The Zest

The Orlando area has been experiencing an explosion of great restaurants. When there are so many choices, the Orlando Sentinel's Foodie Awards can point you toward some interesting local places to try. Amy Drew Thompson  is the Orlando Sentinel's multimedia food reporter, and 2020 was her first year of taking on the gargantuan task of singling out restaurants in 50 different categories. Support fo...

Avera Wynne spent 30 years as an urban planner—a good job that paid for his barbecue habit. This certified barbecue judge now has his own line of seasoning blends called Zest Coast . Avera talks about when to use gas and when to use charcoal, plus he gives us his number one tip for grilling like a pro. Robin also asked him where the name Avera comes from, and it turns out there’s a connection to N...

Michelle Bernstein started cooking fusion food dishes long before “fusion” was a buzzword. The Miami chef, restaurant owner and TV personality made a name for herself combining flavors and techniques from her Latin-Jewish heritage. And it works. In 2008, the James Beard Foundation recognized her as the best chef in the South. In this conversation with The Zest producer Dalia Colón, Bernstein discu...

It’s time for melons and watermelons in Florida, which are in season right now. You’ll find them in the stores, and farmers are selling from roadside stands. Sweet corn is also in season, and is grown all over the state before making its way further north.    Support for The Zest Podcast comes from Seitenbacher Brand Natural Foods, like Muesli cereals, oils, oatmeal, energy bars, gluten free fruit...

What comes to mind when you think about original Florida cracker cooking? If you’re thinking biscuits and gravy, chess pie and dumplings, you’re on the right track. Joy Harris's new cookbook,   The Florida Cracker Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from Cabin to Condo,  celebrates her ancestors' down home cooking -- some of which was done in a Panhandle cabin with no electricity! The Zest contributor...

Have you found yourself wanting to bake bread while you’re quarantining? Christina Cann, owner of Gulf Coast Sourdough, says it’s a real thing. Hundreds of people have asked her for some sourdough starter over the last several weeks. Part of the reason is that so many people are baking bread that there’s been a run on instant yeast at the stores, and it’s hard to find right now. But sourdough uses...

Rene Valenzuela is best known as the founder and former owner of Taco Bus. Rene’s life and career came to a standstill two years ago, when he was burned in a horrific kitchen fire. He says he learned a lot about himself during his recovery, and now he's ready for his next venture. This time he's teaming up with Jamal Wilson, owner of Hall on Franklin in Tampa, and expanding to Orlando. I talked to...

Toni Tipton-Martin is on a crusade. The food journalist and educator won a James Beard Award in 2016 for her book The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. Her latest work, Jubilee, is a collection of recipes from those antique cookbooks. In February, the Baltimore resident came to St. Petersburg to speak at the third annual Tampa Bay Collard Green Festival, held at the Carter...

Every month, we’re focusing on what's fresh and what's growing in Florida.  Robin will be talking to extension agents from The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, known as IFAS, to tell us what we should be looking for -- and cooking with -- right now! This month: blueberries and squash.  We've also got a delicious Florida squash casserole recipe on our website.  

In the last couple of years, the harvest of wild caught oysters has gone down by half.  But the amount of farmed oysters has doubled in that time. And there’s definitely a market demand for the shellfish, so aqua farmers are trying out more areas of Florida to grow oysters – outside of Apalachicola, which is where you usually think of oysters growing. Brian Rosseger is one of these pioneering oyst...

On this bonus episode of The Zest , we speak to Chef Marcos Fernandez of Nineteen61 in downtown Lakeland.   Chef Marcos tells us why he thinks he's been able to keep busy while many of his fellow restaurant owners have had to close.

Season two of the Zest starts in mid April. But community is what we're all about -- and we're all craving some community right now.   So, I wanted to check in with you. Let you know we're here. We're cooking for our families, we're trying to keep our immunity up, we're trying to support our local restaurants. And food is still and always a huge part of our lives. Today, I'm bringing you a convers...

Programming Note: From the kitchen to the field to the hive, The Zest Podcast has taken you north, south, east and west in Florida and the southern states. We’re going to take a break while we prepare our second season showcasing food and communities in the Sunshine State. We’ll return with completely fresh episodes just in time for WUSF’s Longest Table in St. Petersburg on April 16th. In the mean...

Dr. Steven Masley lives a pretty good life. He lives half the year in St. Petersburg, and then spends the rest of his time cruising the Mediterranean in his sailboat. He sails from port to port exploring the local outdoor markets, shopping for the freshest ingredients, and asking the experts -- the fishmongers and produce vendors -- about family recipes and the best ways to prepare the seafood, le...

Dayanny de la Cruz is the executive chef of Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens—the site of this year's Super Bowl on February 2nd. As the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs prepare for a showdown on the football field, Chef D, as she's known, is busy prepping for her own role on Super Bowl Sunday: feeding everyone in the building, from fans and media to halftime entertainers and the athlet...

Gasparilla started out at the turn of the 20th century as a sedate little music program. Then, organizers decided to throw in a pirate invasion to spice things up -- and boy, did they!  Our guest says Gasparilla is like Mardi Gras without the Catholicism! Andrew Huse is an associate librarian at the University of South Florida in special collections and he also chronicles Florida food history. Whe...

Jeff Houck is a former newspaper reporter and food writer at the  old Tampa Tribune ,  and is now the marketing and public relations director for Columbia Restaurant Group in Tampa. Jeff has lately become enamored of local, mom and pop convenience stores around the Tampa Bay area, and has been documenting them in his own pithy, humorous style.   Isabel Laessig is the creator of  Sunday Supper Medi...

  Winter is citrus season here in Florida, and anybody with a Meyer lemon tree is looking for a way to use them all.  One great use for lemons is the Italian liqueur Limoncello, and The Zest producer Dalia Colón got the scoop on that from Danielle Rose, who writes the Florida food blog Suwannee Rose.  You can find Danielle’s recipe for Meyer limoncello on our website, TheZestPodcast.com . Have you...

Support for The Zest Podcast comes from Seitenbacher Brand Natural Foods, like Muesli cereals, oils, oatmeal, energy bars, gluten free fruit gummies for the kids, organic coffee and more.  Available in supermarkets, health food stores or online at Seitenbacher.com . Best-selling author Rick Bragg was in town earlier this year to talk about his most recent memoir about his family, and about growing...

This week on the Zest, we get our families involved in showing off some holiday traditions. Dalia's daughter, Norah Colón,  helps us make reindeer cookies; I'm following my father around as he makes smoked mullet; and WUSF reporters let us in on some treasured recipes. Support for The Zest Podcast comes from Seitenbacher Brand Natural Foods, like Muesli cereals, oils, oatmeal, energy bars, gluten...

For Yaniv Cohen, his passion for teaching people about spices all started when his daughter was born nine years ago,. and he found himself wanting to give her a feeling for the tastes and aromas of his childhood in Israel. The Miami-based chef and caterer is spreading his knowledge online, where he blogs as "The Spice Detective," through classes on cooking with spices, and through his culinary out...

This week, we take a tour of Cracker Country rural living history museum, where we explore the way pioneer Floridians cooked, and the kinds of dishes they made to celebrate the holidays  more than a hundred years ago. Then, the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa is a huge operation, with five theaters, an arts conservatory and several restaurants. We talk to the chef who manages the cul...

It's time to think about holiday gifts -- and of course, we're turning to cookbooks! Our correspondent and cookbook collector Janet Keeler offers gift ideas for cookbooks that can be enjoyed all year long. Then, from Walt Disney World to Sea World Orlando to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Florida’s biggest tourist attractions are rolling out hundreds of menu items that are meat-, egg- and dairy-free. We...

You know how people are always complaining about how "buggy" it is in Florida? Well, if you can't beat them...eat them! We're stretching our palate to include some edible insects. Plus, we're taking another look at this country's first Thanksgiving. Historians say there's a good argument to be made that it happened here in Florida!   Support for The Zest Podcast comes from Seitenbacher Brand Natur...

We had a great turnout for last weekend’s event at Sweetwater Organic Community Farm! We appreciate everyone who joined us to sample local honey, taste mead and participate in a live taping of The Zest podcast. To cap off our series on honey bees, Robin Sussingham interviewed apiary inspector Becky Dineen and urban beekeeper Josh Harris in front of a live audience.   Support for The Zest Podcast c...