“… and when it comes to that type of shit I paved the way.”– Beastie Boys, “The Move” from 1998’s Hello Nasty
I’d like to get paid by a slight distraction right now, but at this point I need to just create one, with or without payment.
I’m dwelling too much on what is going to happen with a job I interviewed for two weeks ago and really would love to have, but I am not optimistic things will work out. As a result, I need a distraction – and what better distraction than combining time-sucking on the interwebs with talking about food? They just happen to be in my Top 5 of Favorite Things To Do.
The wife and I recently took our annual trip to Florida’s central Gulf Coast. Her grandparents have a fine two bedroom home in a quiet part of Englewood, a community I spent a lot of time in during my youth. By a strange coincidence, my parents had a home down there for a few years when I was very young, and I remember enjoying it quite a lot. It would be the home of my grandparents for a brief trial run, before a poor experience at the local hospitals convinced them to move back North, despite the cold and snow of the Southtowns of Buffalo. After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved back to Florida, this time settling on the Atlantic coast near Sebastian. It was in her home that I prepared my first full meal on my own – in the 7th grade, I cooked breakfast from start to finish for the whole family, all as part of a project for Home Ec. Do they even teach Home Economics in schools anymore?
I’ve always liked Florida for its climate, its scenery, and for its beautiful stretches of road that make for great opportunities to cruise and listen to music at loud volumes. I’ve always disliked Florida because the food that I had eaten was almost universally terrible. As recently as two years ago, I was bemoaning the fact that an Englewood eatery served previously-frozen, Sysco-provided grouper, despite being 100 yards from Lemon Bay and Manasota Key. I criticized a server at a nicer cafe on the water in Sarasota for not having any fresh fish available. These, to me, were inexcusable culinary failures.
Were I to live in Florida on a semi-permanent basis within 30 miles of the coast, my first and only rule of going out for dinner would be this: When you walk into an establishment, read the specials board and talk to the host. If you read the board or ask the host, and neither mentions fresh-caught seafood, walk back to your car and drive a little further down the road. There is seriously no excuse for these places to not serve fresh fish.
This trip served as the tipping point for my views on Florida eating. Her grandparents have been down there long enough now to have separated the wheat from the chaff in terms of restaurants and fishmongers and produce stands. Conveniently, they also have two cars at their disposal, making impromptu trips to such vendors easy and accessible.
I wanted to thank the grandparents for their hospitality in the only way I know how: by cooking for them. Sure, we could have gone out, but I was tired of dining rooms full of the retired set, with servers as old as the diners, and the predictable menus with the less-than-predictable quality. Don’t get me wrong, 2-for-1 cocktails during happy hour is mighty fine, but sometimes you just want to roll up your sleeves and dash around a kitchen for an hour or so.
Sheckler Produce on 776 just east of Englewood looks a lot bigger on the outside than it is. Because they’re a wholesaler that happens to run a little retail outlet in the front, you’re surprised when you walk in and it’s only about a 20′ x 20′ space. But I had to stop because the sign out front said “Sweet Florida Onions $1.49” and I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that. I knew the grandmother had some baby red potatoes and some fresh local haricot vert. But I wanted something a little sweet & savory to go with my not-yet-purchased seafood.
What’s great about Sheckler’s is that they’re diverse in their assortment – plenty of whatever was fresh from their local vendors, but also fruits and vegetables from other parts of the country. Out front, just inside one of the loading doors, a potentially German man was selling various and sundry fresh breads and rolls. Multiple vendors, one stop – love it.
I also admired Sheckler’s because they’re not so zealous as to reject overseas produce: they had some items from Central America and Chile, just in case you desperately needed something that’s not in season right now.
And let me put it out there – I’m OK with jonesing for foods that aren’t ripe in your ZIP code at the moment. Would I love it if everyone decided they were only going to eat in-season? Sure. But sometimes you want a beefsteak tomato in January. In Buffalo.
I digress – the onions were impressive: greenery jutting out like an outlandish crown or something you’d see at Burning Man, with its points and angles and gentle color gradient from the white bulb to the vivid green tips. It smelled tremendous – sweet and oniony and earthy. The lady at the register assured me I could just bit into it as one would an apple. I like onions, but not that much.
A local fish market was recommended to me, and after paying for my onions and a fresh clove of garlic, I headed on down the highway (as they say). On “North Access Road” off of 776, just east of Spinnaker Rd, is a little two-storefront building. The fish market doesn’t even have a sign on the building, just some window paint indicating that it actually is a place of business, let alone a fish market. I liked it immediately.
There was a whiteboard with a listing of what they had and the going rates per pound. A small glass display case held 3 lane snapper, a bowl of Apalachicola oysters (not local, but fresh from the panhandle) and a bowl of local littleneck clams. The kid behind the counter couldn’t have been older than 17, well-tanned, and already with hands that said, “I work on a boat and I know how to wield a knife in such a way as to provide you with a tasty dinner.” In the back of the shop behind another taller counter (presumably the home of the filleting station) was a salt-and-peppered older man, clearly a fellow of significant seafaring prowess.
We talked for a bit about what they had, what my goals were for the meal, and how much I might need. We settled on two of the lane snappers as my entree and a half-dozen of the Apalachicola oysters as an appetizer.
What I love about the technology of our age is that via my iPhone, I can put out the Bat Signal (as I like to say) and see what shows up. This time, I sent out a text to a handful of trusted foodies to get their opinion on how to best prepare the snapper. My old friend Ryan who resides on Hilton Head Island returned a winner of an idea: bake them en papillote, a great method to preserve the moisture in the fish while directly infusing the fillets with flavor. For my aromatics, I decided to go with some substantial sprigs of rosemary and thick slices of lemons I picked from the grandparents’ tree.
When I returned home, I scrubbed clean the outside of the oysters (for presentation purposes) and threw them onto a preheated grill in a single layer. There they stayed, monitored by the grandfather while he smoked a cigarette, until they just started to open up.
One of my favorite things about Summer is being able to walk into my backyard and picking herbs and tomatoes and vegetables for the meal I’m preparing. The reality of picking fresh citrus for a meal is a luxury I feel most Floridians take for granted. The lemons, ancillary as they may seem, were a delicious treat that allowed me to carry a theme through the entire meal – oysters, cocktail, entree. In hindsight, I should have made a lemon curd for dessert, although we drank so much, no dessert seemed necessary.
For the snapper, I spread a large piece of parchment on the counter and ensured that my fish would fit in a single layer after I folded and sealed the paper into its parcel shape. I salt & peppered both sides of the fillets, then put small pieces of butter at intervals along their length. Topped then by the sprigs of rosemary and the slices of lemon, my parcel was ready to be sealed and placed on a baking sheet.
A pot of heavily salted (1/3 cup salt) water with the potatoes came to the boil, and the green beans got steamed before being quickly sauteed with butter, salt & pepper, and some of the fresh garlic. The sweet Florida onion was sliced into thick rings after being trimmed of the greens. I sweated them in the pan with some salt and a little butter until they were just soft.
Before the fish came out of the oven (after 12 minutes at 350), I loosened the oysters with a paring knife and served them on the half-shell with a little squeeze of that fresh lemon juice. Using those same lemons, the wife mixed up a pitcher of lemon drop martinis for us to all enjoy as a cocktail. Paired with the oysters, life was pretty damned good for a few minutes.
The meal came together so nicely – a little coastal boil-style combined with some French finesse and local ingredients. A not-so-local California Chardonnay was the rug for the whole affair: as The Dude likes to say, “it helped the room hang together.” As such, the 2009 Toad Hollow un-oaked Chardonnay fit the bill. My appreciation for chardonnay has increased exponentially in the last few years, thanks to my good friend Dave, a man who should really pursue being a sommelier, and a man who is a genuine advocate of New York and non-traditional-origin wines. While he has guided me toward some delicious, buttery, oak-y chardonnay recently, the stainless steel tank-fermented Toad Hollow lent clean, citrusy and slightly floral flavors to the meal that complimented the delicate fish.
The whole experience of cooking my first “mature” meal in Florida was eye-opening. I would love to have a year-long growing season, with different fruits and vegetables coming and going as the months progressed. Their access to an entire galaxy of seafood in concert with the produce is just mind-boggling to me, considering all the possibilities. Throw into it the ability to raise livestock in a sustainable fashion, and you’ve got all the makings of a slow-food utopia.
So it begs the question: why doesn’t more of that happen in Florida? I say this as an outsider, so it may well be happening all over the state, just without the fanfare that accompanies such endeavors in the colder parts of the country. Can you grow corn or other grains in Florida? Is it too hot for livestock? Is access to fresh water for hydration and irrigation an issue? Given the access to amazing ingredients, why don’t more Floridians cook at home? Questions answered by more questions.
Well, that effectively distracted me for a little bit. Sorry if it did the same for you.
adam ate the city. 