Delicious History

This is another review i wrote for Metro Mix Tampa Bay, The Cork in the Hyde Park area.

Check it out here.

To read the review, click the link below the summary for “more.”  It is set up in a slide show format.

Here’s my latest review for Metro Mix Tampa Bay.  I love Chopstix (in North Tampa).  I love the Du sisters.  I love the lo mein. I ate there again for lunch today and wanted to beat my chest I felt so good.

There are some good pictures, too.  Thanks to my imaginary friend.  But that’s another story.

Read the review and see the pictures here.

It has been a grueling week on a number of levels.  But it has passed.

I submitted my manuscript for the Columbia Restaurant: Celebrating a Century of History, Culture and Cuisine, yesterday.  I met with Richard Gonzmart, the 4th generation president of the Columbia group, and Meredith Morris-Babb, director of the University Press of Florida, to discuss some particulars.  When we started talking about release dates and marketing, it finally dawned on me that after five years working with the company, and close to three years associated with the book project, it is finally going to print.

The publication process has taxed my time and patience in ways i never expected, but the work will soon pay off.  It is unbelieveable that publishing books is still so slow and archaic, when all i have to do is click once to publish this piece.

Nonetheless, the book represents a great launching point for the rest of my writing career.   I have long been irritated by how much food studies has been dissected into all all of these smaller disciplines: nutrition, recipes and technique, pop culture, and so on.  Food as a whole dominates so much of humanity’s waking hours that this shabby treatment, especially by historians, is incomprehensible.  But the genie is out of the bottle.  The Food Network is part of the mainstream, and is here to stay.  And academia is now beginning to catch up.

It still amuses me to think of how one of my history professors was so incredulous that I would pursue food as a subject of scholarship.  I look forward to outselling his books, most of which are pretty lame.  I must give credit to Gary Mormino and Ray Arsenault for their encouragement beginning way back in 1997-98 when i began graduate school.  They are both extraordinary.  Their Florida Studies Program at USF St. Pete is a great asset.  Teaching there was a great honor.

Anyhow, the Columbia book is due out in September and marketing will begin in October if all goes well.  I look forward to hitting the road again to promote the book.  It is very special to me and the Gonzmart family.  The recipes kick ass, too.  See the mojito chicken that I posted here months ago.  More about the book later.

Keep an eye out for teasers!

My latest at the Daily Loaf includes a special recipe for mom.  I made it for her birthday, and it was appreciated.  I’ve made the same tomato soup recipe a half dozen times now, and everyone loves it.

Check it out here.