Of Boat Shows and Garlic Fests

So this past week, we celebrated my birthday at an overpriced restaurant. Then we went to the Miami Boat Show. We must’ve walked a hundred miles, boarded a bunch of boats and sampled the most awful excuse for gyros in the world. The boat show was interesting; it’s always . . . well, what? . . . interesting to see how the other half boats. We went on board several 32, 37, and 39 foot boats, mostly to see how they compared to our piece of paradise. We’re still happy! We were surprised by a Passport 47 whose hailing port was Port Oliver Kentucky. Being members of the Port Oliver Yacht Club, we were naturally intrigued. Turns out that the owner of the boat was from Glasgow, KY! Small world. Nice boat, BTW, very nice boat. Today, mensiversary 445, we went to the 11th annual Garlic Fest in Del Ray Beach. Fun, lots of people and don’t ask why they have a garlic fest in February. But all the food vendors had garlic laced everything, there was an iron chef garlic cook-off and we even tasted garlic ice cream. There may or may not have been garlic in the conch salad that I had for lunch. It was superb! Not quite as good as Friendly Joe’s on Bimini, but location may have had something to do with that. It was unique in that it was served in the cavity of half a papaya. After much searching, we
found Richard from Cote Provence at the Garlic Fest. He and his French partner had a shop on Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. They also did a Sunday farmers’market on Las Olas. It was at the market that I bought one of their wonderful French garlic bowls several years ago. It is a colorful 6” ceramic bowl with “teeth” on the bottom. You can grate garlic, add evoo, a pinch of herbs et voila!!! dipping oil. He also has little plates that can be used for the same purpose or for grating ginger, hard cheese, whatever.
Check out his web site – he has some really neat stuff. http://coteprovenceimports.com