So I ate a slow-roasted goat the other night at Brasa, a Boer-Spanish cross. No, the restaurant is not changing its menu, it is simply offering special meals for larger parties at the kitchen-side lazy Susan table. Order a fancy goat or rare species of swine, and Alex and his crew cook it up. I was blown away. The goat was so moist and so perfectly goaty, with just the right gamy notes dancing around a lamby mouthfeel. Add those Brasa sides and I thought I died and went to heaven. Seriously, this is a big deal. Finally a place that can cook on a customers whim in a casual style…it was awesome.

The big Taste event sponsored by Mpls.St.Paul Mag is this coming weekend and tickets are available by clicking right here. Tom Colicchio and I did the event last year, and this year promises to have a star-powered lineup as well. Go say hi to Molly while you're there and pick up a copy of Bizarre Truth, warmly inscribed by the author.

In San Juan, my pal Wilo Benet’s restaurant Pikayo has moved from the art museum to the Condado Hotel on the beach. Good move. The 2010 World Expo is in Shanghai this year, so don’t miss it. The big party hosted by the PRC is October 19th in NYC. If anyone goes, let me know how the food is.

Lee Dean, a woman who I have a huge food crush on, sent me the following:
“The Taste section turns 40 on Oct. 1. It was one of the first food sections in the country (separate food sections; newspapers have always had food appear on their pages). I’ve been editor for 15 years; been with the Taste section for almost 30 years. I’m planning a retrospective for the Oct. 1 issue—a look at how we—and food—have changed over four decades. I have all 40 years of issues (quite the archive, which takes up about 20 boxes and consists of more than 10,000 pages). We’ve got some public events to celebrate the section and I generally want to promote that the Taste section has been writing about what matters to readers for long before anyone started using the word “local” in the newspaper field. We were in the stores and in the fields and in the kitchens of cooks throughout the Twin Cities for 40 years. We’ve had readers contact us who have saved many (and in one case—all) of our sections, which is quite a tribute to what a difference the section makes for our readers. That’s a legacy I’m proud to be part of.” Congrats to all of our colleagues at the Strib.

Speaking of which, I was invited to a friend's house for a glass of wine the other night, so I showed up for a half hour in between Dad duties. James Oseland, the editor of Saveur and author of the award-winning book, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, opens the door. I had just returned from three weeks of  shooting in the region, but did I have a chance to reminisce with him? No! So frustrating. But I did get to catch up with many of my local food writing friends, so I was ecstatic nevertheless.

The Kohler Food and Wine Experience is coming up soon (the weekend before Halloween). Enjoy exciting fare from award-winning local and international chefs, soak up culinary knowledge from the food and wine specialists, get your cookbooks signed by celebrity authors, and so much more. Many events are complimentary, but this is always the Midwest's premier culinary event. This year's fest features some fantastic guests from the culinary world, including Jon Ashton, Lidia Bastianich, Claudine Pepin, Jacques Pepin, Marcus Samuelsson
, Marc Stroobandt
, me, and many more! Come on down and check it out. You should be primed after the Taste! event this weekend.