This article originally appeared as a feature story in Florida Weekly.
The two kayaks push off from the small sand beach and paddle quietly through the narrow opening in the line of dense mangroves along the shore, heading into the estuary. It’s high tide; though the small boats draw only inches, parts of this body of water, rich with aquatic life, are not navigable when the tide is out. A light breeze carries across the water and a mullet flashes silver as it jumps into the morning sunlight, just feet from the lead boat. An osprey, reminded by the splash that it’s time to hunt, lifts itself into air thick with the smell of the sea and joins the brown pelicans and belted kingfishers already above the water looking for meals. The kayaks continue on through nature that is unconcerned with their presence; a confidence born from generations of life undisturbed by the hallmarks of human progress. This is old Florida.
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 The Carterfone
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
I’ll admit to this: in my youth, I may have had a tendency towards narcissism. Maybe not in the super-human supply found in certain actors or politicians, and less in the self-admiration “my goodness, but don’t I look fantastic, and aren’t I brilliant” sense than in the self-centered “I operate in a sphere that only I affect” sense, but one could still argue that I had a slightly skewed sense of my own place in the world.
Let me be clear: I never, not since I was 9 at any rate, believed that actions didn’t have consequences. Instead, I enjoyed the illusion that I was the captain of my own ship, that good and bad times were both results of my actions, and mine alone. That’s changed with time. I still firmly believe in the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s own life (you plant an orange seed, don’t expect an apple tree), but I’m also aware that there are factors beyond my control that do have an influence on me.
Discovering that hidden hands (I’ll avoid puppetry analogies: I’m not paranoid – much) contribute to important moments in my life can still surprise me though. I’m not talking about the big picture influences here; we all grow up with the knowledge that many aspects of our lives are decided by people we’ll never meet that work in rooms we’ll never see.
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 This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
It’s human nature to remember the positives from past experiences while conveniently forgetting the negatives. I’m not talking about aspects of experiences that were generally unpleasant: it’s doubtful that a nice receptionist is going to be foremost in your mind after getting a root canal that required 20 ampoules of Novocain to keep your yelling down to a level that wouldn’t empty the waiting room.
But it’s different when an experience was generally positive. In those cases, people tend to view the past through somewhat rose-tinted glasses. If you think about it though, there are probably excellent reasons your broke up with your exes, your first car likely broke down a lot more than you recall, and Wallabees weren’t the most stylish footwear on the market. So in general, it’s not a bad idea to enjoy the memories but leave the past behind.
Except, that is, when it isn’t. There are moments, usually completely unexpected, when rediscovering something from the past delivers an experience much better than remembered. This happened to me recently, and it was enjoyable enough to warrant creating the following short list.
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This article originally appeared in the 2010 edition of “Taste,” the guide to fine dining in Broward and the Palm Beaches published annually by New Times for which I wrote all the editorial. To read the rest of my pieces in the 2010 edition, select the Taste category at the top or bottom of this article.
At 4:30 every afternoon, a printer at 3030 Ocean in the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa cranks up and fills its output tray with that night’s menu. The menu has been put together at the daily chefs’ meeting based on whatever fresh, high quality products were available from their purveyors that morning. And that’s the only way executive chef Dean James Max is willing to have things work.
“We don’t run specials; we change the menu every day,” he says. “We do signatures that are local enough that we usually have them, but if we can’t get what we need fresh, they’re taken off the menu. For example, our mussels dish is a signature, but I’ll only use bouchot mussels from Maine. If they have to close the beds for some reason, it’s 86′d. The bottom line is that if the product is substandard, we won’t serve it. We’ll stay creative, but we won’t ever force things just for the sake of getting them on the menu.”
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“We worked on that recipe for six weeks,” says Joey Gianuzzi of The Green Gourmet’s vegan split pea soup. “We’d make a batch every day, taste it, and rework it. Finding something to replace the pork was key. In the end, we settled on mint, and it really worked.”
Ingredients:
1 large organic onion, diced
2 organic carrots, peeled and diced
2 ribs of organic celery, diced
16 oz. organic split peas
48 oz. organic vegetable stock (can be purchased)
1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced
2 tsp. ground coriander seeds
2 sprigs fresh organic mint
1/3 cup fresh organic basil leaves, packed
1/3 cup fresh organic parsley leaves, packed
1 cup frozen organic peas
Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions:
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This article originally appeared in the 2010 edition of “Taste,” the guide to fine dining in Broward and the Palm Beaches published annually by New Times for which I wrote all the editorial. To read the rest of my pieces in the 2010 edition, select the Taste category at the top or bottom of this article.
Chef’s Recipe Available: Lemongrass Crusted Sea Scallops
Mike Moir didn’t particularly need to open his second restaurant, Little Moir’s Leftovers Café, in Jupiter. His first venture, Little Moir’s Food Shack, is still extremely popular, and often has crowds mulling about outside waiting to get a table during lunch or dinner service. And new restaurants can be notoriously risky ventures, especially in a down economy. But Moir and his wife of three years, Vivian Bordieri Moir didn’t see it that way.
“We thought it was worth the risk. The market for good food in the county is strong, and Vivian and I wanted to do something together. When the opportunity came up to take the space here in Abacoa, we decided to go for it. And this restaurant fits so well here – it’s a gorgeous location.”
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 Carpet bagger oysters from Wild Olives.
This article originally appeared in the 2010 edition of “Taste,” the guide to fine dining in Broward and the Palm Beaches published annually by New Times for which I wrote all the editorial. To read the rest of my pieces in the 2010 edition, select the Taste category at the top or bottom of this article.
Chef’s Recipe Available: Osso Bucco
Having a meal at a fine dining restaurant can be an incredible treat. Get dressed up, sit down in beautiful surroundings, order three or more courses of wonderful food, then sit back to enjoy the afterglow. It can be a perfect evening, right up until a waiter hovers over the table, subtly nudging you doorward by making it obvious that it’s time for you to pay your check and move along.
This is an experience that, if John Watson has anything to say about it will never happen when you’re eating at Wild Olives by Todd English, in Boca Raton. Happily, Watson does have a say: he and local restaurateurs Lirim Jacobi and Dixon Li are partners in the newly opened restaurant.
“We could do more covers, sure,” says Watson, “but I want a place where people feel welcome, can come and relax, have a comfortable night out. I never want them to feel rushed to leave.”
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This article originally appeared in the 2010 edition of “Taste,” the guide to fine dining in Broward and the Palm Beaches published annually by New Times for which I wrote all the editorial. To read the rest of my pieces in the 2010 edition, select the Taste category at the top or bottom of this article.
Chef’s Recipe Available: Organic Vegan Split Pea Soup
Walk into The Green Gourmet, Joey Giannuzzi’s gourmet prepared foods market and café in Delray Beach, and you’ll know immediately that chef/owner Giannuzzi takes the name of his new place seriously. Lighting made from the amber lenses of recycled street lights illuminate a case stocked with freshly made organic salads and lunch dishes. A large recycled glass container filled with complimentary fresh fruit-infused water sits on a counter made from recycled glass and sand.
Sustainable materials eucalyptus and teak are used in the tables and chairs, which are bookended by two wooden carts displaying the fresh local organic produce that they’ve started carrying in response to customer requests. Take-home containers made from biodegradable corn resin are stacked near the register.
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 Chef Mills, the blackboard, and a Stella.
This article originally appeared in the 2010 edition of “Taste,” the guide to fine dining in Broward and the Palm Beaches published annually by New Times for which I wrote all the editorial. To read the rest of my pieces in the 2010 edition, select the Taste category at the top or bottom of this article.
Chef’s Recipe Available: Simple Tomato Sauce
The menu is written in chalk on the blackboard paint-covered section of one wall. A few items, among them the Colorado lamb chops, grilled mahi, and lobster risotto, have large 86s chalked in red next to them, indicating that they’re sold out for the evening.
Chef/owner Jimmy Mills is splitting time between the kitchen and chatting with customers about the best way to cook fresh food simply, what they’d like to see on the menu, or explaining with a smile that the mahi isn’t actually $86.
Couples that have just met while dining at the bar are chatting with each other, comparing dishes, talking about how they found the restaurant. Jimmy’s Bistro in Delray Beach is the kind of place where things like that just seem to happen naturally.
“This is my life’s dream,” says Mills, as he looks around the room with a smile.
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