Hot Southern Florida weather pairs well with fresh vegetarian and Asian fare: Malaysian restaurant Parc 28 in Weston offers "boldly spiced fare" in a cuisine that takes inspiration from Malay, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Thai and European influences; "fresh and vibrant" vegan cuisine is offered at Miami's Om Garden; Lauderdale-by-the-Sea offers "light, fragrant, healthful" Vietnamese food at Basilic.
Culinary historian Maricel E. Presilla discusses the honor of cooking a feast for Fiesta Latina at the White House and her attempts to "convey that the allure of Latin food is as irresistible as the rhythms that pulled President Obama out of his chair to dance" that night.
The "Desperation Dinners" feature raves about infused vinegar and its ability to "excite the palate" and elevate otherwise simple dishes.
Once incorrectly reputed to have a correlation with breast cancer, the grapefruit has been expunged -- and is even suggested as the perfect pink fruit for Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Cabernets are the quintessential U.S. wine: "big and brash, supremely self-confident, a little loud, even rude at times."
Calendar highlights include a silent auction for painted pumpkins, $35 prix-fixe meals for Dine Out Lauderdale, Rosa Mexicano's Chocolate festival and a "Top Chef" Talent Hunt.
Not all salads revolve around lettuce and the Avocado, Grapefruit, and Pomegranate Salad from Pepper at Frugal Cuisine is a perfect example of this fact. The salad is very simple - only one grapefruit avocado, pomegranate seeds and a drizzle of extra grapefruit juice - but very elegant. Coincidentally, the red and green colors of the salad and the jewel-like look of the pomegranate seeds make this an incredibly festive dish and ideal for the holidays, especially if you live in California or somewhere it is easy to get avocados year-round.
The creamy avocados balance out the sharp flavor of the grapefruit, while the pomegranate seeds add a much needed crunch. A sweet grapefruit will work best here, so if yours is very bitter, you might want to use half of an orange to round out the flavors of the salad.
This salad would work well served on its own, but could also be used as a sort of relish for fish or chicken if you diced up everything into small pieces.
Fresca is really the forgotten soft drink. Up until a few years ago, I wasn't even aware that they still made it, and I'm sort of a soft drink nut. (Side note: do they still make Tab?) But they do still make it, and they've even updated the logo!
It's always been one of my favorite soft drinks. It has a great grapefruit taste, it's low calorie (but doesn't taste it), and is perfect for those hot summer days and nights. Here's a recipe I found. Sounds good to me:
Sparkling Grape Drink
4 cups grape juice, diluted 2 cups of lemonade, diluted 2 cups of Fresca
Combine grape juice and lemonade. Mix well. Add ice cubes. Just before serving, add Fresca. Not sure why the grape juice and lemonade has to be diluted since you're adding so much ice, so I'd try it both ways and see which way tastes better.
Researchers have recently identified a group of chemicals believed to be responsible for grapefruit's meddling effects on some medications. For a long time, flavonoids were thought to be the culprit, but new research from UNC at Chapel Hill suggests that substances called furanocoumarins may be to blame. Furanocoumarins seem to make certain medications enter the bloodstream faster, which can make dosages unpredictable and cause unwanted side effects. Researchers say that furanocoumarin-free grapefruit juice produced none of these effects in test subjects. Aside from the possibility of marketing such juice, furanocoumarins, once studied further, might be of some use in moderating how fast drugs are absorbed by the body.
Called the Grapefruit Cooler, this drink
has a festive pink color that makes it perfect for the holidays. The recipe comes from Epicurious.com: Pour 1/2
cup of grapefruit juice (fresh juice is far preferable) into a glass with ice, add two tablespoons of Grand
Marnier, a pinch of salt, and then add 1/3 cup of sparkling water. Top with lime or orange wedge. I'd serve with
something salty like cheese and crackers or some kind of flatbread.
I love winter in the United States because of the bountiful selection of citrus
available. From blood oranges to honey tangerines to pomelos, it all inspires my cooking during the winter months. Here
in San Francisco we've been experiencing a cold snap for the last week, but today, even though it was chilly, the sun
was shining and the sky was brilliantly blue. It was the perfect day for a sweet/savory, composed, citrus salad.
Stefania's Citrus Salad
Choose heavy fruit to ensure juiciness.
1 ruby
red grapefruit (and or pomelo) 3 navel oranges 1 Meyer lemon 1 lime 1/4 of a red onion, shaved or
very thinly sliced
Peel all of the fruit. Remove the white pith from the outside, then slice (across
the "equator") into 1/4 inch disks. On a platter, layer the oranges and grapefruit slices and then top
with layers of lemon and lime slices. Scatter onions over the top. Spoon dressing over to taste. Adjust salt and
pepper. Garnish with edible flowers (optional). Serve.
For the dressing:
1/2 a large
shallot very finely minced 4-5 drops of honey 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar (I like Vilux brand) 6
tablespoons best quality extra virgin olive oil sea salt and pepper
It's not that the Vietnamese government has anything against grapefruit per se. Rather the powers that be have banned
the URL www.buoi.com.vn because of a confusion that arises from the Vietnamese language's use of markings
to indicate one of six pronunciation tones, reports the BBC. Without the proper accent marks, buoi reads
the same as the slang for penis. Unfortunately for the grapefruit wholesaler in Ha Tinh province who tried to register
the name there is as yet no way to indicate such diacritical marks in Web site addresses.
Tangelo is the name for a hybrid fruit, made from combining a grapefruit with a tangerine. Just
as there are many varieties of tangerines and grapefruits, there are many different varieties of tangelos, all with
slightly different taste profiles. They originated in Southeast Asia as many as 3500 years ago, but are grown widely wherever other citrus
crops are now. The first intentional crosses in
the United States were done in the 19th century. The most distinguishing feature of the tangelo is its
“neck”, a pronounced bump on the top of the fruit. The neck may look slightly unusual, but it is extremely
useful, since tangelos have deep orange, loose fitting peels when ripe and breaking off the neck makes them
exceptionally easy to peel.
Eating two grapefruits a day seems to help heal bleeding gums, according to the results of recent study from a German
university. The high levels of Vitamin C apparently helped promote wound healing and reduced damage by free radicals,
according to a recent article in The Times of
India. Of the nearly 60 participants in the study from Friedrich Schiller University, smokers in the group
generally had 29 percent lower levels of Vitamin C than non-smokers. It's unclear why levels of the vitamin were lower
in smokers.
I'm not sure why researchers focused on grapefruits in particular. I guess if you take
anything away from this news, it's that Vitamin C may help your gums. If 14 grapefruits a week is too much for you
though, just floss.