Lemon Bay Life: Turning Lemons into Lemonade
I Rode my Bike & Ate Something, No. 1
I rode 18 miles around Lemon Bay this morning then followed it with a walk downtown for the weekly farmers market. I found two vendors selling the Southeast Asian food I ate growing up and now my stomach is full and happy. As is my heart.
That’s the TL;DR version.
My Ford Flex has been in the shop since Tuesday and I haven’t driven it since the previous Thursday because the water pump was leaking coolant. My mechanic is a local shop that comes highly recommended. A relatively inexpensive repair where the parts are concerned (less than $350 in parts) was pricey because of the complexity of my engine’s layout, which I guess isn’t unusual these days. The book calls for 15 hours labor.
And then Ford sent them a wrong part, adding a day to the process. Just before I started putting these thoughts to paper I spoke with the mechanic: the correct part arrived and they are reassembling my Flex.
Working from home means almost no loss of productivity and, to be honest, this was a bit of a test into maybe commuting less frequently. Maybe.
Despite having to shell out a couple grand for unexpected repairs and not having my car for a week, it could have been worse, right? The Flex is 7 years old with 160,000 miles. Two years ago, the it was out of commission for two months for a computer malfunction that set me back $4k, and required corporate-level Ford Technicians assisting local Ford mechanic to make it operational again.
If my Broken Car was life handing me a lemon on Monday; finding Vietnamese-style food at a farmers market was my making lemonade from it on Thursday…all week, actually.
I’ve ridden 45 miles since Monday, either before work or after. Not having to commute four hours roundtrip daily, gave to me a a few precious hours to train that I’ve been hard-pressed to find. Walking downtown to Englewood Farmers Market was my way of ending a lemon of a week with refreshing lemonade, figuratively speaking.
I WFH Wednesdays and alternating Fridays therefore I’m “never” here Thursdays but that might change after today!
My experience with markets like this is that usually they are great in concept but underwhelming in actuality. Despite their best efforts, Sebring’s farmers markets were glorified flea markets with disappointing arts & crafts and delicious confections that I really don’t need but buy anyway “to support local.” The Lake Placid farmers market has a strong following thanks in part to its central downtown location and better vendors but I’m not driving 30 miles roundtrip (from Sebring, when I lived there) for it; and the few times I’ve been to it, it was because friends and I rode our bikes to Morty & Edna’s for coffee and a light meal.
Talking about our rides to Lake Placid is inspiring a future I Rode My Bike and Ate Something post, but I digress
That said, I walked the 3/4 miles from my home to Downtown Englewood with low expectations and two goals: find something healthy-ish and/or creative to eat (either from a farmers market vendor or an established downtown merchant) and find a mortar and pestle for my kitchen.
I was blown away before I reached the first of Englewood Farmers Markets.
Before walking downtown at 1030 a.m., I rode my bike through it around 745 a.m. and came back through around 845 a.m. after doing the 120-mile loop around Lemon Bay, which included a beautiful view of Middle Beach from Manasota Key.
The first thing I noticed was that the market was spread out over four locations. The second thing I noticed was all the traffic. The third and final thing that caught my attention was not one but two Southeast Asian food vendors. Full stop.
As I write this post, I have consulted with Google Search and it’s starting to appear to me that these four locations might not be the Englewood Farmers Market but actually two or more (likely four, given the number of distinctive locations) competing or complementary farmers markets.
There’s also an outfit called The Market on Dearborn with its own URL. MOD & EFM both list different hours: both start at 9 a.m. but one ends at 1 p.m. and the other at 3 p.m. It’s only natural to assume that the other two locations were born of necessity: when the main/first market couldn’t support more vendors, those vendors (possibly) approached local businesses to set up shop on their private parking or vacant lots.
I’ll have to consult my who’s active in the business community to get the lowdown but regardless if there’s one or multiple entities conducting these markets, it’s a win for the consumer as we have plenty of choice and three of the four markets had well-stocked produce stands anchoring them.
Venice has a well attended farmers market on the island, about 15 miles north of here and an hour’s drive north to Sarasota is an even bigger market, both of those are on weekends. It’s nice that Englewood Farmers Market is Thursdays, for all the retirees and snowbirds! LOL
There seemed to be food representing all genres and cultures, some ready to eat there and others as take-and-heat-at-home or raw product to be fully prepared by the customer. I eventually want to try it all but it’ll take a concerted effort not to default to Asian food of my childhood.
The first one I stopped at, the owner is Filipino I learned while she gathered my order of barbecue chicken with noodles and spring rolls. Her husband is Italian-American. They met while he was serving in the military and she was living in Thailand. “They told me never to date a soldier,” she said, noting they’ve been happily married 30 years. I laughed and said, “I’m sure my mom was told the same thing.” I told her that had dad not died a few years back, they’d have been married 52 years. I miss him.
The other food vendor I visited was super friendly. The order taker and cashier, a white man in his 60s, had a slight accent that sounded British to me. His Asian wife could have been Thai or Viet, I couldn’t tell for sure from her face or from the foods they offered as a couple things reminded me of Chinese buffet food (crab rangoon) but they also had bánh mì and bánh bao, both staple Viet street food as far as I am concerned.
I ended up buying food from both vendors.
From the Filipino woman I got the lemongrass chicken and noodles, which included two pork-and-shrimp lumpia (eggrolls) and square of sticky rice to share for dessert. This was supposed to be my lunch but I ended up saving it for dinner. From the vendor with the white man, I got two bánh bao (which I am saving for tomorrow’s lunch); a pork bánh mì, which I ended up eating as my lunch while still downtown; and for my significant other: I got three vegetarian spring rolls and two vegetarian fresh rolls.
Though I never found a vendor selling mortar and pestle sets, I did stumble on a grumpy old man with an infomercial-esque sales pitch for his porcelain graters that “ “won’t never cut your fingers but would mince garlic without leaving the flavor on the cutting board and is safe enough for a child to use.”
Heck, I was sold!
I threw my money at him digitally via tap-to-pay, scoring grating dish set for just $25. I’m sure I wasn’t the first sucker born at today’s Englewood Flea Market. The sign at his booth indicated that he’s the Grumpy Grater.
And that’s how I turned a lemon of a week being car-less into lemonade by discovering this little bit of a gem in my backyard. Now, to re-think which day of the week I should WFH moving forward.
