Monday, February 10, 2014

Chef Michael Bennett crafts another Healthy cookbook

Press Release
            FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
February 1st, 2014
South Florida

For more info:  954-404-0815


Chef Michael Bennett crafts another Healthy, Gluten Free, Natural Seafood Cookbook.
from Chef Michael Bennett



            South Florida, February 1st, 2014 ~ FoodBrats.com - Publisher for the Culinary Profession – After Chef Michael Bennett’ s fourth cookbook that reached Amazon’s TOP 20 spot (Natural Recipes that will Change Your Life), Chef Michael Bennett just released his fifth book Natural Know-How Cookbook and after one week it breaks into the TOP 100 in the Natural Cookbook category.

Chef Michael Bennett ’s Gluten Free Seafood cookbook was crafted through years of thriving as a Top Chef in South Florida. The Cookbook’s Gluten Free recipes evolved after a daily two-year trial and error process were his restaurant customers appraised Chef Bennett’s new health seafood recipes. He culled his ever-changing healthy Seafood Prie-Fixe menu to only using his best 100 new Gluten Free recipes and made them apart of this cookbook. This process led Chef Michael Bennett to publish this second all-Natural Cooking E-book cookbook that is due out in February of 2014.

Chef Michael Bennett ’s new Gluten Free Cookbook thesis is based on ease of use, availability of common ingredients and features vigorous Starter Plates and Main Plates. Chef Michael Bennett’s latest cookbook is second part in his E-book series that focuses on the natural Seafood cookery. This cookbook delves into why one should change their cooking habits to use more natural foods and cooking techniques to produce recipes that will amaze your tastebuds. Throughout this cookbook of healthy Seafood-based meals, there are dozens of useful healthy lifestyle tips and cooking techniques that you can employ to make tonight's dinner special.

Inside the Cookbook:
  • You will discover the over 100 natural recipes that will appease your fussiest guest,
  • What a healthy natural seafood Gluten Free diet can look like,
  • It uses Nature’s top super-foods to incorporate into your recipes,
  • And, it will help you understand the Asian culinary concept of Ying and Yang in food.
  • It is practical, straightforward and fun. These recipes are gourmet but are written so they are simple to execute. 
Natural Know-How Cookbook:
  • Is a 100 recipe, 180 page eBook that is available for download on Amazon exclusively for only .99 cents.
  • Over 25 Full color pictures of the recipes.
  • All recipes are healthy, Gluten-Free and extremely tasty.

Author Substantive:
 Michael Bennett is a well-known award winning (Chef of the Year-1995) South Florida chef whose clients are a Who’s Who of Media and Sports personalities. He earned critical culinary kudos as the Executive chef for the 26 year-local culinary force Left Bank restaurant. Under his auspices he brought “Best of” (Zagat Survey), Four Stars (AAA) and Four Diamonds (Mobil) to the long-time three star rating. He is the founding author/member of FoodBrats.com - the publisher for the Culinary Arts. He also holds culinary affiliations with several culinary and food-related organizations in the USA and around the world. He regularly lectures on South Florida’s healthy “Caribb-ican” cuisine. 
 



Reviews on Chef Michael Bennett 's first All-Natural Cookbook:

Natural Recipes That Will Change Your Life:
Simple and Healthy Recipes for Delicious Appetizers
RATING: 3.71  

Author and Chef Michael Bennett – South Florida (Miami, Fl.) has become a livewire cookbook writer and publisher. In the past four years he has written, produced and published four cookbooks along with writing ghost-authored cookbooks for two International Publishers. Chef Michael Bennett has been a noted South Florida chef with participation in dozens of charity and culin...more

Reviews

May 23, 2013Pax Fernandez rated it 3 of 5 stars
It is akin to cooking and eating with a conscience. Michael Bennett carefully weave the art of cooking with the science of achieving a healthy body and sane mind. He introduced to his readers an approach in eating that have been inspired by the wisdom of the ages.

The encouragement to lose or at least lessen the meat in our diets can be a bit difficult for some to fathom. Nevertheless, his method of going natural is worth trying with determination and discipline as their key components.

He provided recipes that are simple, fun and with some twists on the classics (bouche and ceviche).

The good thing was he also plotted a sample of how going natural can be applied in a daily eating regimen. It would have been better though if he added more recipes for his readers to be more inspired.

Furthermore, the chef-author courageously shared his ideas based on how he was able to curb his personal health concern by changing how he ate. The good thing is he still leaves it up to the reader to decide whether he/she will adapt to his approach.

This book is a must have for those who thought they have 'read it all'.

Rating: 3/5
Jun 13, 2013Dini rated it 3 of 5 stars
This has been one of many recipe books I have gone through so far and I could rate it as average comparatively and my feedback is a mixture of pros and cons of the book.
Recipe books are mostly for fun and to try something new and different. But as per the title in this book “Natural recipes that will change your life”, it adds some kind of seriousness to the book making it unique and stands above the ordinary cook books. However I did not find the book as professional and inspiring as I expected it to be. For one thing, the font style and the size were lacking the professionalism. True that it was easy to read and soothing for the eyes, but it would have been better if the recipes were somehow managed within 1-2 pages and followed a standard font style, size and a format. 

According to my view, table of contents plays a major role in attracting the readers to read the book. That is even more important with e-books as the reader usually don’t get a chance to flip through any random page before the purchase. Also if we go with the famous saying “first impression is the best impression” table of contents is quite powerful to intrigue the readers. Unfortunately I don’t find that technique has been used in this book. I feel it would have been a great catalyst if the recipe names were also penned down as sub topics so that readers will be both curious to learn the new recipes and also would know what to expect from the book.

The content was great. The author has nicely presented many important facts in a well-organized way. Yet again I felt inconvenient with the amount of facts written per page and it often gave me the feeling as if the simple facts were unnecessarily extended over many pages. It’s my habit to sometimes go back and re-read something which I came across little while ago in order to memorize. In this book I had to go back through several pages to find out the stuff other than doing a quick scan through 1-2 pages like how it happens with other books.

The theme of the book “Natural foods” is quite appropriate to the modern society. But in the same time, in internet we all come across hundreds of blog articles related to this field. It’s a plus point that all the important facts were found in this book in concise manner. However, being an avid reader especially on healthy diet and related topics I hardly found anything new and unique in this book.

As for a recipe book, recipes were too less and not even half of the book was of recipes. I loved the way how the recipes were written with step wise direction and notes. Explanations were quite practical and guidance was proper. But the recipes lacked one good feature, which is the mentioning of the level of expertise needed. The recipes would have looked perfect with the expertise level given first and also it might have been a nice way to categorize and order the recipes in the book with ascending pattern of the level.

The book starts with lengthy explanations, not that I’m complaining. All the topics and the chapters prior to the recipes were well written and quite insightful but comparatively the ending of the book is quite abrupt and unexpected.

Considering all plus and minus points I have mentioned above, I would rate the book 3 stars but would recommend it to anyone who is ready to switch into a healthy diet and is eager to learn how and why.
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Jun 17, 2013Karen Mclaren rated it 4 of 5 stars
The truth of the matter is really this - we are what we eat! Yep, it sounds like a worn-out cliché, but it actually is true. And we are truly seeing the damaging impact that overly-processed, packaged, high fat, high sodium, pesticide- and chemical-laden foods are having upon our bodies and our society....just look at the soaring rates of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. It is time for us to take a long, hard look at what we're feeding ourselves, and make a positive, healthy change; not only...more

May 23, 2013Charles Franklin rated it 3 of 5 stars
As a person who has been making the transition toward a more natural diet, I was naturally drawn to this book. Overall, I would say that it was a helpful book at inspiring readers to eat more natural. I liked the personal Introduction that discussed the author’s motivation for writing the book as well. It set the tone of a book as a regular guy who has learned a few things about nutrition. After reading so many books from “experts”, this was a nice little break. I also agree wholeheartedly with...more

Aug 02, 2013Valerie Lewis rated it 4 of 5 stars
This book was great for learning more about the way food can be used for a healthier body. This book talked about food that's great for anything from the brain to skin to burning fat and getting good cholesterol. It includes meals that can help you get started to eating natural and explains why natural eating is good for you. The only issue I had was on the recipes. They all looked like they were meant for head chefs to make instead of a mom cooking for her family or a student trying to eat bett...more









Pictures of Chef Michael Bennett 's cuisine or for more information on any of Chef Michael Bennett ’s cookbooks, contact us at: foodbrat@gmail.com   |   (954) 404-0815        


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Thursday, May 17, 2012

ST. BART’S DIVER SCALLOPS from Chef Michael Bennet of Bimini Boatyard in Fort Lauderdale

ST. BART’S DIVER SCALLOPS from Chef Michael Bennet of Bimini Boatyard in Fort Lauderdale: pExecutive Chef Michael Bennet has recently written a cookbook on glutten free cooking. Michael was kind enough to share his recipe for St. Bart’s Diver Scallops from his first cookbook: In the Land of Misfits, Pirates and Cooks. Chef Bennet offers Gluten Free Dining is South Florida. One of his tips is to, “Eat more [...]/p

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Why does anyone go to live in the Caribbean?



It is the weather right?  Not this guy. I grew up in South Florida and have spent most of my life in tropical climes.  I was there to learn more about the food of the Caribbean.

What lures so many is the stunning beauty of the Caribbean Sea.  For centuries these islands have been attracting sailors from all over the globe.  The bygone era’s of pirates and even modern day swashbucklers make use of these waters and the islands that lie in and around these oceans as a refuge from persecution and shelter.

It was a tricky play for me to convince my family to agree to leave the conveniences of the modern world.  Eventually Miami’s gleaming towers of glass and steel were soon replaced by never ending horizons of blue.  The aquatic surrounding our new residence on the Island of Tortola made for glorious panoramas.  Daily scenes of mountainous isles jutting out of an azure sea so vivid you would might think this scene from my porch is an oversize post card.  We have lived our entire lives in the metropolitan landscapes of Miami and Fort Lauderdale and this new Virgin Island seascape was to me implausible. 

In my most recent daydreams of our Tortolan bliss, the seascape of blue was replaced by landscapes of green, yellow, orange and the crimson red of mango, papayas, pineapple and bananas. They line every road, trail and path multiplying copiously on every corner of our island. These small outcroppings were only dwarfed by my encounters with numerous wild groves.  As I pursued my uncovering more on foot, the high altitudes can really affect you. Did I remember to tell you that these islands are mountainous?

Imagine a Caribbean island filled with tropical foods.  A chef’s dream right?  I thought so at first, but found out what a chore it was to harvest these wild groves after climbing a combination of summits.  The altitude unsettled my self confidence.  Being someone that lived his entire life at sea level, this altitude made me confront and rethink my physical stamina.  Just about to give up this week’s attempt at finding another unusual food for dinner, I stumble across a man and his donkey. 

It seems that just a decade before the new millennium, this island had no automobiles and modern roads and donkeys were the best means of transportation.  The sun weathered old man with limited dentistry encounters, (wearing what might be graciously said as) sporting a tattered assembly of cloths and no shoes - told me that he climbs these hills daily to harvest provisions and later ensues that others have been doing this for years.  They gather on Saturday and Sunday at an aged (to put it in a good way) open-air market to sell these wild foods and I should go.  

It is not the amount of people that have crossed your path
But, how the path was accomplished.

Being at the market only a few minutes, I can see that this is the meeting place for “Belongers” to flock.  Not so much to sell their harvest but to be apart of a community.  Belonger’s are people that have lived on the island for a very longtime if not their entire lives.  This island’s populace is all about community. It seems as though everyone knows each other here.  It is unusual for you to walk any street and not be said hello. It is exceedingly strange to me, coming from Miami where nobody knows each other and most people are from someplace else.  The feeling of community is strongest on the island at the marketplace.  All the gathers sell their provisions but it really isn’t as important to make a sale as it is to be with friends.  Our time on this world can be assessed by how many people have crossed your path and affected your life.  In the Caribbean it is different.  It is not the amount of people that have crossed your path but, how the path was accomplished. 

Most Caribbean peoples share the same common history.  Discovering a social backdrop like the marketplace is just the tip of a very large iceberg. This entire social unification of islands and its cultures are different but the same in so many ways.  As a rule Islanders, are overflowing with the same atypical allegiance to its own peoples and their own individualistic cultures.  Each Caribbean island has a potpourri of divergent residents and not everyone originally comes from the same island which they now live.  Jamaicans and the people from “Down Island” (those people coming from the lower islands of the Lesser Antilles) make up Tortola’s diverse, yet the same populace.  It is awe-inspiring to be apart of a community where everyone has commonalities and feels as though they belong to something greater. 

The peoples of these islands not only have a different spirit of life that isn’t seen in America, it is poles apart.


Tortola is the “melting pot” of the Caribbean just as the United States.  Being a financial center, second busiest in the Caribbean, people from every where come here to work.  Commonalities bring people here but it is their uncommon allegiance to their home island that keeps them independently uplifted.  People from “down island” always chatter on about the natural beauty of their home island.  Dominique for example, is always said to be the most beautiful place in the world, with their rainforest and crystal clear rivers leading out to the Oceans where fishing is exceptionally popular.  While other down-islanders brag about their homeland, the Trini’s are always yakking on about Carnival. If anyone knows anything about Carnival in Trinadad, they don’t try to compare their island’s festival to a Trinadad’s.  The people of Jamaica are always talking about how beautifully rich their homeland is in natural attractions and culture. You can’t go anywhere in the Caribbean without running into a “Jerk-Shak”.  Jamaican jerk-shaks are so popular, you would think every Island has the same food.

Food is the separating and a bonding aspect to many cultures.
Being wrong once again Dad didn’t figure in the lack of everyday urban conveniences as a major dilemma for my girls.  They were to use to the modern amenities of Miami.  After one year of being un-accommodate of everyday requirements on this remote island, we returned to the good old US of A and a hip-hip- hooray’s ensued daily by my girls.

excerpt taken from my first cookbook 
"In the Land of Misfits, Pirates and Cooks"
copyright 2009, 2011

 

Monday, September 19, 2011

Michael Bennett, chef of Bimini Boatyard wins “Pairings” tasting event in Fort Lauderdale.


For Immediate Release
September 18th, 2011
South Florida



Chef Michael Bennett, chef of Bimini Boatyard
wins “Pairings” tasting event in Fort Lauderdale.

Miami, Florida ~ Chef and Author of three cookbooks, Michael Bennett the Executive chef of Fort Lauderdale’s Bimini Boatyard, judged “Best Overall” by New Times magazine.
            Author and Chef Michael Bennett has been Bimini Boatyard’s chef ever since he returned to the U.S. from his three year expedition working through the Caribbean. Chef Michael Bennett tells a story about the foods of the Caribbean through his dish - that won “Best Overall” recipe - at this premiere Fort Lauderdale foodie event.
            Chef Michael describes his Caribbean Escolar as an ode to the Caribbean nations he has visited. Meaning; each part of this recipe represents a vast array of Caribbean cultures via the ingredients that he uses. Escolar is a white tuna and it is found in the waters off Florida’s west coast and the waters around Mexico’s Pacific Ocean. First chef Michael dusts the Escolar fillet with a spice rub composed of a Caribbean spice palette of; pink and green peppercorns, mace, ginger and “just enough of a good thing” - cocoa. “It is tribute to the western Caribbean’s Incan culture”, says Chef Michael Bennett. The actual addition of Cocoa was made to heighten the flavor profile of the north Florida Oak grilling of the Escolar.
            As the fish cooks, it absorbs the flavors from the grilling and to counteract the grilling char he added a French Caribbean beloved flavoring, Frangelico in the beurre blanc that he uses to nappe the Escolar.  Of course, Frangelico has a great flavor profile for dessert chefs, but Chef Michael has proved that Frangelico is not just for Crème Anglaise anymore. “The richness of Escolar and the Frangelico Beurre Blanc calls to me for balance this dish with an acidic yin and yang”, says Chef Michael. So he pairs the dish with a Kimchee made from a characteristic Caribbean market basket, consisting of papaya and pineapple. Chef Michael Bennett says, “It goes a long way to bring this dish into the Caribbean cuisine realm and also acts as the perfect foil to the Escolar’s richness, along with the flavor profile balance”.  

            Chef Michael also added a texture related counter-balance with the crunch of Tobacco onions. The ideal to add texture balance was to revise a classic Caribbean cooking premise and present the Escolar in a snappier, more memorable, exciting and groomed manner. The notion of total plate counter-balance was in vogue back in the early '90s.  Nouvelle cuisine taught us well. Small portions of exceptionaly subsequent plate oppose-balances and beautiful food, is now the model rather than the exception

About Chef and Author Michael Bennett:
Chef Michael Bennett’s first cookbook, "In the Land of Misfits, Pirates and Cooks", has been revised to be 100 percent Gluten-Free.This cookbook is the result of chef Michael Bennett’s equating and collaborating hundreds of years of compelling Caribbean food and cookery elements with a Gluten-free scope. This book is overflowing with a scrumptious mix of seasoning blends and marinades, salads, appetizers and entrees written in a way where you are the aspirant chef and, YOU can compose or alter recipes while atop the stove.

The modern metropolitan recipe styling captures
a distinct local flavor, one that illustrates a multi-national cookery heritage. Vibrant photography, easy to use design, one-of-a-kind recipe flow, interesting and helpful sidebars and an unique concept of using QR (Quick Response) codes, blend to create the perfect sampling of what this modernized, Caribbean based cookery style has to offer.  This Gluten-free cookbook was developed as a way of changing the idea that Caribbean cuisine is only "curry powder" or a "jerk glaze" repertoire.


Chef Michael asserts that after working as a chef for the past four years in applaudable Caribbean dining venues, each has played an important role in the successful dispatch of this book. Michael's travel and oeuvre throughout the Caribbean, whether on a British, American, French or Spanish island nations, has helped Michael to shape this unprecedented recipe collection.
Author substantive:
 Michael Bennett is a well-known award winning (Chef of the Year-1995) South Florida chef whose clients are a Who’s Who of Media and Sports personalities. He earned critical culinary kudos as the Executive chef for the 26 year-local culinary force Left Bank restaurant. Under his auspices he brought “Best of” (Zagat Survey), Four Stars (AAA) and Four Diamonds (Mobil) to the long-time three star rating. He also holds culinary affiliations with several culinary and food-related organizations. He regularly lectures on South Florida’s “Caribb-ican” cuisine. 

About The Professional Image, Inc.
The Professional Image was founded in 1991 and as a “budding” Chef/Author services provider for chefs - and soon to be authors, has helped to publish food-related articles and books on a regional and national basis. The Professional Image is based in South Florida with outposts throughout the Caribbean. TPI provides chef/authors with direct and personal access to quick, quality orientated publication in trade paperback, custom leather-bound, and full-color formats.

For more information, please visit 
http://www.foodbrats.com and
E-mail: :the_professional_image@yahoo.com or call at 1-305-851-3441, to receive a free publishing estimate.

The Professional Image only publishes Cookbooks.

Creative Director/Art Director/Designer:
Michael Bennett
Chief Photographer:
J.Christopher photography
Food Stylists: Michael Bennett
Editor-in-Chief: Eileen Clark
 
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