Kristi and I have just returned from Anna Maria Island, a key off of Sarasota, Fl., in the Gulf of Mexico.
There is a beautiful year round farmers’ market in downtown Sarasota, brimming with oldsters and cheap as dirt local, organic grapefruits, oranges, tangerines and lemons (we didn’t see any limes). Also: everything else you can think of, like greens and squashes, strawberries and avocadoes, starfruit and shrimp, mahi, mullet and grouper. And glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice for $1.
We arrived on Friday morning, dined at the pelican-covered Star Fish Co., home of the most ridiculously delicious mahi mahi and cheese grits, and went to the beach. Saturday morning, we headed out to the farmers’ market, which opens at 7 a.m. and covers two streets. We bought: enough lettuce (with a lemon as dressing), strawberries, grapefruits, tangerines and bread to cover our breakfasts and lunches for the rest of the trip.
But the most glorious afternoon was spent thusly, at The Cortez Kitchen:
We arrived sunburned and tired for lunch around 2:30. We’d spent the morning on the beach, and the early afternoon walking our rental bikes home after mine got a flat. So we were hungry and verging on cranky (as cranky as one could possibly muster given the circumstances). Cortez Kitchen is a fish shack on the water; its tables are scattered on a rickety old wooden dock. The umbrellas offer dappled shade from the hot sun. It was hopping. We ordered Coronas, a buffalo grouper sandwich and a grouper reuben. There was a fierce political sense that the grouper has to be local and fresh Gulf grouper, and it was all over the menu.
Before our sandwiches arrived but into our second Coronas, a man in completely unbuttoned white oxford shirt with the sleeves cut off mounted the stage with a guitar and a laptop. The guitar was just a prop. His laptop blared karaoke-style tracks to which he sang songs like Margaritaville and Brown Eyed Girl and played air guitar. Lots of old people dancing ensued (we went into a Publix supermarket for the sheer pleasure of being the youngest people there; not so common anymore). The sandwiches were out. of. control. delicious. There is fish and there is fish. I’d never had the latter until I visited Florida.