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Love food? Love Misty's column? You'll adore her TV show.

Monday Aug 21, 2006.     By Misty Tosh

Food Feed

Ever since I started out in the entertainment industry a decade or so ago in the wilds of Los Angeles, I knew I was destined to be deeply ensconced in the food/adventure world. However I could translate that—through writing, television, photography or just plain-old solo travel, I've always wanted to have a spoon in the pot of the kitchens of the world.

That passion is pretty well matched by my mad passion for spontaneous travel. I've spent my life jammin' off to remote villages every time I get enough frequent flyer miles or come off a job with enough dough saved to spend a month backpacking across the mountain towns of Europe.

When you co-mingle my food explorations with my spy-like investigative nature, you've got the makings of a television show. At least that's what my crazy partners in my production company, Fatcake Productions, and I thought when we decided to create a TV show about my travel MO a few years ago (starring me, if you can believe it).

At the time, we were a young bunch but we had loads of production savvy and just enough balls to take a chance on creating something we believed in. We were all convinced there had to be a market for a free-spirited food/adventure/travel show that puts finding food at its source...and cooks up that food with locals in off-radar villages around the world. There'd be no expert chef runnin' the show (hell, I never even went to college), no guides showing me the way and no pockets full of dollars fueling the fire.

With all the piss and vinegar only a slew of spirited chicks could pull off, we headed down to create a full-blown television show in the tiny fishing village of Yelapa, Mexico. We used our own dough, got a bunch of our crew pals to come down and work for free, and set to making our kind of food/adventure show.

After teaching myself how to edit (gotta love Final Cut Pro) and spending months creating the exact sort of program we'd want to watch, we managed to sell the concept to a major network. Here we are a couple of years later, and our little-show-that-could, Craving Adventure, premieres on the Travel Channel on Thursday, August 24 at 8 p.m.

Talk about long time coming. The episode was filmed on Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. I literally showed up on this speck of an island set to uncover all the hidden secrets. I learned to make incredible homemade mojitos, tripped upon a beach shack whipping out hand-slung coconut bread, tracked down a lovely Italian woman dishing out delicious Italian food in her beachside compound, and caught a barracuda, filleted it and cooked it over a bonfire. The best was learning to make the legendary fish head stew (rondon soup) with a sweet local family who barely spoke a lick of English and were stunned at the cameras rolling around but were delighted to welcome me into their home and show me their rough-hewn method of cooking (a fire was lit in the dead center of the living room).

For most folks, travel is all about resorts, high-end restaurants, tours and history. For me it's all about scouting out off-the-grid villages, taste testing the native cuisine, sleeping in swinging hammocks and palapas on the beach, and uncovering the sort of history I'm interested in (Little Corn Island used to be a renegade pirates' hideaway).

For all of the readers who tend to check out this column because they love discovering small, not-so-famous restaurants, you will love the show we've worked so hard to create. Low-budget travel, native recipes made easy and undiscovered paradises; honestly, it's the ultimate foodie's dream come true, mine included.

The Final Rave: If I had my druthers, I'd be watching the episode kicked back at Katerina's with a big fat mojito in hand. Ah, but work calls.

Keep It Going:

Do it: Frasca Pizzeria & Wine Bar
Though nothing compares to eating Italian in Nicaragua, everything I tossed back at this new restaurant had me happier about food than I have been in a long time, including the wonderful wine flight.

Watch it: Craving Adventure
Check it out on Thursday, August 24 at 8 p.m. and again Friday, August 25 at 11 p.m. Good stuff all the way around.

Drink it: Mambo Grill
It claims to have the best mojitos in town. Really, any mojito is a good mojito, no?

Get crazy with it: Little Corn Island
Here is where we stayed while on the island. If you head down, you must try the amazing pancakes served every morning in the communal dining room—truly paradise found and eaten.

Fatcake Misty Tosh explores back-alley eateries, holes-in-the-wall and seedy ethnic joints as she treks the city in search of the next raving dish. Join her in the quest.