​A blandly artsy loft-style apartment, perhaps in New York. Bicycle in the corner, posters on the wall. Perhaps a half-dozen young people sitting on couches, talking and laughing and eating what we shall soon discover are Hot Pocket Snackers. Some of the young people look conservative. Some look like hipsters. One looks like a black guy. This is young America.

Male announcer: "New Hot Pocket Snackers! Real restaurant-styled flavors like loaded potato skins!"

Suddenly there appears in the middle of the living room a waitress. She is not a generic waitress. From her dress -- slacks, apron, white shirt, and a vest festooned with dozens of buttons and other detritus of the kind referred to in Office Space as "flair" -- we may divine that she works for TGI Friday's or its clones, Ruby Tuesday and Applebee's. She is approximately 30 years old. She is gaunt. She wears short, tragically styled red hair, pale skin, and a terrible, guileless grin.

Waitress, in a high and unhip voice: "Hey, funky party people! Are we having fun?"

The young people are both frightened and full of contempt.More >>

Photo: Misha Grosvenor

​When I think back on my golden years in college, I remember all of the good times that I had with strangers friends. Days spent camping out for seats at basketball games, grossly misusing credit cards, and repeatedly surviving untreated alcohol poisoning are all fond memories. I was cool back then, really cool... OK, not that cool. I wore vintage clothes, listened to obscure bands, and, of course, I was vegetarian.

I ate free vegetarian lunch provided by the Hare Krishnas. I inhaled carbs like it was my job and tortured my family every holiday season. Life, like my ghee-saturated lunch, was good.

Over time, my new vegetarian diet turned me into a doughy, malnourished mess; mainly
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​One of my roommates is a highly driven young entrepreneur raised in Asia by American parents, and he is an enthusiastic consumer of all ingestibles, be they solid, liquid, or smoke. Like me, his favorite foods are uni and foie gras. Like me, he loves excellent craft beer, appreciates delicately carved usuzukuri, and values freshness of ingredients. He's a goddamned snob, frankly. Yet perhaps once a month, an evil gleam appears in his eye, and he says, "Brandon, you deserve a break today."

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Bright green valley.

​Two summers ago I accompanied my friend James "The Amazing" Randi on a speaking tour of northern Europe. We visited Scandinavia and the Baltics, and enjoyed a quick southerly jaunt to the Netherlands. Our final engagement was in Reykjavik, Iceland, in the middle of the Atlantic.

Reykjavik is a modest city, a little more populous than Fort Lauderdale. (Iceland is the size of Kentucky with roughly one tenth the population.) Its architecture is lovely but spare -- far sparer than that of any mainland European capitol. Iceland needn't rely on manmade monuments to impress, for the Icelandic landmass itself is more dramatic than anything made by human hands, and it monumentalizes concerns far grander and less temporal than our own. On the drive from the Keflavik airport to Reykjavik, you encounter a shallow but endlessly long ravine which is actually the point of departure for the Mid-Atlantic and Eurasian tectonic plates, which move apart at a rate of about a meter per year, pulling with them the two halves of the ocean as well as the continents of Europe and North America. Nearby, you find vast fields of rough volcanic rock, covered in low sulfuric mists ejected from boiling pools just below (and occasionally atop) the soil. Elsewhere, you drive over a ridge and come face-to-face with a bright green valley that seems all out of proportion to the ordinary rules of human sight-lines. Your eyes follow distant rivers for what seem like ten, twenty miles, until the rivers open up into far-distant marshlands and shallows. Never has your eye captured so much territory at a glance, and the astounding quantity of earth arrayed before you is made harder to contextualize because of the near total absence of trees, which would otherwise be a handy indicator of size. The soil of Iceland is too new to facilitate much vegetation, beyond the occasional shrub and the ubiquitous coating of pillowy moss.

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​The Onion has penned many parodies of this state, including Florida Legalizes Taking Guns to Work; Florida State University to Phase Out Academic Operations by 2010; and 'Ravaged' Named Florida's Official State Adjective.

Though it reads like it, this stat is no parody. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Florida falls behind Texas, Kansas, Washington state, and Colorado in occasional binge drinking, with this state averaging 10 percent to 16 percent of the population. Those other states clock in at 16 to 19 percent.

Of the U.S. population, 16.2 percent binge-drink, though among those who make more than $75,000, it's 20 percent. A binge drinker is defined as one who swills five or more drinks in a short period for men, four or more for women. The average number of drinks tops off at around eight drinks.

The biggest group of binge drinkers falls in the 18- to 34-year-old age range, while those identified as binge drinkers booze more often if they're over 65. Despite that more people binge who make over 75K, those who make less than $25,000 binge drinkers go nuts, drinking more booze more often.

The booziest states in the union? Wisconsin, Maine, Vermont, Montana, Massachusetts: all cold states. And then there's D.C. I keep telling people that D.C. is boozier than Florida, and no one would believe me. Of these states, 19 to 26 percent of the population binge-drinks.

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Tuna rice.

​I've written here before that the one indispensable tool of any moneyless mammal is a rice cooker. I even provided a recipe for low-cost rice cooker deliciousness. But in my months of protracted broke-assness, I've come to realize that my previous comments were facile. The rice cooker is a machine of great subtlety, a source of both joy and sorrow -- and, on occasion, wisdom. You learn a lot eating 90% of your meals from a rice cooker while living on a $20-per-week food budget for the better part of a year.

Here, then, are a few of the Deep Mysteries of rice cookerdom.
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​From LA to Boston, farm to table has taken root. Even the White House is in on it. Shaped by books such as Michael Pollan's Ominvore's Dilemma on "why we consume what we consume" and films like Food Inc., many have embraced the mantra and spend dining dollars at farm to table restaurants over other choices. Even Cleveland's in on it, with restaurants such as The Greenhouse Tavern culling national attention.

Despite the climate -- and the state's role in growing produce for the rest of the country -- here in South Florida, the movement has barely taken hold. Even most farmers markets don't provide local, seasonal produce. 

Here's one reason. In today's blog post on Market 17, a commenter writes: More >>

Marumi's tofu steak: You won't find this east of I-95.

​When my foodie friends arrive for a first visit to SoFla, I deceive them immediately. In my old Taurus wagon, I drive them north on I-95. We pass marinas and canals ("Venice of the Americas," I tell them), cruise onto Andrews Avenue and over the New River ("Have you ever seen a jail on such an awesome slab of real estate?"), and then eastward on Las Olas. Along the beach, up Sunrise, north into Wilton Manors and past all the gay fabulousness, and then we're home. "This is Fort Lauderdale!" I say. They're impressed, or at least consoled that South Florida mightn't be as barbaric as they thought. In their minds, an image forms of their imminent vacation: Strolls down scenic shopping streets, a trip to the Galleria, a burger on Mary's lanai. But we will do none of these things.

Here is the secret known only to longtime Floridians, and especially longtime Floridian foodies: East of I-95 in Broward County has a few bright spots, like Hollywood Beach,
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Photos by Robert Sietsema

This is where the barbecue addiction begins.

​Right around 9 o'clock last night, a cheer was raised in the kitchen. The overworked FedEx folk had finally delivered the barbecue.

It was Texas barbecue, and for one of the ten individuals staying in our home for the holidays  -- Lance, he's called -- this is fable food, memory food. It came in a massive cooler from a legendary Texas meat temple called the Salt Lick. We got 30-some-odd pounds of the stuff. Ribs, brisket, enormous links of sausage, along with the necessary accouterments. Salt Lick hot sauce is somehow creamy, tart, and spicy at the same.

I loathe barbecue, but in the years I've known Lance, I've come to love Salt Lick. All of Salt Lick's meat is astounding. The brisket's especially so, achieving a synthesis of fat and muscle More >>

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"Service is 60% of a diner's experience," a chef said who I'd met at a midweek happy hour. The guy having a couple of beers on his night off is a Brit, a starred Michelin chef who's now working on a boat. Why? "The money is insane," he said.

I tend to agree with him about service. When it's polished, it elevates a casual dining experience from good to great. It bumps the reputation of a terrific restaurant to legendary.

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