Food Network superstar and official event host Rachael Ray had husband John Cusimano in tow at Thursday night's Burger Bash, the kickoff event for the seventh annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
Surrounded by bodyguards and photographers, the couple had hit about half the burger stations in the vast and crammed tent on the sand behind the Ritz-Carlton South Beach when they headed to a coffee stand for some quick snaps.
''Hey, they're playing our song,'' Ray told Cusimano as the house band cranked up Journey's Don't Stop Believing.
Photo-op over, he said he'd rather have a beer than an iced coffee, and off they went.
-- FRED GONZALEZ
HERE COMES THE JUDGEGail Simmons, a judge on Bravo's Top Chef, was about to start tasting burgers when we caught up with her. Her favorite places to eat in Miami? Michael's Genuine in the Design District and Table 8 on South Beach. Her worst Miami meal? ''It's been a while since I've had bad food here,'' she said. ``I think the worst food may have been prepared by the chefs during Top Chef 3 in Miami last season.''
-- FRED GONZALEZ
MORE BASH BITS• No clogs? No problem: Impractically shod guests were offered complimentary Crocs as they entered the mammoth Burger Bash tent.
• Standing over a hot, smoky grill was apparently Mercy Deoro's idea of a good time: ''I want to have a restaurant, so this is a great experience,'' said the college junior, a foot soldier in the army of FIU hospitality students who were doing the heavy lifting. ``I'm really enjoying myself.''
• As we bid adieu to the smoke and sand, we ran into a gentleman in a nice suit offering a string of tickets for sale: Paula Deen's Poker Party for $50 -- one-third their face value.
-- SARA FREDERICK
AND FRED GONZALEZ
POKER PARTYOver on Washington Avenue, the Paris Theater had been turned into an old-time Vegas casino for the occasion -- the kind of place where Frank Sinatra and his boys would have felt right at home.
Guests wasted no time getting the action going at the roulette, craps and black jack tables. Each gambler was staked to $5,000 in play money, with the luckiest among them promised a chance to play poker with Paula Deen at evening's end.
-- FRED GONZALEZ
TICKET SNAGFor a few hours on Thursday, visitors to the festival website had reason to think they could still get into some of the most sought-after events. No such luck, said director Lee Brian Schrager: It was a glitch in the computerized ticketing function. The problem was solved by 5 p.m., Schrager said, at which point tickets were available for fewer than 20 events at sobewineandfood fest.com.
-- FRED TASKER
BIO BUGSElsewhere on the website, dead restaurants and departed chefs live on. Alberto Cabrera is on the official festival roster as executive chef at Karu & Y, which gave him the boot when it closed -- temporarily, the owner said -- two weeks ago.
Turnaround time is less of an excuse with Jonathan Eismann, whose festival bio gives no hint that he shut down his Lincoln Road restaurant, Pacific Time, back in June.
Cabrera and Eismann are among a dozen South Floridians on the 30-chef crew for Friday night's sold-out, $300 Best of the Best bash at American Airlines Arena. So is Steve Martorano (Café Martorano), who sent out a press release boasting he's 'the only restaurateur representing the `954' '' at the festival.
Not quite: Angelo Elia of Fort Lauderdale's Casa D'Angelo is cooking Friday night, too, as is Susie's Scrumptious Sweets of Sunrise.
-- KATHY MARTIN
