The Nibbler

Not much meat on these bones

Late last year, a few months after Tampa restaurateur Bern Laxer died, a local author and publisher served up a book-length tribute to him.

Joyce LaFray's Bern's Steak House: Reflections & Recipes from a Remarkable Restaurant (Seaside Publishing), however, did not win the favor of the steak house or Laxer's descendants.

And after reading it, I have to say it does not win mine, either. Not that the book is negative or revealing. It is more a worshipful memoir of times LaFray spent with Laxer at the restaurant, at book fairs and so on over the last 20 years.

There's just very little meat on it. Your $29.95 would buy a more satisfying rib eye at the steak house.

Part of the disappointment is reality. After Laxer's 1993 car accident, no one had much access to his genius, and LaFray had minimal access to the family and restaurant staff.

That leaves Laxer's well-known rags-to-red-meat-renown tale: how Bern and Gert's Little Midway breakfast and sandwich shop begat Bern's, the power restaurant with the world-class wine list. Much of the story is told through lengthy passages from the Bern's menu, ads and other Laxer writings -- as an ad man he wrote at great length -- and older magazine articles by Jane and Michael Stern and others.

There are some intriguing bits, such as Laxer's campaign to use polygraphs for employee interviews and his futile attempt to ban smoking in 1989, but there's more that's not.

Perhaps Laxer was never able to tell anyone how he went from hyping organics in the 1950s to promoting red meat or what he thought about modern chef-driven restaurants. He certainly doesn't in this book.

LaFray has been honest that the book doesn't explore wine much. That's a shame, for wine is what distinguished Bern's from a dozen other big-bucks steak places. Even if he got into wine just to upsell big-shot diners, his 40-year evolution from neophyte to great collector could provide endless lessons and tips for anyone interested in wine. But there is nothing about storing or serving wine in Florida, a Bern's triumph.

There is not much about food or at least how Bern's prepares it, either. Though praising Bern's for dry-aging its steaks, the book does not tell the reader how to do this or how to cook a steak at home, Bern's style. There is a recipe for prime rib, which Bern's does not serve, and tenderloins with Bearnaise, but that and many of the recipes are LaFray's, collected in her travels and cooking career. A few are described as variations of Bern's, but only a handful, such as Caesar salad and steak tartare, are identified as Bern's.

There are juicier backstage bits, like the time Laxer called LaFray flustered because food writer John Mariani of USA Today and Esquire was coming to Bern's. She said he was afraid to give Mariani a complimentary meal, thinking he would appear to be buying influence (a position the Nibbler and most critics endorse). LaFray assured Laxer otherwise: "Sure, pick up the check. You don't have to worry about John. My experience is that he only writes what he thinks." Mariani concluded Bern's was "remarkable," which this book seconds in its title.

Unfortunately, there is much more to know about Laxer and his restaurant, whether in a text-for-success "Bern's Paradigm" or a guide to running a steak house or wine cellar.

With more time, research or talks with Laxer, this book might have been more than a cursory trip down memory lane and through the clips.

It left me hungry.

It came from the deep fat fryer...

Friday the 13th and Terminator movies have nothing on the terrifying deep fat fryers on the midway at the Florida State Fair.

You gasped at "deep-fried Oreos." You recoiled from "fried Milky Ways." The next installment will chill your blood and curdle your cholesterol: "deep-fried Twinkies!"

That's right. Crisp golden packages of sponge cake oozing with hot sugar cream are the newest item in death-defying taste bud rides at the Florida State Fair, starting Thursday. Given that this is home base for a lot of carnival workers and often the first stop of the season, the Nibbler wants to make sure the industry never runs out of candidates for the deep fat fryer.

It's not a new trick or an exclusive American invention. In Peru, fairs bring rural areas salchipapas, a big-city treat made by dumping slices of wieners in the fryers with french fries.

But we've got wilder stuff to fry. First I'd nominate Mounds bars, a longtime personal fave: dark chocolate (of sorts) and coconut. Why not melt them together? Or how about a Cuban sandwich with a potato chip crust? If you must pretend to be healthful, how about a banana in shredded coconut?

If you're a fair-food foodie, think of yourself as a potential inventor, not just a consumer. What would you put in the fryer?

This is your brain in the deep fat fryer. I can hear the grease crackling now.

Bilingual Pepins

Those are Italian colors you see outside Pepin's, but the St. Petersburg landmark is not giving up its trademark Spanish cooking.

It's just a one-month promotion with a half-dozen Italian entrees, fettuccine and rotini added to the dinner menu through March 2, ranging from $15.95 manicotti to a $28.95 veal chop.

Food critic Chris Sherman writes about dining and restaurant news in the Nibbler. He can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or by e-mail at sherman@sptimes.com .

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