Joyce LaFray, one of Florida and the Caribbean's foremost food experts, is the author of Tropic Cooking: The New Cuisine of Florida and the Caribbean and a dozen other popular cookbooks and guides. As "The Tropical Gourmet," she has been the host of Tropic Cooking, a food and wine television show, and is the food and wine editor of Creative Loafing, a popular newspaper in Tampa, Florida. She lives in St. Petersburg, where she tends to her collection of tropical fruit trees and exotic herbs.