In Praise Of The Journalism Bar [Drenching Sadness With Beer]

Posted Dec 16, 2011 by Jeff Houck

Updated Dec 16, 2011 at 04:38 PM

It took just 24 hours for the Facebook notice to show up, the one inviting everyone for “Just One More Round. Or Two. … Hell, Maybe Three or Four.”

The replies were swift.

“Are you kidding? Wouldn’t miss it.”

“I’ll be there early!”

“Looking forward to it.”

This is what we do when colleagues leave the newsroom. We drink.

Not crazy, liver-bruising, commode-hugging drinking, although that has happened before with great notoriety. It’s usually just a pint. Or two.

When someone finds a new job, starts a new business, gets fired, married, divorced or laid off, we find our way to the nearest pub and hoist a couple in their honor.

This week was a particularly excruciating one here at the Tribune and TBO.com, with eight score plus five co-workers let go. Which is why the Facebook invitation went out.

It wasn’t really necessary to tell everyone that the gathering would be at Four Green Fields on West Platt Street. It’s the unspoken de facto clubhouse for Trib, TBO.com and WFLA staffers, both current and former.

Why? Because it’s close. Because it’s a perfect hangout.

The Guinness is delicious, the bartenders are tolerant of poor behavior, the shepherd’s pie will fill your belly for a week and the bathrooms are clean as late as 8 p.m. In the spring, we perch on the picnic tables out front. In the summer, we sit under the air-conditioned thatch roof, trade war stories and complain about our co-workers. Until they show up. Then we buy them a beer.

I wish I knew how many times I’ve introduced myself to a stranger at Four Green, only to hear, “Yeah, I used to work at the Tribune, too.” Even when they leave the paper, they never go far and it never leaves them. They always come back to Four Green Fields.

It’s been like this at every newspaper where I’ve worked for the past 22 years.

When I started at the Pensacola News-Journal in 1989, I fell in love with journalism, not in the newsroom but at Trader Jon’s, the skanky Navy bar on the downtown waterfront with the water-stained pool tables. On wobbly bar stools, I sipped and listened to seasoned pros tell secrets they could never print about the people they covered and things they had seen.

At the Anchorage Times in Alaska, we’d gather next door at the Keyboard Lounge, home of Six-Toed Mordechai’s café. (The cook allegedly had an extra appendage). After the paper was put to bed, the sports guys would stumble their way in minus-15-degree wind chill to a closet-size bar a few blocks away named Darwin’s Theory.

Servers at Darwin’s wore T-shirts adorned with a chimp in a Hamlet pose, contemplating a human skull. On the back was the phrase, “A smart monkey never monkeys around with another monkey’s monkey.” It is the truest phrase I’ve ever come across in my career.

In 1992, the paper was bought and closed by the crosstown competition. More than 400 of us were out of work very far away from the Lower 48. Those early days of unemployment were a blur of anxiety and panic, but I do remember that first night started at the Keyboard. I don’t know what I would have done without a place to say goodbye to my friends.

When I made it back to Florida, the El Cid was where everyone from the Palm Beach Post’s main office hung out. The Post was the first good newspaper I joined. Reporters crafted their words. Editors buffed them to a sheen. Photographers routinely shot stunning images. We designed bold pages and took big risks. And on good nights, after we had cleaned the competition’s clock or won a big award, we’d walk 37 paces across Dixie Highway (I counted once) to the Cid and act as if we had won the Lombardi trophy.

I’ve joked about newspaper newsrooms being the Island of Misfit Toys, that we aren’t suitable to do anything but this great job.

That’s a lie, of course. We chew on pressure like Skittles. We chase great stories like a thousand-dollar bill blowing across the ground on a windy day. If you can get tight-lipped people to tell you things, if you can dig out information nobody wants you to know, if you can be creative with the sharp tip of a deadline pointed at you, you can do anything. Except math. That stuff is like kryptonite to a journalist.

Even the worst amateur mathematician can tell you the numbers are not good in any form of journalism today. But we keep doing this because it means a great deal to the people who live around us and, when we do it right, what we publish positively affects the lives of people who have never read a word of the paper.

No job lasts forever. Still, if you do what I do, you hold on as long as you can. You try to be that hair on the shower wall that won’t wash off.

And when that’s not possible, you go find the only people on the planet who know what a grand adventure all of this is and you empty a glass.

Or two. … Hell, maybe three or four.

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Kitchenbar Cooks Flavors For The Holidays [Eating Tampa]

Posted Dec 14, 2011 by Jeff Houck

Updated Dec 14, 2011 at 08:18 AM

Had a chance to dine last night at chef Jeannie Pierola‘s fourth Kitchenbar pop-up restaurant, the “Naughty or Nice” edition for the holidays she put together at Knife & Co. on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa.

Having eaten at her three previous incarnations, I came expecting Pierola’s trademark mixing and mingling of flavors and textures in surprising ways.

I wasn’t disappointed.

A dish that looked like it should have been an elegant version of poutine - a cold-weather French Canadian staple of French fries and cheese curds, covered with gravy - had fried chickpea planks instead of potatoes, an unexpected mint puree, whipped yogurt instead of cheese and an oxtail gravy with slight Indian tandoori highlights.

The Diver scallops with duck fat potatoes, frisee pear salad, truffle jus was a study in soft textures, with the potatoes sliced micro-thin, the pear slices and salad offsetting the truffle flavor and the scallops seared perfectly.

The chicory peanut butter milkshake? It was so addictive, I wondered if it was made with heroin, nicotine, Sofia Vergara‘s accent and large-stakes gambling.

Still, there is a noticeable difference in tone between this Kitchenbar and its predecessors. Other than a “creamsicle” dessert made with liquid cheesecake and candied kumquats, the food on KB’s first menu during this run seems more serious and sober. Part of that may be due to the seasonal flavors Pierola has chosen to use. It’s not the time of year to go wild and play with summer mango or champagne ingredients. Still, there’s plenty of luxury and mirth, like the foie gras shrimp toast on the vichysoisse and the white chocolate emulsion in the Maine lobster risotto.

Bottom line: I dug what I had. A lot. Trying to pick from the a la carte menu (there was no tasting menu Tuesday night) took almost a half-hour - there were that many amazing possibilities. From a front-of-house standpoint, it was a blast to watch from the dining room as Pierola managed the open kitchen from the expo station with help from sous chef Allison Beasman. That she was able to push out that many great dishes from a phone-booth-size kitchen with a staff she barely knew is kind of amazing. Some diners moaned about long wait-times between dishes, but it’s still the first week of operation. By the time the restaurant hits Noche Buena, everything should be firing on all cylinders.

Customers last night gossiped about Pierola moving in permanently at Knife & Co., after Kitchenbar ends its run on New Year’s Eve. I’m more interested in seeing where she takes her menus in the coming weeks before Kitchenbar folds its tent. If the hundreds of reservations it sold in the first hours last week are any indication, so are local diners.

Here’s a gallery of photos I shot last night during dinner:

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Rabbit Pie, Chicken Tikka Masala And Fallen Apple Martinis [This Week’s Weekend Eats]

Posted Dec 12, 2011 by Jeff Houck

Updated Dec 12, 2011 at 03:33 PM

“What do I have to do to win the Weekend Eats prize each week?” no one has asked me.

Well, you have to make me drool with my eyes.

Attractive. I know.

Basically, I look for the photo that makes me want to claw at the screen.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t always whittle away the competition. Because, if you know anything about Weekend Eats, you know what amazing food people make, eat and enjoy sharing.

This week, the competition was stiff. But Nikki Gardner, who goes by the Twitter handle @artandlemons, made a beautiful photo of red pepper and thyme dip. There were many more complex dishes that were pretty, but something about the simplicity of the dish and the composition of the photo (above) hooked me instantly.

For taking such a lovely food shot, Nikki wins this week’s prize:

A copy of “Edible; A celebration of Local Foods,” by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian. It’s a beautiful book that contains and amalgamation of recipes and photos from the regional Edible magazines from around the country.

Other contributors this week included:

@fsutoby - Delicious Chipotle Burger at new restaurant in Lauderhill, FL called Jer-Z Boys.

@Tiff_Griff - My mentor recently passed away. La Taqueria was his favorite from his hippie days in San Francisco. It was nice to stop there

@frijolita - The best thing I ate last week/this weekend? Mini doughnuts at the holiday market and rabbit pie! BAM!

@citizenjaney - Bison (shot as game by a friend) meatloaf with spinach and oven roasted tomatoes. unbelievably fresh.

@karenmcallister - Sushi at Catch 23 in Westchase. Always great.

@abaesel2 - Bacon-smothered green beans, roast potatos, roast chicken, apple/pear crisp. Early Xmas

And here’s this week’s gallery of delectibles:

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Gary And Amy Moran Plan Their Next Move At Wimauma [Life After Knife & Co.]

Posted Dec 12, 2011 by Jeff Houck

Updated Dec 12, 2011 at 08:26 AM

When we last saw chef Gary Moran and wife Amy in early November, they were walking away from the Knife & Co. restaurant they helped open.

The big news wasn’t that they had left, but that they had done so during service just four days after its opening.

Even as they left, they were promising to open another restaurant, possibly on Davis Islands.

During the subsequent weeks, the couple took off for Thanksgiving and scouted new opportunities. Knife & Co. moved on, elevating Allison Beasman to executive chef and letting Kitchenbar use its space for the month of December as a pop-up restaurant.

I heard from Amy over the weekend. They’ve taken the keys to the space on South MacDill formerly occupied by Delizie Bakery.

The new restaurant’s name: Wimauma.

Unlike Knife, which played with rustic southern flavors, their menu this time will emphasize fresh, local, Florida ingredients.

Plans are for a “pre-construction pop-up” opening this weekend.

A pop-up in south Tampa to go up against the Kitchenbar pop-up? Stay tuned for more details.

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Alexander hits universities with big inquiry

Posted Dec 9, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Dec 9, 2011 at 05:04 PM

First it was the governor with his 17 questions for the universities on degree productivity and professor pay.

Now JD Alexander, the Senate Budget Chief, is hitting the universities with his own audit-type inquiry – a month after the state university Board of Governors essentially rejected his proposal to make
USF Polytechnic an independent university.

On Tuesday, Alexander sent 11 detailed questions to State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan.

Alexander wants a “full and separate accounting” of all university revenues, expenditures and fund balances.

He wants detailed degree cost comparisons and job placement data.

He wants details on all university related entertainment and executive travel.

And he wants details on all university donations of $50,000 or more from vendors doing business with the universities.

These last two are interesting because they echo a scathing letter Alexander sent to the Board of Governors last month, after it put USF in charge of USF Polytechnic earning its independence.

USF Polytechnic Chancellor Marshall Goodman, allied with Alexander in the independence push, was harshly criticized by some board members for high spending on the Poly campus

In his scathing letter to the board, Alexander shot back with comments about USF President Judy Genshaft’s travel spending. He highlighted USF having received a $1 million donation from Skanska, the contractor for new construction on the Polytechnic campus.

USF has responded that Skanska gave USF the $1 million after it won the Poly bid and that Skanska has lost on bids since then.

The information Alexander seeks is in preparation for a Jan. 13 Budget Committee meeting, but he gave Brogan and the universities until Dec. 20 to provide part of it and Jan. 2 to provide the rest.

Merry Christmas. 

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