2nd USF Poly campus board member resigns

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Feb 21, 2012 at 06:33 PM

A second USF Polytechnic board member has resigned, reports the Lakeland Ledger.

“Over the last few months I have become increasingly concerned and confused at the role campus board members have when everything is not running smoothly,” said Ron Morrow wrote.

“The position of a board member should be one in which he is given information in such a way as to help solve problems. Unfortunately this is not the case in the USF branch campus system.”

This leaves three members.

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Students set 1,500 goal in letter campaign to fight proposed cuts to USF

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Feb 21, 2012 at 05:52 PM

USF students were treated pretty shabbily by some members of the Senate Budget Committee last week, but they haven’t been scared away.

USF Polytechnic students plan to return to Tallahassee on Thursday for the Senate debate on a state budget that includes severe cuts to USF and a plan to shut down Poly.

On the Tampa campus, student government reps are collecting letters from students to deliver to lawmakers.

They already have about 200, and they’ll be out again at the Bull Market on campus from 10 a.m to 3 p.m.

Their goal: at least 1,500.

The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office is piggybacking on the enthusiasm, planning to set up a booth to register students to vote.

The letter-writing effort will conclude on Thursday at 7 p.m. with a Rally to Save USF at the Martin Luther King Plaza.

There may, however, be some resolution to the problem by then. State Sen. Jim Norman has introduced amendments to moderate the proposed cuts and they may be heard on Thursday afternoon.

If they don’t pass, however, the fight goes into the budget negotiation process, where House and Senate members have to resolve their differences.

But Norman will have allies there among House leaders who have already spoken out against the cuts.

Not that all is well. USF’s state support goes down by about 9 percent under the House plan. But that looks good next to the 40 percent USF stands to loose under the Senate plan.

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The Columbia’s Richard Gonzmart Earns Outstanding Restaurateur Beard Nomination [There’s MORE?]

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 21, 2012 at 05:16 PM

In what has to be one of the biggest culinary days in Tampa history, The Columbia Restaurant’s president Richard Gonzmart was nominated today in the Outstanding Restaurateur category for the prestigious James Beard awards.

Also nominated for Beard awards Tuesday were Chad Johnson, executive chef at SideBern’s, and Greg Baker, executive chef and co-owner of The Refinery in Tampa. Both were semifinalists in the Best Chef South regional category.

Gonzmart, a fourth-generation family operator of the 107-year-old Columbia, joins heavy hitters in the category, including Stephen Starr of Philadelphia, and New York City restaurateurs Eric and Bruce Bromberg.

“Some people get it right in a couple years,” Gonzmart joked. “It took us a little longer, I guess. We’ve been practicing a long time.”

Among Gonzmart’s many awards (you can read his extensive biography here), he was named Florida’s “Humanitarian of the Year Award” in 2005 by the National Restaurant Association. Earlier this month the Tampa Metro Civitan Club honored Gonzmart with its Citizen of the Year Award. Gonzmart recently won a bid to renovate Tampa’s historic Water Works Building for use as a restaurant along the Hillsborough River.

“What a tremendous honor,” Gonzmart said of the nomination. “It has been my lifelong commitment to bring back the glory we earned in the ‘40s. “

You can read the entire list of the James Beard award nominees in all the categories here.

Outstanding Restaurateur

Edward Aloise and Claudia Rippee, E&C Restaurant Management Corporation, Manchester, N.H. 

Nick Badovinus, Flavor Hook, Dallas

Ashok Bajaj, Knightsbridge Restaurant Group, Washington, D.C.

Tom Baron and Bill Fuller, Big Burrito restaurant Group, Pittsburgh

Roger Berkowitz, Legal Sea Foods, Boston

Frank Bonanno, Bonanno Concepts, Denver

Bruce Bromberg and Eric Bromberg, Blue Ribbon Restaurants, NYC

Richard D’Amico and Larry D’Amico, D’Amico & Partners, Minneapolis

Jason Dady, Jason Dady Restaurants, San Antonio, Texas

Tom Douglas, Tom Douglas Restaurants, Seattle

Sam Fox, Fox Restaurant Concepts, Scottsdale, Ariz.
 
Richard Gonzmart, Columbia Restaurant, Tampa, Fla.

Mike Klank and Eddie Hernandez, Taqueria Del Sol, Atlanta

Donnie Madia, One Off Hospitality, Chicago

Nick Pihakis, Jim ‘n Nick’s Bar-B-Q, Birmingham, Ala.

Piero Selvaggio, Valentino Restaurant Group, Santa Monica, Calif.

Stephen Starr, Starr Restaurants, Philadelphia

Caroline Styne, Lucques/A.O.C./tavern, Los Angeles

Phil Suarez, Suarez Restaurant Group, NYC

Doug Washington, Mitchell Rosenthal, and Steven Rosenthal, Stock & Bones, San Francisco

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The Refinery’s Greg Baker and SideBern’s Chad Johnson Earn Beard Nominations [Big Hairy Deal]

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 22, 2012 at 11:16 AM

The James Beard nominations are out. Tampa did very well.

Chefs Greg Baker of The Refinery and Chad Johnson of SideBern’s both earned nominations in the semifinals for Best Chef in the South. (Beard breaks the chef competition into several regions.)

This is the second nomination for The Refinery, but the first for Baker in the chef category. (The Refinery was a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in the U.S. in 2011.) This is Johnson’s first Beard nomination.

Originally from Louisville, Ky., Johnson started at SideBern’s about 8 years ago as a cook and worked his way up through the ranks. He became executive chef about four years ago.

Johnson said he was as excited for his restaurant staff as he was for himself.

“My staff is full of young cooks who are ambitious and hungry,” he says. “This is as much a feather in their cap as anything.”

“Two chefs nominated from little ‘ol Tampa,” Johnson said this morning. “How about that?”

Baker said today that business jumped 60 percent in one day after The Refinery earned the Best New Restaurant nomination last year. That wave of customers lasted six weeks before it tapered to a more manageable flow. He wasn’t sure what this nomination would do.

“Today, I’m calling in the nuclear option with all of my vendors and suppliers,” he joked. “I’m telling them, ‘You better work with me as best you can.”

Baker said he was stunned by the news and credited the team he and wife Michelle created since opening in 2010. Michelle Baker runs the front-of-house operations and manages the business aspects.

“Michelle is the unsung hero in this whole thing,” he said.

“This personally is huge,” he says. “Ever since we opened the restaurant, I’ve been alienating friends and family and worked myself to the bone. This is validating all of that.”

The entire list for each category can be found here.

Here’s the competition for Baker and Johnson:

Best Chef South

Greg Baker, The Refinery, Tampa Fla.

Vishwesh Bhatt, Snackbar, Oxford, Miss.

Clay Conley, Buccan, Palm Beach, Fla.

Paula DaSilva, 1500º at Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach, Miami Beach, Fla

Justin Devillier, La Petite Grocery, New Orleans

Justin Girouard, The French Press, Lafayette, La.

John Harris, Lilette, New Orleans

Chris Hastings, Hot and Hot Fish Club, Birmingham, Ala.

Scott Hunnel, Victoria & Albert’s at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort & Spa, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Chad Johnson, SideBern’s, Tampa, FL

James Lewis, Bettola, Birmingham, Ala.

Jeff McIcinnis, Yardbird Southern Table & Bar, Miami Beach, Fla.

Tory McPhail, Commander’s Palace, New Orleans

Sergio Navarro, Pubbelly, Miami Beach, Fla.

James and Julie Petrakis, The Ravenous Pig, Winter Park, Fla.

Lee Richardson, Ashley’s at the Capital Hotel, Little Rock, Ark.

Jeanie Roland, The Perfect Caper, Punta Gorda, Fla.

Henry Salgado, Spanish River Grill, New Smyrna Beach, Fla.

Alon Shaya, Domenica, New Orleans

Wesley True, True, Mobile, Ala.

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Sneaky Macaroni, Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies, Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf [This Week’s Weekend Eats]

Posted Feb 20, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 20, 2012 at 04:09 PM

Every week we do Weekend Eats and ask readers to share the best they had to eat and drink over the weekend, it gets increasingly harder to pick a winner.

Consider this week’s conundrum.

Do you go for the Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie? Or the meatloaf swaddled in porkalicious bacon? How exactly do you break the news to someone who ate paella, Chorizo cazuela, chickpea & spinach with Moorish spices that, gee, you know, it just wasn’t the tip-top.

Because that would be a lie.

if I could give awards to the lot of them, I would. PRIZES FOR EVERYONE!

But I can’t.

So this week, I made the Sophie’s choice of giving this week’s top honor to Samantha Ferraro, who writes the blog Little Ferraro Kitchen, and can be found on Twitter at @FerraroKitchen, took the top prize this week with her Spicy Thai Coconut Soup with Shrimp.

Look at that bowl, would you? My goodness. I need a bib to catch the drool.

She writes about the soup on her blog:

I have been cooking out of my comfort zone the last few weeks; making spicy and flavorful authentic Asian soups and buying ingredients that don’t have one single word of English. It’s great.
I spotted this masterpiece in the most recent edition of Cooking Light and knew I had to jump in. We all order that spicy coconut soup at the local Thai place all the time…but making it at home…let’s do it!

Spicy and bright are the first two sensations that spark those tongue senses. Al-dente bites from the mushroom and red pepper stud through out the soup giving it delicious texture. A good squeeze of lime and sprinkles of fresh cilantro cut through the creaminess of the silky coconut milk. A gorgeous combination of Asian pairings that will rock your taste buds.

Her prize for that spectacular serving of soup?

“Seoultown Kitchen; Korean Pub Grub to Share with Family and Friends,” by Debbie Lee.

Other contributions this week included:

@divathatateny - Silky, slippery, sensuous rice noodles swimming in a pool of ground pork, chili, sichuan peppercorns, cilantro & roast peanuts. Yes, I did take a cold shower after I ate them…

@otmdish - Baby squid w chile-spiked heirloom tom sauce. broccoli rabe. Munched on Halfpops - My latest crush.

@SRowl - Spicy Thai peanut chicken

@terrysimpson - Slow-smoked ribs, grilled corn on the cob. Grilled asparagus.

Like I said. Tough to choose.

Want to see how tough? Check out this week’s Gallery of Noms. (Click on each photo to read a description):

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