Thursday, September 20, 2012

Where to Eat Vegan: Help Yourself - Key West, FL


One of my favorite places in Key West was Help Yourself. Part cafe, part market and part store this place was warm, inviting and delicious. Everything is made to order and they cater to everyone - whether you are meat eating, gluten free, veg or raw. It is not, however, a buffet - contrary to what the name might suggest.


While you may help yourself to napkins, a mason jar of water and a seat on their long communal benches, the name Help Yourself seems more to refer to the wonderful foods and juices that will not only tickle your palate but will help you to lead a more balanced life that is connected to the food you just put in your mouth. If you take a quick peek at their mission statement you'll notice reoccuring phrases and words like: without compromise, access, everyone, and community.


I loved the laid back feel and graceful beauty of these ladies. I actually felt at home here - it reminded me of Mellow Moods in Shepherdstown. Right down to the chalkboard menu and the delicious juices.





Marty and I ate here twice during our stay in Key West and got to try several of the dishes and juices.


I really loved this TLT wrap with big ole avocado chunks. One morning, Marty got the French Toast and while I must admit that I have always been suspicious of soggy toast this toast was really well prepared and I was experiencing a bit of food envy.



On our last morning in Key West, Marty got the Fruit Parfait with its layers of crunchy, sweet goodness and I got the Ancient Secret Salad. As expected, both were yummy and refreshing.


While you are sitting outside enjoying your treats you can also enjoy their raised garden. Look at these baby kales!


If you find yourself in Key West absolutely make time to go to Help Yourself and if you are there on a Monday (11am to 5pm) pick up some produce at their market.


Help Yourself

829 Fleming Street
Key West, FL 33040

305.296.7766

Store 8am - 6pm
Juice Bar 8am - 6pm
Cafe 8am -4pm



Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Key West Found!

Back in April I went to Miami and Key West for a week. The card with the images from Key West got lost when I came home but just this week I found them and I couldn't be happier to share the gorgeous light and sunshine that was hidden on that card.

The playful pup here is Choppa. Marty and I used Airbnb.com to find a host family to put us up for two nights and one of our welcoming hosts included Choppa, a lovable Kentucky Blue Pitbull who had no idea he was massive and tried to cuddle on the couch with me like a puppy half his size.


First things first - can we talk about the colors of Key West! Oranges, Yellows, Blues - in love.












And let's not forget to talk about the roaming roosters. I easily could have filled a day riding around on a rented trike playing paparazzi to the roosters.





As the sun started to set we headed to the main pier to check out the evenings spectacles. We were not let down.



If you haven't had the unique experience of witnessing a Cat Man performance you should put it on your list. I don't want to ruin too much of the act but suffice it to say that this French man has made it his life's work to train a den of cats to perform crazy circus tricks - which is in itself amazing - but the real draw is the man himself. You'll understand if you see his performance.


Once the sun has set there are a whole slew of performers that turn out to tantalize the tourists.


The rest of Key West was spent lounging on the beach at Bahia Honda and I also went on my first snorkeling expedition. I was a little bummed to see that all the reefs were dead but there were some very colorful fish. By the end of the two days I was ready to head back up to Miami though. I liked Key West, but I loved Miami.


Look for Where to Eat Vegan: Key West next!









Somewhere New: Tangier Island


While flipping through a Coastal Living magazine at Chelsea's house I came across a little article about Tangier Island. There were quaint pictures of locals riding bikes and little yellow rowboats sitting on the shore. When Chelsea invited me to come stay on Gwynn's Island with her I thought it was a perfect opportunity to visit Tangier.


The ferry from Reedsville to Tangier Island is about an hour and half out into the Bay. We passed ruins of great fish canning factories and were followed by a group of 5 bottle-nose dolphins for a short portion of the ride.



During our ferry ride out we stopped and circled around this fishing operation (someone said this was slip fishing?). I did not envy the men doing this work, toiling through the hot sun, pulling the nets out while choking through the thick black smoke that was drifting over from the Mama Boat in clouds.


As we started to pull up towards the island the first thing you notice is all the crabbing piers. Rows and rows of long piers lined with built in bins and tubs for sorting the day's catch. Each pier had a tiny shack of a house perched on stilts where I imagined the men drinking beer after a long day of crabbing or just taking a nap between sorting.


When we landed at Tangier we were told we had two and a half hours. If we were late the next ferry wasn't until the next morning. We strolled off the dock and into the narrow alley that lead to the main street. Contrary to the photos I had seen of picturesque bicycles the locals had shown up with their 6 seater golf carts to meet the incoming tourists. For $10 a person you could get the 15 minute grand tour of the island lead by a local woman. We opted to walk but I was curious what they said about the island on the native-run tours.


The first place we went to was the newly built and opened museum of Tangier Island. A young transplant to the island had recently gathered together several island women to put together and run the museum. While I jokingly talked about this museum later as housing a bunch of news akin to "Timmy lost his tooth on such and such a day" there were some interesting artifacts and images in the museum. Among them were these black and white images by Constance Stuart Larrabee. After her days as a war photographer in South Africa Larrabee retired to the Bay area of Maryland and spent some time on Tangier photographing the watermen.


They had a whole wall of postcards of Tangier but only one that was an old painted photograph like the ones I collect. I would have loved to buy this one.


An interesting fact we learned in the museum is that the lineage of Tangier is mainly comprised of four last names. Crockett, Pruitt, Parks and Thomas. Of course it should really not come as a surprise considering how isolated the island has been. The isolation is what has allowed them to preserve their particular dialect of English - of which we did hear a little. The isolation is also what has allowed the island to be overrun with inbred cats.


At first we kept thinking we were seeing the same cat in different places but it quickly became apparent that the cats we were seeing we indeed different cats but shared pretty much everything else in common.


And I'm pretty sure they were evil.


Somehow I didn't get a picture of this but one thing we found strange on the island is that aside from this small cemetery, the deceased of each family were buried in front of their houses. Walking down the tiny, golf-cart width lanes we were confronted with gravestones on both sides. We were told that this was in part to discourage wild animals from digging up bodies (what animals they were talking about we were not sure) and also because the island is quickly eroding, and so space has to be conserved - which means having mini family graveyards in each front yard.



When we got past the houses we came out into the marsh. The whir of the golf-carts were left behind and it was just silent. A silence I hadn't expected. When I think of islands and beaches I think of wind in tall grasses, lapping water or the call of sea birds. There was no noise. The cranes were silent and the water lay flat. It was by far my favorite part about the island.




Our time on the island was quickly over. We walked back down the long lane to the dock. Every few minutes we would have to stop to let a golf cart pass. I couldn't help but feel like I was in a Scooby Doo Mystery. The wild cats, the strange accent, the silence, the graveyards everywhere, and the very real possibility that we could be stuck on the island overnight if we missed the ferry.

In the end I realized that my expectations of the island had been a little unrealistic. Tangier is a working island. The men spend 12 to 14 hours a day crabbing. The women run the 3 restaurants, the museum and the little corner store. The children go to the one room school or go Mud Mucking (this is literally where you run out into the marsh and get muddy up to your knees or deeper). This town isn't a tourist spot. It's a way of life.