The Zest

This summer, we're checking in with some past Zest guests.  René Valenzuela is the founder and former owner of the popular local chain Taco Bus . He owned several restaurants in his native Monterrey, Mexico, before moving to the United States in 1995. In 2018, Chef René was badly burned and nearly died after a gas explosion in his food truck.  Chef René chatted with The Zest’s original host, Robin...

“Retro food” can mean different things to different people. For today’s kids, it’s the Jell-O Pudding Pops and vintage Pizza Huts of their parents’ childhood. For Bobby Hicks , retro means tuna noodle casserole, chicken Kiev and gelatin rainbow cake—the food of his parents’ and grandparents’ heyday. But retro recipes are more than a list of ingredients. They’re a feeling. During the pandemic, Hick...

When our elders pass away, too often their recipes die with them.  In recent years, this reality really began sinking in for actor and restaurateur Billy Dec . So Dec, the son of a white father and Filipina mother, decided to travel to the Philippines to find his last living maternal elders and learn his ancestral recipes. He brought along a film crew, and the result is the new PBS documentary Foo...

A hotel bar is much more than a place to grab a drink while you’re on vacation or traveling for work. It’s about connection, relaxation and rituals as old as mankind. A really good hotel bar will even attract the locals.  That’s the case at The Tampa Edition , a five-star hotel located on downtown’s bustling Channelside Drive. Throughout the hotel’s bars and restaurants, service is as important as...

It’s not about the coffee. Owning a coffee shop is about connecting with people. So says Roberto Torres, president of Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters . What started as a local coffee concept has grown into a company with eight locations across Tampa, including a presence in Tampa International Airport. We met up with Torres at Blind Tiger’s Ybor City location. In this conversation, Torres shares his j...

How do you eat healthy when it feels like the system is set up for you to fail? For indigenous Floridians, it’s become especially challenging to eat the foods that sustained their ancestors for thousands of years. Having been pushed off of their land, given ultraprocessed government foods and finding their surroundings polluted, many members of Florida’s Seminole Tribe wrestle with lifestyle-relat...

NOTE: Since the time of this recording, Community Harvest SRQ has merged with Sunshine Community Compost to form Sunshine Community Harvest. Andrew Hudson is on a mission. An organic gardener and program director for the nonprofit organization Community Harvest SRQ , Andrew wants to connect the people of Sarasota with its local food. Dalia met Andrew through a mutual friend, Chef Steve Phelps of I...

Michael Twitty isn’t giving up his Klondike Bars. On April 29, the celebrated food historian will appear at the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg for a public discussion about how we can apply our ancestors’ culinary traditions to live a healthier life. Click here to register for free tickets .  But even as we strive to eat healthier, Twitty says there’s still room for the occasional treat....

Get you a friend like George Geary . He’s a cookbook author and culinary media personality. So of course he makes the best food and tells the best stories.  Earlier this month, George released his 17th cookbook. It’s called Citrus, Illustrated: A Cookbook of 35 Sweet & Savory Recipes . Based in Southern California, George has lots of helpful tips for us citrus-loving Floridians. In this conver...

It’s a meal so beloved that it counts as two meals. We’re talking about brunch. And for decades, no list of Tampa Bay’s best brunch spots was complete without Oystercatchers . Opened in 1986, the waterfront restaurant sits on the property of Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, overlooking Tampa Bay.  During the covid-19 pandemic, Oystercatchers’ legendary Sunday brunch buffet went away and stayed away. Until n...

You know Alton Brown from Food Network shows like Good Eats, Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen. Maybe you subscribe to his YouTube series, Alton Brown Cooks Food . Perhaps you’ve even caught one of his live shows, full of the scientific demonstrations and trademark humor that accompany Brown’s unique approach to food. But Brown says there’s still more to learn about him. After performing liv...

Call it a coffee shop with great food, or a restaurant with great coffee. For Jordan Hooten, Southern Grounds and Co. is, above all, a community gathering place. The Jacksonville-based franchise has locations throughout Florida, including one in downtown St. Petersburg that opened last year. Come for the coffee, then stay for breakfast, catch up on some emails, have lunch, grab drinks with a frien...

New York has pizza. Chicago has hotdogs. And Tampa has devil crab. Like so many aspects of life in the 813, our city’s iconic street food has ties to the cigar industry. Whether you grew up eating devil crab or you have no idea what we’re even talking about, you’ll develop a new appreciation for devil crab after today’s conversation. Our guest is historian and friend of the pod Rodney Kite-Powell...

Why do some people love cilantro, while others say it tastes like soap? How did Dubai chocolate take the world by storm? And how are scientists using A.I. to determine what we’ll crave next? Today we’ll learn the answers when we get a preview of the 4th International Flavor Summit, taking place March 16 to 18 in Orlando. The biennial event brings together leaders in the food and beverage science i...

Morning radio hosts are known for having hot takes. And for many people in Tampa Bay, morning radio means Miguel and Holly. Miguel Fuller and Holly O’Connor are the real-life besties behind the Miguel & Holly Show on Tampa Bay’s Mix 1007. FM. After hosting their show in Florida for many years, the pair moved the show to Charlotte, N.C. from 2022 to 2025. Now they’re back in the Tampa Bay, wher...

Eating peanut brittle is all fun ‘n games… until you chip a tooth. But you don’t have to worry about that with Psalms’ Gourmet Brittle , a small-batch confectionary started by matriarch Psalms Mack and her son, Carlton Owens.  Psalms learned to bake brittle in home ec class, and she later perfected her own version of the recipe. Hers is gluten-free, plant-based and most importantly, light and airy...

When you think of fancy food, what pops into your head? Maybe it’s white tablecloths, tuxedoed servers and a sky-high dinner bill. But for Jerrelle Guy , fancy is a state of mind. It has less to do with pretentious restaurants and more to do with taking time to nourish yourself, using what you have on hand. Guy, who was born in South Florida and now lives in Dallas, Texas, offers a blueprint for c...

One of our favorite events of the year is back. We’re talking about the Tampa Bay Collard Green Festival . It takes place on Valentine’s Day in South St. Petersburg. (Be sure to stop by the WUSF Public Media booth at the festival to pick up some swag.) Chef Harris will also be in conversation with Dalia at Collards After Dark on Feb. 12, 2026. This year’s headliner Chef LaKisha Harris from Muskego...

Arthenia Joyner had had enough.  In February 1960, the 17-year-old could buy clothes at the F.W. Woolworth department store in downtown Tampa. But she was forbidden from trying them on first, in case she changed her mind and the garments went back on the rack where a white person would encounter them. And there was no way she could eat at the store’s lunch counter, which was for whites only. So wh...

Figuring out what to eat can sometimes feel like a relentless chore. And for people on the autism spectrum, mealtimes can be even more challenging—from food aversions to noisy restaurants to feeling ostracized because of what or how they eat. Today we’re digging deeper with the co-hosts of The Autistic Delicatessen . It’s a food podcast that centers the voices of adults with a neurodivergent persp...

You know it when you smell it. But how do you put into words the unmistakable, indescribable scent of guava?  And then there’s the taste: sour on its own, but irresistibly sweet in a guava-and-cream-cheese pastry or a pint of guava ice cream from Publix.  For a lesson in all things guava, we turned to historian Rodney Kite-Powell of the Tampa Bay History Center . In this episode, you’ll learn: The...

For most of the year, Abby Cheshire teaches culinary arts for Florida Virtual School. And when school lets out, she works her summer job.  But she’s not delivering groceries or leading arts and crafts at daycamp like many teachers. The Brevard County native works as a chef on a private yacht. She shares her high-seas adventures with her more than 1 million TikTok followers, who know her as Abby in...

This bonus episode comes courtesy of our friends at Florida Matters Live and Local .

This bonus episode comes courtesy of our friends at Florida Matters Live and Local .

Happy new year! If you’ve resolved to eat with more intention, then you’ll love these two things: First: Cookbook author and former Zest guest Kerstin Decook has a cool offer exclusively for Zest listeners. On Jan. 3, 2026, at 11 a.m. EST, join the free, live online event New Year, Fresh Flavors: How to Cook for Yourself with Confidence and Joy. Register here. Secondly: If you’re leaning into a pl...