At the recent 2011 South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Baked Idaho Potato Salad took top honors in the Idaho Potato Side Dish Challenge.

The recipe was created by Chef Carlos Barillas of the Burger & Beer Joint in Miami Beach.

Chef Barillas was one of 12 chefs who battled it out on the beach for a good cause: education. The Idaho Potato Commission made a $5,000 donation to Florida International University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in Barillas’ name.

 
If you have favorite potato salad tips, let us know.

Cook veggies before adding to pizza. Photo
courtesy California Asparagus Commission.

If your homemade pizza crust is not as crisp as you’d like, try these tips:

Another tip: Line the bottom of the oven or cover the bottom rack with aluminum foil. This makes it easy to clean up the drippings.

This adaptation of a catchphrase from the first season of “Heroes” floated through our head as we enjoyed cup after cup of delicious and refreshing guayusa.

What is guayusa (why-YOU-suh)?

It’s a perkier cousin of yerba maté, a tea brewed from South American holly leaves. Maté and guayusa come from different species of the holly bush. They have similar benefits—including caffeine alertness without the jitters. But the taste is as different as black tea and green tea.*

*Conventional tea, made from the Camellia sinensis plant, is totally unrelated to holly-based teas.

So how does this save the world?

Guayusa is farmed on the ancestral lands of the indigenous Kichwa people in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. Your purchase provides an economic incentive for farmers to keep the rainforest intact.

Guayusa is certified organic, Fair Trade Certified and certified kosher.

Our favorite: pistachio gelato dipped in
dark chocolate and rolled in crushed
pistachios. Photo courtesy Popbar.

So we’re happy that a Popbar opened in our town, serving gelato, frozen yogurt or sorbet on a stick.

An idea imported from Italy, Popbar serves handcrafted gelato or sorbetto made with all-natural ingredients in small batches: just 24 popbars at a time.

The customized designer pop of your choice is is hand-dipped by a “certified popologist” in your choice of dark, milk or white chocolate.

Then, it’s rolled in a choice of toppings—almonds, biscotti crumbles, brownie chunks, coconut, coffee grains, granola, hazelnuts or pistachios.

It’s not a revolutionary concept, but it’s a fun and tasty one. If popbars prove popular, there could be Popbar franchises all over America.

Popbars are all-natural, certified kosher and gluten free (some toppings have gluten; consult with your popologist). They’re becoming popular catering fare at parties in New York City, site of the first U.S. Popbar.

Want to own a Popbar? Visit Pop-Bar.com.

You’ll find a parade of cupcakes dressed up with clever wrappers and toppings, sold in kits that enable you to quickly transform a plain cupcake into a dazzler.

The St. Patrick’s Day kit in the photo is one of 30+ different designs on offer, some of which are quite elaborate. Cupcake Cuties enable you to easily create just about anything your celebration calls for:

The kits are $23.99, which might sound expensive — until you realize that your designer cupcakes are at least half the price and twice the fun as buying them off the shelf.

The cheeseburger and sushi cupcakes were a huge hit chez nous. Next, we’ll be making the St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes. Sure, we could hunt down a jar of shamrock sprinkles and cut cupcake wrappers from green paper…but with the Cupcake Cuties kit, we know we’ll finish the task on time.

Cupcake Cuties are a fun project for family members. They may even motivate those who have no great interest in cooking and baking to do more of it. The kits themselves are very giftable. Add a couple of boxes of Sprinkles cupcake mix and the recipient is guaranteed to have a memorable day.