Tuesday, October 25, 2011

More Vacation Dining

Because regional cuisine in so important to the life of regional cookbooks I want to continue my features on  Florida restaurants that my family enjoyed on vacation.  The entire area around Destin is chock-full of great seafood and most are good at buying fresh seafood from the locals and featuring it on their menus.

This year, as is custom, we had one night at Cuvee Bistro which I posted recently. Another Kempf family tradition is a meal at Stinky's Fish Camp. Now most are probably reading this and saying, "no one would name a restaurant Stinky's". However that is exactly what Jim Richard did.

I have gotten to know Jim a little over the past few years and I describe him laughingly as a "left over Hippie Cajun". Jim is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and totally ego free. With Jim, what you see is what you get and boy can he prepare seafood.

Jim's specialty is a meuniere sauce which is a type of buttery gravy that he uses over fish.  The word meuniere means "miller's wife" as the fish is dredged in flour and then sauteed in the sauce made of brown butter, lemon and chopped parsley. It is close to heaven for the taste buds. Jim's menu is not huge but everything is great to eat. If you go the Highway 30A near San Destin be sure to put Stinky's on your list. But get there early because the place is sure to be packed.

I still have a few more places to tell you about in the next blog post--I hope you will do yourself a favor and keep a note of these places in case you visit the area because you will not be disappointed.

Friday, October 21, 2011

BIG CHANGE--NEW NAME--SAME GREAT SERVICE

FRP originated out of an imprint launched in 1962 known as Favorite Recipes Press. The business model for our publishing services has grown and expanded steadily throughout the almost 50 years of business. The same is true of our client base. Because of our expansion into non-cookbook related publishing efforts we are changing our name. Favorite Recipes Press will remain a key imprint under our new Publishing umbrella but that imprint is only a part of the story.

We are now Southwestern Publishing Group, Inc. A bit of logic to this change is in the fact that one of our primary duties is to develop the content for The Southwestern Company's educational reference works. In addition to this work, our Beckon Book imprint has developed a great array of clients in the corporate history arena, as well as the cultural attraction industry. Recently, we purchased the Historic Hospitality product line from Providence House Publishers and have plans to expand rapidly.

Of course, Favorite Recipes Press also continues to serve the clients interested in developing community and branded cookbooks as well as distribute them into the trade. Our work with QVC in the cookbook arena has been successful and we expect to continue that relationship.
You will notice the title change in my blog header that reflects our new structure and I will endeavor to create posts that speak to other areas of custom publishing other than just cookbooks.

Our goal is to continue offering first class publishing and distribution services to a broad segment of the US in various specialty fields. In addition, to printed books we will soon be offering e-reader formats as a segment of each client's publishing strategy.

We hope that you will think of Southwestern Publishing Group, Inc. if you or someone you know is researching the idea of a specialty book publication. Please be on the lookout for other announcements as we make the move to expand the many specialty offerings of Southwestern Publishing Group, Inc.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Vacation Dining

While the emphasis for this blog is regional cookbooks I want to change direction today and mention a few great meals my wife and I enjoyed on vacation recently. When our daughters got out of high school, we changed our routine of vacationing during spring break to vacationing in October. For the last eight or nine years we have gone to the panhandle of Florida near Destin, FL each fall for a week or sometimes more.

Over that time we have identified several restaurants that we always return to. In addition, we try a couple of new ones each year hoping they will make our list of "must go to".  In the next several blog posts I want to talk about several of our favorites and a few we hope to add.

Number one on our list is always wherever Chef Tim Creehan is currently located.  Tim has successfully moved around through the years and his most recent restaurant is Cuvee Bistro. Tim and his partners Tim and Pam Wellborn took over Cuvee Beach a few years ago and they really have it going on there. Tim has made major renovations to the facility while upgrading the food and menu.

I was treated this year to my favorite fish, trigger fish. If you don't already know, trigger fish is not plentiful so it is seldom on a menu. However, Tim prides himself on buying the best local seafood, as well as vegetables. I lucked out on this particular night as trigger fish was a menu "special". Trigger fish is a mild, white fish and very firm in texture. He sauteed the fish with a light lemon (I declined the curry powder) and it was superb.  It was served with amazingly delicious cheese grits.

My daughter was with us and she tried the tuna steak, rare (her plate was completely clean when finished so I can only deduce it was great) with vegetables. My wife, Robin, ordered salmon with vegetables and salad.

I also ordered a beautiful veggie pizza as a appetizer. The pizza was crisp and warm and the perfect size to get the juices flowing. We topped the meal off with a dessert sampler--key lime pie, banana cream pie, tiramisu, chocolate cake and a few others that escape me right now--WOW!

In addition to the great food, the decor of Cuvee Bistro is stunning and the service is top notch. Most of Tim's staff has been with him for extended periods of time and each time I have visited they have made us feel right at home.

I should also mention that dinner guests can also purchase Tim's fabulous cookbook, The Simple Cuisine of Chef Tim Creehan right off of his menu. Tim knows a little bit about marketing and branding as evidenced by his investment in developing and selling his own cookbook. If you are ever in the Destin area be sure to mark Cuvee Bistro down as a "culinary must experience".