18750 US Highway 441
Mt Dora, FL 32757-6723
(352) 385-3592
My family is from New York. Now, I don’t mean, they are from New York as in, they were born there but spent more of their life elsewhere—I mean even thou the entire community makes comments about their heavy accents, they refuse to give them up in suburban Colorado. It’s like a scar from a particularly exciting shark attack. They are so New York that people know that even before they get to experience the accent; it’s like they create a New York-vortex that causes W.A.S.P.s to suddenly swear and want to get very, very fat.
It’s this fat part I want to talk to you about. I live back in the East now, right here in Florida. Most would say that isn’t the East, but when you count the snowbirds and Old World seniors that are starting to float down from Boston and NYC, they bring with them not only that East Coast cynicism, but they bring their palates with them too. So I lucked out. See my family, when asked, and they are always asked, “what do you miss most about New York?” They answer with the speed of a pizza delivery:
“The food.”
The last time I was in New York City, for example, my husOtter and I basically ran from restaurant to restaurant to meet the local family-folk and, well, ate. Even when my best friend, before I discovered which shows he enjoyed, I had to know, “What and where did you eat? How was it?”
It’s borne of the fact that New Yorkers share a huge chunk of the Old World, in that they are directly linked to those cultures they left behind. They celebrate that connection, and have for eons, by creating dishes that use local means to get the desired flavors from their varied homelands.
And we get the spoils.
Why the history lesson? I’m here now. It’s not New York, so a meal is just that here—usually in New York, I’d be visiting family or heading to a show of some sort—but I get to sample a bit more than I ever did in Colorado.
And judging my rotund figure? I like me good eats. That’s what brought me to this restaurant tonight. Let just say when the owner seats you and talks about his little island “Xios” near Turkey, you know you’re in for something halfway decent.
And like my parents, he held onto his Greek accent.
We started this meal with a Fried Greek cheese. Now we’re not talking the kind of ‘fried’ you find in state fairs across America. No. This is a chunk of feta that has been lightly sautéd without breadcrumbs and then covered with lemon garlic sauce and served with warm pitas.
Okay, feel free to reread that wonderment again. It was called sagamaki and was, in the words of my grande dame of a Jewish neighbor, ‘to die for.’
See, in those New York diners, place wasn’t key and this spot was the same. There were a few Greek columns. Some paintings of the Mediterranean, but squat elsewhere. See, here in New York, you’re supposed to be worried about the food. Wait. Did I say New York? I meant Florida. But with all these New Yorkers that were seated around me, I was a bit thrown.
I ended up getting a Mediterranean dish, chicken marsala. Yeah, it’s ubiquitous, served frozen as one of those frying pain meals-but here it almost tastes like candy, a decadent treat for taste buds. My husOtter had the standard gyro. I didn’t taste it, but I will say this-he took it home for lunch tomorrow.
Folks, he doesn’t eat leftovers.
So, for me, I’m now a bit prouder to have moved to Florida and to start tasting these wonderful places. And it helps me understand my New Yorker parents and family, displaced in Colorado, when they say, “we miss the FOOD.”
I hope I can eat enough to keep them happy!
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