Cask & Larder, 4Rivers Smokehouse Sweet Shop Part Of Local Arts Scene, Tonight’s Ch... Page 1 of 5
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Cask & Larder, 4Rivers Smokehouse Sweet Shop Part Of Local Arts Scene, Tonight’s Chef’s Gala Posted on May 4, 2013
I’m not sure of the time of year, but I remember it was chilly as we stood there in the early morning hours as people arrived at work. I’d volunteered to help recruit employees who’d be willing to donate a small amount from their paychecks each week for the United Way in Atlanta. I was working for GTE Wireless — now part of Verizon – at time, and our Heart of Florida United Way’s 2013 Chef’s Gala takes place tonight at the Epcot World Showplace.
building curved so that wind whipped along its sides, arriving right where we were standing to greet employees that morning. We laughed and joked to deal with the chill, but probably still felt a bit warm inside for our efforts.
All these years later I’ll be attending the largest fund-raiser of the year – the Chef’s Gala – for the Heart of Florida United Way this evening, Saturday, May 4, at the Epcot World Showplace. The invitation came last week from out of the blue, my online writing efforts so fresh they still have that new blog smell. With my Local focus, at first I wasn’t even first sure it made sense for me. When I saw Winter Park’s own Cask & Larder and 4Rivers Smokehouse Sweet Shop on the participants list, however, I thought my angle, the story I would tell was basically clear. How naïve I can be. I know lots of people who talk about the arts. It’s a bigger four-letter word than it first seems. It covers so much, can hint at the creative talents and resourcefulness of so many types of people, so many who do such varied things. As I learned more about these two very young Local businesses I began to consider if they might be a sign of one of the greatest arts scenes presently at work in Central Florida: the art of food. I’ll be honest and say that if I’d heard anyone talk about the “art of food” fifteen or twenty years ago I would have laughed. I’ve never been a good
The Sweet Shop’s ice cream flavors include “Airplane”.
cook and am still not. I can destroy a kitchen given a simple task. But I live with one of those types, have for over 20 years, and have gotten much better at suggesting what one dish needs to pull it all together, accent its flavors. I’m surely no critic, never desire to be one, more a celebrator of what I LUV, what I see as special, of all the people I see who create, define whole new categories because their own imaginations are bigger than the current list of possibilities before them. That is more what the inclusion of both Cask & Larder and 4Rivers’s Sweet Shop is to me now. In addition to Local stories, they are tales of defined purpose and passion, creative artistic energy focused on the edible. I’d never been to the 4Rivers Smokehouse in Longwood. I’d heard about it lots, however, as it’s developed a cultish following, along with the Follow
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