We stopped in Carlsbad, CA for lunch in a little sandwich local sandwich shop that was called  “Board and Brew”. The sandwiches there were made while you waited, and having a non-fast-food chain (i.e. Subway) lunch while on the road was a welcome change. The “Brew” in the name predictably referred to beer (which we didn’t have), but the “Board” was not as obvious until we stepped inside; then it became clear that the “board” in question was of the skateboard/snowboard variety.  We raised the average age in the place by quite a bit while we were there, and also acquired a little bit of board lingo while we were there. You see, the menu listed two items listed under a section labelled “Groms”: there was a grilled cheese on sourdough, and a quesadilla. Both had melted cheese, but that seemed unlikely to be the reason they were grouped together.  Anyway, I ordered the grilled cheese, which was tasty.

When we got to the hotel in Chula Vista,  I did an Internet search for “Grom”, and here’s the definition I found on Definitions.net:

• grom (Noun)

  A young surfer, wakeskater, wakeboarder, snowboarder, skimboarder, skateboarder, or kiteboarder.

  They were having this contest for grommets. The waves were micro. Even the groms were disgusted.

Too funny. Just call me a kid at heart, I guess, since I ordered from the children’s menu.  

Anyway, although we didn’t have a chance to stop and take a photo of the view today, it seems appropriate to mark the fact that our Plan G Road Trip has now officially made it from coast-to-coast. Back in October, it was the Atlantic Ocean that we saw from our vacation apartment in Florida before we set out on the road. Here’s a view of that ocean at sunset, taken while sitting at a table at our favorite little quick-dinner spot by Melbourne Beach:

Sunset over the Atlantic, October 2015

Here in California, of course, it’s the Pacific Ocean you spot when you have an ocean view. Here’s another version of that sunset photo I posted yesterday, but with the additional note that it’s the Pacific Ocean you’re seeing under those sun beams:

Sunset over the Pacific, December 2015

We’ll be in California for the rest of the year, but we’re not staying too long in Southern California. Tomorrow, we start heading north. Stay tuned.

For those who are unfamiliar with key limes, their name might imply that they are green, but in fact they are yellow (like a lemon). Except they don’t taste like a lemon — nor a lime, but rather something in between. It’s typical in the U.S. , particularly here in Florida, to make them into a creamy pie.  The particular serving style,  with a dollop or more of whipped cream, and topped with berries or not, is up to the establishment, as we’ve had all manners of it around here. Here’s a photo of one of the better ones we tried:

Key Lime Pie

While that photo shows a slice of one of the better restaurant ones we’ve had the past couple of months, the best one we’ve had by far was made by my sister-in-law — thanks, D—, for making it!! We were too busy enjoying it to take a photo of it, though.

But even without always remembering to take a photo, we have tried to be diligent about seeking out key lime pie to sample while we’re here in Florida. Research for the blog, you understand.

After all, it can’t always be about doughnuts.

Chris and I passed by this thing almost every day in August, since it’s situated between where we were staying in a vacation apartment and our relatives’ house. We are seeing it again daily now that we’ve moved back to the vacation apartment on US 1, so I decided it’s about time I wrote about it here on the blog. At the beginning  I called it the “giant peach”, influenced by the name of Roald Dahl’s book James and the Giant Peach I read as a kid, and also because I think it looks like the color of a peach.

But as Chris keeps pointing out, we’re not in Georgia, we’re in Florida. So of course, the fruit in question is supposed to be a giant orange:

Giant Orange, U.S. Highway 1, Melbourne. Florida

Giant Orange, U.S. Highway 1, Melbourne. Florida

One thing I find particularly odd about it — as if the sight of a giant orange looming on the side of the road isn’t odd enough, that is. — is that there’s no obvious marking on it as you zoom by.  Nothing. There’s also never been sign of activity happening near it. You’d think a giant orange would get a bit more attention, somehow.

We finally stopped by it one day (that’s our car to the right of it in the photo above). We wanted to see if there were any signs on it. And sure enough, there is a small one sign on the front that is not easy to read from the road:

Sign on the Giant Orange, U.S. Highway 1, Melbourne. Florida

Hmm, personally, I don’t find that info  too helpful in understanding how this giant orange came to be.

In searching on the web for more info, I didn’t find much more about it. But here’s what one  website has to say about what that site calls the “Eau Galle Orange”:

The giant orange is made of concrete and steel and was built in 1967. It is 15 feet in diameter. For a few years, it was used as an orange juice stand for tourists and manned by the Eau Gallie Chamber of Commerce. It is located at the Disabled American Veterans facility and was recently restored by the Melbourne Rotary Club. It’s a well known landmark for anyone who regularly drives this part of the Dixie Highway.  From  http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM44A0

Ok, so that explains at least what it is: it is definitely an orange. But unfortunately that still leaves unanswered other questions such as who built it back in 1967, or why it was built or when it fell into disrepair and disuse, or how the Disabled American Veterans came to have it now.

Many questions, making it still somewhat of a mystery on this Monday.

Pumpkin is a traditional food found in autumn in the U.S. Jack-o-lanterns, which are typical decorations for Halloween, are made from pumpkins.  Pumpkin pie is traditional dessert for the fall festival and holiday of Thanksgiving, but it’s definitely not a dessert you typically find in Europe although they do grow pumpkins there. But growing up as a kid, pumpkin pie is about the only food I remember eating that had anything to do with pumpkin.

But at the moment, everywhere you turn around here,  restaurants and chains seem to offer “pumpkin” anything, and not necessarily in a way you’d expect.

For example, you can get a pumpkin doughnut at most doughnut places. We tried one at the local Ladybug Bakery chain a few weeks ago. It was pretty good as a doughnut, but it didn’t taste like pumpkin. So today we tried one from Dunkin’ Donuts, a national chain. It didn’t taste like pumpkin either. And it wasn’t made better by the fact that it was a rather not-quite-pumpkin orangey color:

Pumpkin Dunkin’ Donut

Color comparison (pumpkin donut on the right)

Another big trend that in the U.S. is to have favored coffee drinks, so I guess it makes sense that if you’re offering pumpkin anything that pumpkin coffee is now available.  Dunkin’ Donuts offers so many different kinds of pumpkin coffee drinks that it takes two signs to advertise them all:

Pumpkin Coffee Drinks, Dunkin’ Donuts

Sign for Pumpkin Macchiato, Dunkin’ Donuts

I decided I needed to try one for the blog, and so I chose the latter; I mean, how could I pass on trying  “handcrafted perfection”,  right? Particularly since, according to this other sign, a macchiato at Dunkin’ Donuts actually has espresso in it. Well, theoretically, at least:

Espresso Coffee drinks at Dunkin’ Donuts

Of course, in Italy, a macchiato drink has no steamed milk and no double-shot of espresso – it’s just espresso with a little dollup of steamed milk.  So, I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be anything like a real Italian macchiato.  However, in the interest of research, I did actually try a Pumpkin Macchiato today.

Pumpkin Macchiato, Dunkin’ Donuts

Where to begin to describe it? As I commented to Chris, having me review this type drink actually isn’t fair to the concept, because I don’t really like flavored coffees in general. But I would say that this one tasted like neither coffee nor pumpkin. Also, although the sign says the drink comes pre-sweetened, it wasn’t very sweet, either. A failure on all levels, IMHO. I didn’t finish it.

But now I can add this to the wacky pumpkin foods I’ve tried over the years. Of course, while not all the ones at the  the big zucca (pumpkin/squash) festival in Bolzano years ago were all that great, this was the first time I’ve tried something that is nominally “pumpkin” that I couldn’t finish.  Of course, while that festival did offer an odd pumpkin prosecco (sparkling wine) drink, even they weren’t crazy enough to mess with the coffee.  

For a little town, it certainly has its share of potential Monday Mysteries. Where is the “Start of the Tropics” that are promised in the town’s motto (which is “Where the tropics begin.”). For that one, I’m guessing we didn’t go far enough south; a chamber of commerce site for the area talks about the different climate zones that Vero beach straddles, so perhaps that’s the answer to that mystery.

While we didn’t make it to the tropics,  we did at least make it all the way through the small downtown area.  That part of town is the location of  the Pocahontas Park. Which is the second mystery: Pocahontas? Why is a park in Florida is named after a historical heroine from Virgina?  That chamber of commerce site doesn’t explain that one.

But the main mystery for today is really a statue in  that Pocahontas Park in Vero Beach. It’s not of a girl, but rather something else:

Horse Statue in Vero Beach

According to an article I found online, the horse’s name is Patriot. The article explains that in 2009, after a 6-year renovation project,  this 1960’s statue was returned to his corral there in the park.

However, that begs quite a few questions: Why a white horse statue? Why is his name Patriot? Why is he rearing up at such an extreme angle? Who made him originally? And why is it in this park? I still haven’t figured any of that out.

Not too many answers today, but at least you get more than two mysteries from one small town, along with more than two questions from a single Monday Mystery.

*****

P.S. BTW, we saw this statue up close when we sat at a table in the park eating doughnuts from  a place in Vero Beach called Tasty Donuts.  At noon on a Saturday they were closing when we walked in, but they kindly let us come in and buy a couple of doughnuts to go.  Nice day to sit in the park – and the doughnuts lived up to their name.  If we go back to find the tropics, we at least know of a good place to go to help fortify us on that expedition…

First, I finally got a photo of one to show you what I looked like, even though it took a couple of weeks for one to show up again on the back deck:

Grasshopper on the deck

But once they started showing up again, there was usually at least one every day. Once there were even two that seemed to be locked in a fight to the death.  One leaped onto the back of the other and the two of them wrestled around on the boards for a minute or more.  It was like watching a nature show where they show you the two animals battling for supremacy of the pack. Or something. Anyway, the tournament ended when the one on top walked away in triumph, as the other one remained behind, motionless.   Chris and I both though it was dead, but a while later when we looked to see if the coast was clear to go out and clear away the “body”, it was gone. So maybe it was just playing dead until the other one left. So unexpected to see a life and death struggle played out among bright yellow grasshoppers in the sunlight on the back deck.

On a less lethal note, though, I most often saw just one at a time.  In fact, almost every morning  last week I saw one while  I was cleaning up in the kitchen after breakfast.

Hmm, I should hasten to add that the grasshopper was outside and I was inside at the time; the glass doors to the patio lead off the kitchen.

Anyway, what I kept seeing was a grasshopper stopping in front of the glass doors and proceeding to do a little morning routine. It struck me as part exercise, part dance. The slide show viewer below will  automatically flip though a series of photos showing off the grasshopper’s fancy footwork; if you hover over the viewer,  you will be able to get buttons that will allow you to pause and move forward and backward at your own pace.

The grasshopper did that sequence of “step, kick, kick, kick, kick, touch back” over and over before ultimately taking a bow and walking away.

OK, well, he didn’t actually take a bow. But he did really do that same sequence at least 4 times each morning before moving on. As I watched him, it occurred to me that all he needed to do was replace one of the kicks for a leap and he’d be ready for Broadway:

Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…Again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…Again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…Again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch…Right!
… lyrics from I Hope I Get It, from A Chorus Line

I know, I know.  To get from talking about grasshopper to a Broadway show tune is a enough of leap all on its own.  But that’s the way it sometimes goes with one of these Monday Mysteries…

*****

P.S. Since I don’t have any more information about the grasshopper to offer, I’ll instead offer a link to a YouTube clip of that dance number from A Chorus Line (the dance begins around 0:30 in the clip).

 Enjoy. 

Of course, I’ve already talked about the Arnold Palmer, the blend of lemonade and iced tea that is ubiquitous around here. Both lemonade and sweet iced tea by themselves are also popular drinks.  After being in Florida for almost 2 months it no longer strikes me as odd that just about every place around here offers all 3 of those by default, usually with free refills.

But this past week we ran across a couple of interesting bottled beverages. First up: a bottled iced mocha coffee drink made with almond milk:

Bottle of Cold Brew Coffee with almond milk

Almond milk is pretty trendy at the moment, I guess, sold for people who are lactose intolerant, so it makes sense that they will make and sell anything/everything with it. Anyway, it was a cold coffee drink and we were thirsty, so we decided to try it. Our verdict: it tasted kind of like you were drinking an almond joy candy bar. Not a bad flavor, but not good if you’re looking for the flavor of coffee, as it didn’t taste anything like coffee.

Our second beverage find was in a fish store, of all places.  You see, we stopped in and I saw that they had a fish (salmon trout) that looked like it would be good to make with a Japanese miso sauce. I knew that I had all the ingredients for the sauce at home already, except for mirin, which is a sweetened Japanese sake.  I hadn’t been able to find mirin in the grocery stores a couple of weeks ago, so it was amazing to find a bottle of it available in the fish shop.

However, they only had a huge wine-bottle-sized bottle of it. You only use a bit of it in the recipe, so it seemed like kind of a lot to buy at the moment, since we’re unlikely to use that up before we leave Florida.  But I saw that they also sold bottles of white wine, and in the past I’ve successfully substituted white wine + sugar for the mirin. So, I told Chris that rather than invest in that big bottle that would likely be a year’s supply of mirin, we should just get a bottle of white wine. Then we could drink the rest of it when we ate the fish.  Sounds like a plan, eh?

However, the one problem was I didn’t expect to find an interesting wine for drinking at the fish store. I’m not sure why, particularly when in Italy I was always able to get a nice bottle of wine at the fish store there. But that was Italy where there are lots of vineyards — and this is Florida, where there aren’t.

But then, as I looked at the very limited selection of white wines at this fish store in Melbourne, I spotted something unexpected:

Bottle of Pino Grigio from Mezzacorona

Does that say Mezzacorona?! Those were the vineyards we rode through on the train every time we went took the train south from Bolzano.  The sign for the town of Mezzacorona was also the signal to be on the lookout for  Brigadoon (the mystical castle we always were on the lookout for).  Hard to believe, but here in Melbourne we found a white wine made right around the corner from where we used to live in Italy.  Fun! 

BTW,  I’m happy to report that the Mezzacorona wine worked very well for both sauce and sipping.  An Italian wine in a fish store in Florida? I’ll drink to that!

We’ve been meaning to go check it out ever since we’ve been here, but of course we hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  But, as we move out of the house tomorrow and will be a little further away for the rest of this month, yesterday afternoon we decided that we should  at least take a peak at it.

So we drove over to Lake Washington, which is just down the road. From the small parking lot area you could see a shelter that was on the edge of the lake; in the photo below, the lake is just beyond the trees and shelter structure. If you click on the photo to open it in a larger in a new window, you can see the water of the lake:

Looking toward Lake Washington

We started down the path toward the lake to get a better vantage point. But, we hadn’t gotten very far when we reached a point where there was a nice puddle — and also a caution sign:

Lake Washington Sign

The sign isn’t very legible in my photo, so here’s the text:

Caution
Snakes and alligators
may be present. 
Do not feed the alligators.

Hmm.  Well, then. That’s an unexpected development. Chris and I looked at each other. Wasn’t it was really too hot to be walking around near the lake, anyway? Yes, I think so. Who needs photos of the lake close up, anyway? We went back to the car.

Now, I’m sure there was nothing really to worry about. But as a city-bred Yankee, I don’t know much about alligator behavior. And since it isn’t allowed, I didn’t want to feed the alligators accidentally … if you know what I mean.

Consider the following photo; note in particular the tree and its reflection:

Tree reflection in pond

But look at the reflection carefully – did you spot the building that’s in the reflection that’s not visible in real life? Here’s a look at that photo with arrows point out the building the reflection on the bottom, and where the building should have been — but isn’t! — on top:

Phantom Building with arrows

In other words,  there’s a  building that shows up in the reflection, but you can’t see it at all when looking at the “real” scene. Please note that this is the way it really looks when seen through the living room window; I haven’t done any trick photography or manipulation to get the building that “isn’t there”  so clearly “reflected” in the pond.   I mean, I didn’t do any trick photography to get this photo; while looking out the living room the scene reflected in the pond is not the same as the scene in the backyard.

Usually I only see these hidden worlds in puddles when I flip the photo upside down, but that isn’t necessary here. However, if we flip that photo upside down there are a couple of additional oddities:

1. The upside-down ducks are part of the reality in the scene, but not the reflection … and they are not real ducks (but they are really there in the yard).

2. The tree at the top that has no grass around it is a complete reflection of the tree at the bottom which is in reality is surrounded by the grass that goes up to the edge of the pond.

Lake Reflected – Flipped

Fun, eh?

But of course it’s really the magically reflected building that provides us with today’s Monday Mystery here in Melbourne.

While it was possible to buy watermelons in Tübingen, on the few occasions when I tried one it wasn’t that tasty. So, it had been a while since Chris and I had enjoyed a good piece of watermelon. One of the pleasant things about supermarkets in both Connecticut and Florida is that in both places it’s been possible to buy decent-to-really-good tasting watermelon.  IMHO, there’s nothing more refreshing than a nice bit of watermelon on a hot day. Chris and I have really been enjoying having it on these hot days here in Florida, that’s for sure.

Now, I also remember enjoying having watermelon in summertime as a kid. I recall that my cousins and I would be given triangle slices of watermelon on hot summer days. We’d take them to the stoop outside my grandparent’s farmhouse and sit there, happily letting juice drip down our chins while we spit the black seeds onto the ground.

Ah, memories.  Spitting out the watermelon seeds was always part of the fun as a kid, right?

Except …  Chris and I were eating some watermelon recently with our teenage relatives.  One of them commented that they’d once gotten piece of watermelon that still had a bunch of seeds in it. Can you image? “Eww – gross!” they all agreed. To them, you see, a watermelon was always seedless. There was NO fun to be had eating watermelon,  they explained, if you had to spit out a bunch of seeds while you were eating it.

Hmm. I’d never considered it, but clearly there is a watermelon age gap. Perhaps if you’re old enough to remember using a typewriter, and old enough to have used a TV or telephone dial, you’re probably old enough to remember when watermelons by default had black seeds.

Which means you’re probably with me on the far side of the watermelon gap. I’m just saying.

*****

P.S.  FWIW, I found this site that says seedless watermelons are almost as old as I am … but I don’t remember ever having any, or at least not seeing it frequently available, until I was an adult.  Apparently I’m not alone — click here for  another person’s take on seeded vs seedless.

1. Bolzano supermarket shopping in general

2. Where to find things in a supermarket in Bolzano

When we got to Germany, I also did all the grocery shopping.  The German stores are a bit bigger than their counterparts in Italy, but not by a lot. My shopping trips there, though, were a lot less eventful than in Bolzano; perhaps the “natural classes” of things were similar (see post #2 above for the ones in Italy).  But there was still stuff to learn about supermarket shopping in Germany, of course, including how to buy sparkling water bottles.

But you might think that now we’re back in the U.S. that supermarket shopping wouldn’t be any problem at all.  But in fact, I think that supermarkets here have so far been the biggest culture shock for both of us.  Why? Well, back in 2011 I wrote about the culture-shock of going to a grocery store in Florida, when the number of choices in a Florida store that was 10x the size of the one in Bolzano left me quite taken aback at the time.

That experience was after only 2.5 years living in Europe.  But maybe the fact that we had that reaction after only 2.5 years in Europe should have prepared us for the shock of arriving in the U.S. after 7 years and walking into a huge American grocery store again.  On our first supermarket buying trip back in June we ventured — on our own! — into a store the size of at least one football field, and probably more. Well, at least that’s how it seemed.  Things just went on forever, from the length of the aisles to the sheer number of them. I mean,  where do you begin trying to find anything?  How do you figure out all different brands? The pricing differences? Special Offers? Different size packages of the same thing? Different varieties of the same thing?

Sheesh, we had it easy in Florida back in 2011:  there were only 4 types of potato salad.  But nowadays, it seems like there are at least 10 different types of any one thing – and usually much, much more. The aisle with the choice of boxed cereal alone is mind-boggling. Seriously.

Then there was the additional issue of figuring out how to get the loyalty card key chain tag that unlocks lower prices in many stores. It’s not hard, but first you have to figure out the price gap that exists, then you have to organize where in this endless store the desk is to get the card.  I guarantee you it is always at the opposite end of the store from where you are.

Actually, that’s a truism about anything in the store: no matter where you are, whatever you’re looking for next is bound to be at the other end of the store.  Which takes you about 5 minutes to walk across.

Well, that’s what it felt like in that first store, at least.  Between getting the loyalty card,  hunting for stuff and sorting out which of whatever it was we wanted to buy, we were in that first store for 2 hours.  2 hours?! Since we didn’t know where anything was and the store directories on the shopping carts were there to lead you on a wild goose chase we wound up having to walk up and down every single aisle in that store to find stuff.  When we finally got out of the store we felt like we had been through the wringer; we were completely exhausted!

Supermarket shopping is not for the faint-of-heart here in the U.S., IMHO.

Well, at least not in the Northeast.  But here in Florida, the supermarket that caused all that trouble for us in 2011, Publix, actually has several branches that are not nearly as big as the supermarket in CT (we haven’t actually been back to the larger branch that I blogged about in 2011).  So, somehow the supermarket here, after the early experiences in CT, seem a little more manageable.

It’s also the case that Publix has no loyalty card program: “All our customers get the same low prices” is what the store clerk said to me when I asked about it. So, that makes things a little easier.  Plus, Publix describes itself as the only supermarket around that still offers a service that I refer to as “southern hospitality, supermarket style.”   The other day I went to the store by myself. It was early on a Sunday morning, when the store was mostly empty.  When I got to the check-out line, the baggers were all standing around with nothing to do. So, one of them zoomed over and insisted on helping me unload the cart onto the belt.  Then, my groceries got bagged in record time by a couple more people, and a man older than me insisted on schlepping the cart with the bags out to my car with me.  (BTW, all these “helpers”  wear name badges that also say they are not allowed to accept tips.) Anyway, on the way to the car I commented on how you don’t find this kind of service many places these days, and he said that Publix really prides themselves on still offering it.  You definitely don’t find that kind of service in Europe, at least not in the places we shopped:  you bought it, you bag it — you take care of it yourself. So this is definitely a nice perk to find here in Florida.

Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like going to the supermarket. But every little thing helps. 

If you’d  asked me what I knew about Ponce de Leon a few weeks ago, I would have said that he was a Spanish explorer who sailed to the New World and landed near what is now St. Augustine, Florida,  in search of the Fountain of Youth. That’s been the received wisdom for centuries about Ponce de Leon. Even though he also went other places, it’s his association with the legend of the fountain of youth which stuck in my memory all these years.

But now that we live in Melbourne, Chris and I have stumbled upon the real story.

Well, at least it the “real” story according to a local guy, one who has convinced people around here to believe it, at least.  The new story is that rather than landing in St. Augustine, Ponce de Leon actually landed 150 miles to the south right here on Melbourne Beach. People have bought into that story to the extent that in 2005 they put up a marker for a Ponce de Leon historic site.

Marker Ponce de León site, Melbourne Beach, FL

There is absolutely no evidence about which spot along the Melbourne coast is the right spot, of course, but there’s a marker that designates a parking lot as the site of Ponce de Leon’s landing.  Or rather, the marker is next to a parking lot. Give or take a few nautical miles or so, it could actually be the right spot.  In 2005 they also had a summer project for kids to do a mural (on the side of the public facilities building in the parking lot) that is interestingly bi-directional: when viewed from one angle, it gives a scene that depicts de Leon and his men,  while from the other angle it shows the scene of the locals greeting the sailors.

Ponce de León mural – angle #1, Melbourne Beach, FL

Ponce de León mural – angle #2, Melbourne Beach, FL

In 2013, though, they had a bit celebration marking the 500th anniversary of the landing. At that point (apparently) they put up a couple of big poster placards that explain that contrary to popular belief, de Leon was not a just a “vain conquistador” who was in search of the fountain of youth. On the contrary:  he was a man with a dream to explore the world; the fact that he took over and trounced anyone in is way is probably just another of the foul rumors spread by jealous rivals over the subsequent centuries.

One of the info posters about Ponce de León  , Melbourne, FL

Right. Well, you can decided for yourself who you want to believe.  FWIW,  though,  somebody or some group here in Melbourne has believed this new story enough to pay for a statue to be added to that parking lot. Juan Ponce de León, sword at his side and cross in his hand now looks out toward the beach — the beach that may or may not have been the spot where he first spent a night in Florida.

Ponce de León statue, Melbourne, FL

Ponce de León statue boot (artist signature on heel)

Ponce de León statue – note the head on the sword

Melbourne Beach, Possible landing site of Juan Ponce de León

Ponce de León statue, Melbourne, FL (artistic license taken for the photo)

Before I reveal our two “G” meats, first an aside about that expression “tastes like chicken”. It actually came up the other day when we were trying one of these new G things.  But how did that expression come to be a cliche in the first place,  I wondered.  And why do so many things actually taste like chicken?

Glad you asked.  According to the Wikipedia entry for that expression, the reason so many things taste like chicken could be for a variety of reasons due to evolution, cuts of meat, and something about fibers. Or, sort of. I’m oversimplifying because the entry didn’t provide me with a very satisfying  answer. In the end, I think it’s probably just funnier to say everything you’ve never tried before tastes like chicken, rather than trying to explain whether or not it really does.

However I did learn from that entry that there is a website called Improbable Research. They have a whole page on this chicken taste question. That’s probably more information that you’d want to know, but I love the name of the website, so I thought I’d pass it along.

My Internet search to find out who said it first, though, was more limited. However, I learned that some people attribute the expression to a log book of Christopher Columbus, as he apparently wrote that description down after he ate snake meat for the first time in the New World. But I’m skeptical that this site is actually serious about that – so, FWIW, that’s the only thing I can offer on the origin.

Anyway, , I have digressed enough.  The post is really about the fact that since we’ve been in Florida, Chris and I have stumbled upon opportunities to eat two unusual meats that are perfect for our Plan G. Why are they perfect? Because both of them start with G. But of course.

So, the two meats are

• Goat:  A meat that Chris had in Mali, and that we’ve enjoyed in various parts of the world since then. It wasn’t common to find it in either Italy or Germany, however.  But there’s a local produce/Mexican market that sells a goat stew that is very tasty. The meat is dark, and tastes a bit like a cross between pork and beef.
• ‘Gator: as in Alligator. We ordered the “basket of [deep-fried] gator bites” appetizer that we spotted on the menu at the lunch place in Daytona. After all, for two people who have eaten (and liked!) deep-fried silkworms, how could we not try this unusual Florida food? It was the first time either of us had had ‘gator:
  

  Gator Bite

  

  Inside a Gator Bite

BTW, a quick note for those of you that have talked with us since we’ve been back in the U.S.,  you might now be wondering whether or not we are still vegetarian. We weren’t vegetarian in Europe, but since coming back to the U.S. we have reverted to being the style of vegetarian that we’d been before in the U.S.  That is, we try to avoid eating animals and fish that are raised on grain.  What’s been interesting to see this time around here in the U.S. is that the mainstream supermarkets actually sell grass-fed meats now. If it’s grass-fed, we’ll eat it.  Since typically goats are fed grass, not grain, we decided to go ahead and get some – it was exotic — and delicious.

As for the ‘gators, well, I have no idea about how the alligators are raised, and I haven’t bothered to look it up now. I mean,  it was definitely fun to try once, but probably once was enough for me.   It was OK, but not  very exciting as it turned out that in fact it really did taste like chicken!

The museum is on the campus of the Daytona State College and is associated with the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies department at the college. An exhibit currently on view  in the  museum celebrates the 50th anniversary of the program.  It was impressive to see the number of alumni active in Central Florida, most of who have commercial photography studios. One example was David Roark, who is the photographer at Disney Studios. A couple of his advertising photos for Disney made me smile, including this clever  “The Force is calling” ad,  which is the photo at the bottom of the page at this link.

Another fun set of photos were action shots involving things on water by a photographer named Tom King. Here’s a link to my favorite one of his in the show, which is a multiple exposure stop-motion shot of a wake-boarder flying over the wake behind a boat.

Another current exhibit Chris had seen on the museum’s website turned out not be at the museum at all. It was done by then, but mounted off in a community center somewhere else in town.  We used Gigi to navigate to find the building, and I thought she was taking us the wrong way at one point when she had us turn left off the main road onto a narrow side street surrounded by lots of vegetation and few buildings.  But I need to learn to trust Gigi: just when I was thinking we should back, the vegetation on the left of the road suddenly opened onto a clearing and revealed a parking lot and a community center building where the photography exhibit was displayed. Chalk one up for Gigi!

Now, the exhibit had been billed as a sort of “then and now” type of show with photos of the Midway neighborhood in Daytona taken in 1943 compared with ones from 1999. The 1943 were by American photographer Gordon Parks, and they were interesting to see, since they included quite a nice cross-section of people and life in the Daytona Midway neighborhood.  However, there wasn’t much information about the 1999 photos, and there weren’t that many of them to begin with.   Ah well.  At least the historic ones were fun to see.

We didn’t really have much time to roam around Daytona Beach other than our driving to the museum locations, so it felt like we just took a little dip into what the town might have to offer.  Of course, the big thing it’s known for, other than the speedway, is the beach.  We did take a quick peek at the beach, though, because we stopped for lunch at a place right on the beach. I only took a few photos, though, mostly from the parking lot where we parked to go to lunch. I kind of liked this one photo  for a little bit of wave action. But check out the sign on the pole on right:

“Illegal” Water Activity?!”  Daytona Beach, Florida

I guess the waves didn’t get the memo that “water activity” is prohibited  to the left of the pole.

As I mentioned, at the beginning of the month we transferred from the vacation apartment we were renting to a beautiful house where we house & cat-sitting for the month while the owner, Jean,  and her daughter are off on adventures in Dubai and South America. They have been having close encounters with big, wild cats (at game preserves, by design).  We have been interacting with a very different type of cat here in the house:  Chattie, the beautiful, fluffy and very mellow cat we’re cat-sitting for/with:

Chattie posing briefly for Chris

The only other creatures we’re encountering regularly here while house-sitting are a variety of insects:  e.g.,  little ants, little spiders, regular-sized mosquitoes, etc.   The latter two came into play simultaneously the other day when I got two mosquito bites trying (and failing!) to get a good photo with my cell phone camera of a giant spider web on the front lawn.

But those are hardly remarkable bugs — certainly not like the remarkably huge bug that sashayed  across the patio the other day. It looked like a giant orange-yellow grasshopper, which — according to a quick Google search — may have been exactly what it was. It was about 4 inches long and strikingly unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  Quite astonishing to watch.  I’m not afraid of insects, but there was one thing that bugged me about this critter: before I could get to my camera,  it had ambled out of view! Hmph. This, despite the fact that a site about “Florida’s giant orange grasshoppers” claims that they move relatively slowly. Not slowly enough, IMHO.

Of course, the photo of the insect on that website is a bit more orange than the one I saw, which was yellow. But otherwise it looks like it must be the same thin.  Maybe the yellow ones move faster than the orange ones? That will have to be an ongoing mystery, I guess.  I haven’t spotted another one of any color since last week. However, I noticed last night that one of the animal statues that Jean has in the living room here is a metal sculpture of a similiar-looking creature:

Big Bug (statue)

The sculpture is perhaps a couple of inches  longer than the real-life one I saw. But it’s close.  The pencil is there for reference to show you just how large that type of insect is — and also to remind you that the real-life one was yellow.