Victoria Shearer - Florida Keys & Key West Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Conch Republic

Far from the culture shock she expected upon moving to the Keys in 1993, Victoria Shearer discovered that island life opened the window on a tropical wonderland of sun, sea, and the sweeping bounty of Mother Nature. An avid traveler and no stranger to the wonders of the world, Vicki concluded that the Florida Keys reign in a class by themselves. So, like the Bahamians and Cubans who adopted the islands centuries before her, she stayed.

A University of Wisconsin graduate, Vicki wore several professional hatselementary school teacher, advertising agency account executive, cooking magazine copy editorbefore combining her passion for food and travel with her love of writing. She has written for many national magazines and newspapers and is author of ten editions of Insiders Guide to the Florida Keys & Key West (Globe Pequot), as well as Walking Places in New England (2001), It Happened in the Florida Keys (Globe Pequot, 2008), The Florida Keys Cookbook (Globe Pequot, 2006, 2013), Quick, Cheap Comfort Food (2009), Leftover Makeovers (2010), Make-Ahead Meals (2011), and Slow Cooker Classics from Around the World (2011).

Vicki divides her time between Islamorada, in the Keys, and Wake Forest, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Bob. No day is complete without puttering in the kitchen, but she also loves to play bridge, needlepoint, and cheer on her beloved Carolina Hurricanes hockey team. And while the title of author and cook are quite nice, Vickis most cherished monikers are Mom (Brian and Lisa, Kristen and John) and Gram (Christopher, Bethany, Bobby, Ashleigh, Leia, Nicholas, and Sammy).

Michael Marrero is an award-winning photographer specializing in commercial, lifestyle, and food photography. He currently lives in Key West with his wife and two dogs and can usually be found relaxing on his front porch enjoying a cold beer with friends.

This has been such an amazing yearlong project. Stepping out of my kitchen and into the lives of the Florida Keys best chefs opened a window that gave me a brief glimpse of what goes on beyond the menus, behind the kitchen doors, and in the minds of this very special breed of artists. I feel as if I made a cadre of new friends, and, for sure, I gained insight and a heightened appreciation for the passion, dedication, and, yes, sacrifice these talented men and women bring to the table.

I send my undying gratitude to the chefs, owners, and managers of the restaurants and drinking establishments featured in this book for taking the time to create and contribute special recipes, for following through with the paperwork and e-mails amid your very busy, crazy schedules, for so candidly sharing your stories with me in our interviews, and for opening your establishments for photo shoots.

My thanks as well to the public relations firms representatives, who liaised with their client chefs on my behalf, chased down recipes, and set up interviews and photo shoots. Your constant good humor and timely communications were very welcome.

Thank you to Robert Moehling of Robert Is Here for allowing us to feature his famous fruit standmy favoritein the book. A very special thank you as well to Gordon Ross of MARC for inviting me to be a judge at his fantastic Key West Master Chefs Classic challenge. I had a ball! And the food... oh, the food! And to Chef Carl Stanton, instructor for Marathon High Schools culinary program, thank you for allowing your students to be a part of this project.

To Amy Lyons at Globe Pequot Press, who once again has offered me the opportunity to write a fascinating new book, thank you. It has been a labor of love. My gratitude as well to Mike Marrero, the fantastic Key West photographer who brought this book to life with his amazing images.

Thank you to my husband, Bob, for his constant and undying support of my crazy writing projects, for suffering through the winter months in the Keys by fishing while I was interviewing chefs, and for understanding the shhhhh! when I was writing.

And, I send a shout-out to my children, my grandchildren, and my loyal friends, who understood and forgave as I all but abandoned them in the run-up to my book deadline. Here she goes again, they say.

Like most of the chefs of the Florida Keys, I washed ashore, too, back in the early nineties. I discovered then that the islands have a flavor all their own, that there is no place quite like it in the United States... on Earth, maybe. We call our special corner of the world Paradise. Savor the tastes of the Florida Keys!

102401 OVERSEAS HIGHWAY, MM-102.4, OCEANSIDE

KEY LARGO, FL 33037

(305) 451-4665

FISHHOUSE.COM

CJ BERWICK AND DOUG PREW, OWNERS
SAM QUEZADA, EXECUTIVE CHEF

Burned out from their mainland jobs, Doug Prew and CJ Berwick landed in Key Largo in 1987 and bought a tiny little fish joint called the Fish House. It was nothing, says Prew. It had five employees and served about twenty meals a day, but we needed something operational because we knew absolutely nothing about running a restaurant.

Within a month, the couple found out just how steep their learning curve was going to be. The chef got mad and walked out, leaving Prew and Berwick scrambling. Prew called his brother, an amateur cook, and said, Im in trouble... I need a chef and you know how to cook. Brother came on board, their fish cutter donned an apron, and the drunken lunch cook carried on... drunk! In fact, says Berwick, One day, drunk as usual, he accidentally put sherry in the Pan Saut, and the customers loved it. So that is how the dish, our second most popular, is made to this day!

Chef Sam Quezada came to the United States from his native Mexico when he was fourteen years old, living with an uncle in Homestead. He attended cooking classes at the tender age of nine and learned a lot about cooking at his grandmothers knee, but got his culinary training the old-fashioned way... from the bottom up. From his first jobs as dishwasher, prep cook, and then line cook at the Italian Fisherman restaurant, he honed his craft, joining the Fish House family as a line cook in 1989. Everything is special here, says Sam, now head chef. We work like a family. We enjoy coming to work. We have fun.

Evident to all, Prew and Berwick mastered their learning curve and the restaurant business because now, nearly thirty years later, the Fish House reigns as one of the most enduringly popular seafood roadhouse eateries in the Florida Keys. Fresh, fresh, fresh fish and seafood is the mantra here.

And it is still a family affair. Local fishermen daily bring their fresh catch directly to the back door, where they are filleted in-house. Prews brother smokes fish for house specialties. Chef Sams cousin Jose Ornelas bakes award-winning key lime pies and makes homemade ice creams. Joses and Sams kids bus tables. Berwick and Prew collect funky fishy decorations and twinkling lights, which adorn the walls and ceiling. The Keys are a funky, kicked back, fun, crazy, upside-down place, says Prew. Its different from that world up there, so we tried to keep that same feel. They did just that... and so much more!