Beers of Summer

This article was originally posted in the SWFL Parrot in the July issue

Summer…

Who doesn’t love it? Of course I fell in love with it before I moved to the land of a thousand degrees. Maybe summer was my favorite season for a couple reasons. I was born in June and for as long as I can remember that meant a birthday party. Being a twin, the party had to be twice as big! As we all know, as we get older, birthdays become less of a thing to look forward to and more of a reminder that we are getting older. That is, unless you’re chronically immature and refuse to ever grow up…yes…that’s me.
So…time to plan the party. My friends listen to me go on rants every so often about the local seafood trade or lack there of. Being originally from outside of the Chesapeake Bay, I was blessed with an overabundance of crabs, scallops, clams and fish for most of my young life. When we were annoying little brats my grandmother used to pay us a nickel per crab to clean the menacing little buggers. I think that it took me until graduating college to realize that she was just keeping us busy. I guess my sister was smarter than I was because she quit early, while I would sit and pick all day. Smart woman my grandmother was.
This year’s birthday would be a seafood one. I have come to notice that for living next to a productive harbor there is surprising little in the way of seafood available. There are no crab shacks and few oyster bars. I’ve yet to see a place when clams are a dime each and oysters served on the half shell in more than just the basic ways. I’m not really sure why this is. My friends in the biological field from FGSU tell me that we have the means here in the harbor.
I decided on Miss Cindy’s Seafood in Placida. They had the best price on oysters of any that I tried. Now discount seafood is the equivalent of being the best dressed at the hoedown…approach with caution. I’m lucky enough to be friends with Ray Leary who works for the DEP as the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves Data Management Specialist. His specialty is bivalves and he agreed to shuck for me as my gift. I dragged him along to inspect the tasty little devils before purchasing and even if they turned out to be bad, the price was worth a drive out there. Long story short… it was worth the drive.
I’ve worked in the catering business and it never ceases to amaze me how the numbers fluctuate! It was to be a small party, but anyone who knows me knows I err on the side of too much! There would be food for 50 although only expecting 25. One should never run out of beer and it was a Saturday with a race to watch on Sunday, so a half barrel of Bud should get us through to the checkered flag. 100 oysters freshly shucked, 100 clams freshly steamed, pounds upon pounds of shrimp, a vat of what I call gumbalaya (not quite gumbo not quite jumbalaya), all the accompanying accessories…however no blue crab! As it turns out, not having crab worked in my favor as it was easier to toss my head back and slurp than it would have been with a knife picking lung chambers. The amazing number part, it pretty much all went including several gift bottles of liquor! Yes the yard was occupied by strange cars in the morning and it took 14 hours for my friend Tennalicious to finally find my glasses in the yard, but it was the best birthday party I can remember (keep in mind that as I get older my memory fades).
Okay now… to the second reason I love summer….baseball. Hockey’s Stanley Cup has been given to the Ducks and the NBA trophy went to….somebody… which leaves us with baseball. I LOVE BASEBALL. As a child, I played 26 hours a day. To this day, my favorite smell of all is fresh cut grass because it reminds me of game day at the field.
HEY CHARLOTTE COUNTY…we have a ball team… the Redfish! Go see the drink cart girl. The lovely Elizabeth sells Coronas for 3 bucks complete with a lime. Go to hassle the beermen Joe and Dave, who have a nightly running bet on who sells more beer. Get a pulled pork sandwich from Murdock Grill Catering, and see the “rally” osprey that nests in the right field lights and flies in with its catch of the day in the middle innings.
Being a barfly, I have to throw in that after the game, TGIFridays has happy hour from 10 to close. You almost always get a chance to see Joe and Dave there… or there’s ALWAYS Boomers which stays open late. If you go there, they will tell you that Joe is beating Dave in the bet. If you stop, tell Sandy that she promised to come to a game!
Thanks to all my friends who made it a great birthday and I hope to see you at the ballpark…by the way… Dave is winning the bet…don’t listen to Joe! Toodles!