SoBe it! 2010 - NBC, Tents, Bubbles & Q!

Hey there! It was day two of my time down here at the SoBe Food and Wine Festival and I woke up early to get ready for an appearance at the local NBC station here in Miami. The building is a bit of a ride from South Beach, but the complex is huge. Take a look at the news room ... this is only a teeny portion.

We walked past this bank of cubicles and newsroom activity then hung a right to reveal a pretty huge set for a news station. I immediately walked over to the weather green screen and did my best Mike Woods impersonation.

Mike Woods is my local weather guy in NYC and this whole week I've sung his praises to everyone that asked how I got down here without a hitch, considering the weather. My response? "Mike Woods told me the snow wasn't going to hit until mid morning, so I took the first flight out!". I always like the first flight out anyway because if it gets canceled, I have a full day to work with. If you follow Mike Woods on his twitter page, please, tweet him and tell him thanks for the good weather report and I'm trying out for his job in that picture! He'll know I'm joking.

Then over in the corner there was a group of gals hanging out and I just haaaaaaaad to get a picture! They have a stage show that is in town right now and besides being hilarious and great in-character actors, they really had the nuances of each character in the popular sitcom ... have you guessed it yet?
Yes, the Golden Girls! These ladies call themselves "The Golden Gays" ... hilarious and I love it! The show I was on started at 11am, but I wasn't on live until 1140ish. So, before we went live I stopped to take a picture with my on-set culinary team, Bianca and Nathan. Cool thing is we worked together last year at the festival aaaaaaand they aren't just a working team, but a team in life ... for 7 years. Cute!
Next thing you know it was go-time! Here I am talking to the host live about the festival, the Viva booth and my South Beach Chicken Wings available at the festival.
As soon as we were done the crew stormed the chicken so I backed up to let them at it and bumped into one of the nicest chefs around, Art Smith. He has such a zest for life and you can tell by just a quick hello and a smile. We were both recently featured in People Magazine talking about how we try to keep pounds off when eating is our gig. He looks grrrrrreat! We chatted quickly about food and life then I asked him if he'd take a pic for my blog and he obliged ...
After this we had to rush out to get back to South Beach so I could hand out the very wings I was promoting at the Grand Tasting. Traffic was bad, but I got back just in time for me to do what I call a Superman booth change and head right back out. They have little golf carts to take us to and from the hotel and the events and they all park right behind the venue so when I pulled up, I caught another friendly face about to leave...
I just love how Sandra Lee looks in white. Those are some of my favorite shows ... when the whole set is just pure white. Very clean and only a chick with a flawless body can pull off an all white outfit lol ... goooooo Sandy!! She's always been so sweet since I started and has said some pretty nice things to me in private moments. If you are a fan of hers, I'll have you know ... she's worthy of you and she's a sweetheart!

After we chatted, she sped off to the hotel and I walked on over to the Viva Booth. I took so many pictures with other people and forgot to get one of my own lol. I had fun though and after I was done at the booth I realized it was 4pm and all I'd had to eat all day was some strawberries from the fruit bowl I got with room service, a wing on the set of the NBC show and a wing at the Viva Booth. To say the least, I was hungry. Good news - I'm at a Food & Wine Festival ... Bad news - the tents closed at 4. That's the same time I was done working. So we rushed through the tent to see if we could find any one still serving food and I ran into some beef!!!
That's Chef Roy Mitchell of the Buckhead Beef Company. He saved my day!!! While everyone else was packing up because it was quitting time ... his crew was still churning out the juicy beef. Uhhhh I'd have a picture of it, but honestly I ate is so fast, I mean inhaled it!!! Thanks Roy!!!

Ok, after that, I headed back to the hotel for a nap and dinner. Yes, a nap ... I feel old. Teeheehee. All this activity makes you a bit tired though. After dinner, I headed out to one of the best parties of the weekend, Bubbles & Q. It's all about champagne and BBQ. What a combo, eh? I walked around a bit and bumped into two of my favorite ladies ...
That's Susie Fogelson, marketing wiz, judge on NFNS and most recently she's made several appearances in my living room when I play Cook or Be Cooked, the Food Network Wii video game. On the other side of me, Ingrid Hoffman. I was just down here a few weeks ago and as I was watching the news I caught a piece about a new food truck she has roaming the city. I emailed to give her a quick congrats and she invited me to check it out and chat with her about the festival when I returned. She's doing correspondent work for NBC, so today after I'm done serving wings I'm heading over to chat with her. I'll let you know when the piece runs. She is such a fun person to hang around with and again, very nice. Ok, then I turned around an bumped into the newest addition to Food Network ...
Marcela Valladolid! Mexican Made Easy is my new favorite show to watch. I wake up on Saturdays just to watch and I really like the authenticity of her recipes. Plus, my time in San Antonio, Texas primed me for a love of Mexican food. Tex-Mex for sure at first, but then after a few trips deep into the country ... I'm on board for it all! Marcela and I chatted real quick then I turned around in the same immediate area and bumped into an icon ...
Ok, I know this sounds cliche, but I wish I could jump back to my young self and say one day I'd meet the guy that hosted Double Dare. A few years ago I read his book, it's a biography and it is reeeeeally a good read. He's such a hard worker and reminds me of my dad, without sounding weird. Anyway, great guy and such a pleasure to meet and chat with him. Then things got even sweeter and I ran into Mr. and Mrs. Fondant ...
That's Geof and Mary Alice from Ace of Cakes. I feel like I know Mary Alice because we have a common friend in Jacob from Food Network Addict, so when I met her I yelled "I love you through Jacob" awkwaaaaard lol, but she got it. Ok, then the best part of the night ... as I was leaving the Bubbles & Q tents I bumped into someone I haven't seen in years ...
Now, maybe you're thinking it's Isiah Thomas I'm talking about ... and you are right, I haven't seen him in years. But the person I'm referring to is his son, Josh. When I worked at HOT 97, he got an internship with us and many of my coworkers ribbed him and some just acted like he had a charmed life and wasn't going to work as hard as he needed to. Well, they were all wrong and he turned out to be one of the best interns we had. Always on time and ready to work and learn. Fast forward to now and he has a record company and a artist he just signed to Universal Records in addition to a heavy schedule of touring as a DJ!!!! GOOOOOOOO JOSH!!!

Then, I went back to my room and fell asleep .. I'm headed now to the tents to hand out more wings today! If you are here, come on by to say hi!!! Please excuse the typos, I did this blog while getting ready. I'll clean it up later and take more pics to share!

SoBe it! 2010 - Burger Bash!

Hi there! This will be less verbose, but hopefully an exercise in quality not quantity :-). I got to Miami yesterday to enjoy my second visit to the SoBe Wine and Food Festival. I've been a bit busy in the last few days and have stuff to share, but this is more pressing ... so without further drivel ...

Look at Bobby Flay reppin his burger! We were on the same flight headed down and were both just happy to make it out of NYC before the snow hit. When we landed I got plenty of pictures of what the snow did at home while in flight ... it looks bad. But never mind that ... look at Bobby!

He already looks sun-kissed doesn't he? His burgers were Crunchified (meaning they had chips on them ... and that's his word, not mine. I'd throw a "tm" on it, but I can't find the symbol on my computer lol). He also had a yummy BBQ sauce on it and coleslaw. When he gave me a preview on the flight, I knew it'd be my first burger at Burger Bash ... I also felt Spike Mendelsohn's winning days may be over. Spike's won two years in a row ... I tasted his burger last night. It was gooood, but even better was his cotton candy shake ....
I had two! You push the cotton candy down and the best way I can explain the texture is ... do you ever get an iced coffee or an iced tea? Ever have too much sugar in the bottom and enjoy sipping that layer with your straw and crunching? Well, that's how it was for the cotton candy shake, but even better was the texture of the shake, it was soooo smooth. Go Spike! He didn't win though ... Iron Chef Michael Symon brought it home for the team! Sorry, no pictures of that burger because most of the night I was hangin' out with Viva Towels! Here's my booth where I gave out not burgers, but my Baklava Cups.
That's Rebecca with me. She's a student at FIU and if you didn't know the festival is a charity event, so at the end of working here she gets a grant for school. Pretty neat. A few minutes after I met Rebecca, I met her dean and promptly try to barter for straight A's in exchange for some baklava and Viva Towels. Every one was just total smiles last night. Here's my Memphis family ...

It's the Neely's crew!!! It's our 1 year anniversary lol, we first met and hung out last year at this very event and since then we've had so much fun together. That's Tony Jr., myself, Tony Neely (Pat's bro), Pat Neely and my girrrrrrl Gina. They are such great supporters and feel so much more like family than co-workers. They were on their way in to the Burger Bash and made time to stop by before going beef crazy. I took a quick walk outside the immediate area of my booth and ran into two crazy characters ...

That's John Besh and Aaron Sanchez ... two willlld and craazy guys! Totally showing my age with that SNL reference teeheehee. I just recently worked with Aaron Sanchez in right here in Miami on an upcoming episode of Chefs Vs. City. It airs soon and I'll give you a heads up when I get the air date. John Besh is just one of those chefs you like to run into ... never stuffy and always smiles. Then, I turned around and someone that I totally LOVE ... actually came by to tell me he watches Cooking for Real ...
That's Chef Pepin, he's has a product line and I've watched him on Univision and although I don't speak Spanish, I watch to learn the language and of course I'm going to watch when food is involved. Other than that ... I've just seen this happy chef around and I love a good smile. What a nice way to meet someone I watch, finding out that they watch too. Speaking of, do you remember me posting about my last visit here and running into a Pollo Tropical for the first time? Well, looks like they read the blog just like you and one of the executives came by to say hi last night at the Burger Bash. Very nice surprise ... you never know who's watching ... or reading. ;-) Ok, that's all I have today and I still ended up typing too much, eh? If you are in Miami, I'll be on NBC today from 11-12noon to showcase my Caribbean Chicken Wings I'm making for this weekend's crowds at the Grand Tasting tents. If you are here, please comment if you'd like to meet up for a drink this weekend! Until then, check out Aaron McCargo's tweets and Jacob's tweets if you want to keep up with what's going on down here!

I'm still taping!

Hey there! I'm still taping episodes of Cooking for Real in NYC's Chelsea Market and it looks like we'll wrap on Thursday. We start with one show on the first day to get our or -- my :-) sea legs back, then move on to two shows a day. With the snow day from last week, all we had to do was add an extra day of shooting . No biggie for me, I enjoy cooking and eating and if not at work, I'd be doing the same at home!

Sometimes during our lunch break a writer or camera crew from the press comes by for a chat and interview that usually eats up half of lunch. I don't mind because it means we're getting the word out about the show and since I've begun, the amount of lunch time interviews has increased. That makes me feel really good about the progress of the show and how people are receiving it. Anyway, today is the first day I've had a free lunch, so I thought I'd spend part of it with you. :-)

Here are some flicks ... I call this "Taters 'Cross America" teeheehee ...
See Hawaii? The bowl represents the Great Lakes and I ran out of potatoes and space so, Alaska, my bad ... you are there in my heart :-). I made this during a break between acts as my culinary team, producer and director discussed when, where and how to bring the potatoes into the show. Are they already sliced? Are they in the pan? Do I slice them during the act? Do I begin slicing them at the end of the act? Plenty of questions. The cool thing is this show at the beginning of the day didn't even include fingerling potatoes. It was an addition after we removed one of my cupcake recipes because I'd just filmed a cupcake episode last week. We didn't catch the redundancy of the dishes in the planning stages, but as soon as we did, I made a menu change on the fly. Now instead of chicken and cupcakes, it's chicken and fingerlings.

Here's a look at the workspace just in front of my set for the culinary team.
That's our culinary intern Ali on the far left of the table (actually the center of the pic), then Sarah on the true left and Jenna. If you've caught any of the posts tagged with "the crew", you'll recognize the last two. Each run of shows I meet a new intern and sometimes if I tape close within a few months, I see the same intern working. I always wonder how they are moving on after their time here, but I gotta tell you if you are a culinary student looking for some great hands-on experience ... I'd look into interning here. They get so much real time work and it's not just chopping and prepping or getting someone coffee.

Alright, this last pic is the answer to some of the questions I get about what I eat when I'm taping shows. Sometimes I take work home and eat that for dinner, but when I can't I always look for something easy to make. In my grocery store just last week I saw a new product stocked. It was seasoned meat in a vacuum-sealed pouch and it was called "Carne Enchilada", but under that heading it said "seasoned pork". I chuckled a bit because I've always correlated the word "carne" with beef, not pork. Misnomer or not, I thought I'd buy it and see what it was. Well, it was pork. Very well seasoned and cut into strips. I thought, this is an easy prep! Last night I poured it into a dish, chopped up a jalapeno, red onion, some tomatoes and garlic to cook it with and added some stock for moisture after I snapped this flick. Here it is before the oven ...
It came out bubbly and ready for a warmed tortilla with a lil lettuce and tomato. I wolfed it down and got in bed to make notes for today's shows. Can't wait to make something out of it for leftovers .. maybe just a tostada or something. So, hope that answers the question about what I do at the end of a long day cooking. Answer: I go home to cook some more!

Hope you are having a great week so far. It's still snowing in NYC and I love it!

Snow Days are like Cupcakes!

Hey there! Well, we got a snow day and although I love working, something about a snow day brings the kid in you back just like a cupcake! Here I am on the way to lunch ... can you even tell it's me? Teeheehee
Just an hour before, that sidewalk was shoveled down to the concrete, it was really coming down fast and I'm all bundled up because the snow was a mix and the sleet pieces really hurt. Then, on a walk through the area for exercise and scenery, I found an empty parking lot and tried to make a snow angel ...
That's after making a few swipes and realizing I wouldn't be able to see it that well ... there was plenty of snow to angel through. I haven't done one of these since I can't even remember, see what I mean? Totally cupcake city! The rest of the day was spent working on my show notes and watching weather reports on the television. Our local Fox channel had an impromptu in-studio snowball fight and to catch that live was so neat. Seems I wasn't the only one feeling like a kid yesterday. Hope you had a cupcake day too!

We got back to work today and we all realized how neat it was to have a snow day on a Wednesday, because if you look at it the right way, we get two more after tomorrow! Hope you are staying warm!

Back to Class!

Hey there! Well, today was the first day back in the studio to tape Season 7 of Cooking for Real! It feels like the first day of school every time, but instead of clothes I lay out my knife kit before I go to bed.

On the first day back we tape just one show to kinda work out the cobwebs, so today was a light day, but busy at the same time. As I've shared with you, I wrote a recipe for one of my favorite short cuts in the meat dept. ... the smoked cured pork chop. It's a must request from your butcher if you haven't seen them around. Inexpensive, fast prep and tasty! Here I am pretty happy with my crosshatch marks and the aroma, plus I know I'm closer to the 4th act of the show ... where I get to eat!
I love the way the smoke from my grill created some Glamour Shot lighting for my chops lol. When I say these are easy to make I mean, they are sooo easy. It's almost a shame to call it a recipe.

One of the neat things I like about going back to work, is how new things pop up and disappear. Today, I got a new dish and when it showed up, I fell in love.
It's just so sweet and innocent. A shame I had to cover it with some chops, salad and pop overs. Ever buy pretty dishes like that? I have a casserole I've never used because I think it's too pretty to use. Very silly, I admit.

I can't wait for you to try the chops, the salad and the popovers. Shortly after I finished taping I headed through the kitchens to say my good byes and caught Cedric, aka "Ced Lova", cooking. I call him that because he always has a smile on his face and reminds me of radio host Ed Lover. He's usually helping out around the kitchens and isn't a chef, nor a staff cook, so I asked him what was up. Turns out he has a recipe coming up in an issue of Food Network Magazine and was demonstrating it! I told him to gimme a pose, and he did ...
Look for his chicken recipe in the next few months. It looked yummy and smelled even better. I say points for the cast iron pan off the top!

Also in this month's Food Network Magazine catch me and Ted Allen in a cooking showdown for the He Made, She Made feature. I told you about testing for this feature a few months back on my post What I Had for Linner: Mystery Meal, FN Mag-Style, now you get the answer to the question I posed when I gave picture clues as to what I was making. Check the recipes and if one of them speaks to you, vote! There's a page to vote here. If you don't subscribe to the magazine yet, click here.

Well, the day went by so fast, I got done when the sun was still out. I hopped in my ride, we turned the corner right outside of Chelsea Market and look what I saw ...
Pretty neat to see as I was leaving my first day back to work. Don't be fooled by the sky, the clouds rolled in soon after and we are waiting to see if it's a snow day for work tomorrow ... hey, this really is like school!

Kitchen Time is a Wrap!

Hey there! Well, kitchen time is over! Now to the taping phase of Cooking for Real. We start tomorrow, but before we do I thought I'd share some final pictures.
That's the whole kitchen team I work with every time we tape shows. That's Jenna (ultra slice-off-tie winner!) and Santos, then Sarah on the right. Those are some smoked-cured pork loin chops in the foreground. Yummy and easy to do especially on a weeknight. I hope you like the recipe I cooked up to go with them. It's actually the first show we tape tomorrow. Actually, so are these ...
Yummy Popovers I think even the baking shy will give a try. It's easy if you've never made them and if you have, you know the benefits. I like anything bread-like I can make at home. So, these are easy and great with so many things. Hope you like these too. Then, a big pot of love to drizzle over a recipe I've broken down to bits and put back together the easy way so we can make it at home allll the time ...
As usual I can't share the recipes just yet, but as soon as the shows air, hopefully you'll see something familiar and feel a bit in the know. This last picture is of a dessert my mom made on a recent visit home. She never really made repeats growing up, but this is something we had a few times. I takes a few steps, but they are all worth it. I made a few changes, but I think my mommy would be proud ...
It's sweet, nutty, tart, and creamy. I'd take this over birthday cake any day!!!

Alright, gotta get to bed early so I can be fresh in the morning. I just wanted to send a sincere thanks to you for reading this blog as a whole and hopefully for watching the show. I started taping Cooking for Real 2 years ago this month and over that time I've met so many people through this blog and in person. I say it, but I hope you understand how truly thankful I am for your support. I've lived a life of dreams. I've held them in my head and sometimes I've dared to speak them aloud and chase them down. It's a lonely world sometimes when you are chasing a dream that is your own, but I have to tell you I don't feel alone at all because of you. Thanks for sharing your stories in my comments section, thanks for the links, thanks for the foodie conversation and even if you just read and leave with out a hello, I'd like to say thanks for making my dream possible. I can't do this without you and because of you I get to continue. Thanks so much, Sunny.

1st Ever Slice-Off!

Ok, I've told you about The Games We Play in the Food Network kitchens when I'm in recipe testing mode. First, it was the 1st ever Sear-Off! Two bacon-wrapped turkey breasts were put on the ticket and Culinary Gangsta of all Things Cuisine, aka Santos, challenged me to have a more perfectly seared protein than him. I love a challenge, so if you click the link above you can see how that went. BTW, that turkey was my Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Breast stuffed with Pear Hash.

Fast forward to our current round of recipe testing and a challenge was thrown at me out of the blue again ... and this time, Santos was the judge and Jenna, an assistant culinary producer was pit against me in the 1st ever (and probably the last lol) ...

SLICE-OFF!!

Ok, here were the rules. Santos cut two equal-in-size pieces of yellow bell pepper and challenged Jenna and I to see who could make the most thin slices out of our piece of pepper ... and it wasn't pickled :-). I chose my trusty 10-inch wide knife and Jenna put her Yan Can Cook Cleaver to work. Now, I have to tell you, I always admire Jenna's chop, sometimes even saying things in conversation with them like "Ok, for this recipe I'm gonna Jenna Chop the garlic then saute ..." or "I think I'll add some onions all Jenna-chopped up". So she truly has a rep for a great slice game in my book. The piece of pepper was smaller than a business card, but in hindsight I don't know why we didn't measure it. We just made sure both pieces were equal in size from the start. I got to work on my piece with Jenna to my left and to my surprise finished before she did, but that doesn't matter. The goal was quantity of slices not who got to the finish line fastest. Santos told us early on that he wouldn't have any half slices, they needed to be the full length of the piece and even throughout. Tough judge eh? Not so much, I mean no one would try to sell off a bad slice to the Culinary Gangsta would they???

Here he is inspecting my pieces while Jenna intently focuses on her slivers of yellow bell pepper in the background ..
I was so nervous while he was counting!!! I just wanted a good showing. He counted and I had 37 slices that were regulation. I had a few that just didn't make the cut, but I knew it early on and pushed them to the side with an audible ugh of defeat. All I could think was I why didn't I take my time??? ... look at Jenna over there intense and deep in concentration ... will I win??

He counted up from the 30s and my stomach was excited as he counted ... 33, 34, thirrrrrteeee-fiii-eeeveee, thirty-siiiiiiiiiiiiiix ... and to both my and Jenna's surprise he stopped at the magic number 37! A tie! Here we are happy with our results!
What fun! After that teeny break we got back to work testing recipes, but with a tie maybe we should have another go at it huh? Ok, just wanted to send you off with a smile for the weekend. Enjoy your Superbowl and check the Food Network Big Game page for last minute party ideas ... btw GOOOOOOOO SAINTS and COLTS!!! (fyi, I'm not pandering to everyone, I'm actually a "when in Rome-er" lol, I've lived both places so I support them just like the Cowboys, Lions, Jets and Giants)

Weakened Warriors

"Warriors ... come out to plaaaaay-eeee-aaaaaaay!!!!" - Luther in the movie Warriors

That's what went down this weekend in Miami, some foodie warriors gathered to play and I can't tell you who came out on top yet, but I can share some pics and stuff. I'm talking about Chefs vs. City with hosts Chef Aaron Sanchez and Chef Chris Cosentino. Have you seen this show? I have and it's pretty entertaining, it's Amazing Race for foodies and like many of those types of shows I sit at home watching wondering how it would be to participate. I can tell you it was fun, and it was tough at the same time. If you haven't seen the show, the hosts travel from city to city and challenge another team of two in the city in various culinary skills and tasks. There are 5 stages of the race and at the end, the first team across the finish line wins. Someone along the way asked me "what do you win" and after a pause in which I realized I wouldn't get an Amazing Race payoff, all I could say was "braggin rights?" lol. Ready to meet my team mate? We've been paired before to make cookies or just plain hang out for a photo shoot, but we've never really worked-worked together ... ladies and gents ... I introduce you to Miss 5 Ingredient Fix herself ...
Claire Robinson! We went out to dinner the night before for wine and tapas and got to know each other better so we could formulate a strategy. That's us on the dock the morning of our race through the city. All smiles and ready to go.

Speaking of eating, boy was I happy to see a Jimmy John's on my walk through the area the hotel was located. There I was looking for a restaurant and fast food called my name. Not just any fast food though, pretty much one of the best sandwiches I've had on the road. I found it in Colorado while taping How'd That Get On My Plate? a couple of years ago and couldn't resist a repeat. We got it delivered to the set before by the actual manager of the store, but this time I got a chance to look at them menu and figure out what was to offer ...
I chose the Italian Night Club, but was close to getting the Billy Club. An enlarge click on the pic is worth it if you like to see how they bring flavor to a sandwich. Here's the guy that made my lunch, he totally thought I was crazy for taking his picture.
Ok, back to the weakened warriors, really proud of my play on words there lol. Here's the whole line up before we started the race.
Claire, Aaron, Me and Chris. All smiles and ready to go. I took a couple of pictures along the way, but to show them would give away the show challenges and that wouldn't be nice of me. I don't like spoiled eggs or spoiled TV, so no spoilers over here. I'll post the detailed pics a few minutes after it ends. It airs April 18th, but I'll give you a reminder before then. I can tell you by the end of the shoot/race we were alllll beat! Here's Aaron huggin a pillow and posing for fun.
He's really a funny guy and even though we were all playing against each other, guys vs. gals, we all had fun chatting and ribbin' each other as we ran around Miami. That was Friday all day and then Saturday I woke up feeling a bit stiff, but happy I had a workout the day before. Theresa came over to airbrush some life onto my face ...
You know how they say it's a small world, well Theresa worked with me last year when I was in Miami taping an episode of Next Food Network Star. Turns out she has night gig at the opera! Pretty cool. After she got me looking alive, I headed down to a conference room to do the interview that runs throughout the show.
The toughest part was speaking in present tense about something that happened the day before. Because the clips run during the show I can't say "When I saw the clue I thought", I have to say "I see the clue and I'm thinking blah blah blah". ... After a few notes to stop fidgeting with my hands because they were making noise while I was talking, I sat up straight and delivered some sound bites. I wonder if it's going to look like I'm outside and those buildings in the background will appear real. Here's a shot of the monitor ...
It only took an hour or so and I finished just in time for a walk around the hood again and the discovery of another new fast food place I'd never heard of... have you?
It was yummmmmy! Take a look at the grill inside ...
and another ... alotta chicken right?!

Check out the menu, again I looked like an idiot, but this time the girls behind the counter said "are you on TV?" and I said with pride ... "Yes, and I'll have yucca, black beans, key lime pie and oh yeah ... some chicken". Really nice to meet viewers when I'm not expecting to.
Well, I stocked up on curry mustard and guava bbq sauce at the condiment bar and headed back to my room to eat. Take a look at the spread...
Pretty crazy for a fast food spread. I left the bread, but the chicken was moist and flavorful, the sauces were yummy, the yucca soft, the black beans weren't too tight or too runny and the condiment bar had chopped onions, so I stocked up on them. Then for dessert the key lime pie was creamy and tart, but I stuffed it in my face right before I left for the airport. What a yummy weekend, that left me full and weakened. :-)

Speaking of Miami, if you haven't made plans yet and have time, check out SobeFest.com for deets on the upcoming Food & Wine Festival ... It's hard to find me on there, just know I'll be at the Burger Bash with a dessert offering and at the Grand Tasting tents everyday hanging out with Viva Towels giving away some small bites that make it easier to get closer to your food with Viva Towels. Sounds like a commercial, eh? Well, they didn't pay me for this specific post, but I do want you to visit the booth and meet me if you are headed down. Also, if you tweet, visit @VivaTowels and follow them, I'm sure they'll shadow and post pics during the festival.