Lombardi’s Seafood, one of the area’s premier fishmongers, is beefing up its cafe offerings with the hiring of two high-profile chefs: Austin Boyd and Yoshi Pintar.

Boyd was most recently part of Jason and Sue Chin’s Good Salt Restaurant Group (Osprey, Seito Sushi, Reyes) and left after a recent restructuring. Pintar is known by many in the area as Chef Yoshi.

Food insecurity has been a local problem for a long time, and it’s getting worse as the pandemic rages on. Thousands of Central Floridians remain furloughed – many from jobs that were low-paying to begin with – and are struggling to pay bills, rent and buy food. To get a gut-punching idea of the situation, read Gabrielle Russon’s article in the Orlando Sentinel about a weekly food giveaway for people out of work with a line of cars that stretches two miles.

Breadlines have become motorized. And instead of the haggard faces of downtrodden men seen in Depression-era photographs, these lines are occupied by your neighbors.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, which has been fighting the hunger fight for years, notes that the area is expecting a 49 percent increase in the number of people who will face food insecurity this year. One in six Central Floridians.

So Second Harvest has launched a monthlong campaign to Stock the Shelves as part of a national initiative called Hunger Action Month. The organization is encouraging those of us fortunate to have enough to take action to help others. This may include donating 30 nonperishable food items – one for every day of September; donating $30 for 30 days of hunger (or more if you’re able); donating half of your buy-one-get-one food purchase; or signing up to volunteer – those two-mile-long food lines don’t staff themselves.

You can learn more – and start getting involved – at FeedHopeNow. You’ll also find others ways to help at Second Harvest’s Facebook page.

In this episode, chef and cookbook author Hari Pulapaka shows me how to make bhindi masala, a popular okra dish from India.

It’s a recipe from Pulapaka’s upcoming book, Dreaming In Spice, a Sinfully Vegetarian Odyssey.

Many of the ingredients may be found in your favorite grocery store, but you may need to go to an Indian specialty store, such as Spice House in Longwood, for the curry leaves. (They keep the curry leaves behind the checkout counter, for some reason.)

Watch the video then click Read More to read Pulapaka’s recipe. And make the naan, too, it really adds to the enjoyment.

Here’s the excerpt from Pulapaka’s book: