This week, Emmanuel Washington Jr. answers our burning questions about life as a firehouse chef. Better known as Chef Manny FD (for fire department), the Miami native works for the Orlando Fire Department. In addition to being district chief, he’s also the resident chef at station 8, near Orlando International Airport. He’s demonstrated his culinary skills on cooking competition shows including Cutthroat Kitchen, MasterChef and Food Network Star.

In this conversation, Manny shares how being a firefighter has made him a better chef, the advice Alton Brown gave him that helps him cook faster and the right way to put out a kitchen fire.

Related episodes:

• Punk Rock Foodie Derrick Fox Spills Secrets of the “MasterChef” Kitchen

• 14 Tips for Cooking Faster at Home

• How to Prepare Restaurant-Quality Meals at Home: Advice from Chef Dennis Littley

• “Epicurious One” Stephanie Love Is Disrupting the Wine Industry, One Chicken Wing at a Time

Get the buzz on beekeeping from St. Petersburg resident Derek Lewis. The South African native and third-generation beekeeper is active in the Pinellas Beekeepers Association. Derek explains the importance of bees as the world’s population increases, offers advice for new beekeepers and suggests ways to make any lawn more bee-friendly.

Related episodes:

• The Buzz on Florida’s Honey Bees

• What’s Threatening Honey Bees?

• Conscious Cuisine: Edible Gardening Tips from Albert Risemberg

• It’s Always Sunny at St. Petersburg’s Brick Street Farms

In this conversation, Natasha Samreny shares stories from her multicultural upbringing; describes her favorite Ecuadorian, Italian and Lebanese foods; and offers advice for parents of budding comedians.

Related episodes:

• Halal Food 101 with Florida’s Halal Food Guru

• Zak the Baker Keeps It Kosher

• “Latino Orlando” Author Dr. Simone Delerme on the Rise of Florida’s Hispanic Restaurants & Markets

We hope you’re thirsty, because this week’s guest is Julia Melucci of Monin. The global company creates flavorings for cocktails, mocktails, coffee drinks, milkshakes and more. Julia’s official title is beverage innovation manager. But she describes herself as an Oompa-Loompa in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

“I work in a sugar factory, and I play with sugar all day long,” says Julia, who works at Monin’s U.S. headquarters in Clearwater.

In this conversation, Julia explains how she combines data with her hospitality industry experience to determine which flavor will be the next big thing. (Monin’s flavor of the year for 2023 is hot honey.) She also discusses her participation in the elite bartending group Chilled 100, offers advice for bartenders and shares tips for creating your own signature drink.

Related episodes:

• Brewing Local Honey Mead at Green Bench Mead & Cider

• In Praise of Punch: Justin Gray on Your New Favorite Summertime Sip

• Real-Life Willy Wonka: Meet Peter Behringer of Sweet Pete’s in Jacksonville

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while the rest of us were experimenting with sourdough starter, the Bryon brothers were eating like kings.

With restaurants shuttered, Nic Bryon had been laid off from his job as sous chef of Tampa’s Oak & Ola. But the Johnson & Wales grad put his culinary skills to work at home, where he quarantined with his brother Greg and Greg’s young family.

The food, wine and music flowed. But the money didn’t. So in April 2020, the brothers combined Nic’s cooking expertise with Greg’s business acumen to start Pasta Packs.

Today Pasta Packs has a brick-and-mortar pickup location in South Tampa. In addition to selling ready-to-cook pastas and sauces, Pasta Packs offers classes, catering and in-home three-course dinners. Nic also teaches a free cooking class for kids called The Sauce, through University Area Community Development Corporation in Tampa.

Greg and Nic recently chatted with me about the challenges they faced along the way, tips for making better pasta at home and the reaction they receive as two Black men cooking Italian food.

Related episodes:

• Chef Niven Patel and Mohamed Alkassar Had a Productive Pandemic

• How to Prepare Restaurant-Quality Meals at Home: Advice from Chef Dennis Littley

• Oak & Ola Executive Chef Anne Kearney

• Documentary Explores Tampa Bay’s Black-Owned Restaurants

You could call it the feel-good food truck. The St. Petersburg-based PB & Jelly Deli serves up sophisticated-yet-playful nut butter sandwiches that evoke memories of childhood. Better still, for every sandwich sold, PB & Jelly Deli donates a meal back into the Tampa Bay community.

The nonprofit food truck is operated by volunteers from Radius Church in St. Petersburg, which started the enterprise in 2017 as a community outreach.

Dalia recently chatted with co-founder Amanda Clark about the food truck’s origins, some of the more unusual menu items and how to make better sandwiches at home.

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• Lunchboxmafia: How to Make a Lunch They Can’t Refuse

• 360 Eats Takes Leftovers from Food Waste to Food Truck

• “Burger Beast” Sef Gonzalez on Florida’s Best Hamburgers

• 20 Tips for a Better Hurricane Food Kit: Advice from Janet Keeler

Here at The Zest, we love to explore the foodways of Floridians past and present—including the people who weren’t treated like people.

This week we learn about the food customs of enslaved workers who labored on Florida’s plantations, growing cotton, tobacco, sugar and other cash crops. Many of their culinary traditions are alive and well today, although they rarely get credit.

“It is a marker of our cultural identity,” says Martha Bireda, PhD, director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture in Punta Gorda. (The museum suffered damage from Hurricane Ian and was closed at the time of our recording. Check the museum’s website for updates.)

Related episodes:

• Dr. Fred Opie on the “Fascinating” African Roots of Florida Foods

• Toni Tipton-Martin Celebrates African-American Chefs in ‘Jubilee’

• Two USF Professors Offer a Crash Course in American Food History

Moldy raspberries. Mushy avocados. That slimy bag of kale.

When it comes to buying produce, too often our eyes are bigger than our stomach. Keeping fruits, veggies and herbs fresh starts with making a shopping list and being realistic about how much we’ll actually eat, says Tie Liu, PhD.

Dr. Liu teaches in the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida, and he’s passionate about reducing food waste. In this conversation, he addresses common conundrums like where to store tomatoes, how to stop bananas from browning so quickly and a better way to shop for herbs.

Related episodes:

• 360 Eats Takes Leftovers from Food Waste to Food Truck

• Composting 101 with Miami Compost Project

Whether you’re an aspiring food influencer or you just want to order with more savvy at restaurants, Charlie Crespo has some advice. The Miami-based food and drink writer’s work has appeared in publications including Pipette Magazine, Infatuation Miami, INDULGE Miami, Venice Magazine and more.

In this conversation, Charlie offers practical advice for up-and-coming food writers. He also reveals his new favorite burger, croissant and under-the-radar restaurants in South Florida. Then he predicts some food and drink trends to look out for in this new year.

Related episodes:

• Miami Herald’s Carlos Frías on Cuban Coffee, Edible Iguanas & Winning the James Beard Award

• Chef Niven Patel and Mohamed Alkassar Had a Productive Pandemic

• Food Blogger Ricky Ly on Orlando’s “Tasty Chomps”

• How to Be a Food Influencer

Dietician and nutritionist Wendy Wesley of St. Petersburg offers practical advice to get you cooking and eating more at home—which can benefit both your wallet and your waistline.

Related episodes:

• 14 Tips for Cooking Faster at Home

• No Recipe? No Problem: How to Cook Using Your Intuition

• 20 Tips for a Better Hurricane Food Kit: Advice from Janet Keeler