TEA TIME WITH RUMPOLE

Good Saturday morning. Here's the news you need to get you through this post holiday-weekend weekend.

TWO MURDER CASES- TWO GUILTY VERDICTS:

We told you on Wednesday that this would occur: there was a verdict Friday in the Anna Cardona case. She was convicted again of first degree murder of her child. This is the case known as the Baby Lollipops case for the t-shirt the child was wearing when his body was discovered.

The penalty phase of this case starts August 30, 2010 before Judge Reemeberto Diaz. Edith Georgi heads up the Public Defender's team.

Grady Nelson was also convicted Friday of first degree murder of his wife and the sexual assault of her two daughters. Most disturbing was that this man had a prior history of sexual assault of young children and apparently killed his wife a day or so after getting released when a sexual assault charge against him by one of his wife's daughters was dropped.

Judge Jacqueline Scola will preside over the penalty phase. David S Markus and Terry Lenamon are handling the defense while Abbe Rifkin is handling the case for the state.

Rumpole's Second Rule of Criminal Defense: Avoid verdicts on Fridays at all costs

Many times the criminal justice system works when defendants accused of heinous crimes are vigorously defended by skilled attorneys to the very best of their ability. This ensures that the horror of the crime does not blind jurors to the facts of guilt or innocence. All attorneys on both sides of these cases can take solace that their exceptional efforts and skill made the system work. Other than that, there are no winners in these tragic cases. We'll take a nice tax evasion case every time.

The nations governors are meeting in Bahstan, Mass, for the 102nd annual meeting of the National Governors association.

The Miami Heat appear in trouble with only three or four basketball players currently signed for next year. We hope Mr Riley knows what he's doing.

Mel Gibson is a racist nut. But you already knew that. Click on the link for the audio that has "N" words and so forth.

PIZZA AND TEA:

These are topics we keep close watch on. Pizza-wise, for many years it was Steve's Pizza on Biscayne and 121st Street in North Miami. Everything else was a sorry second place.

But things are looking up!

If you really crave a pizza from a wood burning oven then you must go to Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza. There are restaurants in Aventura, Miami Lakes, Doral, and in South Miami at US 1 just south of Dadeland. This is a chain originating out of Ft. Lauderdale, but they do pizza right. Here's what you get: A regular pie with meatballs. Then order a separate dish of "Eggplant Marino". (Don't order the Eggplant Marino Pizza.) Then put the eggplant on the pizza with the meatballs. Get yourself the Classic Italian Salad and enjoy. You can also venture off the reservation and get the ribs with peppers. But stick with the pizza and eggplant and you'll be fine.

And here's a sleeper Pizza place: Just around the corner off of Miracle Mile in the Gables at 2413 Galiano Street is Pomodoro's Pizza. (Just across the street from the SunTrust Bank parking lot.) Nothing fancy here. It's a small restaurant. Perfect for a quick lunch in the Gables. Grab yourself two plain slices and take a seat and chat with the pizza guys. A nice cold root beer goes well with the sweet pizza sauce they use. When you're done, stroll down the block to the bookstore and peruse the bestsellers while sipping some icy latte from the Starbucks in the store. It's the perfect way to hide from Judges and clients for an hour or two in the afternoon.

And finally, a word about Tea.

Many years ago we were handling a case in San Francisco and repaired for the afternoon after court to a tea house (no drinking when in trial.) We ordered a fresh brewed green tea that had some toasted brown rice in it. Absolutely wonderful. Indeed for all these years we have been ordering the tea from the shoppe. Now we saw in our local market that the Republic of Tea is now selling the same tea.

It's called "Tea Of Inquiry" and is sold loose. So what you need to get is a small tea pot with a filter.

Try the tea with some Agave nectar. Agave is a natural sweetener made from cactus. It looks like honey. It has a very low impact on the glycemic index which means it is much healthier for you than sugar or honey. It goes great in coffee or tea. Its available at Whole Foods or from Amazon. Try the Organic Blue- it's light and sweet.

One final word of advice from Rumpole. Stop with the artificial sweeteners. That includes Splenda. You are better off with sugar. Your body knows what sugar is and can process it. Your body does not know what an artificial sweetener is and cannot process it. Repeat- that includes Splenda which is more full of chemicals than they like to admit. Stop with the diet soda. Drink water, tea or our drink- fresh squeezed lemons and limes with cold water sweetened with Agave. We recently told a young woman who was having trouble losing weight with her diet to give up diet soda. "Drink one regular soda a day if you must and drink our lemon/limeade for the rest of the day. Try it for a month." She did and immediately lost 20 pounds. You see, when her body had to stop struggling processing the 5-7 diet sodas she was drinking, it could turn its attention to burning fat, which it did.

See you next week, with a slice of pizza in one hand, and a lemon/limeade in the other.