Thursday, November 6, 2008

Home cooking in an efficiency condo on the beach

I took a much-needed vacation in Siesta Key, Florida last week. D and I rented a condo right on the beach, and it was lovely. I spent days on the beach watching pelicans dive into the water, spent nights in fun Sarasota restaurants, went to an Obama rally and saw the man speak in person, and visited the Sarasota farmer's market. Our efficiency condo had the worst cooking implements--terrible pots and pans, not a single good knife, not even salt and pepper!--so we ate out much of the time. I just had to have a home-cooked meal after visiting the farmer's market, though. This market really rivaled some of the best I've seen, and it was great to see citrus fruit there. We bought a nice pound of grouper from the fish monger, along with a little bag of herbs; a couple of lemons, a lime, a tomato, an onion, a small bag of red potatoes, a bunch of parsley, and two ears of fresh corn. We baked everything in the little electric oven: the grouper with lemon, onion, and tomato; the halved red potatoes with parsley and olive oil; and the corn in their husks. All we did was squeeze lime over the corn when we shucked it, and then we served it up. You can actually cook a great meal in any kind of kitchen!

No comments: