Broward Palm Beach Food Blog

We heart Bakula.

​Charles in charge, of our days, and our...

...Cheap wine, this time a Cab from Beringer.
...Steak and egg burgers, as in how to make them.
...Prime, aged steaks and the acquisition thereof.
...Cheese-steak-laden hearts and which sandwich we hold dearest.
...Local chefs, in this case Mark Militello, who moves to the Office in Delray.
...Breakfast spots near the beach where we bring our beaus.
...Baklava and goat cheese cheesecake from Satoro in Hollywood.
...Booze-soaked brains and the pink elephants floating around them, courtesy of Delirium Nocturnum.
...Triple-bypass surgery soon to come -- thanks, Checkers!
...Corn fritters from Park Avenue BBQ, those donut-like confections we hold so dear.
...Basted chicken wings, for which we also thank Grandma Muddy.

via Brown Eyed Baker

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Although Clean Plate Charlie is the only blog you need to read on a daily basis, some people just can't get enough. Here are some highlights of other food blogs.

Culinerapy is currently following the joys and trials of a pregnant blogger's journey through nine months of feeding two foodies at the same exact time. Good way to start: Pumpkin Whoopie Pies With Cream Cheese Filling.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and you know there needs to be a pumpkin pie on the table. Better start practicing, and the Cookbook Chronicles has an award-winning recipe that's certain to taste better than that stuff out of the can.

Seeing that my sister's baby shower is coming up in just a few days, this posting from Brown Eyed Baker caught my eye. These Baby Onesie Cookies are adorable and should be at said baby shower.

Burnt Lumpia is a rare food blog that's actually consistently funny. Check out this post on how to torture an eggplant to see what the site is all about.

Cake Spy specializes in the sweeter side of eats. Normally, it's full of recipes for cakes, pies, and cookies, but this interview with a food photographer is very enlightening. Just make sure you check out the rest of the site after you've finished reading the interview.

​We've all got a lot to be thankful for: The recession is over (supposedly), the world is still spinning, and Glenn Beck's communist appendix finally escaped its dank cell. Hollywood eatery Lola's on Harrison has a pretty good list too: Michael Wagner and company are going into their third season in H-town with a bunch of renovations under their belt, and the place seems to be as popular as ever. To celebrate, Lola's is throwing Lolapalooza, a night-long thanks-giving to its loyal supporters. Starting at 8 p.m. November 20 (7 p.m. for VIP guests), Lola's will offer a spread of all-you-can-scarf comestibles along with live music, spirits, and a live cooking demo from Wagner. You'll get to taste the food that's made Lola's such a hit and mingle with the staff that puts it together. Perry Farrell, eat your heart out. Tickets cost $30 at the door ($25 if you preregister online); bring a canned good for the Thanksgiving food drive and you'll get entered into a raffle as well.

Photo by Flickr user sokolokophoto

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I hate chain restaurants, and they seem to be multiplying. Every time I turn around, there's another squatting smugly across the parking lot from Best Buy or snuggled into the corner of a mall, waiting for trans-fat-hungry customers to order some sort of deep-fried, oversauced platter of bulk-purchased protein, served up by a toothy waitron wearing a metric ton of flair.

Despite the best efforts of these culinary chop shops, there's one decent dish many of them do right, despite an onslaught of clumsy sauces, poor spice combinations, and abusive deep fryers. I'm talking about

Now what to top them with...

​My favorite thing at Park Avenue BBQ and Grill is not barbecue at all -- it's the sweet, deep fried corn fritters ordered a la carte from the menu. Unlike hush puppies or typical corn fritters, Park Avenue's version are cakey and moist and totally absent of rough, corn meal texture.

They're served with three condiments to play with; mixing and matching each different one can lead to dramatic results. Adding honey from a squeeze bottle recalls both carnival food and something vaguely Asian. The combo of powdered sugar and maple syrup suggests French toast. Cut the maple syrup from that equation and you get something shockingly close to a beignet - the dough warm and light; the sugar turning sticky as it clings to the pastry's greasy exterior. At $3.49 for an order of six, Park Avenue's corn fritters are one of the tastiest confections around, dollar for dollar.

Photo credit: Anne Fishbein

Mr. Gold blends in among the native dim sum.

​The latest issue of The New Yorker appeared this week with a profile of Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic for our sister paper, LA Weekly.The piece called "The Scavenger" by Dana Goodyear follows Gold down a path paved with odd edibles and organ meats, L.A.'s divey-est taco stands and bizarre, regional Thai food. It sets him up as the herald and king of the Angeleno food scene, and divulges on what it's like to be the sort of man who eats at five hundred restaurants a year.

You have to be a New Yorker subscriber to read the whole thing. Non-subscribers can check out Goodyear's blog, who links to some choice pieces from Gold's canon. In it, she mentions Gold chowing down on hallucinagenic meat.

Sounds awesome.

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It's a classic example of the bait and switch. During one of my recent late night television binges, I found myself drawn to a commercial that seemed to repeat during every break. It was for some kind of cheesy, bacony, Texas toasty burger at Checkers. Despite seeing the commercial at least a dozen times, I couldn't remember exactly what it was called, only that it looked delicious and I could get two of them for four dollars. Never one to pass on a deal that involves liquid cheese smothering bacon, I made it a point to visit my local Checkers for lunch.

Unfortunately, the Checkers on Federal in Dania Beach did not have the sandwich I'd seen advertised quite yet. They told me they recently started carrying wings, which I took mental note of, but the commercial burger was still just a pipe dream as far as I was concerned. They did, however, have something similar in the Bacon Melt: two beef patties, smothered in cheese sauce, onions, pickles, and bacon then stuffed between two slices of Texas Toast. That'll work.

John Linn

Pink elephants dance in your brain.

​Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it's all about the love of the brew. If you have a beer you'd like featured in Beer of the Week, let us know via a comment.

If you want to see pink elephants, go Belgian.

Not only does the iconic pink elephant adorn the bottles of both Delirium Tremens (the world's best beer in 1998 according to the World Beer Championships in Chicago) and its sister beer Delirium Nocturnum, but you'll be seeing hypercolor pachyderms floating around your skull after a few pulls from the bottle.

Not that we're advocating drinking Delirium straight from the bottle -- that would be a crime. No, this triple fermented Belgian ale needs room to breath, preferably in something bulbous and wide-lipped. (No offense to the Rush Limbaugh fans out there.)

​Wanna know why your gut hits your ankles when you walk? Why your thighs have more ripples than the Gulf of Mexico in a hurricane? Why your ass is big enough to blot out the sun? 

The "Twinkie Casserole" (24 Twinkies topped with caramel, mini marshmallows and brown sugar, topped with caramel icing), perhaps. Or the "Ultimate White Trash Hot Dog" (hot dog infused with cheese, deep fried, wrapped in bacon and fried again) or "El Nino" (ground beef, sauteed onions, sour cream, lettuce, tomato and cheddar cheese wrapped in a large pepperoni pizza). 

These and all your cardiologist's greatest hits can be found at one of the world's most disgusting blogs: thisiswhyyourefat.com.

​This weekend, self-proclaimed "foodies" with a gift for prose will descend on San Francisco for the first ever Foodbuzz.com Blogger Festival. The three-day gathering will culminate with an awards ceremony where Foodbuzz will hand out golden forks to the top food blogs in a number of categories (everything from "Best Photography Blog" to "Blogger you would most like to cook a meal for you"). Foodbuzz says it received over 3,500 food blog nominations -- if anything, that's a ton of calories.

You can keep tabs on Clean Plate Charlie's Foodbuzz.com profile here.