And he has a great mustache

I am getting ready to go to Florida this weekend for my cousin Tiffany's wedding. Her brother, Michael (above), is a chef - or rather, a "ninja chef," as is the more accurate term. He has a restaurant - ok, an "underground" "anti-restaurant," to be more precise - called A Razor, a Shiny Knife, where diners join in the preparation of the farm-to-table meal.

This is how an August, 2008 NYTimes article describes A Razor, a Shiny Knife:

"Mainstream it’s not — and that’s just how the organizers like it. A Razor, a Shiny Knife began as a regular post-boccie Sunday dinner with friends and grew as those friends told other friends. The meals became more ambitious and eventually... (i)t became what is called an underground restaurant..."

"And underground restaurants have found their niche. Stringing together the farm-to-table movement and a bloggy kind of interactivity, they have gained a following among food lovers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who have an opinion on local versus organic, (and) prefer intimate and casual to grand and ceremonial..."

The article also describes a boar cook-out hosted by A Razor, a Shiny Knife - which, incidentally, is held on the same farm that we go to for our family reunion every year. (It's owned by my mom's cousin, Jerry Contento, or "Junior," as we all call him.)

<-- Black grits with butter-poached shrimp

Michael Cirino is also profiled here, in the blog "Not Eating Out in New York," and here, in the blog "The Feedbag."