Orlando envy

For the most part, I wouldn’t want to live in Orlando — too much traffic, too many tourists. There are some excellent restaurants. Harmoni Artisan Meal Market, which Mama Squirrel and I visited this trip, and Melissa Kelly’s Primo are among many. There are the great hole-in-the-wall places that we love too. Still, we have all that sort of thing in Memphis as well.

It wasn’t until we stopped at Whole Foods for breakfast on our way out of town that I felt a twinge of jealousy.

Yes, we have an excellent Whole Foods here, but in Orlando, they can sell wine. Tennessee alcohol laws are absurd. Fredric Koeppel wrote about that recently. We’ll be talking about it more too.

It was more than just the wine though. Eating locally takes on greater proportions in a tropical paradise. The first thing we saw on the way into the store was the nice selection of citrus trees. If you live in Florida, you too can reach out your dining room window for a lemon Clueless style.

You don’t have to have the agrarian spirit either. The next thing we saw was mangoes. Local mangoes. And the big dispenser of fresh-squeezed and, yes, local orange and grapefruit juice. Next was the variety of local, wild-caught, sustainable seafood.

Still Orlando is a nice to visit, wouldn’t want to live there place. But when we do visit, I think we’ll torment ourselves with another visit to Whole Foods.

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3 thoughts on “Orlando envy

  • July 7, 2008 at 8:27 am
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    Thanks for the mention and the link, Papa. It is indeed absurd that so many states offer such liberal (or liberating) wine policies while Tennessee remains so backward. well, we know who to blame for that: 1. wholesalers, 2. retailers, 3. religious fundamentalists, and 4. the timid state legislature.

  • July 9, 2008 at 6:13 pm
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    Hi,

    I’m working with Travel Channel’s online community team and wanted to let you know that Samantha Brown visits Orlando, Florida on her upcoming episode of Passport To Great Weekends.

    The Orlando show airs at 10 pm EST on Thursday, July 10th. We thought that you and your readers would be interested in it and that you might want to post something on your website about it.

    You can actually get a quick take on what “Sam” is about by her newly uploaded YouTube videos at: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8BCDB20B66FF99F0
    or get more of the packaged e-kit at: http://www.media.travelchannel.com/ekit/greatweekends/HTML/press.html

    As we are putting more online community platforms in place we would love your feedback. You can post to Sam’s blog, or join in the conversation on Twitter, or send us an email.
    On a more personal note, I hope this email is not offensive to you. I maintain my own personal blog, and am familiar with the annoyance of spammy messaging. If you have ideas on how Travel Channel or Samantha Brown might be able to promote your site or better contribute to your interests – please be sure to let me know.

    With Appreciation,
    Emma Sefton

    Room 214, Inc. on behalf of the Travel Channel
    http://www.room214.com
    http://www.travelchannel.com
    http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Samantha_Brown

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