Hook, Line & Dinner, a new Cooking Channel show, takes Ben Sargent fishing and cooking his catch with fishermen around the country. The show, which premieres tomorrow, made a stop in South Florida."Florida is amazing in that within a two-hour drive you can get to two of what feel like the most opposite ends of the planet and they're within 100 miles of each other," he said. "We're doing spiny lobster right in Miami and it's so strange because you're taking this old school fishing boat through this metropolis. And then you go to the Everglades and it is so backcountry and such a different lifestyle."
Sargent is a New England restaurant owner best known for his underground operation selling lobster rolls out of his Brooklyn apartment. The Miami episode starts at Garcia's, where after a cafecito the Garcia brothers take Sargent to catch spiny lobster. Sargent then takes his motorcycle to Coopertown (population eight) and tries his hand -- somewhat unsuccessfully -- at frog gigging with the town's mayor and owner of Coopertown Restaurant. The final stop is in Everglades City, where Lee Noble, owner of Leebo's Rock Bottom Bar in Everglades City, takes Sargent out to catch stone crab, a crustacean he concludes is much better eaten without sauce. Keep it simple, he says.
Hook, Line & Dinner premieres on the Cooking Channel tomorrow, June 7, at 10:30 p.m. with a trip to the Bayou Country for crawfish and catfish. The Miami episode airs next Tuesday, June 14.
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