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The Bounty Of Central Florida

by Valerie Hart

CLICK HERE to purchase this book directly from the author. Valerie also has a great website, check it out!

Review
Do you pigeon hole Florida into neat little promotion driven categories? Don't we all to some degree? Don’t we often race excitedly to our favorite attractions with blinders on, not at all tuned into the farms and ranches, the wildlife and habitat, the history and folklore? Well, Ms Hart doesn’t, and by offering up a smorgasbord of factual tidbits and succinct observations wrapped around a variety of her selected recipes, she hopes to entice you into seeing a different Florida.

Recipes using bananas, kumquats, mushrooms, wood duck, and of course alligator, among others, are enhanced by the use of ingredients grown in the
area. The Portobello Spinach Salad with Curried Eggs dish featured Portobello mushrooms boiled gently in a mixture of garlic, and balsamic white vinegar. This caught our interest. The presentation included a ring of sliced curried eggs, a ring of the sliced mushrooms and a center filled with spinach salad, dressed with oil and vinegar and topped with plum tomato strips. Attractive and flavorful. We followed the salad with
the refreshing Cold Zabaglione with Berries. A lady finger lined wine glass filled with fresh blueberries and topped by a thick and creamy custard closed out our luncheon nicely.
The Bounty of Central Florida is easy to follow, not especially stressful, and certainly interesting. Perhaps that’s the whole idea.
Reviewed by the Food Reference staff