Tasty and Tropical

Where else but the Fruit and Spice Park would you hold the Tropical Ag Fiesta? If you're going to be outdoors this time of year, the beauty and shade make it worth the drive to Homestead. This fruit fest in the heat of South Florida's presummer splendor will feature two days of cool desserts, innovative appetizers, a butterfly release that has nothing to do with food but sounds cool, wine tasting, celebrity chef food demos, a recipe contest, and food sample giveaways (if you're quick enough to grab the freebies before the food runs out).

Until the Eighties, the event was a lowly mango festival, but the favorite tropical fruit no longer has priority status. Most fruits featured at the fiesta aren't indigenous, according to Mary Lamberts, vice president of Southern Florida Tropical Growers, unless you define indigenous as any seed that has washed ashore.

Nicknamed "A Taste of Old Florida," the weekend offers lychee-peeling contests for the kids and lychee wine tasting for the adults (but probably not from the same lychees). Local growers will display their collection of restored tractors -- some worth more than $100,000. Craftspeople will show off their skills, and professionals will give talks about grafting plants and creating butterfly gardens.

There's also a hay ride for the kids, who must share the ride with a responsible adult. "We don't want anyone jumping off the hay wagon, because it is fairly high," Lamberts explains. The last thing organizers want is the Tropical Ag Fiesta featured on the evening news as the event that went wrong.