see food

We did more at the beach than dig and surf.  We ate!  I do not cook dinner on vacation, as a policy.  We go to the grocery, buy simple lunch and relatively easy breakfast items, but we eat local seafood at restaurants for dinner.  The number of locals selling their own fresh catch tempts me to change my mind and do a simple dinner myself sometime. But not this time.

We went to the local, trendy beach spot the first night.  The price reflected the view, not the quality.  CD and I had grilled grouper sandwiches and the kids had fried shrimp and fried grouper "fingers".  Bug peeled the breading off his shrimp before eating them so he could taste the fish better. Pook liked our grouper better than his. We know better than to order off a kid's menu, but we often forget.

To celebrate our anniversary, Saturday, (#11) we drove in to Apalachicola to find a restaurant which had been suggested to us.  It was preparing for a wedding party and, without reservations, it turned us away even at 6pm.  We walked around, checking out options until Bug's tired feet took us to a small cafe.  The results were superb.  The kids shared a large order of seafood linguini, CD ordered shrimp and grits (not as good as Rick's) and I had an amazing, although not quite traditional, paella prepared with mussels, shrimp, scallops, chicken, summer sausage and chorizo. I started to order a couple slices of key lime pie to share, but Bug's sunburned head was resting on the table and it was time for bed.





Sunday, following more beach and more ice cream and a climb up the lighthouse, we returned to Apalachicola.  While walking alongside the fishing boats, we struck up a conversation with a fisherman, cleaning up his boat for the day.  When asked what he caught, he replied, "These days I trade diesel fuel for shrimp."  He must love being on the water; that's a tough life.

We aimed for the same suggested restaurant, but it was closed, so we went to another mentioned spot at an old inn.  Pook and I had good crab cakes, although unconventionally prepared with corn in them.  CD had a fried platter and Bug chose pizza.  I thought of the fisherman we'd met and whether it would be practical to drive home with a cooler full of shrimp.  We did not.