Roving I Finds: Brushes with Greatness

Me, Matt, Iron Stef and Knuckles Handerson

I met Matt Nathanson on Tuesday night. If you don’t know Matt’s music, check it out. He’s an incredible singer songwriter, musician and, on top of that, he's a super nice guy. How many artists stick around to meet their fans after the show? 

So, for my Finds this week, I’m featuring destinations where you can get your celebrity meet and greet fix.

• Find your Island in the Sun. For the 2012 Weezer Cruise, the band has invited a great group of indie rock bands to join them on the high seas. And you can go, too. A four pack of tickets/reservations starts at just $499/pp for the 5-day cruise. Check out their promo video below. 

• Get your fill in South Beach. If you're a true Foodie or just have an appetite for Food Network shows, check out the the South Beach Wine & Food Festival February 23-26, 2012, where you'll find Anthony Bourdain, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse and countless other fabulous food celebs. 
• Rub shoulders with A-Listers. Before you plan a winter trip, check out this article from Travel & Leisure on Celebrites' Secret Winter Vacation Spots. It's from 2009, so some of the couples mentioned are no longer a couple, but the spots are still celeb-worthy. 
• Travel like Royalty. Already known as a luxury travel location, the Seychelles' fame reached new heights in May when Prince William and Kate Middleton selected the island nation as their honeymoon destination. If I had a royal bank account, I'd stay here.

Photo: Four Seasons

Roving I Guest Post: Meat me at Iron Stef's!

You read it right. I started this post with a bad meat pun in the title. That means it can only go up from here.


I've tapped into my fondness for the foodie lifestyle and cooked up my very first guest post. Click on over to Iron Stef's award winning food blog and read about my encounter with the legendary "Butcher of Tuscany" Dario Cecchini and consider this post your first course of the day.


5 Fascinating Facts about Dario:
1. His shop is known as the "Uffizi of Meat."
2. He organized a mock funeral for the fiorentina steak in 2001 when it was outlawed because of Mad Cow disease fears. (See below.)
3. He often recites Dante's Inferno by memory while working in the shop.
4. Mario Batali has called Dario "the Maserati of butchers, the Bob Dylan of the Tuscan cow, the Jimi Hendrix of juiciness."
5. Elton John  once paid $2500 for one of Dario's steaks. 

Funeral Plaque for Fiorentina Steak from 2001

Antica Macelleria Cecchini
Panzano, Tuscany, Italy

There's much more meat to this story at Iron Stef! And a special thanks to Stef for letting me take over for a day. I've definitely got some big shoes to fill. 

Roving Pic: Roving Rome

Me, jumping in front of the Colosseum

We are just back from spending two weeks in Italy! And it was amazing. I have lots to share about our experiences - from the locations we visited to the food and wine to the people we met to the individual moments that will stand out in my memory for the rest of my life.

So today, I'm kicking off my Italy recap with a picture of me jumping in front of the Colosseum. It's kind of my "thing" to jump in front of landmarks and our visit to ancient Rome provided a perfect opportunity. I may get some strange looks from people in the area while attempting this but the resulting photos are usually keepers. 

Over the coming weeks and months, I'll try to somehow encapsulate our trip through posts here and get back to the established blog schedule. (I realized very quickly how traveling straight for 15 days poses a challenge to any blog.) 

And finally, a very BIG "Thank You" to my dear friend Iron Stef for her awesome guests posts while I was away. I owe you one (or three)! 

More tomorrow and thanks so much for reading! 

Web Rove of the Week: Iron Stef's St. Louis As Seen on TV

These days, with so many specialized channels, television is a major way to learn about travel destinations. My favorite travel shows focus not just on travel, but on food destinations. As you may have figured out by now, I am extremely proud of my city's strong food culture. I am therefore very pleased when some of these places are recognized on national television.

In my first guest post, about eating challenges in St. Louis, I mentioned that the show Man vs. Food had visited and attempted to take down Crown Candy Kitchen's milkshake challenge. Adam also visited a couple of other favorites in that episode... Iron Barley (Which Guy Fieri also visited... see video here) and Pappy's Smokehouse. Both are popular among locals and worth a visit (just be prepared to wait... did I mention they were popular?). Here is a video of Adam from Man Vs. Food talking about his time in the Lou. It seems he also visited Ted Drewes frozen custard... a landmark to locals for decades. 

One of my most trusted television food personalities is Alton Brown. I loved his travel show Feasting on Asphalt, in which he traveled across the country on his motorcycle. When he rolled through our Neck of the woods, he stopped at Alton, IL's famous Fast Eddie's Bonair. Fast Eddie's is a lively bar with cheap and tasty food. 

Alton is just a skip over the river from St. Louis. Worth the short jaunt for the Chick-on-a-stick... skewered chicken drummettes that Alton Brown claimed to be the first chicken wings he had ever actually liked! When he passed through the city of St. Louis, Alton chose to highlight our plethora of tasty donuts. Read more about our donuts here.

BBC News ran a feature last year highlighting St. Louis' beer culture. See the video here. As the home of Anheuser Busch, this has always been a beer town. But now the scene is shifting, and craft beers are taking over. Craft breweries and brew pubs have been popping up like mad the past 10 years. To keep track, check out the excellent website STL Hops, and the local beer column Hip Hops. Evan Benn, writer of the Hip Hops column, also just published a book, Brew in the Lou, that is brimming with St. Louis's beer history, present and future. Great information!

While Guy Fieri grates on me (Anthony Bourdain likened him to Poochie from the Simpsons :D), I have eaten at several of the places featured on his show, Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives, and I have to say he hasn't steered me wrong yet. When he was in St. Louis he went to Sweetie Pie's, a fantastic soul food restaurant. Check out the video:

And for dessert...local cupcake shop Jilly's Cupcakes just won Food Network's Cupcake Wars! Cool! Who doesn't like cupcakes? People say the trend is dying, but so far I haven't seen proof.

Web Rove of the Week: Iron Stef's Italy via St. Louis

Hi Roving Fans! I'm back for another guest post. Jealous that Julie gets to travel to Italy, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Italian delights right here in St. Louis. 

Milo's Bocce Garden

This city has some strong Italian roots. The first place you will here about when you start to research Italian food in St. Louis is not a particular restaurant, but an entire Italian neighborhood, The Hill. With it's Italian flag-painted fire hydrants, The Hill is familiar to most St. Louisans as the place to go for small family Italian eateries, bakeries and grocery store. Whether you live here or are visiting, consider taking a tour! I know it's now on my list of staycation activities!

Milo's is a bar, restaurant and Bocce Garden. Bocce is a game (sport?) in which 2 teams try to roll their balls closest to one small ball on a dirt court. Power up with a salsiccia and some beer and get tossing!

Pizza, 3 ways!

Photo from TheGoodPie.com

The Good Pie

The Good Pie is Neapolitan-style pizza; hand-tossed crust cooked in a super-hot wood pizza oven. I LOVE this pizza. And this place. Besides the delicious pizza, The Good Pie has a great beer list with craft beers that will pair well with your meal and a relaxed, fun atmosphere. The Caesar salad is phenomenal... get the extra anchovies!

Pi

Pi became famous when Barak Obama said it was his favorite pizza. The controversy? Well, Obama is from Chicago and Pi is Chicago-style pizza... giving Cubs fans yet another reason to be jealous of St. Louis :). Our Prez has great taste, though. Pi's deep dish pizzas are fantastic... I could eat the crispy-tender crust all day. Pi is located on the Delmar Loop, a fun entertainment district with shops, music venues, bars, and more. Pi also has a roving pizza truck. Find out where they are each day by following them on Twitter.

St. Louis Style Pizza

This is where I get controversial. St. Louis-Style Pizza is essentially a thin crust pizza, topped with a sweet sauce and Provel cheese, cut into squares. Why controversial? Provel is... well... an acquired taste. It's gooey, okay? It's a processed cheese developed just for thin-crust pizzas because it melts fast and isn't stringy, making for a clean, non-chin burning bite. My friend Andrew Veety wrote a very interesting research post on this processed regional favorite, if you want to learn more (I know you do!). Non-natives usually dislike Provel. I hated the stuff growing up, but now I enjoy the occasional St. Louis-style pizza for nostalgia's sake. My favorite is Faraci's in Ferguson, where I grew up. Only do take-out there. Pirrone's Pizza, also in North County, is also a favorite.

Acero 

Acero is an Italian restaurant in the Maplewood (right next to the Schlafly beer Bottleworks!). It's a nice, somewhat upscale, but comfortable, little restaurant with a good wine selection and great food. Whatever you do, get the egg yolk raviolo, a large ravioli that has a whole, deliciously runny and rich egg yolk inside! My friend Kelly and I loved this so much we recreated at home.  

Stellina Pasta

Stellina is known for their home-made pasta and their fresh, local ingredients. They also have great sandwiches. 

Photo by Corey Woodruff (www.coreywoodruff.com)

Salume Beddu

Also known as "Cute Meat Guys", Mark Sanfilippo & Ben Poremba make some of the finest sausages and cured meats in the country. Mark originally did charcuterie at one of Mario Batali's restaurants, then moved back to St. Louis and started making sausage and selling it on his own. It was so popular at the local farmer's markets that they were able to open this shop. Check out this Food Blog Mafia post about Salume Beddu, and go get yourself some amazing meats. They also serve lunch!

Okay. I'm feeling better now. I mean, I still wish Julie could let me crawl into her carry-on... but I have options for getting my Italian fix here at home. Arrivederci!

Web Rove of the Week: Iron Stef's 4 Most Extreme St. Louis Food Challenges

I’m very lucky to be great friends with a true St. Louis celebrity, the Riverfront Times 2011 St. Louis Food Blogger of Year, “Iron Stef” aka Stephanie. She’s on a first name basis with Emeril thanks to her ingenious meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting. She knows every condiment from au jus to soy. She’s super quick with a knife, so watch out. But this Foodie also happens to be one fabulous human being.

Today, you’re in for a real treat: the first in a series of guest posts from the Iron Stef herself and she’s whipped up something special. So, read on. It’s about to get good!

Iron Stef
Photo: Corey Woodruff
coreywoodruff.com

"Hello Roving I readers! I am totally smitten with my good friend Julie's travel blog here, so it is with honor that I am writing a series of guest posts about food in St. Louis. Whether you are visiting our fair city or already live here and are looking for fun "staycation" ideas, I am proud of St. Louis' food culture. We have lots of good places to eat, from fancy to hole-in-the wall. We have some of the best chef's in the country and we also have lots of diversity... virtually every nationality in the world is represented here. So when Julie asked me to write about the best places to eat, I just could not narrow it down to a single post. So this is the first in a series of... well, however many Julie lets me write... :)

I'm gonna start extreme. Are you a fan of the Travel Channel show Man vs. Food? Do you fancy yourself a bottomless pit or a steel-tongued superstar? Here are some food challenges in the area for when you're feeling... well... gluttonous. 

1. Crown Candy Kitchen Malt Challenge. (http://crowncandykitchen.net/) Crown Candy Kitchen has been a St. Louis favorite since 1913! Located in the north side of the city, Crown Candy is famous for its delicious chocolates and ice cream malts. If you can drink 5 malts in 30 minutes, you get them for free. You also win bragging rights. This is a big feat... one that beat Adam from Man vs. Food (video here). That's right. He had a reversal.... 5 malts does not sound like a lot, but they are big malts. Even if you are not up for the challenge, I encourage you to visit this old-school eatery. I love the BLT, as well as the candies and the fudge sundae.

2. The Pointersaurus Challenge at Pointer's Pizza

Only 16 teams of 2 have won this challenge since its inception in 2001. It's no wonder... the Pointersaurus is 28" in diameter and weighs 10 pounds. Not many people can take down 5 pounds of dough, meat and cheese. If you and a friend can, though, you'll win $500! 

3. The Level 25 (and up) Challenge at Pearl Cafe http://www.pearlcafestl.com/

Photo: Corey Woodruff
coreywoodruff.com

Pearl Cafe is located in my neck of the woods in North St. Louis Country. They have fantastic Thai and Vietnamese food, worth a visit even if you are not trying to set your insides on fire. However, if you can stand the heat, the Level 25 challenge will test you. The heat level in normal dishes ranges from 1-5. For the Level 25, 50, 75 and 100, Pearl mixes in more peppers, including ghost pepper concentrate to make you sweat. You have to start at 25 and work your way up to 100 in subsequent visits... there is no jumping straight to the top.  When you beat each stage you get your picture on Pearl's Facebook page. Some friends of mine took on the 25 challenge, a visit I documented in a recent Food Blog Mafia post. They beat it, then ordered a Level 50 dish just to try. I tried a bite of the 50. My lips were on fire for a good 20 minutes. This is serious stuff. The guy who runs the challenge told us that the people who beat the Level 100 would usually be pretty out of it by the time they finished... like in an altered state! That's HOT.

4. The Archinator at Pam's Chicago Style Hot Dogs

I only recently discovered Pam's, a fun little hot dog joint on the Delmar Loop, an entertainment district that is home to lots of fun shops, restaurants, theatres and music venues. Pam's is rebellious  in that the back wall displays Cub's baseball memorabilia. In a Cardinals town, this is a risky move. They make up for it by offering an array of hot dogs, gyros and crazy, heart-clogging fried desserts (Twinkies battered and deep fried, balls of cookie dough battered and deep fried, Twix bar wrapped in cookie dough battered and deep fried... !!!). The Archinator is a 22-inch beef dog, served on a whole baguette and dressed the Chicago way (bright green relish, mustard, pickled peppers, tomatoes, onions, celery salt). The Archinator CHALLENGE however, includes Chili, sauerkraut, cheese and more (see photo for full description), and a large order of fries and a soda. If you can down this you get your photo on the wall and a $20 gift certificate to come back. 

So, are you up to St. Louis' extreme food challenges?"

Special thanks to Iron Stef for her delicious first guest post. She truly has the recipe for wonderful.