Shannon Massie has been working in restaurants since she was 16. She’s been tending bar since she was 18.

Now 23 and the lead bar trainer at Ocean Prime restaurant in Tampa since its opening in 2009, she’s been named Bombay Sapphire & GQ Magazine’s Most Inspired Bartender for the northern and central Florida division.

Massie is flying to Las Vegas this weekend to compete with other top bartenders Sunday through Wednesday at the annual United States Bartenders’ Guild Bartenders Summit.
The contest is part of a promotion for Bombay Sapphire to find bartenders with unique gin-inspired cocktails. To get the trip to Vegas, Massie beat out 25 bartenders Aug. 10 at Timpano Chop House in Tampa.

Her concoction, a Blackphire Martini, features a mixture of fresh blackberries, St. Germain Elderflower and lime. She drops in some dry ice for dramatic effect.

She told me on Thursday that she’s practiced the drink at least 100 times to get it right.

“Women love this drink,” she said. “It’s a drink that even people who don’t care for gin really enjoy.”

Massie’s drink will be featured on Ocean Prime’s Tampa cocktail menu. 

BLACKPHIRE MARTINI

1 1/2 ounces Bombay Sapphire
1 ounces Pine fin
1/2 ounce Blackberry Monin Syrup
3/4 ounce lime juice
1/2 ounce St. Germain Elderflower

Shake and Strain into a cocktail glass with dry ice and two fresh blackberries.

Here’s video of Shannon making the drink:

Building A Blackphire Martini from Jeff Houck on Vimeo.

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From a customer’s vantage point, it might seem that running a doughnut franchise would be unwavering.

You make the doughnuts and coffee. People buy them. You make more tomorrow. Repeat.

Not so, says Dunkin’ Donuts CEO Nigel Travis. It takes more than that to adapt to the changing conditions of the economy, the growth in technology and the shifts in customer behaviors and tastes.

Case in point: The company’s franchise store on Fourth Street North. Two years ago, it broke ground on its first “green” restaurant.

Travis visited on Wednesday from Boston to congratulate franchise owner Robert Aziz for earning a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Business Council. The ceremony was attended by St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster and city councilmen Bill Dudley and Karl Nurse.

The store’s green savvy included switching from Styrofoam to paper coffee cups and composting more than 50,000 pounds of used coffee grounds since opening in 2008. Electricity costs alone have dropped 25 percent to 40 percent due to construction techniques that blended concrete and foam.

Aziz on Wednesday announced a second green Dunkin’ Donuts will open in 2011 at Fourth Street North and 11th Avenue North. The new store is to have solar panels and a wind turbine to power customers’ laptops, cell phones and hybrid cars.

Aziz’s initiative prompted the company to hire a full-time corporate-level director to guide other owners toward more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient practices, Travis said.

“If we are to grow and get more stores, we need franchisees to have a great bottom line. They need to be highly profitable and (operating green stores) is a real contribution to that profitability.”

On the food side, Travis (pictured at right) said the company has done well with tweaks of its menu, including the four flavors of bagel twists introduced recently.

The beverage segment also continues to grow. A playful experiment by franchise owners who mixed flavors of their slushy Coolatta produced a “Mixology” promotion this summer that urged customers to mix their own. In Boston, Dunkin’ added a Green Monster Coolatta (a mix of blue raspberry and Tropicana orange flavors) to its summer beverage lineup.

“It really demonstrates the flexibility of our products,” Travis said. “We learn all that from our franchisees.”

Another change: Dunkin’ is employing technology to push growth during the afternoon and evening. The company is urging franchisees to offer free wireless Internet access to lure in mobile business people.

A Fort Lauderdale store recently opened with two conference rooms available for rent, as well as computers, printers and Wii game stations. The rationale is that if the company can tap into customer behavior patterns, the sales will follow.

“To get people to migrate from predominantly breakfast to later in the day is something we have to work hard at,” Travis said. “I’m a big believer that technology has a role to play.”

RELATED:

Table Conversations: Nigel Travis (Podcast)

 

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Food trucks are the new cupcake, to borrow a hackneyed phrase.

They’re fun, they’re cool and they’re the darling of food media. One look at the tweets by food trucks in the Los Angeles area will show you the fun that operators are having. 

A friend there e-mailed the other day to say, “I’ve been to the kogi truck, calbi BBQ (both Korean BBQ), Komodo (Asian fusion tacos), and the Grilled Cheese truck (ribs + gruyere = eternal happiness).”

Damn.

Now, the culinary genre gets its own show this Sunday with Food Network’s “The Great Truck Race” hosted by Tyler Florence.

I had a chance to chat with Florence for one of my Table Conversations podcasts the other day.

An exceprt:

Can you talk about the show’s premise?

We start in L.A. and end up in New York. In every city we stop at, it’s a 72-hour marathon to see who can make the most amount of money.

It’s not an elimination competition show where there’s a judge at the end who says I liked this or I didn’t like that and it’s an arbitrary thing. This is about the money and the people in the towns we go to. The people vote with their wallets.

It’s a business show in a sense. It celebrates the entrepreneurial sipirit of all these great chefs who are choosing to go mobile. It’s a lot of fun to watch. there’s really great food. There were rainstorms and snowstorms and sand storms and breakdowns with their trucks and breakdowns with their relationships. People really strive to make the most of a moment and the best of a bad situation. It makes really great television. It’s one of the most interesting shows I’ve ever seen.

Why do you think food trucks are so appealing right now to the public?

It’s the diversity and a lot of their menus are really great. You get people who specialize in the most interesting things, like a Korean taco or amazing ice cream. Or French bistro food. You have people doing great things in these small kitchens in really popular areas like a city center or a town square or a farmer’s market. They’re right there at the right time. To me, that’s location, location, location. Forget having a great business inside four walls that you can’t do anything about. If you have a truck and there’s a farmer’s market on a Tuesday in one community and one on a Saturday in another community, you can be there where the people are.

You can listen to the entire podcast by clicking here.

In 2008, I did a story on roadside food stands, which included everything from a hot dog stand outside a Home Depot to a Tex-Mex trailer and an empanada truck.

Here’s a gallery of photos I shot while reporting that story.

RELATED:

“The Great Food Truck Race” bios (Link)

ILoveFoodTrucks.com (Link)

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Word has come down from Comic Strip Mountain: Artist Cathy Guisewite says she’ll stop drawing “Cathy” in October after 34 years of doing so.

To me, this news prompts one question:

Can we take down this unappetizing sign at Universal’s Islands of Adventure?

I haven’t been able to eat hot fudge for years.

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When you write about food, you sometimes have to bring the mountain to mohammad. So when events like National Pancake Day happen, it is incumbent upon me to bring the party to my desk at work by making pancakes and bacon for co-workers.

Which explains the photo of my colleague Pete above.

Pete is a kind, gentle, soft-spoken man. Very easy to work with. A pleasure to consider a co-worker. Over the years, we have broken bread over conversations about football and NASCAR and offspring.

But you assemble the makings for some indoor s’mores (as I did on Monday on the file cabinets next to my desk) and hidden personality traits begin to emerge from people like Pete. Sometimes it’s an inner child. Sometimes it’s an inner pyro. For Pete, there was a death metal headbanger eager to emerge.

Unlike previous deskside celebrations, there was no newsroom-wide come-and-get-it invitation.

I merely assembled the ingredients and let nature take its course.

The results, I must say, were predictably spectacular.

Instead of a great tidal wave of humanity descending like locusts or sharks or overused metaphors on the foodstuffs, there was a much more casual partaking of the gooey treats.

I tried not to read anything into what each creation looked like. I avoided the temptation of turning s’mores into rorschach tests. But it was inevitable.

Luckily, they indicated no irreversable mental illness.

Other than my own, of course.

 

I felt the need to pimp my s’more, with the help of a few Nutty Bars.

Seeking cover from peer scorn, I solicited help from Mary, our health reporter.

She proved to be a talented s’more pimper.

I mean, you can’t just melt one at a time. Not when big plans are afoot.

One layer became two. Two became three. Before we knew it…

...a Frankens’more had been born.

Hell yes, I took a bite.

Okay, I took two bites.

One bite seemed like a guy who sticks a toe into the water on the day everyone does the Polar Bear Plunge into the Arctic Ocean. Two bites was more of a swan dive.

“That,” I proudly declared, “is the opposite of dignity.”

“Unfortunately,” my colleague Curtis said, “it’s not the opposite of angioplasty.”

For an entire gallery of National S’more Day photos, check out this gallery:

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In June, I wrote about a lecture on Cuban sandwiches I attended at the Tampa Bay History Center. (above)

In the story, I wrote about how food historian Andy Huse walked the attendee through the history of Tampa by talking about the history of the ingredients of the city’s landmark sandwich.

It was a fascinating presentation. It was such a success, there was some talk at the time about the center hosting more food-related events in the future.

Good news: There are several events scheduled in coming weeks and months:

*  On Aug. 21, the center will present La Cocina de la Florida: Foods of 16th Century Conquistadors, a cooking demonstration featuring centuries-old Spanish recipes and cuisine. Historical interpreter Sheila Benjamin, who has been demonstrating 16th century Spanish cooking for almost two decades, will prepare traditional dishes with artist and historian, Elizabeth Neily.

Benjamin uses reproduction kitchen utensils and copper pots to prepare such dishes as like Arroz Con Pollo, Paella, and Fabada Asturiana, a rich stew made with large white beans, pork shoulder, morcilla, chorizo, and saffron prepared in a clay cazuela (casserole).

The presentation is being held presented in conjunction with “Obscured by Time: The Magic of Florida,” featuring the art of Hermann Trappman, currently on exhibit at the History Center through Sept. 26th.

Cost: $20 for history center members, $25 for non-members. To register (813) 228-0097 ext. 0, or visit www.tampabayhistorycenter.org.

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The Columbia Cafe at the history center will present “A Taste of History.” a series of three culinary workshops teaching how to prepare three of the Columbia Restaurant’s signature dishes, along with learning about the origins and stories behind these recipes.

The classes are:

Sept. 8 - The Columbia’s Original “1905” Salad
Sept. 15 - Columbia’s Cuban Sandwich
Sept. 22 - Columbia Sangria & Bread Pudding

Once again, Andy Huse, (above, right) who wrote “The Columbia Restaurant: Celebrating 100 Years of History, Culture and Cuisine,” will begin each program with the history of each dish and how it evolved over time.

Scott Dixon, (above, left), Columbia Cafe’s executive chef, will help participants build their own Cuban Sandwich, mix a “1905” Salad and stir a batch of red sangria.
Classes begin at 6 p.m. on those days at the center’s TECO Hall.

Cost is $35 for center members and $40 for non-members.  Registration for the three-workshop series is $95 for members and $110 for non-members. 

To register, and for more information, call (813) 228-0097 ext. 0.

RELATED:
* Andy Huse talks about the history of the Cuban sandwich. (Table Conversations)
* “Art of the Cuban Sandwich” photo gallery (Flickr).

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Every summer for the past eight years, my family and I have gone to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at their training camp. There’s something about getting that close to their practices that gets us revved up for the season. You felt like you got to see the players be a little more unguarded. We got to see Mike Alstott being a dad. We got to meet safety Jermaine Phillips in his rookie season. We watched Jon Gruden‘s kids play a pickup game of football.

This was the first year we skipped. Why? Because it was just too darn hot.

Training camp in Orlando, back when the Bucs practiced at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex, was hot enough. When the team moved their camp to their Tampa headquarters, the field was enclosed with tents and the training facility. There was no breeze. It was stifling. There was no way we were going during this broiling summer.

Which brings us to tonight, the last practice of training camp.

Tonight at 7, the team will have their annual night practice at Raymond James Stadium. The free event includes a fireworks show and performances by the Bucs cheerleaders. (Gates open at 5:30 p.m.)

If your idea of dinner isn’t a $1 hot dog, (Why can’t they sell them for that during the season? I digress.) here are a few ideas of places you can go for dinner near the stadium before heading to the (relatively) cooler evening practice:

1. Arco Iris Restaurant
3328 W. Columbus Dr., Tampa; (813) 879-1357

Cuba meets China at Arco Iris, (Yes, it makes sense. Chinese settled on the island in the mid-1800s when they migrated to work in the sugarcan fields). Sure, you can get a traditional palomilla steak and Cuban sandwiches…

... but you can also chow down on fried rice and plantains. I’ll take that over tailgate grub anyday.

2. Pupuseria & Cafeteria CentroAmericana
2504 W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Tampa; (813) 874-1248

Central American fare is the feature of this understated restaurant along busy MLK Boulevard. There’s not much parking, but it’s worth the hassle.

If you’ve never had a pupusa, think off it as a sort of Hot Pocket filled with various meats and cheeses. A fresh pupusa is a joy forever.

A plate like this with a sample of several different types is incredibly filling - and very inexpensive.

If pupusas aren’t your thing, try a balleada, a Honduran street food made with a thick wheat tortilla that is folded in half and filled with mashed fried beans, meat and sour cream. Incredibly satisfying.

3. Antojitos Latin Cravings
2302 W Columbus Dr. Tampa; (813) 251-9688

It’s easy to miss Antojitos if you’re driving north on Armenia Avenue. Locals know this as a great spot. The parking lot at lunch invariably is packed with cars.

This cafeteria and bakery specializes in the cuisine of Colombia, including bandeja paisa, arepas, sancocho, tamales and more. They’re open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and portions are huge.

The chorizo (above) is outstanding. The yucas rellenos are mouthwatering delicious. The Empanadas de Cambray (baked empanadas with quava and soft, white cheese) make a great dessert. LOVE this place.



4. Happy Fish Peruvian Fusion Co
4046 North Armenia Avenue, Tampa; (813) 871-6953

Tucked into a corner of a shopping center at the busy corner of Tampa Bay Boulevard and Armenia Avenue, this quaint little seafood restaurant is worth the search.

I mentioned a few weeks to someone I went to eat Peruvian food.

“That’s a real thing?” she said.

You betcha.

As Wikipedia explains:

Peruvian cuisine stems mainly from the combination of Spanish cuisine with traditional native Peruvian ingredients, with later influences from the cuisines of China, Italy, West Africa and Japan, due to the arrival of immigrants from those locations. The three traditional staples of Peruvian cuisine are corn, potatoes and beans. These ingredients have been combined with a number of staples brought by the Spanish, such as rice, wheat and meat (such as beef, pork and chicken). Many traditional foods, such as quinoa, kiwicha, chili peppers and several roots and tubers which had previously been tossed aside for European products, have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent decades with a revival of interest in native Peruvian food crops.

If you can’t be happy after eating a delicious plate of seafood lo mein? You really should just eat bologna sandwiches the rest of your life.

Oh, and one more thing…

Be sure to have an Inca Cola. It’s the golden kola, you know.

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It’s another busy week in the local food world.

One of the fun food activities takes place on Wednesday.

CHARITY DINNER: Shula’s Steak House, 4860 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, hosts Ladies Chalk Talk II, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The event features former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Derrick Brooks and Ian Beckles, (above) and Darek Sharp of WDAE 620 The Sports Animal. They will be coaching the ladies-only guests through the ins and outs of fantasy football. All profits will benefit Derrick Brooks Charities Inc. Cost is $50 per person in advance, $60 at the door. For information, call (813) 639-4125.

Here’s a rundown of some of the other food events for the week:

EASTER SEALS FUNDRAISER: The Florida Aquarium, 701 Channelside Drive, Tampa, will host Vino Java & Jazz from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday. Proceeds benefit Easter Seals Florida. The cost is $75 per person in advance or $95 at the door. For information, call (813) 769-5923.

FOODIES: 2312 Fourth St. N., St. Petersburg; (727) 209-1418

Summer Sauce Symposium, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday; $45

Chocolate Outside the Box, 6:30 p.m. Friday; $60

PUBLIX: Apron’s Cooking School, 7835 Gunn Highway, Tampa; (813) 926-4465

Kids Cook Dinner, 10 a.m. Wednesday; $35

Cooking for Your Health, 6 p.m. Wednesday; $35

Food Heaven, 6:30 p.m. Friday; $55

Sushi 101, 6 p.m. Saturday; $50

ROLLING PIN KITCHEN EMPORIUM: 2080 Badlands Drive, Brandon; (813) 653-2418

Tweens & Teens Summer Cooking Camp (ages 10-16), 1 p.m. Tuesday; $175 (four-day course)

Cake Decorating: Rolled Fondant, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday; $35

Steak Night, 6:30 p.m. Friday; $50

Cookie Decorating: Florida Theme, 11 a.m. Saturday; $40

Salmon Chanted Evening, 6 p.m. Saturday; $55

TASTINGS

ABC FINE WINE & SPIRITS: 2855 66th St., St. Petersburg; (727) 345-6149

Wine Tasting, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday; $10

ABC FINE WINE & SPIRITS: 1845 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Wesley Chapel; (813) 907-2647

Wine Tasting, 6 p.m. Thursday; $10

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In a story I wrote for this upcoming Sunday’s Tampa Tribune (and available now through the magic of technology, impatience and questionable business theory), I cover an upcoming 72-hour shopping bonanza on HSN.

The former Home Shopping Network is partnering with Sony Pictures for the Aug. 13 release of the Julia Roberts movie based on “Eat, Pray, Love; One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. The event, which includes 20 of HSN’s partners and brands, highlights more than 400 items across home decor, travel, beauty, electronics, cooking, accessories and ready-to-wear categories.

Anyway, while doing the story, I got to talk to Ernest Lepore, president of the legendary Ferrara Bakery & Cafe in New York City’s Little Italy. HSN is going to sell individually wrapped mini-cannolis in packages of 48 and shipped in dry ice.

If you haven’t been to Ferrara’s you’re missing a treat. The bakery has existed for 118 years at it’s spot on Grand Street. When I was in New York City eariler this year, I visited the store, then settled for the smaller cafe around the corner because the line was long.

As their Web site explains:

New York in the Gay Nineties had almost everything, except for a place where an opera lover, after a night of Verdi or Puccini, could relax, play a Neapolitan card game called “scopa” and drink a cup or two of espresso.

This situation was remedied when our great grandfather, Enrico Scoppa and my great grand-uncle, Antonio Ferrara, opera impresario and showman, opened a cafe called Caffé A. Ferrara. Caruso thought the coffee marvelous but especially loved the cookies and cakes.

After World War I, my grandfather, Peter Lepore, a nephew of Antonio Ferrara, had stowed away on a ship bound for New York.

At the beginning of the 1929 Depression, Peter married the daughter of Enrico Scoppa. He was to spend the rest of his life at Ferrara’s, transforming a charming neighborhood cafe into a world famous shrine of delicious tastes. Times were tough and in order to make sure there was very little waste, they began to bake two, three and sometimes four times a day, small batches of cookies and cakes. These difficult circumstances were a blessing in disguise. Because of the frequency with which they baked, Ferrara acquired a great reputation for freshness. This reputation and the fact that the Lepore’s were devoted to their business almost as much as to each other, enabled Caffé Ferrara to grow and prosper.

Today, Ferrara is still a family owned business operated by the fifth generation. And that’s perhaps the most wonderful thing about Ferrara’s. Since its beginning in 1892, the spirit has changed very little.

Lepore is the fourth generation of the family that runs Ferrara.

Lepore told me the HSN cannolis are sold differently - the “Holy Cannoili” sold in the store are filled to order - but the minis are still hand-filled and hand-wrapped. The chocolate covered versions are hand-dipped, too, before being frozen for shipment. The same high-grade ricotta with a hint of citrus is used, as are the same chocolate tips.

“They taste as good as they do on Grand Street,” he says.

I asked how many they expected to sell on television during HSN’s event.

“HSN gives us a projection,” Lepore said. “I would like to sell a lot more than HSN says we will. They’re actually a better value than if you walked into Ferrara’s. We love to feed people.”

I asked Lepore if he read “Eat, Pray, Love.”

“I started reading it,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of billboards. It looks like a good chick flick movie. A real fun movie.”

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I collect odd things. Not like a hoarder. At least I don’t think so. Hoarders never think they’re hoarders.

I have a chunk of Berlin Wall concrete. I have bits of tire and lug nuts I scooped from the Daytona 500 infield. I have an oil glop from the Exxon Valdez spill. I guess I’ll need one from the Gulf of Mexico, too.

I also collect photos of celebrities taken as they’re eating and drinking. I know it’s weird. I’m aware. But something about that intrigues me.

When you think of Clark Gable, you don’t picture him eating watermelon on the patio with his wife, Carole Lombard. Or comedian Dave Chappelle eating a plate of ziti. Or Ace Frehley in full Kiss makeup drinking a Coke backstage. But one snapshot can change that.

My favorite photo is of Mike Tyson eating a salad.

There’s Iron Mike, in a red stocking cap with a tribal tattoo on the side of his face, shoving a forkful of salad into his giant mouth.

I watched this guy destroy giant men in the boxing ring with a scary ferocity. I cannot relate to that kind of power.

But a salad? I can totally identify. I love salad. Mike loves salad. It gives me something to hold on to. It makes Mike human for me, which, given his turbulent history, is no easy accomplishment. Mike cares about his fiber intake.

It’s why presidential candidates spend an inordinate amount of time eating food they would never otherwise touch at diners and restaurants. It makes them look normal. It gives them that common touch while pursuing a rather uncommon job.

Which is why the new book “What the Great Ate; A Curious History of Food & Fame” by Mark and Matthew Jacob is such a great read. The book (Three Rivers Press, $14) is a fascinating catalog of dining habits of the rich and famous.

Until I read their book, I didn’t know that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ate lunch in the same hotel restaurant every workday for 20 years. Or that Jackie Gleason would order pot roast with a scoop of ice cream on it at a diner in New Jersey. Or that boxer Joe Louis trained for matches by drinking blood fresh from the slaughterhouse. That one I think I could have lived without knowing.

“We care about famous people, and we care about food, so it seemed like a good combination,” Mark says.

While doing their research, the Jacob brothers discovered:

* Al Pacino doesn’t like to read when he eats. And he gets annoyed watching others do it, too.

* Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant once told his superiors, “I will not move my army without onions.”

* President Grover Cleveland, who didn’t care for the White House chef’s gourmet meals, got so frustrated that he ordered an attendant to grab the dinner the servants were eating and switch it with his.

* Saddam Hussein became so enamored with Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch that he became irate in prison when soldiers brought him another cereal. One morning he screamed, “No Froot Loops!”

* NASA Astronaut John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich in his space suit aboard Gemini 3. And he offered it to fellow astronaut Gus Grissom, who gladly accepted. The caper led to a congressional investigation.

“That was more than just hijinks,” Mark told me. “That anecdote showed NASA as a culture clash between flyboys and techno scientists.”

The lesson the authors learned: “The famous people we’re so in awe of can seem as silly or pedantic as the rest of us.”

Yeah? I’ll let you tell that to Mike Tyson.

You can listen to my Table Conversations podcast with Matthew and Mark Jacob by clicking here.

If you’re curious, here’s my gallery of photos of celebrities getting their eat on:

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