We got to our dentist and the normal teeth cleaning session. The sweet and amusing, Cuban lady that attends to us asked me right after she finished if I wanted a ‘Cuban coffee’…. I said, “Sure. A cortadito por favore”. She tipped back and laughed heartily. She is like that….
A Word on Food™ Radio Show
A Word On Food™ is a radio program I began at the former classical radio station WTMI in Miami and then took over to WLRN for many years. They are my way of sharing both a word on food but also some history, cooking, memories, locale and a way I look at and celebrate the world around us.
Category: A Word on Food™ Radio Show
A Word On Food: Gas Station Grub
The intoxicating smell of fried chicken could be detected from the moment our car tires ran over that hose that rings a bell when you pull in to a gas station just about anywhere. Once fueled I walked into pay … but by that time I’d been seduced and needed…
A Word On Food: Burnt Ends
We got out of the car and paid the meter. A blues guitar in the form and sweaty passion of Tab Benoit seethed out of the porch speakers of the Taurus Beer and Whiskey House. The song was ‘Cherry Tree Blues’. The lyrics are … memorable. If music were weather…
A Word On Food: The Story of Otto
About a year before my great friend and chosen brother Charlie Trotter passed on he began saving me his weekend collection of the New York Times Book Reviews. Charlie loved books … and he knew I did as well. It was one of the most common topics of our shared…
A Word On Food: Nana’s Hands
I came home from the store. I had bought a chicken that had been cooked on a rotisserie and was still nearly molten hot. I put away our other groceries and automatically set up a little area by the kitchen sink, which looks out over our yard. I wanted to…
A Word On Food; P.B. & J’s
True confession. When I was going to grade school in Diamond Lake, Illinois, I ate a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich every, single, day in our school lunchroom. By 7th grade it had become more of an act of completion. Some kids wanted perfect attendance. My goal was a perfect…
A Word On Food: Chicharrones
We had attended a one man performance by actor comedian John Leguizamo at the Adrienne Arscht Theater titled, “Latin History for Morons”. It was excellent and even though certain nuances of some of the dialog that was both in classic and slang Español. I can handle a lot of ‘kitchen…
A Word On Food: Moonshine
The stories of moonshine and moonshiners have a mystical appeal to many. The practice seems entwined with dark magic. One episode in the history of American Blues music depicts the dangers of moonshine and had to do with the poisoning death of one of the chief architects of that stream…
A Word On Food: Maida Heatter
In 1992 while working at the Betsy Ross Hotel, now renamed the “Betsy” to make it less tied to the past and shooting for the future, I had found out that Maida Heatter had quietly been in and had dinner the night before. How I found this out I’ll get…
A Word On Food: Pastrami
First we mourn. We all miss the legendary Miami delis of the past. We need to name them to honor them. Corky’s, Pumpernik’s, Wolfie’s and The Rascal House. I’m sure my New York City born and raised mother took me and my sisters into a few if not all of…
A Word On Food: Pit Beef & BBQ
Some chefs start their careers in humble places and then work their way up the ladder to more and more fancy and complex places. And for some that is the goal. But some of them get up on that perch and say something that rhymes with “Tuck It”! And they…
A Word On Food: Anthony Bourdain
My introduction to the world of Anthony Bourdain began with the sound of hearing my mother laughing while reading a book in her favored chair. Not a minute passed before she was laughing again. I was getting ready for work and between trips to my coffee cup, I stopped and…
A Word On Food: The Mother Sauces
Growing up I didn’t have anything one might refer to as received scripture. Our church tried. And I tried with them. I did my Methodist best but it just didn’t stick with me. And though I had hero’s … in sports, there was Muhammad Ali … who we first knew…
A Word on Food: Food Festivals
With Summer here I’ve been noticing some of the various Food Festivals coming up.Sadly we just missed the Eau Claire, Michigan July 4th weekend Intercontinental Cherry Pit Spitting Championship. This popped up … sorry … in 1974 for the first time. Who knew something like that could be so ……
A Word On Food: Julia Child
I didn’t grow up watching Julia Child on television the way many people of my generation did. My television hours were not inclined toward any aspects of cooking, though we did cook in our home. My mother was a both a restaurant worker and also (for a time) a Girl…
A Word On Food: Po Boys
Crazy long days of work and not assured of getting a meal later I went for a bigger sandwich for lunch… much different than the meals I typically split with my wife, Janet. Two men sat down right next to us at the neighborhood place we were ensconced in. A…