Category Archives: South Beach Wine & Food

A Festival of Foraging

Posted on February 23, 2012 | 1 Comment

Our forager Chris Padin, packing up the van this morning with some our #SoBeWFF brunch product.

Tune into 91.3 FM today at :35 past the hour during drive times and you may catch a WLRN Miami Herald News segment on how events celebrating product from local farmers, like our South Beach Wine & Food Festival Farm-to-Table Brunch, affect their businesses.  Produced by Trina Sargalski and Anais Alexander, the story offers a perspective not many attending these events may think about, sharing interviews with Teena Borek of Borek Farms/Teena’s Pride and Margie Pikarsky of Bee Heaven Farm, both in Homestead.  We weren’t able to include Margie in the brunch, but today were able to connect her with visiting chef Gabrielle Hamilton who was in last minute need of short grain brown rice for an event. She turned to Michael for help sourcing, and the best solution was locally-grown.  Try calling Whole Foods or Publix for 40 pounds of short grain brown rice, and see what you turn up. Margie sells Sem-Chi rice, not short grain but a good alternative.  It’s the rotation crop Florida Crystals uses to turn its sugarcane fields. Continue reading →

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Posted in Field Report, Food Philanthropy, Local Ingredient, News, South Beach Wine & Food, Special Event

Cheers to the #SoBeWFF Festival Week/end & Two Drinks for That

Posted on February 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

Make two new friends this week (photo courtesy Ellie Sara Groden.)

Today marks the unofficial opening of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, and I’ll drink to that!  TGHG Beverage Director Ryan Goodspeed appropriately anticipated the needs of guests new and old descending on Miami this week for the country’s largest culinary festival, in high spirits of course, and last night put the Bandito and Scotsman on the @MGFD_MIA specialty cocktail list, with more additions coming today.  Ellie and I tasted these two last night and gave them high marks for balance, simplicity, and overall good taste. Here’s how they break down:

Bandito
This cocktail sneaks up on you like a bandito! And attacks!

2 oz Don Julio Reposado
1 oz Poblano/Cubanelle Agave
1 oz Passionfruit
1 oz Pineapple
½ oz Lemon
Combine ingredients in a rocks glass, add ice and shake.
Garnish w/ pineapple spear or chunk if available

Scotsman
Named after Colin Scott, master blender at Chivas

2 ½ oz Chivas 12yr or 18yr
1 oz Espresso infused orange blossom honey
(3 shots of espresso stirred into one bottle of local orange blossom honey)
½ oz lemon
Top with soda
Combine scotch, honey and lemon. Add ice shake and top w/soda
Garnish with lemon peel and dash orange bitters

Hope to see you in the restaurant for some toasts over the next few days. Here’s where we’ll be outside it, too:

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Posted in At the Bar, Harry's Pizzeria, In the Neighborhood, Local Ingredient, Mmm beer, News, On the Menu Now, South Beach Wine & Food, Special Event, Student Serving, Sweet

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Bringing the Farm to Brunch with Maws, Reusing & Cushman at #SOBEWFF

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

Who loves conference calls? We do! It helps when you have four of the best chefs in the country on the line, all in good spirits despite the temptation of what we around these parts like to call Grinchmas, and willing to tackle what isn’t the easiest of event formats — but easily the most fulfilling.

It’s called the Farm-to-Table Brunch, and Michael is hosting it for the first year at the 2012 South Beach Wine & Food Festival with guest chefs Tim Cushman (o ya restaurant, Boston, MA,) Tony Maws (Craigie on Main, Cambridge, MA,) and Andrea Reusing (Lantern, Chapel Hill, NC.) The event will be held on Saturday, February 25 at noon at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden.

We’re doing things a bit different, not unlike our first annual Slow Food Day Grand Cayman.  Instead of the chefs determining what they want to make and us finding the product for them, the food and beverage will come together like it does each day at MGFD, starting with what’s fresh and available.  We have supplied the chefs with a list of our favorite local suppliers and have asked them to decide who they want to work with for their dishes, which will each include a passed hors d’oeuvre and two stationed plates — one savory and one sweet — like our Sunday Brunch menu.

Tickets are now on sale for a steal ($175,) so please join us for what will be a fun and delicious afternoon in good company!  For a list of participating farmers, who will all try to be present at the event, follow the jump.  We’ll keep you posted here as we continue to plan this and our other events including Hedy Goldsmith’s home run at the Miami Marlins Ballpark, Diamond Dishes.

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Posted in Farmer Update, Fisheries Update, Local Ingredient, MGFD_MIA, South Beach Wine & Food, Special Event

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