Roostica, Stock Island

I dislike clever restaurant names so I was not impressed when Roostica made the obligatory newspaper appearance as the newest eatery on Stock Island. Where Key West has too many fashionable places to eat out, Stock Island, home to the workers, has too few, though their number is growing and will grow further as they gentrify the trailer parks.

The name is derived from the Italian word for rustic combined with an ironic appreciation for the wandering wildlife made famous on Key West's streets.

So when I finally managed to get the irritating name behind me, and I had also heard from my wife who had lunch with friends there and enjoyed it we decided to meet there for lunch ourselves one day last week. There is a sign up front on MacDonald Avenue advising customers there is parking in the rear and it doesn't specify overflow parking so a dweeb like me who pays attention to signage ended up using the rear, pea rock lot for my Vespa. Which was silly as there is lots of motorcycle parking out front at the Dolphin Deli next door.

Stock Island can be fairly labeled as light industrial when it comes to scenery but nevertheless there is pleasant outdoor seating to be had if you want it.

On the whole I like eating indoors because I am a perverse character as noted previously in this space and luckily for me the interior of Roostica is attractively decorated in what I guess is New York or New Jersey Italianate style. I grew up in Italy but I have no knowledge of the Italian emigrant scene in that part of the world so when an American says "Italian" I always take it to mean "Italian-American," because when people leave home they create a new cultural baggage wherever they go to live. Maybe this is how Italian restaurants are decorated Up North, but if it isn't it should be.

To my untrained eye it looked very much like a restaurant might look in Italy with faux country fixtures and oddly patterned blown glass lampshades. The effect was eccentric and warm and inviting. I just wish the lunch tables and chairs were normal height instead of perching us, as seems to be the fashion, high in the air as though on bar stools. The plastic individual menus are repeated on the chalk board:

I was inclined toward the "big bowl" of caprese salad, out of curiosity but we decided to split lunch and shared a green salad with a bowl of meatballs.

I was astonished how much I enjoyed this simple $20 lunch. The salad was crisp and the dressing was tart and bright and not at all cloying or worse gloppy. The figs were dried but still had flavor and there were lots of them mixed in with the walnuts.

Our server, a rather intimidating young thing dressed in black with a rather gothic appearance was cheerful and speedy and properly attentive butt not irritatingly invasive. We could have had lunch in twenty minutes and been back on our way to work had we not decided to linger a bit. I really enjoyed the meal and am anxious to get back for dinner. Actually the happy hour menu looks really interesting and in addition to wine they have a nice selection of draft beers, Toasted Blue, Peroni, Moretti Red and Stella Artois.

The way out to my wife's parked car was lined with pictures which deserved a more than cursory glance. The classic immigrant family shown below and lest we forget Italians, Irish and Hungarians at the turn of the 20th century got the same disrespectful treatment Mexicans and Latin Americans get today in the US. They were berated for not knowing English and being dirty and poor and strange etc...etc...The more the world changes the more it stays the same.

Unlike so many businesses in the Lower Keys that appear to much fanfare, get a spread in the business section of the paper and promptly disappear, Roostica which is owned and operated by the Mongelli family who own Geiger Key Marina and Hogfish Restaurant also on Stock Island seems likely to stick around for a while. Locals like it from what I hear and now I have a pretty good idea why.

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St Augustine Is Not Key West

I'm not completely sure what the symbol of Key West might be; possibly the Southernmost Buoy thing, or nothing more complex than a palm tree hanging over a fictitious beach. St Augustine uses the lighthouse and calls itself the Nation's Oldest City. The lighthouse is on the barrier island not in the city like Key West's lighthouse. Besides its a good deal bigger.

They are proud to tell you when you fork over your ten bucks for adult admission that there are 219 steps to the top. I took their word for it and stopped counting after three. The view was quite attractive. The small collection of buildings on the horizon over someone's granddad's shoulder is the city of St Augustine.

Here's a close up, or as close as my Android phone would go...notice the absence of guy wires to keep inquisitive faces inboard, such as they use in Key West. The docent at the top told us people, even adults do lean over and spit on people below. Yeah, even adults behave like cretins in St Augustine.

In the other direction we see the long beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. A docent explained that forty years ago portions of the island didn't exist and it has been rebuilding itself ever since. Unlike the Keys it's all sand around here and sand is mobile unlike coral and limestone rock.

The shorter building with which I am familiar - Key West Diary: Lighthouse - shows views of city streets because it's located right on Whitehead Street, views that are interesting but not quite so far reaching as those around the St Augustine tower.

I am quite fond of Finnegan's Wake in Key West, despite the intrusive addition of televisions with stupid sports coverage so when in St Augustine we hunted down a similar pub for purposes of comparison. The Kings Head is reputed to be the best and certainly the most authentic built by an emigre 25 years ago to recreate a piece of "home.

The owner's daughter was visiting from England, tanned and bronzed like a local and she served us sausage rolls and a Scotch egg as authentic as anything English. Pub food at Finnegan's is a cut above. The Treacle Tart she made was superb, served with a dollop of custard, a custom Finnegan's could learn to imitate.

The selection of beers was okay but neither Boddingtons nor Smithwicks were available. Score one for Finnegan's and Key West! Plus Finnegan's has more comfortable seats...Besides all that, the Kings Head is fifteen minutes north of town on Highway One. Back in town St Augustine has the Spanish fort on the waterfront with a nice big lawn.

Fort Zachary in Key West is a much more interesting park with varied surroundings. However I was happy to see a few bums asleep in the grass on the day after Thanksgiving. St Augustine is a much smarter cleaner town than Key West, let's face it. Drunk bums harassing tourists here would get short shrift I'm thinking.

It's an annoying cliché but all the cleanliness and organization of St Augustine leads me to suspect that perhaps life might be a tad boring unlike Key West where jollity and drunkeness rule downtown. Perhaps I'm old enough to be bored by Irish Kevin's and Ricks and the five dollar hustlers at the schlock stores downtown.

The weather is not what a Key Wester would call warm necessarily in winter. I saw frost one morning when I was walking Cheyenne in a field next to the hotel. That's cold by my book. There is no waterfront except the Intracoastal Waterway a muddy tidal river which is a good deal less appealing than Keys waters. The ocean near St Augustine is classic Atlantic Ocean waterfront with waves, tidal rips and immense sandy beaches.

St Augustine is tourist friendly. I've never seen the American way of tipping explained in a restaurant in Key West. Check this out and ask yourself why the Key West Chamber of Commerce can't get it's well paid shit together.

Remember that in Key West the uneducated barflys call visitors "tourons" which is a combination of tourist and moron, and these people boast about their attitude on their public bar stools in Key West. I don't relish gentrification but it's a bit of an eye opener when you get off The Rock and see how other people do it. I liked St Augustine and I think I'll be back but I still prefer living in the chaos that is, but doesn't have to be, Key West.

 

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Bonnie Albury's House

At one point in the not too distant past this venerable old home looked like it might even collapse. Now it is close to being completely restored.

Bonnie Albury lived alone in his vast spacious great place and quite the character she was too. She was a former school teacher in Key West and in retirement she developed what had perhaps been a lifelong trait of reticence. She hated seeing passerby photograph her most photogenic home. Painters on the sidewalk irritated her to distraction. She wanted to be left to herself, a sentiment with which I am very much in tune.

Now I admire the home restored, the brilliant paint, the new chance at a future for a building that was slowly imploding under the weight of the years. Now the house shines bright as a diamond in the Fall sunshine.

Much has been done with much more left to do. No doubt time will pass and the work will be completed on Southard Street.

 

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World's Weirdest Turkey Day

Normally my wife and I load a covered dish into the car, push Cheyenne into the back then the wife brushes down my shirt front to clear any latent crumbs and we climb into the car, the three of us, and go visit some friend or neighbor for an afternoon of light conversation and heavy eating. This year we drove to St Augustine and camped in a La Quinta hotel. Brilliant! Turkey Day started and ended in a diner. Double Brilliant!!

We spent Wednesday in Naples at the Carmax exchanging our 2007 Ford Fusion with 95,000 miles for a 2010 Ford Fusion with 8,000 miles. I love Carmax if I have to buy a car and the day went smoothly with a quick road test of a Fiat 500 Sport - enormous fun but too small for Cheyenne in the back, and a Volkswagen Eos Turbo. That's a fabulous car with no trunk left after you fold the metal roof into it and Cheyenne would have hated the lumpy bucket seats in the back. I loved how the car drove and handled and my wife loved the metal convertible roof. So the sensible Fusion it was, and don't be fooled it's quite luxurious with excellent gas mileage. I have grown very fond of modern Fords and the Fusion in particular. The Carmax employees stared with their jaws dragging as we swiftly and efficiently transferred Cheyenne's travel requirements from the red Ford to the silver Fusion. A new kennel and a happy dog. We took off for St Augustine at six in the evening.

It was a long drive which ended at midnight when we had a snack of edamame hummus from the Naples Trader Joe's, weird but delicious with cheese it turns out and extra delicious with lots of red wine. We slept till ten thirty Thursday morning. As one does. Breakfast was lunch and my wife had the best corned beef hash she'd ever had while I had a chicken fried steak. I had forgotten how good a greasy breakfast can be, working nights as I do I skip cooked breakfasts these days.

My wife was in charge of the schedule Friday while I was in charge of Thursday, the national day of widespread, unforgiving closures. I settled for breakfast followed by a brisk downtown walk in The Nation's Oldest City, a place filled with photo opportunities. Starting with a picture of the lot which used to hold North America's first hospital.

Then quantities of absurdly picturesque streets and houses. Note the total a sense of bums, alcoholics and piss stains on the walls.

And a statue of this rather swishy character, hand on hip knee bent slightly, lookslike the world's oldest poof, actually called a Ponce by Anglos. His proper name is ponsay de Leon because his first name has an accent on the e. He was the first Spamiard to show up around here.

We finished the walk and took off up the barrier islands on Forida Highway A1A, know. As South Roosevelt Boulevard in distant Key West. The barrier island is surprisingly well preserved as wilderness north of St Augustine.

We found a parking lot allowing passing vehicles to stop a d their occupants to get out and walk. I was the days's scheduler and I decreed a close up view of the massive waves pushed ashore by the north winds.

No beaches like these in the Florida Keys. Nor is it as cold happily, further south. We met a candle maker from Georgia looking for sea shells to use in her candles. She liked Cheyenne which is no surprise as everyone likes Cheyenne.

We drove an hour north to Mayport wherein lies the endangered St John's River ferry which was sold as part of a profitable port operation by the city of Mayport to a private corporation which has decided to close the ferry critical for locals to cross the river. The city and state has agreed to subsidize the incompetent private corporation to keep the ferry running for now. As usual, government to the rescue!

We paid six bucks for our car to ride while motorcycles pay five and pedestrians and cyclists pay a buck each for the five minute ride. The ferry crosses the river every fifteen minutes. Very cool. Thank you government.

We, that is I, had decided to visit the northernmost state park (thank you government) in Florida, Fort Clinch on Amelia Island. It's very different in some respects to Fort Zachary the southernmost park with which I am of course, very familiar.

The Park ranger at the gate was very cheerful, lying about a cop being in the park so we should check our speeds, then he spotted Cheyenne asking "You ride that thing?" before he slipped my hundred pound Labrador a cookie. The difference between the southern and northern parks was the flora, panfish moss on live oaks, and the fauna, squirrels which Cheyenne ignored.

What is familiar between the northernmost and southernmost parks is the human structure, a brick fort, (closed to dogs). This one was built overlooking the water during the Civil War to protect the entrance to St Mary's Rver and Cumberland Sound.

 

The entrance over a dry moat with drawbridge and granite lintel looked identical if smaller than similar at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

 

The Confederates held the fort briefly but the Union got it back and moved the confederate blockade runners off the river.

It has elements from Fort Jefferson, the dry most and the drawbridge, the canon, here on their original mountings, and the big grassy parade ground with buildings scattered around.

Life in the fort is well preserved with traces of daily living shown off in the jail the quartermaster's stores and the gruesome beds. We tried laying down on the straw mattress and wondered how anyone could sleep on such a stiff lumpy apology for a bed.

 

It was a great place to wander and think about the past. We were left much to ourselves and we took advantage to see everything. There was one docent disguised as an 1864 corporal who showed us the jail and mentioned that President Lincoln started Thanksgiving in 1863, by decree. Thank you government.

Fort Clinch was a blast, highly recommended but we had to drive south and look for dinner on a day when everything is closed. I guess Turkey Day is the day for diners for we found another after we took the ferry back across the St John's river, well after dark.

We happened to be at the front of the boat for the 6:15 ferry south and it was like flying as the boat went gliding across the black water. All too soon we arrived at the ramp.

It was in Jacksonville Beach that we passed the only appealing restaurant that was open, and there weren't too terribly many that were open at all. Even Dominos was closed. This was the traditional pig out meal, cream of turkey soup, Greek salad roast lamb and rice pudding washed down with Stella Artois. I don't know where all the Greek influence comes from on the First Coast but Greek influenced food is everywhere up here. The Mediterranean influence was also visible in the diner where the family publicly took a corner and started a poker game. Very cool.

And so home to bed, stuffed and cold in the fifty degree night. Our last stop, and it was a stop only in a manner of speaking because for us it was too cold to get out of the car. St Augustine is famous for its Christmas lights.

A worthwhile day, perhaps my best Thanksgiving in a while because I do enjoy being unconventional. And I never once wore my pink Crocs.

 

All pictures taken with my Android phone and uploaded to picasa with a couple of failures (weird lines and the like. I used two not terrible failures in the essay)and published here using Blogsy. An experiment because according to Blogsy's developer his application hates Canon cameras for reasons unknown. Quelle pain in the derrière.

 

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