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Fine food festival offers morsels for every taste
By AMY WIMMER
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- Doreen Dzwonkiewicz is a serious taster. A gourmet cook herself, she heads each year to Taste of Pinellas and knows the best items to sample. This year her first stops at the Vinoy Park event were the Columbia's tent for The Pier restaurant's famous paella, and the Wine Cellar for beef Wellington. "We go to all the restaurants and consider ourselves food critics," said Dzwonkiewicz, finishing her beef Wellington under a rare shade tree at the 15th annual Taste of Pinellas on Saturday afternoon. Forty-nine restaurants are represented at this year's Taste, said Cindy Rose, administrative director for marketing at All Children's Hospital. Last year the Taste raised $300,000 for All Children's. "We're hoping for as good or a little bit better this year, as always," Rose said. Besides the offerings from local favorites such as Johnny Leverock's and Harvey's Fourth Street Grill, plus newcomers such as the Asado Cafe in St. Pete Beach's Pass-a-Grille neighborhood, one popular booth was the Zephyrhills tent. There, sweaty Taste of Pinellas patrons could grab unlimited cups of complimentary Zephyrhills water. "I think every year we're the main attraction here," said Kevin St. Cin, a direct sales representative for Zephyrhills who is helping run this year's tent. The company also takes advantage of the crowd to pitch its home and business water delivery service. "We try to cool people down," St. Cin said. One man passed out in the 87-degree heat at the Taste Saturday afternoon, Pinellas emergency officials said. Back at the booths, one company even tried to mix social consciousness with dishing out food. At the Stonyfield Farm tent, the national yogurt maker urged patrons to sign single-serve yogurt container lids containing messages such as, "Wake up Washington: Tell the Hill not to drill." The company plans to ship the lids, which should be available in stores later this week, to Washington, D.C., to oppose the proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Stonyfield calls its petition drive "advitism" -- activism through advertising. In the first couple of hours of the Taste on Saturday, organizers had found only one person to sign a lid. "Everybody who's here ought to be able to do it," said Cathy Steinfuhrer, 52, of St. Petersburg, who signed a lid. "They might not have time to save cans and bottles, but they can sign a lid."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
