All photos by Laine Doss

Here's what you get in the mail.

I know that "CSA" is the wrong term for what I received on my doorstep the other day. But, for the life of me, I'm not sure what else to call it. Maybe the name of the program -- Goodies -- says it all.

I've been on the waiting list for Goodies to begin delivering in the Miami area for a few months and almost forgot I had signed up with my credit card, so I was surprised when I received the cheery blue-and-white parcel.

I opened the box, which was wrapped like a gift, and looked inside.

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Carla Torres

Did you know that there's a chocolate factory right here in Miami that specializes in private label productions and premium label sweets? We've got our own version of Willy Wonka, and it's called Tierra Nueva.

The local chocolate-makers launched here two years ago, but just recently they've introduced a new product aimed at cafecito fiends: coffee thins.

See also:
-Sweet Times Cupcakes & Coffee in Kendall: A Professional Poker Player and Wife's Top Pastry
-3. Joel and Leticia Pollock of Panther Coffee

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All photos via Twitter @TheRock.

Pain & Gain opens tomorrow. And when it does, Miami's gym culture, New Times, and our city's seedy underbelly will have their moment in the sun -- their steroid-fueled, bicep-bulging, vein-popping 15 minutes of fame.

If you're a dude (or a chick -- we don't discriminate) who wants to score a ridiculous bod like those on display by the stars of the movie, you're in luck.

Dwayne Johnson, AKA the Rock (who looks more like a hulking beast than a man in the movie) has been sharing his workout and eating habits via Twitter over the past several months. Between filming GI Joe: Retaliation and Pain & Gain, the dude is jacked. Those shoulders -- have you SEEN those shoulders?

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nakedvegancooking.com

We can call vegans a lot of things: weirdly connected to the planet, strangely into fake cheese, but this really takes the dairy-and-egg-free cake.

Naked vegan cooking is a thing now where vegans take pictures of themselves cooking vegan dishes in their birthday suits. Sometimes they're alone; sometimes they're in cheerful groups.

The only consistency is the boob-to-soy-to-butt ratio in these photos that follow.

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Sugarcane's Chef Timon Balloo.

Dinner with Friends at Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill is an event that every foodie must experience at least once. Fortunately, this coming Monday, December 17, Sugarcane will once again delight a small group of diners to a gastronomic gala. Unfortunately, it will be the last DwF of the year.

We attended a Dinner with Friends event last month and were blown away by the experience. Guest celeb chef Hedy Goldsmith teamed up with Sugarcane's Timon Balloo and presented several courses to our group of twelve. Each course paired with a different wine and both the alcohol and food did their jobs - diners felt satiated and content.

This Monday, Clay Conley takes the role of guest chef alongside Timon. Nominated for the James Beard this year, Conley owns Buccan and Imoto in Palm Beach and is the former executive chef of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel's award-winning restaurant, Azul.

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All photos by David Minsky

If you are a green thumb in Brickell or somewhere in South Beach, you can rarely get your hands dirty. But if you have a balcony, then you're in luck because you can build a pallet garden.

The pallet garden is simply a wooden pallet from which a garden is made. It fits perfectly on a small balcony. All of the materials are easily found and/or bought with little money. With a little time, tools and some effort, you get a nice morale booster to fight the occasional doldrums of apartment life.

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When my co-worker brought in edible "presents" to the office from his Colombian mother-in-law, it wasn't your typical box o' chocolates or salt water taffy; instead these souvenirs were hormigas culonas, or big-butted Colombian ants and gelatina de pata de res -- cow foot gelatin.

Most of the reactions from my metrosexual co-workers were less than brave. Sour scared faces quickly filled the office as the Tupperware of nearly a dozen 2 inch-long dead ants were passed to the sound of shrilling shrieks.

For the daring cultured few, including myself, it was a delectable feast. Crunchy, moist, salty and delicious are a few words that came to mind. "It tasted like really roasted popcorn, you know, when the kernel is half-way popped so the crunchy shell is surrounding the buttery nub?" said a voice from behind the cubicle.

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Laine Doss

Look at all the pretty colors....

No, this isn't some new, tween-targeted Disney Channel show about twins in middle school. Zevia is a fairly new soda brand, mostly sold in specialty food shops like the Fresh Market. Instead of using sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, or unicorn laughter as a sweetener, Zevia uses stevia.

Zevia, which sells for about 99 cents for a 12-ounce can, sounds great on paper. It's made with stevia, a plant in the sunflower family that's about 300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia was given the green light by the FDA to be used as a sweetener in foods in 2008. Since then, it's been marketed as the most-natural sugar substitute. You can even buy a stevia plant at your local Home Depot for about $4, and the leaves can be chewed or made into a sweet tea.

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Purchasing prepackaged food and dining out do seem a little mainstream. So does grocery shopping. This poses quite the conundrum for the young and über-authentic.

Which is why (actually probably not why) out of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, comes Hipster Dust, an "addictively natural" vegan spice mixture sold only on the Internet and packaged in round metal tins or one-gram sample sizes. With a trippy-looking pixie silhouette as its mascot, this stuff might just be mistaken for...

"Well, Hipster Dust is naturally addictive," owner Scott Keatley says. "As for the samples, one gram is the perfect amount to use on a single dish, and hipsters tend to love and identify the product immediately. Who knew?"

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​Five Florida chefs are preparing for a battle of swine this Sunday at Cochon 555.

The touring pork competition, which debuts in Miami this Sunday, April 1, gathers five of our top chefs, and gives them each a heritage breed pig and an open forum to create a nose-to-tail porcine experience for guests and judges.

Executive chef of Edge Steak & Bar at The Four Seasons Miami, Aaron Brooks, gave us a sneak peek into his Cochon secret recipes and the swiney goodness going on behind the closed-door kitchens of Edge.

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