Conch Fritter Life

Let the R & R begin.

The good news is, when you wake up on a Saturday morning at the Miami airport hotel, you can be at the "Welcome to the Keys" sign by 11 a.m., even if you take a less traveled route than the obvious Route 1.

Our arrival time meant we slid into Alabama Jack's before the lunch crowds, scoring a waterside high table with no effort. One of Mr. Wright's Vero Beach buddies had suggested the vintage dive bar as essential road eating, mainly for the conch fritters.

No one needed to tell us twice to stop at a place with a cut-out metal sign reading, "Harley parking only" and with two milkcrates inexplicably sitting on the roof.

Although we also ordered perfectly delicious spiced shrimp, Hugh had been right and it was the fritters that needed to be experienced. Instead of a basket of neat little balls of fried bread and conch, what arrived was an enormous fritter that overflowed the sides of the basket and had the shape of a tentacled blob. I mean that in the best way.

Two plastic knives were impaled in the fritter, the better to carve out bites of the monster while gleaning the history of the joint from our friendly server. Seems Alabama Jack's started life as a fishing camp across the water from a mangrove forest. It wasn't hard to imagine salty fishermen traveling dirt roads to get there.

Open to the elements on all sides, the railings were covered in Sharpie-scribbled declarations of love, the ancient fans mounted on the weathered walls were covered in rust and when food fell off a plate to the floor, the staff just kicked it into the water. Old license plates hung everywhere, from a  Florida plate reading "NO TAX" to a Maryland plate that had expired 3-31-70.

Every time the bartender got a tip, he rang a rusty old bell. That kind of place.

The first time I saw how food removal happened, it was a chicken bone the server jettisoned into the water. Immediately, a school of what I learned was needle fish - long, skinny, almost translucent green needle-nosed creatures - descended on it voraciously.

When I commented to our server about the feeding frenzy, she told us to wait until the mango snappers showed up, which was anytime a piece of conch fritter hit the water. Naturally, I immediately pulled off a piece of ours and tossed it overboard, only to see 30 or so fish shoot out from the wooden slats under our table and fight over it.

And by fight, I mean, out of the water, tails slapping each other and the water, and fish bumping into each other. Kind of like what I imagined eating at an orphanage was like in Dickensian times.

Shrimp shells had a similar, if not quite as frenetic, effect on the needle fish, but the mango snappers clearly wanted their lunch fried. Some rube tossed out lettuce and onion and the fish and I looked at him incredulously. These fish wanted the good stuff off our plates.

Surely this goes against every law of nature, right? What ecosystem supports cannibalism anyway?

But it wasn't all ugly competition. Boats passed by slowly, many of the occupants waving hello because the distance from us to them was so close. Meanwhile, across the water we saw a great blue heron standing calmly by the mangroves, his back to us.

Or maybe he was just disgusted with his fellow water dwellers.

By the time we left, new arrivals were having to sit far from the water and were happy to get that. We may have been ungodly early at Alabama Jack's, but our timing was impeccable.

Our next stop was as unlikely as it was charming. Tucked behind a Holiday Inn and hard to locate, we stopped to see the original African Queen. That's right, the boat used in the Hepburn/Bogart movie, which now docks behind a glass bottom boat in Key Largo.

Since it hasn't been all that long since I saw "The African Queen" at the Byrd, it was instantly recognizable.

Even more surprising was how small it looked. There was the boiler (recently replaced) in the center and the canopy that kept the rain off Hepburn as she slept. On the back was a wooden crate of gin like the one Bogart emptied in the movie. The smell of old water-saturated wood rose from the old girl.

A guy standing on the dock told us that the 1912 boat had been bought in 1982 and moved to Florida. Both an American and British flag were mounted on it and you could actually go out on a dinner cruise on it despite its petite size.

And while that would have been lovely, we had other places to be, namely Islamorada.

The digs for our winter getaway is called Leila's house and sits on the most placid Atlantic I've ever seen. When it's low tide, there's a little beach and when it's high tide, there's an ocean that ends near the downstairs patio and pool. From the main deck, about all we see is water that ranges from turquoise to bottle green to pale blue and palm trees constantly rustling in the breeze.

Best of all, it was 82 when we arrived, although the woman at the Visitors' Center warned us of an impending cold front, so it would be dropping to 75. Don't make us laugh.

Suddenly the past few weeks of non-stop deadlines are forgotten. Hello, warm days and nights. How I've missed you.

What a Time We Had

Few can stretch out a birthday like I can. And when it's not mine, I can assist.

The last couple nights have been devoted to helping Pru celebrate her birthday because what are friends for?

Her actual birthday was Monday, but she'd inadvertently made plans with a neighborhood friend that night. It was just as well since Beau is out of town and wasn't here to squire her to a proper birthday dinner anyway. But given his devotion to her, he did the next best thing, enlisting me to pick up dinner and report to the manse to share it with Pru and the Queen.

Dinamo supplied the feast: beet and fennel salad, crostini with chicken livers, fish soup and four pizzas, two white, two red. If it sounds like a lot for three women, remember, it was a birthday celebration and don't judge.

To further the festivities, that also meant Moet et Chandon Imperial "Golden Diamond Suit" Champagne because a birthday rates a bottle of bubbly in a fancy zip-up sweater. The Queen of Soul provided the soundtrack, beginning, appropriately enough, with "Respect."

With nothing but us girls, we settled in with plates piled high, flutes filled with bubbles and prolonged conversation. Pru had informed me that she was looking for news from me and I'd have to say I delivered in spades. That's not to say I didn't take a fair amount of admonishment for my slower-than-necessary pace, but, let's face it, I'm a bit out of practice when it comes to matters of the heart.

These days, everyone's so ridiculously excited for me and still, no one's happiness can begin to approach mine. And I'm not even the birthday girl.

Pru and I continued the celebration tonight at the Byrd to see "The African Queen," a 1951 gem I saw so long ago I barely remembered it.

We were tearing into our large popcorn, discussing how some people pour their chocolate into the popcorn tub when the man seated next to me nudged me and said, "I already did that." Sure enough, his peanut M & Ms were dotted on top of his popcorn, a rookie mistake. Sir, you have to eat the popcorn down a few inches and then insert the candy, as we demonstrated.

No offense, but who didn't learn this lesson as a child?

From the opening shots, the film was so gloriously Technicolor as to look like a '50s picture postcard, unbelievably vivid and strikingly colorful. All that post-war optimism, I guess.

Next I got a history lesson when the credit told us we were in "German East Africa," a colony I hadn't known existed. Belgians in the Congo I knew about, but Methodists in the African Great Lakes? Nope, not a clue.

My faint memories of the movie ensured that I had no recollection how quickly Rosie Sayer and Charlie Allnut became allies and then enamored of each other. In my admittedly hazy memory, they fought almost until the end. Not so.

Before the film began, Byrd manager Todd had told us Bogie had won his only Oscar for this role and  it wasn't hard to see why. Instead of playing suave and urbane, here he was a man who worked with his hands, respected his betters and was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish their mission.

Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.

That he recognized a good woman when he saw one (even one who poured out all his gin) moved him from character actor (calling her "a skinny old maid") to charming leading man (It's great to have a lady aboard with clean habits), at least in this woman's eyes.

Dear? Dear? What is your first name?

Todd had also mentioned that the leeches used were real leeches, meaning that when Bogie emerged from the water covered in them, there was no way I could look at the screen as they were removed. If nothing else, the man deserved an Oscar for enduring that for the sake of a role. Tell me what current actor would allow such a thing. Go on, I'll wait.

And, of course, being a 1950s Technicolor Hollywood movie (albeit one mostly filmed on location, a rarity for the time), there was a fair amount of disbelief to be suspended when the usual implausible things happened.

Who do you think you are ordering me about?

When the African Queen gets stuck in the reeds before dusk and they wake up to find that it's rained so hard that the boat has moved back into the river, there is zero water in the boat. It's practically a Methodist miracle.

I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating.

Or once they decide to torpedo the German boat, Rosie raises the Union Jack, except where did that perfect flag come from? Surely she hadn't packed a flag along with her umbrella and Bible, right?

And don't get me started on the endless supply of tea and sugar on that rickety old boat. Just more reasons why I adore seeing these old movies on the big screen. Besides the obvious, that is.

Have you heard the news? I'm a sucker for a love story, even when it's dressed in adventure clothing.

Fancy me a heroine.