The 49th-annual Christmas on Las Olas celebration on November 29 will turn five blocks of Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale into a winter wonderland, complete with ice skating, snow, sledding, and some serious Christmas cookies battling it out.If you didn’t know those innocent gingerbread men could fight, you’ve got…
New River Pizza has moved across the street with a name change to New River Grill and a spruced-up space. The new New River, open for lunch and dinner, reminds me of Jersey pizza joints from growing up, where kids too young for their driver’s licenses would walk to hang…
Thanksgiving dinner is great, but what about all that weighing the turkey and calculating how many hours per pound you have to cook it and then figuring out all of the sides that will complement the bird? Seriously — who can be bothered?If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving in Fort Lauderdale or…
We’re down to the wire, home cooks: the time is now to order your turkey. What’s the rush, you say? If you’re looking for a fresh, organic, free range, well-loved turkey from a good home that’s especially plump, it’s yours provided you’re thinking ahead. We’ve done some comparison shopping to…
Christmas is already upon us. To us at Clean Plate Charlie, that means drinking lots of eggnog, wearing ugly reindeer sweaters, and making frequent stress-filled trips to the mall to buy presents.It’s also the time of year to help people who won’t have a great holiday season. Especially children.Each year,…
Chocolate is the one vice you can do indulge in anywhere. Think about it — when was the last time you brought a nice Pinot Noir to the office or lit up at the PTA meeting? But you can break out a nice piece of 70% cacao.If you love chocolate…
Dos Caminos is celebrating executive chef Ivy Stark’s cookbook Dos Caminos’ Mexican Street Food: 120 Authentic Recipes to Make at Home on Friday, November 18. Stark’s cookbook contains 120 recipes and profiles of real Mexican cooks. Home chefs will enjoy recipes for traditional Mexican dishes like plantain croquettes, chilies stuffed…
Competition barbecue is serious business, with prize money and, perhaps more important, bragging rights at stake. But you wouldn’t guess that from the team names, which often use double entendres as if they’re saucing their meat.Most competitions, such as the Jack Daniels Invitational, involve competing in categories such as pork…
Between her Latin-fused Food Network show Viva Daisy! and book signings, Daisy Martinez is a busy woman.Just two weeks after graduating from the French Culinary Institute, she landed a gig with PBS’ Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen as a prep-kitchen chef.A meeting with Rachael Ray and a cruise ship invitation later and…
Regardless of whether a burger is from a fast food place or a gastropub, they inspire fierce loyalty and love. Indeed, some folks dedicate their lives to the pursuit of the perfect burger. Just ask The Burger Beast, whose third annual Burgie Awards are coming up this Saturday. In the…
Is your family still reeling from memories of Thanksgiving-dinner failures past? Flying solo for Thanksgiving 2011? Or maybe you just hate the idea of having to clean up a table of turkey shrapnel and spilled wine? If spending Thursday, November 24, in the kitchen isn’t in your cards, there are…
This past weekend, we round up some links to help out home cooks with Thanksgiving menu planning and wine selection. Now we’re reminding you of the simple solution: Just add bacon. Behold: some ideas for how to make any dish better — from appetizers to sides to the big bird…
The Grace Jamaican Jerk festival at Markham Park in Sunrise brought what had to be tens of thousands of jerk fans together for an entire day of good eating and soulful music.After navigating a snaking line of cars that seemed to go on forever, the lines to enter the festival…
Forget the drunk fest that the New Times Beerfest used to be, with the longest lines at the light beers that have a faint flavor of something brewed. This year, the crowds seemed to seek out the craft beers, with the longest lines for Brooklyn, Shiner, and Shipyard. And that…
“This is my life,” said Dave Crumbaker of Smitty’s Old Fashioned Butcher Shop in Oakland Park. It’s where he’s worked seven days a week, even when it’s closed on Mondays, for the past 30 years. On a recent afternoon, a handful of people browse among the pork bellies, crown roasts,…
The Simpsons’ episode The Food Wife aired last night, bringing the jaundiced cartoon family into the food blog world.When Marge, Lisa and Bart start their Three Mouthkeeters blog, they immediately turn into food snobs, taking Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, and Gordon Ramsay (to name a few) along for the ride.The…
A few hours after nursing our hangovers, we’re just now venturing out to watch football, grab grease, and maybe go see some music after last night’s bender. Some favorite beers from the fest were the Brooklyn Saison and the Shipyard Blue Fin Stout, a write-in candidate that won me over…
Called the 9-9-9, “Only a drink based on a catchphrase will suffice for a candidate so vaguely unsettling and unsettlingly vague that he appeals primarily to voters otherwise inclined toward the negative space on the ballot,” writes Good’s mixologist/writer Ken Walczak, who named the cocktail after Cain’s taxation plan. “It’s sweet…
Why don’t they just change the name of this show to Humiliation in Bikinis? We admit that we sometimes watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s usually on a rainy hungover Saturday when there’s a marathon of an entire season. We’re not proud of this behavior, but admitting a problem is…
his weekend is a good one to pin down your Thanksgiving cooking plans.Today’s post is geared for hosts and home cooks: what recipe you’ll use for the bird, what sides you’ll feature, whether you’ll bake bread, what wine goes with the meal. Read on for some lifeline links and don’t…
Kate Gosselin, mom to eight children (nine, if you count the big baby she divorced), is rocking some hair extensions and a new gig as a coupon blogger.The reality star alum, who’s Jon and Kate Plus 8 (Kate Plus 8 after the divorce) kept us glued to the edge of…
We’re a day away from New Times Beerfest, tomorrow from 7 to 11 p.m. in Esplanade Park, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the Humane Society of Broward County. Sister Hazel provides tunes and Moe’s Southwest Grill as well as JC Wahoo’s join a slew of local restaurants…
