl. Shad for a boy. Some of the sweet spices provide good options: Cinnamon, Cardamom. But how about Cayenne or Pepper? There’s a girl you need to watch like a hawk when she turns 15. On the other hand, you have to trust a boy named Basil.

Another guest blogger with an etymology riff

TBT's Peter Couture started thinking about Chef Robert Irvine's upcoming local ventures:

The names of celebrity chef Robert Irvine’s yet-to-open St. Petersburg restaurants — Ooze and Schmooze — got us to thinking about poorly chosen names. That eventually led us to a 2006 review in the London newspaper The Observer by critic Jay Rayner of a restaurant named ... Ooze. Rayner, it seems, shares our impression of the name. He writes: “Here’s what I want to know: why didn’t somebody stop them? Why didn’t one of their investors, hearing the name for the first time, say, for God’s sake no! Ooze is a bloody awful name for a restaurant. It’s a dog of a name. It shouts seepage. It bellows muddy outflow. Infected wounds ooze. Please try again.” Oh, and Rayner wasn’t that fond of the food, either. Chef Irvine, you might consider your countryman’s advice.

While we are playing the name game, The Guardian’s food blog has tackled the subject of the worst restaurant names in the world. One of the leading candidates must be that quaint spot for romantic dining known as Hitler’s Cross. The restaurant, in Mumbai, India, is adorned with images of the Führer. “We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok is quoted as saying by the Times of India. Table for two, please! Then there’s this Houston restaurant that sounds like it was lifted from one of Jay Leno’s humerous headlines: Crapitto’s. (Now that’s Italian!). And a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Lynn C. Hattendorf Westney, has done a study — “Onomastic Sobriquets in the Food and Beverage Industry” — on the subject. Her work includes a bunch of big words we don’t understand, but we got a kick out of some of the restaurant names. A sampling: Sir Loins, Pulp Kitchen, Grateful Bread, Pizzadelic, Aroma Borealis, The Angry Trout. Even some of Tampa’s finest are listed, most notably: Mad Dogs & Englishmen, SideBerns and the restaurant delivery service Dine One One.

World eats

I spent last weekend eating gobs of food and ruminating about my sartorial sense in Miami. I was working on a travel story about "what's new and hot" in the Miami dining scene. In fact, it got me thinking about how much of travel, more generally, is about food. MSNBC recently named culinary tourism one of the hottest trends in the food & beverage industry for this upcoming year, and Quantified Marketing Group included culinary tourism in their 2008 Restaurant Trend Forecast.

Gotta agree. I belong to the International Culinary Tourism Association, so I get their regular newsletter. Here are the culinary destinations they were amped about for 2008:

• Singapore - A high quality visitor experience, ease of accessibility and wide variety of tasty experiences resulting from the intersection of four major cultures.  If you go, be sure to try the laksa!
• Ontario, Canada - High-quality agricultural products, world-class wines and an orientation to providing excellent and friendly service.   
• Hungary & Slovakia - Hungarian wines are relatively unknown and most would agree, underrated. Slovakian wines are completely unknown outside the region.  Both can be best enjoyed with the hearty and flavorful local cuisines. 
• Barbados - The hot sauce capital of the world! Keep your eye on the really interesting fusion cuisine coming out of this island nation.   
• Louisiana, United States - Experiencing a culinary renaissance in the aftermath of hurricane devastation.  Check out the new New Orleans! 
• Mexico - True Mexican cuisine is something few Americans (or others) have truly experienced.  Now is the time to discover its moles (sauces), braised meats and unusual spices and flavorings!
• Western Cape, South Africa - One of the most interesting wine scenes in the world now (and affordable compared to other wine destinations like California or France).
• Argentina - Wine and gelato - two of the basic food groups! Also known for its beef; visit a steak house for the experience.
• New Zealand - Long known for its great wines, New Zealand has amazing fruits, dairy and even olive oil (another important food group!). And let's not forget the lamb.
• Sweden - A leader in the new Scandinavian cooking with fresh, high quality and frequently organic ingredients. In recent years, Swedish chefs have even taken top culinary honors from long-standing award-winning French chefs.

Heck, I could have predicted that about Sweden. The Swedish chef was always my favorite Muppet by a mile.

Wish list for 2008

Janet Keeler, Chris Sherman and I spent a few idle minutes musing about trends we'd like to see in the coming year. Realistic things (as opposed to, say, "I'd like George Clooney to be my waiter at a naturist resort"), things that might actually come true if we put our collective minds to it. I'd be interested to see what readers wish for in terms of restaurant and food trends. Here's an interesting set of trend projections about the meat industry, sent to me by my buddy John (thanks, John) that corroborates a lot of what I've been thinking.

What say you, all? Restaurant trends on the horizon?