Farmer's Market, Big Pine Key

It happens every Saturday and this weekend was cool, in the 60s  but sunny and lovely.

St Peter's Catholic Church in Big Pine is at the north end of the village where the Key Deer land bridge starts.

 The walk through started with breakfast of Thai kebabs and spring rolls, washed down with con leche purchased on the way at Five Brothers on Ramrod Key. As breakfasts go it was a bit odd but quite pleasant. I could have used more spices on the food, which is odd as I am not in the hotter-the-better camp.

 My wife tried to whisk me past the rum cake display but I managed to get a sample of orange and liqueur flavored cake and it was every bit as good as you might imagine. I have a fondness for sponge cakes which I attribute to my upbringing. Or something.

I was not alone in thinking the temperature could have been turned up a bit...

We've seen the Pickle Baron before in Key West at Farmer's Markets there. He was embarrassed by his weird pickle shirt. I quite liked it. Not as much as his pickles though. 

This next guy is a saint. Well he may be but he is really a good cook. He used to run the kitchen at Finnegan's Wake and was set to do the same at he idiotic Backspace Fiasco which has since left town (good riddance). However they left behind a very disillusioned Wayne who now wants to work for himself and rapidly sold out here. Not before we got some excellent chowder and two chicken pot pies. I wish we could have another decent Irish pub once again in Key West. Oh well, this will have to do for now.

 Music was on tap and very refreshing it was too. Uplifeted an already bright day.

This guy advertises bringing "joy to the kitchen" and his pasta sauces do that. They have no paste or added sugar and as a result they are tart fresh light and utterly delicious. He had some garlic cream paste I tasted and I bullied my wife into buying a jar as I had left my money in the car. She yielded. 

 This dude was selling ham and cheese and my wife had him cut a few slices of Serrano ham which wasn't bad but not as salty and tangy in my (biased) opinion as prosciutto...

We took some Italian sheep's cheese and some tart cheddar as well because I love cheese in any shape or form. They had a wide selection too. Lovely.

 My wife heard him doing his sums in Italian so naturally she busted me and we chatted for a bit. His family emigrated to Brazil from Trento in Northern Italy.  I like his stuff.

Dogs are allowed by the way but Cheynne, never one for crowds was at home sunning herself. None of this stuff for her.

And there was this dude selling bread, good for the table, good for the freezer. Not that I get to eat much bread of course. Before industrial foods were invented they called this stuff the staff of life. 

 It really was quite pleasant at Big Pine. Check it out:

I had a good morning shopping. That's a first.

Monday Light

It's been a real winter in Key West but we still get our bursts of sunshine. Margaret Street looking brilliant:

It wasn't even 80 degrees but it looked lovely:

Lovely except for the cretin from Maryland who has apparently no clue what a yellow stripe means. Parking problems drive residents mad in a town where garages are always converted into spare bedrooms and driveways become gardens. It rates as gross bad manners to flaunt local parking laws. The newspaper burns up with the flames of parking of wars in it's pages. Plus this dolt is overhanging the scooter parking.

Pay the Earth for a house and get a tree growing into your roof:

Wot? No parking on a corner. Really? Bloody fascists. I told you finding parking space is a problem, and people do crazy things in order to dump their vehicles somewhere, anywhere.

Splendid Key West architecture:

A person owned bya  cat with a sense of humor. That or an excessive sense of itself, even for a cat:

All shadows and light in Key West. Not to be taken too seriously.

Classic Motorcycles

I make no secret of the fact that whenever we visit friends in Birmingham Alabama I make the 20 mile trek east to Leeds (Alabama) and check out what's on display at the Barber Museum. If you put "barber" in the search function at the top left hand corner of the page you will see all the bikes I have photographed there, like the 1964 Triumph TR6 single carburetor version of the famed Bonneville, which in my head was the better bike. Or the Ducati 750 I was recently reading about in a magazine:

Barber owns something like 1600 machines half of which are displayed at a time. He also likes Lotus cars and he has a shop where they are restored as well as a racetrack where they are...driven? For me the joy is to wander round and see the bikes of my youth, and all the other elderly machines on show for me to peer at to my heart's content.

I read Motorcycle Classics every two months and I have been a subscriber for years. It's not necessarily that I want to ride an elderly motorcycle every day and I acknowledge my only vaguely classic bike is my 1979 Vespa currently awaiting a new auto advance mechanism when 911buddy isn't absorbing all my attention and money. It's just that I like reading about the history of motorcycles, and where our sport came from and how it has grown, and in some respects stayed the same over the decades. Maybe one day I'll have the time and money to buy and ride a 1970's superbike but for now I am content to read about them and ride my modern imitation daily.

My serene world of sideline riding and reading of classic bikes got shaken up a little while ago when I found out I could get a subscription, or even individual copies of another magazine direct to my iPhone and iPad...from this page:Real Classics. Oh dear. So far I have downloaded half a dozen copies and I have tons of back issues to read before I even think about subscribing, which doesn't actually save much money on the annual cost of a dozen copies of this fascinating read.

I downloaded the teaser free issue and was amazed how easy this new digital version is to read. I tried this format elsewhere a while back and it was horrible. Here you can store the magazine on your phone on it's own page and you can pull down the magazine at will.

You can enlarge the page to make it easy to read for elderly eyes and you can slide page to page easily without interrupting your pleasure. Or, in the illustration above you can slide the whole magazine page by page at the bottom of the screen. Very very user friendly.

Let me say it: there is no technical obstruction to enjoying Real Classics anywhere in the world. The question is: why would you want to? Especially if you live in North America and get the aforementioned Classic Motorcycle subscription (every two months only, unfortunately). And this is where I have to get culturally sidetracked a bit I fear.

Real Classics does not put classic historic motorcycles on a pedestal. These bikes exist to be ridden, a sentiment shared by the American magazine but not put into action the way these British enthusiasts do it. In the photo above notice the luggage; these bikes get ridden and written about. You will often see little parcels bungee'd to the back of these bikes because the weather in Britain is as fickle as you like and going anywhere without waterproofs almost guarantees you a chance to get drenched. So these elderly bikes get ridden in the wet too! And photographed with mud on them. Check this out:

Real Classics celebrates British idiosyncrasy, a dry sense of humor and the ability to not take oneself too seriously while doing serious riding and serious wrenching (spannering). Yes you will have to get used to British spelling and quirky British use of the language which will make some references unintelligible. Hey, most of it can be understood by anyone who speaks some form of English. The humor may escape you if you think motorcycles are Serious Stuff but at heart these people are Very Serious about their bikes.

The best part is that the man pictured above in his "Shed" (the sacrosanct motorcycle space for men and wrenches, not wenches) edits the publication with no corporate pretensions whatsoever. He is more like your capable friend ready to offer unbiased advice with a dollop of tart wit than a snarky condescending journalist's journalist. He does this with a woman who may or may not be his wife. The English can be coy about these things and you can draw your own conclusions as I have drawn mine. FW as the Editor likes to style himself goes out and actually rides motorbikes and when he does so he has no hesitation being photographed looking like the Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Tell me with his whiskers, his weird lined visor and the shadow on his nose he doesn't look like the Lion:

Am I wrong?

I have been having a quiet love affar with Real Classics so I shouldn't be rude about the man who puts it all together. It reminds me in part of my lost youth, it reminds me I am not alone when I enjoy riding in the rain, even if it is only the warm South Florida version. It reminds me you don't need to ride around the world to have a two wheeled adventure. The editor's favorite motorcycle is a weird and not well known Norton Rotary which he considers his go-to ride and it's not spared England's liquid sunshine:

Not only that but FW is not terribly fond of classic Triumph Bonnevilles which have attained cult status on this side of the Atlantic (though he does express some deep fondness for Triumph's Trident). In Real Classics you will read about people buying selling, keeping and never selling, touring commuting and breaking down on their elderly machines. If your idea of classics is to put them on a pedestal and keep them secure in a museum this magazine will make your hair stand on end.

A lovely old BSA absurdly overburdened by sloppy luggage or what may be voluminous riding gear tossed into the photo. This would be a crime in the US:

By this stage you are either salivating to read this magazine or shaking your head at the way people like to waste their money. I hope you are curious enough to download the free issue and have a few giggles. These people are crazy and well worth your time.

Posted with Blogsy

Redland Hotel Sold

First let me point out my essay below is from 2009 and more shame on me that we have not been back. This place set me on fire to go to Argentina and try real South American barbecue as only they know how, or so the rumor has it...but then I read this on my favorite Miami Blog Redland Sold :

Lynda Bell and Mark Bell's Hotel is Sold. By Geniusofdespair

 

So one is forced to assume things will change and development will not be for the better. If you have followed Eye On Miami you know developers are sniffing around Florida City and Homestead with much land, not so much water and willing political partners. Here is my memory of the grand old hotel from six years ago. Read it and weep.

 

Redland Hotel

Because we had to go to Miami my wife decided we should spend a little extra time in and around the metropolis so she booked us a room at the Redland Hotel in Homestead. Homestead is a sprawling suburban city surrounded by farms and nurseries in the rich soil that used to grow oranges where Miami sprawl currently lurks. Indeed the Redland Hotel owes it's name to the color of the soil in that part of the world- at least according to the Historical Marker plunked down in the hotel parking lot:We had driven by the Redland Hotel many times on our way to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, Los Nopalitos at Mowry at Krome in downtown Homestead, and every time we passed the old hotel I mentioned how much fun it might be to stay there...so she called my bluff and reserved us a ninety dollar room. I mean, look at the facade at wouldn't you want to stay there?

 

According to the literature the place was built in 1904 but burned down about the time Homestead was founded, 1913. The rear parking lot is secure with a tall gate and shaded b y tall trees:

Inside the hotel I found a wall covered with historical photos of Homestead, including the obligatory "drowned hurricane" picture:

The Redland Hotel is a thing of beauty, because of it's age no doubt, narrow hallways thickly carpeted...

...an entirely adequate room complete with television and wi-fi Internet connection and the all-important adjoining bathroom......with adjoining expansive balcony, even though the view is only that of industrial roofs:The view of the surrounding streets is no great shakes either:But the front door has a nice way of separating the interior from the wasteland outside:

The effect is to make the interior of this hotel more snug, and comfortable in an old fashioned relaxed way than ever. The dining room:Which is advertised as an Argentine Steak House. We took the sampler grill at $29 for two and it was enough meat for a small army:Steaks of various cuts, three kinds of sausage (including blood pudding) chicken and pork all piled up and sizzling. It was overwhelming and delicious as were the entirely unnecessary mashed potatoes, but fortunately for us the hotel provides a to-go box:The only other occupants of the weeknight restaurant was a party of four English birdwatchers, I think, rather odious people making snide remarks about the colonial lifestyle on this side of the pond and laughing, or rather braying like loud horses as they tried to sort out in their avian brains the differences between England and America. They reminded me of people I'd rather forget from my childhood. You'd have been proud of me: I said not a word but chewed my Argentine steak, forcefully but silently, exhibiting better manners than they.My wife, who tends to be critical about these things, found the bed to be entirely comfortable and I slept the sleep of the just. The next morning the repulsive bird watchers were infesting the parking lot with nary a polite word between them but it was a fine day to be out and about. We waved to the old Homestead jail as we drove by after loading up on cereal and fruit in the dining room:And made a pact to drag Lisa and Josh out here for a night of meat and alcohol at the Redland Hotel, in Homestead. Who would've thunk?

Posted with Blogsy