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Here’ are some great new insights from Mike Biltonen (my darling husband), about South Florida food choices. Mike is a passionate fruit farmer and serious about local food security.
A few weeks ago I wrote a guest blog for Debbie in which I stated that south Florida food options suck. However, since our Thanksgiving vacation (after I wrote that blog) I’ve come to learn that there are actually healthy food options in south Florida. And by healthy, I mean healthy nutritionally and morally.
We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on November 24th, whereupon we went immediately to Holy Cross hospital to visit Debbie’s Mom who was recovering from hip surgery. We had myself, Debbie, Mathew, and Debbie’s father, Henry, in tow. After about an hour or so we all started to talk about what’s for dinner. Normally, we eat at franchise establishments like J. Marks, PF Changs, or smaller more quaint local establishments like La Veranda and Greek Islands Taverna. Since it had been over a year since I’d been in FLL and my eating habits had changed dramatically, I really needed to seek out a healthier option for everyone. Not to disparage those fine establishments I mention above, they don’t really serve food that’s all that healthy and, quite honestly, is more like a Sysco truck backed up to the back of the restaurant. That is, to say, they are quite industrial!
So when the first questions about dinner started to crop up I hopped on the old iPhone, cranked up the Yelp! App, and searched for restaurants in Vegan/Vegetarian category. I didn’t know what would crop up – most actually were restaurants that had V/V options, but weren’t really V/V restaurants. Not that that was a bad thing; most restaurants actually have a veg option. But I was searching for a restaurant with a soul – and I found it, or so I thought at the time.
You see marketing is everything. McDonalds actually does a really good job of marketing itself as having healthy options, in spite of the truth. I’ve become quite the skeptic in the past few years and I often do not know what to believe. But during my searches that includes Yelp! and EatWell.org, I came across a restaurant calling itself Sublime. Now for those vocabularists out there, I don’t have to do more than remind you that sublime is defined as being “of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.” And Sublime was definitely nothing short of this. I read over the menu, looked over the web site, watched testimonial; videos of Paul McCartney singing the praises of Sublime – wait, did I say Sir Paul? – I politely, but firmly, suggested we needed to try the restaurant.
Nobody in our party was in a position to disagree. So we descended upon Sublime at 6PM on Sunday night. What followed was south Florida culinary history. Needless to say the ambiance of the restaurant was lovely. The owner actually stopped by our table not once, but twice. Jimmy, our waiter, was extraordinarily gifted and obviously wasn’t there just for the paycheck. After a long day of traveling, we all found Sublime absolutely sublime. What were the highlights?
First, Mathew, our 9 year old son, the champion of extreme picky eaters, loved the Pesto-Polenta hors d’oeuvres. I had the Thai Red Chili, Debbie had the Mushroom Ravioli, Hank had the Portobello Stack and Mathew had the Mac ‘N’ Cheese. No desserts, but plenty of eye-opening culinary experiences. Well, based on this one experience we took Debbie’s Mom, always the culinary adventurer, to Sublime exactly one week later. In fact, we drove in a rainstorm from Boca Raton all the way to FLL in order to share this incredible experience with her. We had different dishes plus dessert and the experience didn’t disappoint. Debbie’s mom had the Vegetable Lasagna, Debbie had the Mushroom Risotto Cake dish, I had the Mushroom Ravioli (house specialty) and Mathew had the Veggie Burger (which he loved!!).
Ok, so we had great food, but where’s the morality? Well, as we found out during our visit, the restaurant itself is a funding source for the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF), an organization founded by the owner Nanci Alexander. I’ll let their web site speak for itself, so suffice it to say that Sublime is a 100% vegan restaurant owned and operated by people committed to a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and animal rights causes. We didn’t visit with Paul McCartney or see Pamela Anderson, but did enjoy some great food and realize that food isn’t, or have to be, all industrially-based crap-ola. And there are others for sure, but Sublime has lead the way. If you’re interested in vegan or vegetarian eating options I encourage you to visit any of the establishments featured here: Veg South Florida. Enjoy and rejoice in the fact the good CAN be found in south Florida!
Fourteen years ago, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She is one of the lucky ones, after removing the entire lung, chemotherapy, radiation treatment and a whole bunch of other things, she was proclaimed cancer free within six months of her diagnosis. Cancer free is always music to the ears after a battle with cancer. Nevertheless, I am not writing about cancer today, I am writing about a simple tool that helped us navigate and get through the medical labyrinth with relative ease. Moreover, we still use it today.