Key West Artisan Market

We had planned a Sunday afternoon in town to see a movie and it happened that I spotted the Artesian Market on Eaton Street on our way to lunch. There was no parking of course but we improvised for our two scooters and my wife went on the prowl with me trailing behind.

This used to be Cates Auto dealership which closed and got taken over by an expanded Restaurant Store, a building filled with kitchen toys and serious stuff, not to mention fresh bread and it turns out the most delicious mozzarella: more on that in a minute. The dealership used to park cars under this roof which is now a handy place to shop as the noon time sun was quite warm.

Shop, yes or get your hair braided or something.

My wife wanted her aching neck to get some attention but the line was too long.

I got a pound of honey made in the Keys and for sale at the Salt store on Fleming at Margaret streets.

The Juice Guy sold us a bottle of coconut lime juice that was excellent, and he was having a good time doing it.

Season your nuts anyone? My wife lives to cook and is always looking for new and interesting flavors. These are sold locally when she needs to re-supply.

We had lunch plans but the pasta cooked fresh in front of everybody had me entranced. It looked delicious.

We were leery of taking mozzarella to lunch and then to a movie before riding home on our Vespas unrefrigerated but he told us not to worry. So we didn't and the stuff was luscious.

Made right here by curdling the milk, the cheese was buttery and not all salty with just the right soft texture. This is the mozzarella you can buy at the restaurant store.

The Crepe place on Petronia had a food truck. More lunch options.

And like any Farmer's Market Up North there were the basics as well. This market takes place on the first Sunday of the month and will wrap up for the summer after next month. There is another market on Thursdays so the principle of fresh local food is alive and well even in this most isolated of non- agricultural communities. Annie's Organics still delivers through the Keys from Homestead which is two hours away and is a thriving agricultural town south of Miami. Maybe not so entirely isolated then.

We stopped by Garbo's in a futile attempt to introduce my wife to Key West's most famous and elusive food truck. They were closed of course so we ride up the street to lunch at Old Town Grocery, a new place on Whitehead Street, of which more tomorrow.

One last picture taken on Caroline Street of my old Vespa next to a modern scooter decorated with...cloth. Hmm.

 

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Key West Snippets

A gentle hour long walk with my dog early Easter Sunday morning. Me and my phone camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Big Pine Ramble, En Français

Because I work at night my wife the teacher hands off chores to me that I can carry out during office hours before I saddle up and go to work. It's a terrible burden but my Vespa needs the mileage to put the break in period behind me. I have been cruising between 50 and 55 miles per hour with bursts to 60 so I can keep up with most traffic in the Overseas Highway.

Chores done I went for a ride in the Big Pine back country, five miles north to Port Pine Heights, a housing community that failed to fill out as planned. These impressive gates open on mostly empty overgrown lots.

Nevertheless five miles up Key Deer Boulevard from the highway sewers are being planned just like everywhere else. This 200 million dollar project is designed to get everyone flushing their toilets into modern sewage treatment plants. Some people grumble at the cost and would prefer to keep flushing into nearshore waters...The usual environmental shortsightedness that characterizes higher thinking across the Keys.

I was pursuing a geocache when I came across a colorful van in the parking lot at the Jack Watson Trailhead. I went to see what was up.

They were French and seemed floored by my ability to chat in their mother tongue with them. I asked a few polite questions, got monosyllables in reply and gave up the effort, not without securing a photo for my trouble. I'd like to have known more. Oh well.

I didn't find the geocache but I enjoyed playing with my camera. I'm getting more handy with the iPhone, not without some tantrums and irritation, but overall it works well.

As usual I'm no botanist but I enjoyed the macro function of the phone camera.

Have a good Easter Sunday. May your snowbirds go home tomorrow. It's warm enough to swim now, just about.

 

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Bloodline, A Consideration

One thing that bothers me about seeing movies whose locations I know is that I lose the capacity to abandon reality and immerse myself in the fiction. What? There's no bus stop at Alabama Jack's...my mind screams in protest. But I'll tell you what, Bloodline is one cool TV show. I love it and I accept the fictions the producers have incorporated to make the story work. Watch this TV show and be grateful Netflix got the Florida Keys right.

The story is brought to you by the minds that created the amazing Damages and their backwards-forwards timeline makes its appearance here. This is a thriller that thrills, and as I write I have three episodes left and I am glad to hear season two has been commissioned. The story is set in the Upper Keys, centered on a family guesthouse and the clan whose lives revolve around it. Danny (pictured above) comes home the family black sheep, and his mere presence divides the family. The plot twists I shall not reveal, suffice it to say they will lead you astray all over the place.

The newspaper has been reporting on the externals of the production, stars seen eating locally (movie stars eat?) an actual guesthouse was commandeered for the production, locals play extras to the joy of their friends and the stars tell the locals how much they love the Keys. Predictable stuff.

I've heard from the naysayers too, picking holes in the locations, and all that. Personally I think this show makes even the Upper Keys look good! Which is a drag as it will surely be an enticement for more people to visit. Islamorada and Key Largo can finally get their moment in the sun, not overshadowed by almighty Key West!

A Conch told me how pissed off he was by the show. At one point youngest brother Kevin looks to get a loan from the bank and he tries to jolly the banker, a black woman in an all white show, from Big Zpine by calling her a Conch. "No black woman I know was born in Big Pine" my stubborn Conch told me. Well, I said feebly, they are just locals trying to close a deal. Just because they are in the Keys doesn't make them Conchs he said huffily.

I like this show. I'm not the best person to judge a plot, I have Aspergers and human motivation always seems to escape me, in fiction as it does in life. My poor wife has to put up with me figuring the plot minutes or episodes after she has already done so.

Bloodline is set in the moneyed world of old residents who got their piece of waterfront before modern communications made living in the Keys easy to do. These people have become entrenched in their Upper Keys world and we can marvel at their extraordinary beach, the parkland like garden and museum quality interiors.

But we also get to see the dingy quality of life of those hanging on to the edge of mainstream reality, trailer park life, bar fights, drugs and down at heel marinas. Cultural diversity is represented by Latino supporting characters, not necessarily Cuban either, but this movie is the story of the travails of white privilege in the Upper Keys. Which of itself is not I suppose that far off reality as the moneyed forces realign the local population.

Like they told the paper the Keys are a character in their own right and they make this drama one step above Justified, set in Kentucky, shot in California, or the much enjoyed Dexter set in Miami and shot in Long Beach California. Bloodline is set here, shot here and about here. Enjoy it, I know I am, the naysayers be damned!

Pictures are from Netflix publicity online.

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Key West Landmarks

It begins and ends at Mile Marker Zero. They make a great deal of the U.S. Highway One marker in front of the Monroe County courthouse at Fleming and Whitehead Streets. So here I was the other morning.

After I got off work I figured I had better take a little ride around town, enjoy the night air, chill out physically and mentally as it is cool these days before dawn, and at six o'clock thanks to summertime it's dark and the streets are empty. I figured I could park illegally and capture my sweet running ( for now) 1979 Vespa 200 in a few hot spots.

Everyone knows about the Mile Zero thing. The Angelina guesthouse is perhaps less well known. It is one of a cluster of the less expensive guest houses I recommend when people ask. I got that question the other day at work. It goes like this. A dude calls Key West PD and says he needs to speak to the Lieutenant. Well, my job is to be the gatekeeper and as I told my trainee dispatcher, police officers hate to be ambushed. So I have to find out who he is and what he wants so I can pass a coherent message to the night shift Lieutenant, who does not want to be disturbed by bullshit but expects me to differentiate BS from urgent stuff she needs to know. The dude goes on he is a retired Los Angeles police officer with a bunch of retired buddies looking for recommendations on places to stay when they vacation in Key West next month. Yes, this sort of thing happens in every trade and profession in the Keys as any resident will tell you. No doubt in every resort everywhere. Me? I rely on my wife For teavel advice and she is smart enough to research Trip Advisor, Yelp, Urban Spoon etc... But among the electronically inept, word of mouth from a total stranger works better. I can just imagine the Lieutenant's response had I passed this premium service caller to her cell phone... Luckily the 911 phone was quiet and the trainee had some abbreviations to memorize so I made the department look good and completed the courtesy call. Talk to the Lieutenant indeed!

Everyone has their favorite bar in Key West and I don't. With the passing of a well known Irish place I have promised to stop whining about, I have no idea where to stop off. Some say Shanna Key on Flagler though I have some inbuilt internal resistance as I liked the quiet darkness and serene calm of the place that cannot be forgotten. The Green Partot sells the usual mediocre beer and has interesting music and is properly tropically open air but it's too well known and crowded and claustrophobic sometimes. I like to sit across the street on the deli bench that I have friended on facebook not to support clever advertising but because it is a good spot for sit-down Cuban coffee and people watching.

If you come to Key West you will stop off at the Hemingway House, the best known and best marketed privately owned attraction in the Keys. I have no idea what it is about the man or the myth that makes him so incredibly popular in a nation that prides itself on anti-intellectual illiteracy, but perhaps I have answered my own question. Perhaps he is the right kind of stuff, not for his clipped tedious writing style but because he drank, chased women, killed animals and write about bar brawls while making and enjoying an immodest fortune. And then to prove he didn't have it all he blew his own brains out as an antidote to aging. So people trek to his former home in droves. 6:10am was the perfect time for some private unobserved illegal parking photography.

Ah yes, the Fausto's landmark, not just a grocery store but a social gathering place is how Fausto's styles itself. . The mustachio'ed city commissioner who married into this family has the formula down just right. He sets prices high enough to stay in business, he caters to the high end, gay and harried guest house families with beach food, seaweed treats (erk!) and old fashioned cuts of meat. But it's also a real grocery store, steady and ready to serve people unwilling to drive two miles to Publix in the outer darkness of New Town. Visit Key West and shop Fausto's here and in the less picturesque store on White Street a mile away, to serve those unwilling to travel 12 blocks for groceries...and pretend you are a local with all the glamor (!) and none of the hassles...

To express correct ennui with the whole unseemly tourist thing tell people you are over Duval Street and you never visit, except perhaps to have a beer on the beach at Southernmost, or at best to wander the boutiques in the unhurried Upper Duval area, which is paradoxically at the Southern end of the main drag. Seen here across the handlebars waiting for a green light at Truman Avenue, looking south.

You won't find four speed steel bodied scooters with "antique" tags for rent at Andy's Scooter shop. You don't see me here much during the day, though if you need your scooter repaired and don't want to see Jiri on distant Stock Island, this is where you'll come. If you rent a scooter, the best way to get around town, remember this isn't Disneyworld and bad things happen to people who ride badly. A helicopter flight to Miami to repair your broken head will cost you $30,000 and I'm sure your insurance company will try to reject the charge as they usually do.

Speaking of which buying booze to go will do you no good either but here at Don's Place, on the Thousand block of Truman you have the chance to pick up plenty of second hand smoke when the doors open set seven in the morning, or to buy booze to go at the only drive through window in Key West since The Tunnel closed.

Landmarks in Old Town would be incomplete without a mention of Dions at Truman and White. 24 hour gas compete ting with the Chevron across the street whose secret weapon is car repairs and coffee for those who seek out American brew. Here at Dion's there is a convenience store alongside the gas and in it's way this too is a social hub. To people watch here pull up at the Kerr near the ice machines, get a coffee or a soda, but not alcohol please as this is the real Key West and public drinking is not approved of here. For real.

If you want true local food get some fried chicken, preferably fresh fried, from the chicken counter inside. I like Dions, as do many others which is what made the family monstrous wealthy one fried chicken breast at a time from here to Homestead.

There: not Chamber of Commerce certified. Conchscooter's landmarks. And no I didn't even try to get tickets for Jimmy Buffett's concert the other night. 200 tickets offered to 69,000 people. Humph!

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