Taste of Florida

Anybody who has lived in Florida for a while becomes an expert on which restaurant serves the best key lime pie - unless other fruit pies or chocolate are preferred. Some fillings are too tart, or not tart enough, and some crusts lack mama's touch.

In weaker moments, we have been known to order a lunch-size salad for dinner to allow room for a key lime pie dessert.

The fruit of which I speak is only 1-2 inches in diameter, so it takes a fair number to make a pie, if you're doing this at home. When key limes are ripe, they are yellow, but the ones you buy in a bag at the grocery are green.

Although it is associated with the Florida Keys, a key lime tree can be grown quite well in southwest Florida. In fact, we had a tree until citrus canker broke out, and the Florida government, supposedly to protect citrus farmers, unilaterally cut down all citrus trees within 1,500 feet of one with the disease. As a result, while we were on vacation up north, nearly all the citrus trees on our street were cut down, including ours. When we returned, we couldn't even see where our trees had been.

Later, it was determined that canker was spread on the wind - especially when Hurricane Charley roared through in 2004.

Add whipped topping on top if you wish

But never mind all that. You can make something that approximates the taste of a restaurant or bakery key lime pie without needing to squeeze those tiny fruits. Here's a recipe:

Key Lime Pie

1 can (6 ounce) frozen lime juice concentrate, thawed

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 container whipped topping (9 ounce)

3/4 cup sour cream

graham cracker crust of your choosing

Mix all ingredients until blended. Pour into crust and refrigerate at least six hours.

Around the Yard

Our "tree man" is coming tomorrow to prune our neighbors' mahogany trees and our carambola (starfruit), so I took a walk around our yard to see what else needs to be attended to.

While I was making notes, I also looked for the oddities which make Florida such a fun place to live. Here are two I found:

Epiphyte

This epiphyte or air plant has attached itself to our carambola tree. It is one of many varieties that can be found in warm and humid places; in the United States, that means the South. An air plant is not a parasite because it doesn't feed off the tree or bush host, but just finds a convenient place to live and grow and settles in. I've even seen epiphytes clutching telephone wires high above the ground. They are cousins to orchids and bromeliads.

Soaking up the sun on the trunk of a Christmas palm in our front yard was this nymph of an eastern lubber grasshopper. It is quite spectacular looking with its bright yellow stripes, and in addition to its menacing look, it hisses to discourage predators. The adult grasshopper can be orange or red or yellow or even black and can be as big as three inches long. The eastern lubber, too, is common in the South. In its black phase, it is sometimes called "Devil's Horse" or "Diablo." 

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper

We're going to ask the tree man to trim the bougainvillea, which is threatening to brush against the screened porch, and the white bird of paradise, which is touching the eaves in a front corner of the house. We have managed to control the size of everything else over the winter when there was little rain.

The rainy season in southwest Florida starts June 1, and that means showers, often with lightning and thunder, can be expected nearly every afternoon. In winter, our grass needs cutting only about once a month because of the lack of rain. We don't have a sprinkler system, and neither do most of the neighbors where we live. In summer, our grass may need cutting every five days.

If you leave town for even a week or two in the summer, you will be amazed at the growth of everything while you were away.

The End of "Season"

Easter and Passover are over, so, in Florida, it's time for snowbirds to head north to pay their taxes and to check in on the grandchildren. They are leaving our area in droves, making Interstate 75 a jammed-up mess of gargantuan motorhomes, sedans and vans with clothing on racks and the usual semi-tractor trailers.

Many of the motorhomes that are driven down from Michigan and Oho - or purchased in Florida - cost way over $100,000 when new, and drivers, when heading north, often have a car hitched to the back or an additional trailer, which was used for belongings that wouldn't fit into the motorhome. These may be the same people who rent storage units up north for their extra "stuff." Of course, a lot of snowbirds rent or own houses or condos in Florida. Motels and hotels do a brisk business, too.

Gone

Gone

Gone

This mass exodus has caused an interesting problem for one of our island's social service agencies. Through the one in which I volunteer, clients can borrow mobility aids at no charge and for as long as they are needed - to include canes, walkers with seats and without, crutches and wheelchairs. We also lend bedside potty chairs and shower seats, which are in high demand.

It may surprise northerners, but a lot of people come down and have their knees, hips and shoulders replaced while they're relaxing in the sun. That's because the doctors in Florida do so many of these "procedures" in any given six-month period they must know what they're doing.

Come April 1, the mobility aids that have been loaned out during the winter come back, and our equipment team is kept busy meeting clients at our storage unit or making pick-ups.

The food pantry, which depends on donations of money and cans during "season," asks people going north to bring left-over non-perishables to fill the shelves.The need is just as great, if not more so, in the summer when prospective donors are gone.

Those of us who live here most of the year love it when the roads are less crowded and restaurants don't have lines snaking out the door. Most of the eateries don't take reservations, making going out for dinner an unpleasant event during "season," especially on Friday nights, when it seems everyone wants to escape the kitchen. That applies, even, to those who hardly ever cook.

Departures are bitter sweet. In our church, for example, half the congregation disappears until about October when they come trickling back. We miss our friends. In addition to the lack of their camaraderie, departure can also mean a shrinking of the Sunday-morning "take," unless some constant fund-raising goes on. The minister's salary and the light and air conditioning bills have to be paid, no matter what.

We in southwest Florida are dependent on tourism. Businesses in the area take a terrible hit in the summer, and many go under because they didn't make enough money during "season" to tide them over. The restaurant we grew to like during "season" may not be there come fall.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the quiet and wishing the afternoon summer rains would come.