Afleveringen
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By Dalia Colón
Spring is upon us, so it’s time to tackle all those projects we’ve been putting off. Maybe you need to organize the garage, file your taxes or flip your mattress. While you’re making that checklist, remember to prep for spring cooking—planting warm-weather vegetables, gearing up your grill and, yes, cleaning out the pantry.
But resetting for spring doesn’t have to be intimidating. Here to help is Mackensy Lunsford, editor of USA Today’s cooking website, Southern Kitchen. She’s also a chef, cookbook author and senior dining reporter at the Tennessean.
Mackensy recently chatted with Dalia from her home in Nashville. In this conversation, she shares advice for starting a spring garden, mitigating pests and planting vegetables that can withstand the South’s heat and humidity. She also offers tips for organizing your pantry, embarking on a new-spend month (or at least spending less) in order to use up the nonperishables you already have and making the most of your grill. Finally, Mackensy suggests meal ideas that’ll make all your hard work pay off.
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At Solid Rock Community School in Tarpon Springs, every item that comes out of the cafeteria is 100 percent plant-based. Families can even order vegan to-go meals to take home and eat for dinner. That puts Solid Rock in a pretty small group of K-12 schools in the U.S. that are completely plant-based.
The idea for a plant-based cafeteria came from Solid Rock’s founder and executive director, Michele Fasnacht, who started the school in 2004. The K-12 private school also offers programs like gardening, culinary arts and veterinary education alongside academics.
The Zest team met up with Michele in the school office. In our conversation, she explains why she overhauled the school’s menu. In this episode, you’ll also hear from some Solid Rock students about what they think of the cafeteria food now.
Thanks to Louise Krikorian for suggesting this episode. If you’d like to suggest a Zest guest, email us: [email protected]
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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This week, we’re getting real about what we feed kids. Whether or not you have children of your own, we all have a role to play in helping the next generation make healthier choices.
Dr. David Berger isn’t here to shame anyone. But as a pediatrician and the face of Wholistic Pediatrics & Family Care in Tampa, he sees every day how nutrition—or lack thereof—affects kids’ health and behavior.
Dalia visited Dr. David at his office in Tampa. In their conversation, he explains why kids and adults should steer clear of ultra-processed foods, reflects on why many school lunches are problematic and offers advice for getting back on track.
For more from Dr. David, check out his YouTube channel, DrDavidMD, where he addresses issues including fluoride in drinking water, the raw milk trend, the FDA’s banning of red dye No. 3 and more.
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If you've ever dreamed of hosting a food TV show, being a private chef or working in a high-end restaurant, then this conversation is for you—because today's guest has done all of that, plus a lot more, in his young career.
Get to know Chef Terrell Manning. The St. Pete native has experience as a private chef, food TV host, restaurant co-owner, host of the roadshow America’s Best Restaurants and more.
The Zest team met up with Chef Terrell at the Sorry Not Public co-working space in Tampa. In this conversation, he offers lessons from his culinary journey in his book The Love Languages of Food.
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Super Bowl Sunday is a big day for football—and guacamole. But how much do you know about avocados—specifically the green variety, also called Florida avocados?
Today we’re doing a deep dive with Tom Siddons. He and his wife own Sleepy Lizard Avocado Farm in the Everglades, where they grow and ship avocados, mangos and other tropical fruits. Tom also hosts the popular Sleepy Lizard YouTube podcast about their farm.
In this conversation, Tom shares why he got into the avocado business and offers tips for planting the best-tasting avocados right in your own backyard.
Thanks to Sonya Bryson-Kirksey for suggesting this episode. Who do you want to hear on the podcast? Send your Zest guest suggestions to: [email protected].
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Kiera Wright-Ruiz has an impressive resume: food writer with creds in The New York Times and Bon Appétit. Photographer for big-name brands including Taco Bell. Recipe developer for the Japan Times, The Kitchn and Food52. Picture book author.
We could go on.
But perhaps most impressive is the vulnerability Kiera displays in her latest work, My (Half) Latinx Kitchen. Part cookbook, part memoir, the book explores her multicultural roots through a lens of food. Between mouthwatering recipes, photos and illustrations are personal essays about her mixed heritage (her father is Ecuadorian, and her mother is Korean), father’s drug addiction, time in foster care and other personal subjects not usually found in a recipe book. The result is a work that will feed both your body and soul.
Dalia chatted with Kiera, who grew up in South Florida and now lives in Tokyo.
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This week on The Zest Podcast, revisit Dalia's conversation with Toni Tipton-Martin. The renowned food journalist won James Beard Awards for her books The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks and Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking. Martin also serves as editor-in-chief of the Cook’s Country magazine and television show.
This conversation was recorded at the Tampa Bay Collard Green Festival in 2020. (Yep, that 2020.) The episode was hand-picked for you by The Zest's brand manager, Alexandria Ebron.
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This season we're talking avocados, food sovereignty, Latinx identity and a whole lot more. New episodes are released on Thursdays. Listen wherever you're hearing this or at thezestpodcast.com.
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Today, we’re dishing up a second helping of a conversion we enjoyed so much that we wanted to make sure you got a chance to listen, in case you missed it the first time around. If you’re a longtime Zestie and you remember this classic episode, we hope you’ll enjoy it even more the second time and of course share it with a friend.
Zest editor Andrew Lucas has such a fondness for key lime pie that he wanted to listen back to Dalia's conversation with Kermit Carpenter of Kermit's Key Lime Shop (formerly Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe).
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Today we’re getting to know Ana Quincoces. Long before she was a cast member on The Real Housewives of Miami, she was an attorney and avid foodie.
The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Ana chats with Dalia about the latest of her four cookbooks, Modern Cuban: A Contemporary Approach to Classic Recipes.
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New year, same us.
We could resolve to eat more kale, do 100 burpees a day or rein in our online shopping. But let’s be real… we’re not going to stick to any of that. Here at The Zest, we’re about adding joy to our life—especially if that joy comes in the form of food.
In that spirit, we’re kicking off 2025 by sharing some of our favorite gastronomic splurges—foods, restaurant meals, kitchen appliances and other things we think are worth going out of your way for. Maybe they cost a little more or require a bit more effort, but they’re worth the investment. Hopefully this conversation inspires you to create your own list of foodie goals.
For this conversation, Dalia Colón is joined by Zest team members Andrew Lucas and Alexandria Ebron. Plus Alex’s husband, Robert Ebron, stops by to tell us about a restaurant deal you won’t want to miss out on.
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‘Tis the season for lofty resolutions. Maybe you’ve vowed to stop drinking alcohol, run a daily 5k or cut your takeout budget to zero and cook every meal at home.
Whatever your goals for the new year, Jo Bakal says to start small. Jo is a Tampa-based wellness coach and cookbook author who’s sworn off meat, dairy products and cane sugar. She even makes her own oat milk.
We can feel your eyes rolling already. But hear us out—Jo made these changes gradually, going from a steak-loving New Yorker to a plant-based Floridian. And her advice can help you evolve into the next version of yourself, whatever that looks like for you. Jo stopped by our studio in Tampa for a chat with Dalia. In this conversation, they discuss how there are two types of food, and why Jo’s wellness tools aren’t as “woo-woo” as they might initially sound.
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Head to Lakeland to hang out with Kadean and Laures Dockery. They're the husband-and-wife team behind Our Noire Kitchen. Noire is French for black, and yes, they are a proud Black-owned company. Kadean is the chef; Laures runs the business side and takes all the great photos you see on Instagram.
The pair run Our Noire Kitchen out of the business incubator Catapult Lakeland, and they travel with their food trailer throughout Central Florida for pop-up events, catering gigs and private chef services. Dalia caught up with the Dockerys at Catapult.
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For many chefs, the road to running a kitchen starts with culinary school. But Hart Lowry forged his own path, working in restaurants across the United States, Europe and Asia, convincing chefs to take him under his wing.
It worked.
Today, Hart is culinary director for Hi Hospitality Group, where he oversees five Sarasota-area restaurants: Speaks Clam Bar, Kojo, Bar Hana, Palm Avenue Deli and Central Park. Hi Hospitality Group’s newest project is Central Park St. Pete.
Hart chatted with Dalia about his unconventional path to chefdom, the fundamental differences between French and Japanese cooking and advice for elevating a home-cooked meal.
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Surviving breast cancer gave Rujel Buggs the motivation to eat right and exercise. It also gave her a new appreciation for comfort food—in moderation.
Moderation is the name of the game for Rujel, who shares healthy recipes and fitness inspiration on social media. But for holidays and Sunday dinners with family, she goes all out preparing Southern favorites like mac and cheese and peach cobbler pound cake. Rujel shares many of those recipes in her cookbook, A Taste from My Mother’s Kitchen: Southern Inspired Soul Food Recipes.
Dalia visited Rujel at home in Valrico and pulled up a stool at the kitchen counter. As they chatted, Rujel prepared lunch—a veggie-filled pasta salad. And for dessert? Peach cobbler. After all, everything in moderation.
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This week, we’re dishing up excerpts from conversations related to Thanksgiving and the holiday season. First up, historian Andrew Batten discusses some of the food that might’ve been on the table at that first Thanksgiving meal in St. Augustine, and he explains why Florida is the birthplace of fusion cuisine. Then, Jacksonville media personality Yanira “Yaya” Cardona shares Puerto Rican holiday traditions that some Floridians practice. Finally, Chef Richard Anderson shares tips for lightning up traditional Thanksgiving foods.
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Whether you’re eating rack of lamb or chicken wings, make it beautiful. So says Debbie Wilson-Berment, better known as Chef Sagajo. (The nickname is a mashup of her kids’ names.)
Based in Delray Beach, the private chef is the author of the cookbook The Sagajo Experience: Recipes for Lifestyle & Entertaining, which came out earlier this year.
Dalia chatted with Chef Sagajo. In this conversation, she shares how roots in Trinidad & Tobago influence her cooking, and she recalls how family dinners got fancier when she moved to Canada and then the U.S. And just in time for the holiday season, Chef Sagajo offers advice for elegant entertaining that won’t break the bank.
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It seems like there’s a coffee shop on every block, and they all offer more or less the same stuff. But one coffee company in Tampa is serving up much more than lattes and muffins.
Coffee Uniting People, or CUP, is a nonprofit coffeehouse that employs mostly people with disabilities. With three locations in Tampa, CUP teaches valuable life skills to folks who are too often overlooked for employment.
Dalia chatted with CUP barista Katie Huettel, along with CUP co-founders Greg and Laura Jones. In this conversation, the Joneses share why they started CUP and advice for business owners looking to hire and support employees with disabilities. Katie also explains how the skills she’s learning at CUP translate to the rest of her life. And the three of them share their favorite beverages and foods from the CUP menu.
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Fabricio Zambrano is one of the most dapper men you’ll ever meet. Perpetually dressed in fitted clothes and a panama hat, Fab looks, well, fabulous.
But he didn’t always dress like this. Because he didn’t always feel like this. For most of his life, Fabricio wore oversize T-shirts to hide his 5-8, 300-pound frame. He subsisted mostly on fast food and did not exercise.
But after Fab hit a life-threatening rock bottom, the Clearwater resident revamped his habits. He adopted a plant-based lifestyle, started exercising and eventually lost half his body weight. Today, the 61-year-old grandfather is known around Tampa Bay as Fab the Vegan. Through Facebook, Instagram and countless media appearances, he shares his journey and offers inspiration for anyone looking to make changes.
Dalia first met Fab when they both appeared on an episode of Bloom about plant-based eating. They recently reconnected for a conversation about Fab’s health journey, advice for changing one’s eating habits and how to deal with friends and family who oppose your new lifestyle.
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