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December 2025 Focus: Florida Family Cooking [Al Burgert with food]: Tampa, Fla. Collection PA 16689 |
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FEATURED BOOKS FROM THE FLORIDA COLLECTION: |
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by Myrtle Scharrer Betz Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime is pure delight. More than simply a good cookbook, it is a touching story of a lost and vanishing Florida. Myrtle's granddaughters, Terry Fortner and Suzanne Thorp, have lovingly compiled not simply the recipes, but the memories and stories that make Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime a culinary and historic treasure. -- From the Forward by Gary Mormino |
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by Pam Brandon, Katie Farmand, and Heather McPherson In a state better known for miles of sandy beaches, tourist attractions, and space shuttles, it is often overlooked that Florida offers more to savor than merely seafood and citrus. Name an ingredient and you’re likely to find it here. Talk to chefs in Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville, or Tampa, and they’re likely to reveal their favorite local farmer, beekeeper, or rancher. As the eat-local and slow food movements grow in popularity, people are paying more attention to what they eat and where it is grown. Farmers are reaching out with community supported agriculture programs, packing up their harvest for shareholders and making the state’s culinary riches even more accessible to everyday cooks. Pam Brandon, Katie Farmand, and Heather McPherson travelled thousands of miles, tasting some of the freshest ingredients along the way. In Field to Feast they share such treasures as chef Renee Savary’s crispy roast duck, a grown-up grilled cheese from Jodi Swank, and Reda Larson’s divine peanut butter pie. The result is a cookbook like no other; a delicious celebration of Florida food and cooking that'll lead you from the kitchen to the farmers’ market and home again. |
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Famous Florida Recipes: Centuries of Good Eating in the Sunshine Stateby Lowis CarltonThis little cookbook is a favorite of many Floridians. For more than ten years, Lowis Carlton traveled to Florida, collecting and testing recipes found to be popular with different cultures in all the regions of the state. Iconic recipes include Greek lamb kabobs from Tarpon Springs, fried Catfish from Clewiston, beef barbecue from Florida cow country, Key West paella, and yam praline pie from the Panhandle. Recipes are grouped by region, and each section is preceded by a mini history.
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With year-round harvests and incredible seasonal variety of crops, Florida offers a wealth of homegrown foods that make it easy to cook local and fresh. Food journalist Dalia Colón is your guide to discovering flavorful dishes that showcase Florida's bounty of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and grains. The Florida Vegetarian Cookbook includes more than 100 recipes using local ingredients as distinctive as oranges, tomatoes, and watermelon and as interesting as sugarcane, peanuts, cabbage, squash, and cantaloupe. Colón inspires readers to try new twists on classic recipes such as her Spanakopita, a satisfying entree that pays homage to the Greek restaurants of Tarpon Springs; her sweet-and-spicy Game Day Buffalo Cauliflower that will win over any potluck party; and her Chocolate-Dipped Avocado Paletas that combine creamy avocado, zesty lime, and sweet dark chocolate for a refreshing treat in the summer heat. Colón recipes are accompanied by 12 essays that offer the stories behind some of Florida's most cherished food traditions. Topics include the origins of the Florida Strawberry Festival, the rise and decline of Florida's citrus industry, the importance of corn for Florida's First Peoples, and more. |
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by Jane Cossio Florida's bestselling Cuban home cooking cookbook. These time-honored dishes meld with the rhythm and spices of the Caribbean. Savor the artistry of authentic Cuban cuisine at its best: pollo frito, ropa vieja, carne con papas, garden eggs and many, many more! Distinctive flavors and easy preparation techniques abound. This very practical compilation contains the best of the classics, minus the tropical fats and oils commonly associated with island cuisines. A complete Cuban glossary in both English and Spanish offers simple substitutes. |
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by Bruce Fischer and Lee Fischer Tempting recipes for luscious pies, dazzling desserts, sunshine salads, novelty meat and seafood dishes! Plus, tangy thirst-quenchers made from oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes and tangerines. |
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by Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco This special 115th anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook, features a touching foreword by Andrea Gonzmart Williams, granddaughter of Adela. Adela’s affair with food is a family legacy that began in the early twentieth century, when her grandfather Casimiro Hernandez emigrated from Cuba to Tampa. The book also features commentary by Ferdie Pacheco, Muhammad Ali’s Fight Doctor, Ybor City’s famous raconteur, and Adela’s childhood friend. Adela and Ferdie have since passed, but this book remains a testament to their love of good food and their joy in sharing the aroma, the seasonings, and the glamour of the Columbia. |
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Mangoby Jen Karetnick Jen Karetnick invites you into her home, the Mango House, where many of these luscious recipes were created. She introduces you to the Mango Gang, a group of world-renowned chefs including Allen Susser and Norman Van Aken. These chefs make frequent use of the bounty from Jen's ninety-year-old trees in their Miami restaurants, and in Mango , they share some of their favorite recipes. Karetnick discusses the best methods for picking, preparing, and eating mangos and shares expert tips on how to dehydrate and freeze them so you can enjoy this delicious fruit year-round. The easy-to-follow, exquisite recipes run the gamut from smoothies to cocktails, from mango blintzes for breakfast to jerked grouper with mango-fig chutney for dinner, and from mangría (mango-flavored sangría) to mangospacho (mango-infused gazpacho). If you're looking for a tantalizing hint of mango in your dish or a tropical explosion of flavor, this book has just the right recipe for you.
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by Seaside Town Council This book had its beginnings steeped in the tradition of great southern small towns, to the end that people and good times almost always are inseparable from great food! To see the book is to see the town of Seaside -- an extraordinary community built from an original vision. The recipes and anecdotes provide an insight into the lives of the residents, and the spectacular full-color photographs of Seaside evoke the spirit of the community -- always color everywhere and changing with the light! Pastels & Pickets is a delight to the eye and to the appetite. |
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Norman Van Aken's Florida Kitchenby Norman Van Aken Gold Medal for Cooking Award-winning chef and restaurateur Norman Van Aken invites you to discover the richness of Florida's culinary landscape. This long-awaited cookbook embraces the history, the character, and the flavors of the state that has inspired Van Aken’s famous fusion style for over forty years. Drawing from Florida's vibrant array of immigrant cultures, and incorporating local ingredients, the dishes in this book display the exciting diversity of Van Aken’s "New World Cuisine." Recipes include Key lime beignets; cornbread-stuffed quail with strawberry-ancho-guava jam and sweet and sour parsnips; "Spanglish" tortillas with hash browns, creamed spinach, and serrano ham; pork stew with raisins, tamarind, plantains, and chiles; and fully loaded cracked conch po' boys. While preparing these dishes, readers will enjoy advice and stories straight from the kitchen of a master chef. Van Aken infuses his recipes with tips, techniques, and personality. He reveals the key to a good gumbo, praises the acidity of a pickled peppadew, connects food innovation to jazz and blues music, describes hitchhiking adventures across the state with his wife, Janet, and tells the tale behind the Mustachioed Swimmer, a cocktail named for Tennessee Williams. Norman Van Aken's Florida Kitchen is a delicious read. The definitive guide to the historic past and multicultural future of Florida’s abundant foodways. With its forward-thinking blend of old and new, thoughtful step-by-step instructions for wonderful meals, and plenty of friendly conversation, this book is a rare immersion in a culinary artist’s world.
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Fresh from Florida provides an amazing assortment of fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, and other products that are local to Florida. The team working together to provide this website provide a section that shows what items are currently in season that will then lead you to recipes. Or you can start on recipes by deciding if you prefer to watch a recipe or to read one. All the recipes are provided by chef Justin Timineri, who you can read further about like his specialties. |
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LIBRARY AND TAMPA BAY AREA EVENTS: |
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Kotler Gallery Presents - Nyane [Wake Up] by Agyenim Wiredu December, 2025 John F. Germany Library, 900 N. Ashley Dr., 2nd floor. These pieces are the first I made when I returned to creating art again after a 20 year slumber. The art is in a spirit of unity, pride, respect, and love for all things African. It tells a story of HUMAN unity through the eXperiences of African people… universal interconnection. The themes and concepts behind this series of work form the foundation for my project "Afro". |
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Learn ways to research your family history. Teens are introduced to the basics of genealogy and ways they can learn about their family history. Participants will learn how to complete a basic family tree and become familiar with library resources on genealogy. Recommended for teens. Registration recommended. |
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Genealogy 101 4 December, 2025, 5:30pm - 6:30pmBruton Memorial Library Interested in learning more about yourself through learning about your family? Get to know library genealogy and history resources to help you find out more about your family's past. Bringing your own device (laptop, smart phone, tablet, etc) is encouraged but the library can provide laptops for in-house use upon request. |
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Family Tree Maker is live at the Riverview Library for a session on how to get the most out of this popular software. Come ready to ask questions and learn. |
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by Josephine Burr History is a record of events that have happened that have influenced what will come to the present. Every moment and every generation write their history, that can then be studied for future plans. Josephine Ganson Burr depicted her life in this book about locations she has been to in Winter Haven and all the different impactful events that she was part of or witnessed in her life. |
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Florida's first theme park, Cypress Gardens, was the brainchild of Richard Downing Dick" Pope Sr. With his wife, Julie Downing Pope, he transformed a marshy, lakeside property in Winter Haven into a magnificent garden. The park's first visitors in 1936 toured pathways surrounded by lush plants from around the world. Two years later, electric boats meandered through the park's winding, hand-dug canals. Water ski shows commenced in 1942, and the park became the "Water Ski Capital of the World." The Florida-shaped Esther Williams Swimming Pool still graces the shore of Lake Eloise. The park was a set for dozens of short feature films, a stage for beauty pageants, and a site for special television broadcasts. A butterfly garden, zoo, rides, and the small-town Southern Crossroads shopping and dining area remain popular features. Kent Buescher purchased Cypress Gardens in 2004, and today's expanded Cypress Gardens Adventure Park preserves the family-friendly appeal of Dick and Julie Pope's magnificent park. |
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Where America’s wildest dreams came true. To the average person weathering a New England winter, Dick Pope's Cypress Gardens must have looked even more exotic than a trip to Alice's Wonderland. The images coming out of his promotional powerhouse appeared in magazines, newspapers, newsreels, and movies. These Technicolor glories depicted everything from bathing beauties aquaplaning through walls of fire to southern belles relaxing beneath huge tropical plants, from Don Ameche proposing to Betty Grable under moss-hung cypress trees to Esther Williams performing a water ballet in the famous Florida-shaped pool. It was all happening in sleepy Winter Haven, where one real estate maverick turned tourism tycoon was out to sell "100,000 [visitors] 25 cents worth of Florida." Brilliantly illustrated with over 250 vibrant images, Cypress Gardens, America's Tropical Wonderland reveals the empire Dick Pope built from its origins as remote swampland to its heyday as a famous water-sports destination and playground for such stars as Joan Crawford, Johnny Carson, and Carol Burnett, as well as royalty from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to King Hussein of Jordan. Lu Vickers also discusses the park's decline following the construction of Walt Disney World, changes in management, the evolving interests and vacationing habits of the nation, as well as its outlook for the future as a part of LEGOLAND Florida. |
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ON DISPLAY IN THE FLORIDA HISTORY & GENEALOGY LIBRARY, 4TH FLOOR OF THE JOHN F. GERMANY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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 Hillsborough State Bank |
Florida Banking Records Collection The Florida Banking Records give insight and context to the history of Florida's economy. They date from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. The records come from several banks of historical significance and include Hillsboro State Bank, Bank of Dunedin, First Savings and Trust Co., and SunBank. The records were stored for several years in a warehouse and were scheduled to be destroyed. In 2014, a SunTrust bank employee asked the Florida History & Genealogy Library if they would accept the donation. In 2021 the library started an in-house preservation project. This includes cleaning, repairing, and cataloging the records.
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Images of Holiday's in the Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection The video display features photographs of multiple holiday's as seen through the Burgert Brother collection. |
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