So Many Dishes

Sanibel Island is, hands down, our favorite place in Florida. We have travel plans for the summer that don’t include a beach trip, so we decided to add a one-night getaway to Sanibel.

We left early this morning and headed straight to the public park at Bowman’s Beach, near the western end of the island. When we spent a week here last July we stayed relatively close to the condo we rented, so we hadn’t seen the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian in this part of the island; what we saw was bad enough. It’s sobering that, approaching three years since the storm, there is still so much work to be done.

To be honest, it was not the best of beach days. There has been significant beach erosion at the park. The beach is still nice and wide, but there was a significant drop off not far into the surf. Plus, the surf was as churned up as we’ve seen it in the gulf. Since the water wasn’t as clear as usual, we only found a few shells worth saving—not that we need any seashells around our house! Still, we enjoyed a long walk on the beach and our time in the water.

Once we came off the beach, we were hungry. We had planned a visit to our current favorite restaurant on Sanibel, Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grill. We’ve never had a bad meal at Doc Ford’s, and today was no exception. Ken had the shrimp salad, coarsely chopped shrimp with fresh dill, celery, and onion in a mayonnaise sauce. It was served over greens with tomatoes and avocado and a lemon vinaigrette. We traded tastes, and I agreed with Ken that it was delicious.

As good as Ken’s salad was, mine was superior. I had another chance to get my quinoa fix with the shrimp quinoa salad. The shrimp had been marinated in a white balsamic-passion fruit vinaigrette and grilled, and, along with the quinoa, they topped baby greens lightly dressed with the same vinaigrette. An amazing mango-avocado salsa was the perfect element to finish the dish. (I’ve decided that I like mango a lot more when someone else is preparing it.) I’ll be hard pressed not to order this again the next time we come.

There are certain things on our “must-do” list when we come to Sanibel, and a stop at Pinocchio’s for gelato is one of them. It’s also probably the reason we stuck to salads for lunch. Pinocchio’s is a Sanibel institution. They are celebrating their 45th anniversary this year, and they make all of their own gelato and ice cream. I don’t have to think about my order, a small cup of stracciatella, but Ken roamed up and down the case before deciding on a cup of chocolate cherry gelato. Yes, these are small cups!

When my parents were alive and living in North Ft. Myers, we came out to Sanibel for the day pretty often. In the ten years since my mom died, we’ve driven across the state and back the same day a few times, but we decided that we would spend the night, which has turned out to be a great decision. It’s almost impossible to find a place to stay on the island for just one night, so we crossed the bridge to the mainland, where we’d reserved a suite at a Residence Inn. It was a great choice, and we picked up bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine for a light dinner. We’ll drive home in the morning, and then it’s only two weeks until our big trip of the summer. This blog is going into a “food and travel” stage!