food

My grandmother made scones. Her maiden name was Janie Quinn so she came by that knowledge like her Scottish cousins did. Birthright!In Scotland scones are not somethingjust to go with tea. They are a national institution. When my grandmother, "Nana" mad e them she was serious to the point of severe. I picked up on it ... and she caused me to love them like I learned to love standing up in our grade school classroom reciting the 'Pledge of Allegiance'.

"Sherman, my boy," as Mr. Peabody from the old "Rocky and Bullwinkle" TV show might have intoned, "Please set the' Way Back Machine ' to the summer of 1973". We're going to a little restaurant on Duval Street in Key West called Cafe Expresso.

‘A Word on Food’ is done with words of course. Where would I be without them? Our blonde-haired, blue-eyed granddaughter Audrey is not yet two yet she is teaching me to try more communication...

You don’t eat caviar because you’re hungry. But the portion set before us at a dinner the other night was certainly capable of staving off a serious quantity of pang.

We all eye’d the curvaceous morsels of edible hedonism. They were caviar-stuffed, chive-tied crêpes perched upon the base of empty, over-turned, long stemmed Riedel wine glasses. This caviar presentation was done in the style of the legendary “beggars purses” as created by Chef Barry Wine the once-upon-a-gilded-time owner of the ‘Quilted Giraffe’ restaurant of New York City.

Inevitably I have a conversation with nearly every chef that comes to work with me as well as the students who attend my cooking classes. It has to do with a cooking term “caramelization”.

I always struggle to explain how enthusiastic beer geeks are about the beers they love. Yes, it's like being passionate about any other hobby: Craft beer is a community in which beer-obsessed people, myself included, get excited to befriend others who share their favorite breweries.

But the devotion of craft-beer fans still always surprises me.

At the first anniversary of the Funky Buddha Brewery last Saturday, I spotted a handful of familiar faces, Scott Rain among them. He's one of the usual suspects at these craft-beer events. Usually, he's with his friend Jeff Davis.

05/30/14 - Friday on South Florida Arts Beat, Chef Allen Susser talks about Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation and their “No Kid Hungry” mission. Choreographer Rosie Herrera speaks with contributor, Judith Bishop, about  Ballet Hispanico’s world premiere coming to the Arsht Center. Contributor, Chris DeAngelis, previews the 13th Annual Hukilau coming to Fort Lauderdale in mid-June. Chef Norman Van Aken stirs up A Word On Food and our Florida Keys calendar features Andy Newman.

Miami's beer makers have officially unionized. Sort of. The owners of two Miami-Dade County breweries rallied their brewer colleagues to form the Miami Brewers Alliance, a sort of advocacy and education group for local craft-beer businesses.

You and Me Darlin’. Like Ham and Eggs. Like Cream and Sugar. You know what I mean Love?

Like Bogey and Bacall some things are meant to be unified a Oneness out of Two. It is the way of the world. When I think of the great food marriages I swirl in a dance of dualities. Salt and Pepper. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Chocolate and Vanilla. What causes some things to match so perfectly that we rarely think of them alone? That their still stunning singularity is magnified by more than a power of two when twined?

There was a time when rum was rotgut. Blackbeard the pirate liked to mix his cane alcohol with gunpowder and light it. Rum and croak.

Fast forward a few centuries to rum respectability – specifically, to Rob Burr’s patio deck in Coral Gables.

From the waterfall pond to the tiki bar, it sets a mood not for swilling rum but for tasting it. Not the way spring-breakers chug Captain Morgan but the way cognac drinkers sip Napoleon. Not with Coke (or gunpowder) but neat, in a snifter.

Click through the photos above.

This story originally ran on April 14, 2014.

Shelah Davis is a professional yoga teacher who spends her 9-to-5 at a fitness studio in Florida City. But since the fall of 2013, she's been hauling her mats to microbreweries from Homestead to Oakland Park.

She founded Om Brew Yoga -- so far the only yoga classes offered at South Florida breweries -- after learning of the practice in an established craft-beer state.