Last Night: The Ritz Carlton’s Wine Room and Scotch Bar

New Times was graciously invited to an evening of pampering and boozing last night courtesy of the Ritz-Cartlon Fort Lauderdale’s (semi) new and much improved wine bar. And it went…. well, how do you think it went? We were pampered. We were boozed. It was an all around lovely evening,…

Return of the Ball Jar: Middle Class Anxiety Files

The Ball jar: Preserving our Illusions.The New York Times reported last week that sales of Ball jars are up 92 percent from the same month last year. That’s because the upper middle class is getting jittery about the economy, and when we get jittery, you know what we do? Just to take myself as an…

Recession Era Chow: Ultimate Vegetarian Chili

I’ll put up my vegetarian chili against any meat-based recipe  — this one is insanely flavor- and color-full, and it’s so spicy it’ll make you weep. It’s ideal post-Thanksgiving eats, since it’s cheap, criminally healthy from all the folic acid, B vitamins and lycopene, and loaded with fiber if you’re…

Single Malts At Two Chefs

Art Basel brings so much cool stuff to Miami each year, but also throngs of people and a whole lot of hype. Tonight, however, far from the madding crowd, Two Chefs in South Miami will be offering a single malt sampling that is eminently reasonable in price: Twenty dollars will…

Upgrading the Ol’ Grill

I’ve used and abuse my poor Weber (Thermos make) grill over the years — slow cooking pork for hours on end, roasting peppers for bold salsas, and grilling hundreds of steaks, chops, and burgers has taken its toll on the big hunk of metal. So when I set out to…

New Brew: Beer Events and the Fresh Beer Times

I was just reading the latest installment of the Fresh Beer Times newsletter, put out bi-monthly by Fort Lauderdale’s own distributor of fine, hopped products Fresh Beer, Inc, and I have to say that it kicks ass. It comes out on the second and fourth Fridays of each month, and…

More Turkey-Shaped Objects to Drool Over

Every so often, Robbin Slocum, wife of our Managing Editor Ed Newton, treats the editorial department to one of her delicious rum cakes. These things are no joke. First off, they’re doused in enough tasty, fermented cane that if you had a post gustatory smoke after eating a slice you’d…

Last Minute Thanksgivings

I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for you schmucks who haven’t given one second’s thought to what you’re doing for MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY — since personally my 2008 Thanksgiving has been in planning and development since last May. I’ve ordered (and received) my absurdly expensive Heritage turkey, I’ve…

2008 Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrive!

Lee Klein I had to take precious time from my Thursday afternoon in order to make it first-hand-official for loyal readers of Short Order (and I mean both of you): The 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived. First I had to mill about, just outside the gates of Casa Casuarina (on…

Eight Essential Pantry Items for the Home Cook

Herdy gerdy flurdy… oh sorry, wrong chef. So you cook at home quite a bit: you’re always making fresh pies for when your family comes to dinner, crafting soups out of odds and ends you found in your vegetable crisper, and entertaining friends with your artful grilling techniques. But if…

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Happy Halloween! And what are you supposed to be? You may have noticed this week has been heavy on the booze. Well, I thought I’d keep that theme going with a post on one of my favorite drinks, the Charlie Brown. It’s basically a Black and Tan, only instead of…

The Great Voodoo Tiki Tequila Taste Test

Two frosty bottles of Voodoo Tiki. Drink up. We have a tradition around the New Times offices called Beer Fridays, where we basically reserve the last two hours of a workweek to drink in excess. It’s a good tradition, as you might imagine, and it was upheld this past Friday…

A lot of beer and nobody to drink it: Bayfront Oktoberfest

Ah, Oktoberfest: beer, greasy food, and brawny men in tight overalls dancing the higglety pigglety. We had a few local fest options this weekend, but we went with beer company Hoffbrau’s Bayfront Park shindig because its website has tinny accordion music and many typos, thereby convincing us of its authenticity…

Booze Hound – BYOBooze

I know it’s been awhile since you BYOBed -– like in high school, back when you used to sneak-sip Special Brews on some public beach on Key Biscayne while discussing the ever-important topic of whether to get a belly-ring, a fairy tattooed on your lower back, or just blow all…

Friday Wine Flights at Josef’s

We have more reason than ever to get our drunk on this weekend, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it with a little class. Josef’s in Plantation, New Times’ favorite Austro-Italian restaurant, debuts its Friday night wine flights this evening, with tastings of Austrian, Spanish, and Italian wines and…

Grateful Garden Grand Opening Party

The hippest little wine bar in this wicked little town. The Grateful Garden has been flitting around like a psychedelic butterfly for the last couple of years in search of a permanent home. Gayle Coursol and friends have been trying to get this market/cafe/meeting place/music venue/spiritual retreat a place large…

Good Things in Personalized Packages: Mason Jar Pies

Single serving pies, ready to go. And check out the nifty pie caddy! Recently I remembered how much I love pie. It happened at a tasting for Purple Pie Company, the cutest little independent pie company ever to come out of Miami. Alex Van Clief, the PPC’s Chief Officer of…

No More Martinis!

The simple art of boozing at The Field. God, we’re sick of martinis. September was a martini month. Maybe it was an instinctive reaction to the credit crisis; maybe some eternally blotto neuron in our brains forced us to drain our checking accounts while the draining was good, and re-invest…

Fort Lauderdale Food and Wine Events Tonight

Wine Warehouse Thursday Night Wine Tasting From 6:00 – 8:00PM Free Wine Warehouse of Fort Lauderdale invites you to a free wine tasting tonight to sample six new wines: * Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, 2007 (a bottle retail for $14.99, on sale at the Warehouse for $11.99)…

Bushmills Rocks

At Miami New Times HQ, the newspaper’s editorial staff convened in a conference room to conduct some serious investigative journalism. For 400 years, the region of Bushmills in Ireland has been distilling Irish whiskey for the masses to enjoy. So to celebrate King James 1608 decree granting the company a…