Stephanie Miskew of coastal Delray Beach raises a glass
inside the wine room at the Seagate Hotel & Spa, where one of the Boca Bacchanal events will be held. Miskew is general
chairman. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Stephanie Miskew is a busy woman. A self-taught wine educator, she’s not only blogging about food and wine, but she’s also organizing monthly food and wine appreciation courses. And right now, she’s particularly busy serving as general chairman of the 10th annual Boca Bacchanal.
“I’m lucky. I get to work on a great event that involves my passion for wine. I get to work with a great group of people and it’s all for a good cause,” she says.
The Bacchanal, which runs March 23-25, is a wine and food weekend benefiting the Historic Preservation and Heritage Education Programs of the Boca Raton Historical Society. It starts with six Vintner Dinners on Friday night that pair chefs and winemakers with intimate groups of diners.
On Saturday night, the Bacchus Bash at the Boca Raton Resort and Club features appetizers created by visiting chefs as well as a sit-down dinner prepared by the resort’s executive chef, Andrew Roenbeck.
Sunday is the Grand Tasting of 140 wines and samples of food from 30 local restaurants under a tent at Mizner Park Amphitheater.
With the Bacchanal fast approaching, Miskew and committee members are feverishly working to pull it all together.
“At this point we are sure to be touching base with each other often,” Miskew says.
In fact, she is not only helping to organize the event but also teaming up with Kate and Ted Toomey of Delray Beach and Sharon and Bill Shubin of Boca Raton to sponsor a Vintner Dinner.
“What I love about this event is that you get to have intimate access to people in the food and wine world that you don’t get at other similar events in the area. It’s a special experience,” she says.
Miskew hasn’t always been into food and wine. She grew up in Plantation before going to Rollins College in Winter Park. Then she went to graduate school in Colorado for speech pathology.
“But food was always in the background. My mother was a wonderful cook, and I always cooked during my college days,” she says.
After grad school, she lived on the upper east side of Manhattan. “The thing about living in New York is that you can walk out into the neighborhood and find three great places to eat. I got spoiled,” she says.
Although she found plenty of places to explore, she found little market for her speech skills. So instead, she became a pharmaceutical sales representative. And she met her husband.
Her sister, who lived in Annapolis, Md., was on a Southwest flight for a visit with their parents in Florida. And, as fate would have it, a man boarded the plane late and took the center seat next to her.
“He was kind of a big guy crammed in the seat so they got to talking,” Miskew says. He turned out to be Steve Miskew, who was into commercial real estate and lived in Delray Beach.
Her sister thought he’d make a great match for Miskew so she gave him the contact information of her sister in New York. He called and they talked.
In January 2001, Miskew’s grandmother died and she returned to Florida for the funeral. While here, she met Steve and the couple continued to email each other. “But we were just friends,” she says.
When Miskew’s company offered her a position in Florida, she wanted warm weather and accepted. They gave her a month to move. But four days later, Manhattan’s twin towers were attacked by planes.
“I was ready to go, and I left the city a week later,” she says.
Once she was in Florida, the couple dated and then married. In 2005, they celebrated their second anniversary with a 10-day tour of Rome, Florence and Tuscany. “It was here that I caught the wine bug,” she says.
Returning home, she “jumped into wine sales” by taking a position with a boutique wine distributor. “I knew I wanted to make wine my career,” she says.
But when the economy tanked, the distributor shut its doors. Miskew, however, continued her wine education with classes and certification tests at The Breakers in Palm Beach and Johnson & Wales in North Miami. Today she lists certified sommelier and wine location specialist as credentials.
“Some of the tests including tastings and were traumatic,” she says.
In 2009, the Junior League of Boca Raton celebrated the 10th anniversary of its award-winning cookbook, Savor The Moment. Miskew is a member so after seeing the movie Julie & Julia, she decided to promote the anniversary by cooking her way through all 255 recipes in the book and then blogging about it.
But she didn’t get to finish her task.
In the fall of 2010, she tripped and broke her hip. She’d had a hip replacement at age 27 due to a motorcycle accident she’d suffered when she was 15. This break was a sign she needed another. She had surgery in January 2011 and is still undergoing physical therapy.
“It’s been a long recovery,” she says. But that hasn’t stopped her.
She’s returned to blogging about food and wine. And she’s working to making this year’s Boca Bacchanal something special.
“I’m always impressed with the caliber of food and wine they have at the Bacchanal. Who knew there could be such an event in Boca Raton?” she says.
If You Go
Boca Bacchanal, March 23-25.
Vintner Dinners: Held at six private locations at 7 p.m. on March 23 $300 per person.
Bacchus Bash: March 24 at 6 p.m. Boca Raton Resort and Club in the Great Hall, 501 E. Camino Real, Boca Raton; $250 per person includes valet parking.
The Grand Tasting: March 25 from noon to 3 p.m. in Mizner Park Amphitheater at the north end of Mizner Park on Federal Highway just north of Palmetto Park Road; $85 in advance, $100 at the gate.
For information and tickets, visit www.bocabacchanal.com; call 561-395-6766, ext. 101, or email info@bocahistory.org .
Art of Wine and Food Series: For information on Stephanie Miskew’s monthly wine and food program at the Art Museum of Fort Lauderdale, visit www.moafl.org or call 954-525-5500.
The Glamourous Gourmet: www.theglamorousgourmet.com is Stephanie Miskew’s food and wine blog.
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