Meet Florida's official state chef: Justin Timineri
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The air in the parking lot of Orlando's Citrus Bowl smells like fresh cut oranges, shrimp and barbecue. A crowd has gathered before the game around a guy in a black chef's coat. A camera crew orbits as he sets some shrimp and star melon kebabs on the grill with a flourish.
"Florida seafood - ya gotta love it!" the guy says, grinning. The crowd cheers. The cameraman is happy.
A man walks up and inquires about the hoopla. Someone in the crowd tells him the man in black is Justin Timineri, the state chef of Florida who's filming a spot for ABC.
"Never heard of him," said Paul Pedersen, of Orlando. "He's like the governor's mansion kinda deal? I had no idea we had a state chef."
Move over, Mario Batali. Step aside, Gordon Ramsay. There's a new chef on the cusp of celebrity in the U.S., and he's from Florida.
Timineri is part culinary ambassador, part farm expert and part cheerleader for Florida-grown food. Technically, he's a state employee working for the Florida Department of Agriculture - and he's the only full-time state chef in the nation.
Justin Timineri's Florida's Chef websiteTimineri - tall, bald and known for wearing colorful sneakers - travels the Sunshine State showing people how to use the state's produce and seafood in recipes. He creates healthy menus for people on food stamps and limited incomes and promotes the state's food during trade missions around the world and in TV spots. Next month, he's headed to Brussels to talk up Florida grouper at the world's largest seafood expo.
It makes sense for the state to market its bounty: Agriculture is Florida's No. 2 industry, and unlike tourism, the No. 1 business, farming didn't suffer much in the recession. Florida is the nation's top producer of oranges, grapefruit and sugarcane. It's also No. 1 with a range of vegetables, from snap peas to squash and sweet corn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"He is such a fantastic ambassador not only for promoting products grown in Florida," said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. "But he's also a terrific ambassador with kids.
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