"florida" news and stories

A new table-top computer device installed at several Central Florida Applebee's franchises this fall allows customers to summon their servers at the touch of a button.

"It puts the guest in constant contact with the server," James Whyte, general manager of an Orange City Applebee's, tells the Orlando Sentinel.

The system, designed by ESP Digital Media, based in Charlotte, N.C., was first installed two years ago in Tampa Applebee's franchises owned by Casual Restaurant Concepts, Inc. It is being piloted in other markets, the paper said.

Casual Restaurant Concepts, based in Tampa, owns Applebee's franchises across Central Florida. The company didn't respond to Slashfood's request for comment.

As 2009 comes to close, so do this year's food festivals. Here is a selection the end-of-the-year picks, a couple of which involve the warm caress of alcohol, as often required to survive Jack Frost's lengthy stay.

Annual Holiday Ale Festival, Portland, Ore., Dec. 2-6: This sudsy soiree bills itself as the premiere winter-beer tasting event. With more than 50 craft quaffers, such as Bear Republic Brewing Company Barrel-Aged Old Baba Yaga, Hopworks Urban Brewery Kronan the Barbarian and Alameda Brewhouse Papa Noel's Special Reserve, we're inclined to believe it. On Dec. 6, don't forget to attend the sixth annual Beer and Brunch Event. Among the menu items will be Belgian-style favorite La Fin du Monde and cheeses galore from the Willamette Valley Cheese Co.

Indio International Tamale Festival, Indio, Calif., Dec. 5-6: This celebration of a quintessential Mexican food, started in 1992, will offer customary festival attractions, carnival rides and a parade. But what's not to love about a plethora of Mariachi bands and a tamale-eating contest?

What's a fair without food? Residents of Broward County, Fla., are about to find out.

As the Broward County Fair doesn't have a fairgrounds of its own, it found itself homeless this year after its previous host, the Fort Lauderdale Stadium, closed for renovations. Scrambling for a solution, the fair relocated to a shopping mall.

"We'd rather have something than nothing at all," said the volunteer who answered the fair office's phone.

The Pompano Citi Centre has plenty of space for competitions and exhibits -- the spelling bee is scheduled for a room over LensCrafters, and student gardeners will display their plants at Lowe's -- but there's no room for rides or food vendors. According to the volunteer, who identified herself as Denise, the only food at the fair will be the canned beans, pound cakes and other edibles submitted for judging.

Cupcake on the loading dock. Photo: Janis Bucher

There's a new World's Largest Cupcake.

On Saturday, the Guinness Book of World Records certified a 1,316-pound sweet made by Passion for Sweet in Boca Raton, Fla. The giant cupcake was sponsored by Big Top Cupcakes -- a company that makes giant cupcake molds for home baking -- as part of the Think Pink Rocks breast cancer fundraiser.

Of course, this cupcake knocked off a previous title holder. Check out that photo after the jump.

Photo: Justusthane, Flickr.

Florida's honeymakers, already adept at catching flies, have lately been buttonholing politicians, successfully pressing for new legislation that experts say should save the state's honey industry.

The Florida legislature this month approved a bill prohibiting the production and sale of adulterated honey -- a racy-sounding term that encompasses the honey-fructose blends and chemically treated honeys that have flooded the market over the past decade. While Florida is the first state to issue an official honey standard, Nancy Gentry, who chairs the Florida Honey Bee Technical Council, says as many as 28 states are contemplating similar legislation.

"We're already seeing significant changes," Gentry reports. "We're going to take blended honey products off the shelf in Florida."

The American honey industry was decimated in the 1980s by the Varroa mite, which took down more than 20 percent of hives nationwide.