P is for Passion Projects

And Podcasts and Pullovers and 50-layer Potatoes

My book is starting to look like a book.

It has a title page with a mango tree. It has a copyright page and a dedication page. I even saw the first page of the introductory chapter, and it made my eyes go sweaty.

In the last few weeks, I’ve met with the publishing attorney who did my legal read to help me not get sued. I’ve seen the names of the folks designing the book’s cover and its insides, the people coordinating and performing my line edits, those helping me find early readers for early blurbs.

Publishing a book is like that cliché about raising a kid.

It takes a village.

Coming from journalism, this book village feels more like a metropolis. There are so many wonderful people helping to make this thing real. It reminds me of the newsroom’s olden days of the mid-2000s, which aren’t all that olden, except they are.

Back then, a story would often be read by an assistant editor and an editor. They’d call me over to their desks, ask me to quote more sources, add more context, figure out a goddam nut graf. Once they were happy, the story would go to a copy editor and then to a rimmer who would determine the best headline and subhead given the allotted print space. And then there would be a proofreader to make sure there weren’t weird line breaks on the page, that “assign” didn’t get broken into “ass-” (next line) “-ign,” so the next day’s morning desk wouldn’t be swamped with outraged calls from prudish readers.

Those were my first five years in journalism. My last five years couldn’t have been more different.

By 2018, the vast majority of my content went online unedited (that is to say: edited solely by me). I wrote my own headlines and subheads. I shot and edited a lot of my own photos and videos. I built my own galleries, did my own SEO, placed my own breakout and in-line links, too.

The resources for local journalists are evaporating. Quickly.

From the late 1990s to the late 2010s, the number of people employed by newspapers dropped a staggering 65%, outpacing almost every other industry including coal mining (which dropped a mere 61% in that period). In Florida, it was more like a 70% decline in newspaper staff. Miami saw a 75% decline.

I say all this to make a point that a good editor would have likely nagged me to make much earlier: In light of this massive and painful deterioration, there have been bright spots.

One of them is “The Last Ride.”

This podcast comes from some of my most brilliant (former) colleagues: Janine Zeitlin, Melanie Payne, Ryan Mills and producer/editor Amanda Inscore. It centers on two men of color who went missing in separate incidents but under eerily similar circumstances. The tie that binds them: a white Collier County sheriff’s deputy who was the last person to see either man alive.

What Janine, Amanda and crew have created feels impossible given these ever-dwindling resources.

It is so incredibly good.

“The Last Ride” is a true-crime podcast created with a level of passion and journalistic integrity that is awe inspiring. It’s also a wildly GREAT story. From interviews with Tyler Perry (yes, THAT Tyler Perry) and civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, to exhaustive and painstaking research that spans Janine’s 20-year career, “The Last Ride” is a feat.

It exposes the delicate tensions of Collier County, a place that’s home to the uber-rich, uber-white residents of Naples and to the migrant farmworkers of Immokalee, a city that’s 76% Hispanic/Black. “The Last Ride” makes this friction palpable. It gives it life in a way that feels raw and real, a way this area is quick to brush past on our way to the glittering beaches.

Episode three of eight debuted this week. “The Last Ride” took a village. It took passion, dedication and a stubborn refusal to quit.

Please give it a listen.

Restaurant of the Week: Liberty

Speaking of passion, let’s talk about Liberty.

I’ve been promising to get back to this south Fort Myers spot since it opened in 2019, back when chefs/cousins Bob and Richee Boye took their decades of culinary creativity and packed them into this narrow, 30-some seat space.

Last week, I finally made good on my promise. And I’m so happy I did. The “problem” with me and Liberty is that this is one of the few places in Fort Myers that requires a little forethought. Liberty is tiny, its food exquisite. To take part in this wondrousness, the cousins Boye ask that you make a reservation.

I struggle with reservations.

Or, I used to. In my restaurant-critic days, I planned most of my meals in advance. I’d be on Sanibel one week, in Cape Coral the next, in Bonita Springs the week after. I didn’t eat out much aside from reviews, and it took a good three to five years to re-review a place, barring some major change. If I was able to pop into a non-review restaurant, it was often for lunch (Liberty’s not open for lunch) or a quick dinner with the kids (also not really Liberty’s thing).

And yet this food taunted and tantalized me.

I’d see it on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. I’d hear about it from raving friends and swooning readers. Now, at long last, it’s my turn to rave and swoon.

Liberty is one of the best meals I’ve had in this town.

It started with the two servers working the small dining room on my visit. One wore jeans and a black top, the other jeans and a quarter-zip Whidbey Island pullover. They looked like kids who’d come to help their mom and dad. And then they explained the dry subtleties of the Gruet, a sparkling wine from New Mexico. And then they proffered a hand-notated menu for the gluten-intolerant diner in our party. And then they presented course after stunning course with impeccable precision.

Liberty’s menu looks like a bingo card filled with winners. The plates are small yet sharable, with the lightest options at the top and the richer, heavier items at the bottom.

One server recommended two to three plates per person. I’d say three to four. But I really like to eat, and Chef Richee Boye makes it all too easy.

I’m hesitant to name names of my dishes. Liberty’s menu can change daily. But this kitchen adapts marvelously to each and every evolution.

The Parisian gnocchi are one of the few constants thanks to their subtle crispness, pillowy texture and Richee’s knack for crafting velvety sauces. That knack extended to a sunny, ginger-infused curry flecked with chilies and charred cauliflower. And to the silken corn puree under fillets of monkfish and tangles of braised pork.

Richee and his crew bake their own naan bread, then serve it with bone marrow roasted till buttery and slivers of short rib fried to a chewy crisp. There is often duck, and foie gras, and 50 layers of potato that are 50 layers of perfection.

For dessert, this kitchen crafts its own ice cream from Cinnamon Toast Crunch milk, its own pistachio gelato, its own tortes and gooey half-baked cookies.

Should you be the last table standing, the last diners left celebrating the debut of an excellent podcast with another bottle of wine, those servers won’t say a word. They’ll offer dessert wines, espresso, cappuccino. And you’ll want all of it. You’ll want to linger, stretch, keep things going. It has been a wonderful night and a marvelous meal.

And who knows when you’ll have the chance to make it happen again?