Well, buckle up. Have I got a super road trip just for you.

Fernandina Beach, 23 miles north of Jacksonville, combines the gracefulness of yesterday hand in hand with today’s amenities – upscale shopping, awesome seafood and other culinary delights (including fantastic fudge), great places to stay and a slew of things to do both outdoors and indoors.

Tucked on the north end of Amelia Island, this town is all about water. Fernandina Beach touches the Atlantic Ocean on its east side. The Amelia River laps at its north point (you look across the water and see Georgia) and the place to watch sunsets is along the Intracoastal Waterway on its west side. With water on three sides it is no wonder many start their day inhaling salty air by going fishing or taking a walk.

Start your morning walking the Atlantic side beach at low tide. Bend over and do the shoreline shuffle, a slow walk with eyes pealed for shark’s teeth and whole shells.

Look up once in a while. Perhaps a line of pelicans will swoop by low to the water, alert to any fish below. Or you might see a submarine coming out of Kings Bay and headed into the Atlantic. Shrimp boats may be headed out too.

Ah, shrimp. Here in Fernandina Beach, the little crustacean is the stuff of legends. The modern shrimping industry started right here in the early 20th century, and there is no need to remember that because the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival, a huge weekend blowout always held the first weekend in May, will do it for you.

Pirates roam the streets and so do visitors. Eight blocks of downtown are closed to traffic so pedestrians have the right of way to view arts and crafts booths, vendors selling, what else? Shrimp, live music, happenings all day long and late into the night.

By comparison, the rest of the year in Fernandina Beach seems positively quiet, but not really. There is always a festival or a happening of some kind going on – a writers festival, music festival, food festival, antique car festival – you get the idea. This is a town that likes to party.

A good place to gather information is the Fernandina Beach Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center inside the old Railroad Depot at 1102 Center Street. Lots of free brochures for the taking and we found a friendly face at the desk to answer questions.

If walking in historic districts is your thing, be sure to pick up the free Fernandina Historic District Tour guide. Fifty blocks are on the National Register of Historic Places. The guide has color pictures.

For a guided tour check with the Amelia Island Museum of History.
If you take one of their private tours of historic homes, it is a chance to see the inside of some historic homes. They also offer museum tours at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. each day, Ghost Tours every Friday starting at 6 p.m. and a Pub Crawl (one ticket takes you to four pubs) every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Reservations required.

Just across the railroad tracks from the Train Depot is a stop for the Amelia Island Trolley, a different way to see the sights.

Personally I try to plan my visit so that a Saturday is in the equation. Every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. is the Fernandina Farmers Market located on 7th Street and Centre Street. Small but full of local farmers, organic produce, outstanding plant vendors, fresh foods including a bakery. Yummy.

Here’s a plan for a Saturday. Throw off the shoes, get sand between the toes, and go for a beach walk. That will work up an appetite. Head downtown, have breakfast at Bright Morning Cafe a great breakfast spot with indoor and outdoor seating. They have something called Southern Comfort – a bowl of grits with poached eggs and cheese on top. Over the top but so truly southern comfort.

Be advised to always check hours and days of operation for any place you want to visit. Bright Morning opens early, 8 a.m. on Saturdays, but most of downtown Fernandina does not rise and shine until 11 a.m. It is not unusual to see tourists wandering around downtown early, looking for places that are open.

After breakfast, take a walk uptown and visit the Farmers Market, it is open all morning. Right across the street is Eileen’s Art & Antique Centre full of fun stuff including artwork by the owner, Eileen Shannon Moore.

If art is calling you do visit the Island Art Association at 18 N. Second Street, downtown. In addition to the co-op gallery a new art education building next door offers all kinds of classes, including walk in adult art classes.

Notice the mosaics on the outside wall. It is a work in progress and future sessions include mosaic “parties” where you can get involved. Ask about the Mosaic Project.

Whew! By now I’d be ready for a good latte at Amelia Island Coffee on Centre Street. If you are feeling electronically deprived, there is free wi fi here.

Fortified by caffeine, I never miss a chance to visit Barnabas New to You at 930 S. 14th Street. It is a car trip from downtown, but not far. It should be on everyone’s trip list. This amazing place is loaded with great high end brands of everything from clothes to furniture to household goods all at prices that will knock your socks off they are so low. And you are helping to fund their charitable work. I easily walk out with a bag full of great finds for under $20 and had fun doing the deed.

Well, you get the drift of how my Saturday in Fernandina is going. I’d like to head to Fort Clinch State Park next, maybe walk or ride a bike and surely take a walk out on the fishing pier. It may be a weekend when they have Civil War reenactments, a real bonus. If so, do take the evening candlelight tour of Fort Clinch.

On our last visit we went to dinner at the Crab Trap downtown at 31 N. Second Street, and had shrimp caught that day! Of course the day is not complete without walking a few blocks over to the waterfront and watching the sunset. You will have lots of company. This is an evening ritual.

What are we waiting for? Start the engines. Fernandina Beach is calling.

Oh, and about that fudge. Fantastic Fudge at the corner of Centre Street and 3rd Street has been making their own fudge for 20 years. And, yes, it is fantastic.

©2011 Lucy Beebe Tobias. All rights reserved.

A view of the Anclote River was a lunch requirement and we certainly met that by sitting outside on the back deck at Dimitri’s on the Water, 698 Dodecanese Blvd., phone (727) 938-6890.

Pleasure craft glided by. Had we arrived by boat we could tie right up at Demitri’s dock.

Our waiter confessed he had the best job in the world, serving food with the river life happening right alongside.

We felt special sitting on the water with blue sky, puffy white clouds and a bit of a breeze. I ordered the special that day, a fish gyro to die for. Others ordered octopus, chick peas cooked in rosemary, sautéd chicory. The list goes on.

When food arrived, out came the cell phone cameras to photograph the dishes. Welcome to the 21st century where a well-presented meal will end up on Facebook, Twitter and FoodSpotting within minutes of arrival.

Lunch was long and leisurely. Afterwards, we felt compelled to walk around the Sponge Docks, checking out the shops, stopping inside the Sponge Exchange to buy sponges gathered from the nearby Gulf of Mexico.

Sponges come in all sizes and uses, from cosmetic to art to bath and really big ones as containers for plants.

St. Nicholas Boat Tours, (727) 942-6425, right next to Dimitris, give half hour boat tours ($8) on the river with a diver going down and bringing up sponges. Best to do this on a weekend, as they like to fill the boat before going out.

Tarpon Springs is called the “Sponge Capital of the World” with good reason. In 1896 John Cocoris was the first Greek to arrive. With five other Greek men he started a sponge diving business in 1905. Word spread that sponges were plentiful and Greek families began migrating to Tarpon Springs.

It is an easy stretch to say that sponges, and the Greeks that came to harvest them, are the reason you can buy baklava everywhere in Tarpon Springs today. Greeks love food and fellowship and they have a sweet tooth for desserts.

Baklava and a lot of other Greek pastries called us onward to Hellas Bakery, 785 Dodecanese Blvd., phone (727) 943-2400 at the other end of the Sponge Docks. So many sweet choices, too many actually.

But we braved the tough decisions and had dessert along with Greek coffee. Hellas has a restaurant as well as the bakery.

Tarpon Springs contains different areas to explore. The Sponge Docks are a destination, so is the historic downtown area and the distance between the two means taking a car or trolley.

The Jolly Trolley (www.clearwaterjolleytrolley.com) rruns between the Sponge Docks and historic downtown every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Single rides are $2 adults, $1 seniors over 65, $1.25 for students. Children five and under ride free.

We visited St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in historic downtown, with its beautiful stained-glass windows patterned after St. Sophia in Istanbul, and then we walked around the downtown area.

Be advised before you go that a number of stores are closed on Mondays, the day we made our visit. So we didn’t get to go inside Back in the Day Books or get caffeinated at the UnderGrounds Coffee House and Art Gallery or see the Train Depot Museum, all closed on Mondays.

But a new venue, the Artists’ Faire Fine Art Gallery and Gift Shop caught our attention. Located at 111 E. Tarpon Avenue, phone (727) 937-7125, this is a cooperative venture between the Tarpon Springs Chamber of Commerce and the Tarpon Springs Art Association.

At Global Folk Arts, 208 E. Tarpon Avenue, phone (727) 942-6977, we wandered through an exotic collection of global gifts and paused at display tables full of beads and stones for making jewelry. You can make your own right here.

None of us could resist picking up menus for the Zante cafeneo, 13 N. Safford Avenue. They serve Cajun-Greek-Creole-Italian-French and bill themselves as an eclectic café. I am not making this up. They are closed on Mondays.

So much more to see and experience – the famous bayous, Anclote Nature Park, ride a bike on the Pinellas Trail, see the Inness Paintings inside Tarpon Springs Unitarian Universalist Church, go to the Leepa Rattner Museum, check out antique stores downtown, walk around Spongeorama, visit the Shrine of Saint Michael Taxiarchis, go to Sunset Beach, communicate with the primates at Suncoast Primate Sanctuary - whew!

Back at Dimitri’s their trademarked motto is “Only the love of food can lead you here”.

That could sum up a visit to Tarpon Springs – come for the cuisine, stay for the culture. We’ll be back. Opa!

UPCOMING IN TARPON SPRINGS
Every Sunday - Farmer’s Market, 9-2, corn of Tarpon and Pinellas Avenues.
June 11 – Second Saturday Downtown and Sponge Docks Events, call (727) 937-6109
June 16 – Sunset Beach Concert, The Little Big Show, 7 p.m. free (727) 942-5628, www.tsrdonline.com

©2011 Lucy Beebe Tobias, all rights reserved.

Located at the corner of Centre Street and 7th Street north, right in the heart of Fernandina Beach’s historic district, on June 6th the blueberry growers are expected to start showing up. Yes, it is blueberry season! One June 13, the Sweet Grass Cow & Goat Cheeses will be one of the booths.

Always there are landscape plants for sale, many native plants and beautiful blooming things that I want to take home with me. You’ll find prepared foods for lunch, Growers Alliance organic shade bean coffee (yes, they give sample coffee drinks!), honey vendors, craft persons and often live music.

Ah, what a great way to start a Saturday morning. In my book “50 Great Walks in Florida”, Chapter 11 is A Stroll Through History: The Historic Downtown Fernandina Beach Centre Street Stroll and Chapter 12 is Nature’s Classroom: Willow Pond Nature Trail, Fort Clinch State Park

Saturday mornings in Gainesville let’s visit the Alachua County Farmers’ Market, the only Grower’s Only Market in North-Central Florida (that is a lot of “only”). All the produce is grown within 50 miles of the market and you get the meet the farmer.

This is “buy local” taken seriously. The market is in an open-air metal pavilion. Hours are every Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. or until the produce is gone, whichever comes first. If you are going to GPS it, the address is 5920 N.W. 13th Street, Gainesville.

Then take a walk in Kanapaha Botanical Gardens (Chapter 16: Wander through a Garden of Eden) and take a gander at the historic buildings on the University of Florida campus (Chapter 15: A Walk on the Gothic Side)

Saturday Summer Market is a big attraction in downtown St. Petersburg, starting Saturday, June 6 and continuing every Saturday through September 16. Hours are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Location is the Mahaffey Theater parking garage, 400 First St. S., St. Petersburg.

What you’ll find: regular and organic produce and fruit, baked goods, plants, flowers orchids, fresh herbs, prepared foods and hand-crafted wares. Fun!

St. Pete is a Bonus Point in Chapter 34: A Walk for Everyone: Fort DeSoto County Park, Tierra Verde.

Downtown Market happens in Tallahassee every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. March through November. This takes place on the chain of green parks in Park Avenue Historic District, just a few blocks from the capital.

This is a lively market. You’ll meet local artisans (I have a piece of fused glass all the more special because I met the artist), see lots of artwork alongside local produce and heaering live music is a given. Don’t have breakfast or lunch before you come – because you’ll find everything from muffins to soup and salad.

The chain of parks are covered in Chapter 2: Step into History: Park Avenue Historic District, Tallahassee.

For a list of community farmer’s markets all over Florida, check out this Web site.

When you go to farmer’s markets, you are supporting your local economy, getting an artistic eyeful and having an adventure.

Who said there was nothing to do in the summertime? Sure there is. Spend your morning at a farmer’s market then open up your copy of my book. Great walks are calling. Enjoy

Lucy Beebe Tobias is the author of “50 Great Walks in Florida”, University Press of Florida, 2008, and the Authentic Florida Expert for VISIT FLORIDA.

1. Buy produce grown locally. Get to know your local farmers. Support organic growers. Suggestions: Find the closest Farmer’s Market in Florida and mark the day on your calendar. Nothing near you? Talk it up at meetings, at church, at the next gathering of friends and start the ball rolling.

2. Pick one day a week to be car free. Park it. Walk, ride a bike, or, gasp!, stay home and get to know your back yard, front yard, even talk to the neighbors. PS you release nearly a pound of CO2 for every mile driven. Bummer.

3. Plant a vegetable garden. Start with a container or two now in the hot summer (tomatoes, peppers), work the ground for a fall planting. Remember everything you buy grown far away costs energy to deliver it to your door. Break that cycle. Don’t have room? Share a plot with a neighbor who does.

A good book to read: “Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community”, H.C. Flores, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2006. Amazon has it.

4. Shop with a neighbor. Trade off driving to the grocery store once a week.

5. Consider a carpool to church or school or work. Look around the church pews on Sunday. Look around the office or the classroom. See anyone who lives near you?

6. Start a compost pile. Make your own compost. It is richer than dirt. Those bags of topsoil you are buying at Lowes and Home Depot were produced somewhere else and lugged here. That is global warming in action. Break the cycle.

7. Take a rain barrel workshop. Save rainwater. Every drop counts. Just FYI, in Kentucky, they are making rain barrels from oak whiskey barrels. Plants watered with this rainwater are said to be smiling. (just kidding). Water use and global warming go together. The hotter it gets the more water we use. A good book to read: “Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.”, Cynthia Barnett, University of Michigan Press, 2007. Amazon has this book.

In Florida, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Services at University of Florida in Gainesville, is big into rain barrels. Check out your local Agricultural Extension Service office to see if they offer rain barrel workshops and inexpensive rain barrels. In Marion County, we can get them at the Ag office for $50 and that includes all the hardware you need. See my blog on rain barrels. Have fun!

8. Get a dog. Okay, this is a little radical but think of the consequences. Dogs need to be walked. You will be walking the dog. Less time spend running around in the car doing “errands”. Plus, when you are walking the dog, you slow down enough to appreciate natural beauty. Pretty soon you’ll want to spend more time outdoors and less time at the mall. A win win situation for you and the planet, not to mention the dog.

9. Drive the speed limit. Set your cruise control. It is a concept, driving the speed limit. More people are actually doing it with gas prices going up. You will save gas driving slower. Trust me.

10. Turn off your sprinklers. Don’t water your lawn. Let God do it. Plant native plants that are drought tolerant.

To get in the mood, take this test to see the size of your ecological footprint. Ah! Revealing isn’t it, how many planets it takes to support your lifestyle. Now read the list of 10 things you can do again and get started. Good luck!

©2008 Lucy Beebe Tobias, author, artist, authentic Florida expert

But not Maria Muscalo. She was in the kitchen at the family’s Tampa home, soaking up the vibes and loving it. Maria said she’d sit in a kitchen chair and ask lots of questions.

“I hung out in the kitchen with the old folks,” Maria says, her face glowing with good memories. Her grandfather and grandmother came over from Naples, Italy in 1890. There were eight boys and two girls. Aunt Phil (short for Philomena) taught her younger sister, who became Maria’s mom, the family recipe for biscotti.

I’m hearing the family history as we sit at a table under an umbrella at the Thursday Farmer’s Market at Circle Square Commons in Ocala. Two women approach the nearby kiosk loaded with packaged biscotti of different kinds and sample pieces. Their eyes cut to the free samples.

“Excuse me,” Maria says, gets up and heads for the potential customers. She’s wearing a white shirt with the name “Grandma Rie” in red on one side (the name her grandchildren call her) and the words “Bodacious Biscotti” on the other.

“Hello, would you like to try some bodacious biscotti?”
The two women stand rooted, interested but not moving forward.
“Our biscotti is famous for what is NOT in it,” Grandma Rie says, giving them her 100-watt smile that comes straight from the heart.

The two women look at each other. This is certainly different! They step up, get some free coffee and try the samples. One bite and they’re hooked. Biscotti means twice baked, that’s why it is dry and crunchy, just right for dipping in coffee.

“When I was 10 years old, I learned how to make biscotti,” Maria says. “I often made it with my Aunt Phil but my mom stopped making it after my brother was born when I was 11.”

Maria never stopped. She picked up the family recipe and ran with it.
“Over the years I’ve given at least 10,000 biscotti away to family and friends.”
Her full name is Maria Musalo Canerossi Buchman. She made biscotti growing up, during a first marriage, while raising two sons, all through working full time, then while divorced and remarried now for 30 years to Ralph Buchman.

Last year while making biscotti in her son’s kitchen in North Carolina, her daughter in law said, “Why don’t you stop giving away your bodacious biscotti?”

She came home, pitched the idea to Ralph, a retired CPA, and he said, “Let’s go for it.” And so the business was born. He took care of all the legal stuff.
Did I mention Grandma Rie is 73 years old? What a wonderful role model. Go Grandma!

She holds up a package of her biscotti and says to the two women: “You go to a grocery story and you need a magnifying glass to read the ingredients in biscotti. Not mine, it is very simple. There are no artificial flavors, no preservatives, no added fats.”

Here’s the ingredient list for her Classic Almond: Unbleached wheat flour, white sugar, whole almonds, whole eggs, baking power, salt vanilla extract, almond extract.

Underneath the ingredient list it says, “We only add Love!” I believe it.

The two women buy several packages and walk away smiling.

“I’m having a blast,” says Grandma Rie. “It is my turn.” Here is what she means by that: “I helped my first husband get an education. I helped my second husband with his practice. Now it is my turn. I never had anything I did on my own.”

As we’re sitting at the table, Ralph is helping more customers. He’s smiling. Looks like being at the Farmer’s Market beats being a CPA. Right now they are putting out 200 dozen biscotti a week, baking them under contract with a bakery. You can find Grandma Rie at Circle Square Farmers Market on Thursdays and Union Street Farmers Market in Gainesville on Wednesdays. They hope to expand to local coffee houses and later to national markets.

And now you can order Bodacious Biscotti on line. Her sons worked on a web site and it just went live.

“I love my sons, they are so smart,” Marie says, eyes sparkling. Marie herself had straight As and her dad wanted to send her to college. Instead she opted to stay home and went to work.

Here is this Italian grandmother, starting a new business at 73. She is vivacious and outgoing. I realize when I buy her biscotti (I’m VERY partial to Classic Almond) that I’m also getting a bite of Grandma Rie’s beautiful take on life.

We hug and I’m about to leave. Grandma Rie draws herself up straight, looks me right in the eye and says “You are never too old to start something new.”

Now that is truly bodacious.

©2008 Lucy Beebe Tobias. Her book “50 Great Walks in Florida” , University Press of Florida, February, 2008, is available here.

Have a blueberry, or two or three or more. Your body will be thrilled. All berries are antioxidants. A holistic practitioner, Dr. Andrew Weil, says just a half cup of blueberries has the same antioxidant punch as five servings of peas, carrots, apples, squash or broccoli.

Heck, I’d rather eat blueberries than anything on that list. Especially now that blueberry-picking season has arrived. There is nothing quite as wonderful as fresh blueberries you pick with family and friends. Marion County has a number of blueberry farms and some are organic including Bay Lake Blueberry Farm on Highway 315, Ft. McCoy (phone 352-546-3834). Picking season doesn’t last long. Find out what days places are open. Grab those pails and go.

When my boys were little and we lived in Gainesville, we had the blueberry bushes completely covered. No blueberry was safe. Philip, the youngest and the shortest, picked on the lower part of the bush. Martin, middle son, worked the middle. Chris, oldest son, worked higher up and tall Mom got the tops. Yummm. One time Philip tasted so many berries his face was purple. The owner of the blueberry patch suggested weighting him to get a price for the blueberries but fortunately he was just kidding.

The big payoff is going home and making blueberry pie. Personally, I could just eat them straight up anytime but my family prefers pie.

Here is a blueberry recipe from Forest resident Terry Hopkins called “Aunt Kitty’s Favorite”

Blueberry Dessert
2 c. blueberries
Juice of ½ lemon
½ t. cinnamon

Butter an 8×8 inch pan, turn blueberries into pan, dribble lemon juice over them and sprinkle cinnamon over berries.

¾ c. sugar
3 T. butter
1 c. sifted flour
1 t. baking power
¼ t. salt
¼ c. milk

Cream butter and sugar. Add sifted dry ingredients alternatively with milk. Note: there are no eggs in this recipe. Spread butter on top of berries.

1 c. sugar
1 T. cornstarch
Dash of cornstarch
1 c. boiling water

Mix sugar, salt and cornstarch. Turn dry mixture over batter. Then pour 1 c. boiling water over top. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour.

Serve warm, topped with a small serving of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Yum.

If you want to be truly adventuresome, check out Cook’s Illustrated, the issue for July/August 2008 that just came in the mail and their recipe for blueberry pie using grated apple as a thickener. Trust Cooks to come up with something creative.

Bon appetit or better yet, bon blueberry.

Lucy Beebe Tobias is the author of “50 Great Walks in Florida” published by University Press of Florida and the Authentic Florida Expert for VISIT FLORIDA.

This year the whole growing veggies thing started when the price of gas shot up like a geyser. I’d better grow close to home, I thought and promptly started sowing seeds and seedlings in containers and in the ground.

Of course, the big planter that you saw when this adventure started (see spring blog below) got seeds and seedlings that have grown and overflowed as you can see from the recent photo.

That yellow flower? It is a squash blossom. Quite lovely. When the morning sun rises, the flower opens. As the heat of the day progresses, it closes up tight. Squash flowers are good to eat. Pick them fresh and open and add at the last minute to scrambled eggs for a sweet delicate flavor. The small white flowers you see are from the arugula gone to seed. I read this week that arugula blossoms are good to eat. Perhaps with the new tomato!

Between gas prices rising and the recession (yes, it is here) growing food in your yard and going to local farmer’s markets is starting to look VERY attractive.

I love farmer’s markets, especially ones with organic food. Why put pesticides in your tummy?

In Ocala a farmers market has started at Circle Square on SR 200 every Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon. Wahoo! Something nearby. We went the first day they opened and I came home with . . . .an olive tree. Yes, I know. It is not produce. But someday there will be olives.

If you want to know where the Florida Community Farmer’s Markets are, go to the Florida Agriculture site and look up your county. Some markets are expanded and have farmers and craftspeople and cooked food and . . .well, they are just an adventure. Stroll slowly and be enthralled. You may find something homemade or homegrown with your name on it.

I was in Tallahassee last weekend, staying high up in a hotel overlooking the chain of parks. On Friday night the park below was springtime green with big oak trees. The next morning, as if by magic, the same park still had the trees but you could hardly see the green grass. Tents had sprung up everywhere, an instant city. Craftspeople, farmers, food vendors and even a horse and carriage showed up to give people rides around the parks the old fashioned way. One of the crafts was a lady making beautiful baskets out of pine needles.

The Downtown Market Place happens every Saturday from March through November.

Fernandina Beach has a Farmer’s Market on Saturdays in the historic district. This is a lovely stroll anytime and the market makes it even more special. Funny thing about local markets – you meet people growing plants, raising food, making jams who turn out to live not so far from you and usually know someone you know. It’s called connections. We need them. Buying locally means using less gas and supporting your home community.

While all of that works for me, it may also be what can happen organically when the distribution system breaks down. Did you know that any given grocery store has about two days worth of goods? I didn’t until I read my son Martin’s review in his blog DeepGreenCrystals of the book “World Made By Hand: A Novel” by James Howard Kunstler who thinks the post industrial world will arrive as a slow steady slide. Martin gave it five stars. Yes, this is a pessimistic subject but it doesn’t hurt to ask the question “What if?” Well, what if there were no grocery stores? We’d be back to the way people did business – farmer’s markets, co-operatives, barter and trade, neighbors helping neighbors.

Maybe if we did more of that right now, the slow slide will be put off for a very long time. In fact, growing vegetables and using farmer’s market could be a whole new world for us and squash blossoms are definitely part of the equation. So are ripe tomatoes fresh from the garden. Yum.

Lucy Beebe Tobias is a freelance writer, artist and photographer in Ocala, Florida. Her book “50 Great Walks in Florida” is part of the Wild Florida series published by University Press of Florida