Twenty-four years

Today was the 24th wedding anniversary of Mr. Sparky and myself.  He had the day off, thanks to Uncle Sam.  Our kids did not, thanks to the Okaloosa County school district. 

We decided to do a day trip to Fairhope, Alabama.  I’d read little articles over the years in Southern Living magazine, touting Fairhope as a place worthy of a visit.  But that wasn’t what really drew us.

You see, I got this crazy idea.  Though we don’t watch a lot of TV, when we happen to be channel surfing and we come upon Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network, we always stop and see what Guy Fieri is eating now.  And we always sit there and nearly drool down our chins as we wish we were eating what he is eating.  So today, we decided to eat what he ate.  Or at least where he ate.  I did a search and found that there were three restaurants within minutes of each other that had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.  And we devised a plan to hit two of them.

We started at Guy’s Gumbo in Fairhope.  Mr. Sparky ordered a cup of red beans and rice.  I ordered a cup of gumbo with crawfish tails.   We each ate half, with me being careful not to snarf more than my fair share of the crawfish tails, and then we switched cups.  I didn’t like the red beans very much; I thought they tasted like bandaids smell.  Alan liked them a lot, though.  At first I wasn’t wild about the gumbo, either, but with each bite it grew on me.  It was kicky, and I do like kicky.  I think I could learn to like gumbo a lot.  At least some versions of it.

After we had our cups of Cajun starters, Mr Sparky paid the bill and began to wander the streets of Fairhope a bit.  I have to wonder just how many antique stores one little town can support, especially when they are all filled with humongous, ornate French antiques.  Some very cool pieces, but not much like the antiques I grew up around in the midwest.

After a while we’d wandered enough to be ready for our main meal.  We found Panini Pete’s and settled in for lunch.  It was tiny; most of the tables were outside, but we managed to score one of the five inside in the air conditioning.  In fact, let’s just pause for a moment of silence in reverent honor of whoever invented air conditioning in the first place.

*no sound but the hum of an AC compressor*

Thank you.  Ok, back to business. 

We scored a table and began to drool over the small but intense menu.  Mr. Sparky ordered the fresh house-made mozzarella and tomato panini with torn basil leaves and balsamic vinaigrette on fresh baked focaccia. With hand cut frites, which is just a French word for fries, but we all know the French can’t do anything without making sure we all know they think they’re special, and why burst their bubble after they’ve persisted in it for this long?  I ordered the seared tuna panini with cucumbers, sliced tomato, baby greens, and key lime aioli on ciabatta.  I got frites, too.  And a sweet tea, because it seemed like the right thing to do.  When the sandwiches arrived, we traded halves so we each had half of each.

Oh.  Oh oh oh oh oh…those sandwiches were SO good.  I mean killer good.  So were the frites.  Even the sweet tea was incredible.  But those sandwiches…

I’d return to Pete’s again in a heartbeat.  Guy’s, not so much, but to be fair I’m limited on what I like in the Cajun cuisine in the first place.  Cajun food tends to use a bunch of veggies I don’t care for, and though I love intense spicing, you can’t spice a green pepper or a celery in a way that I’ll actually think it tastes good.  No matter what, I can still tell they’re in there, fouling up my food.  Not as noxious as cilantro, but still an abomination on my dinner plate.

We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through Fairhope, just browsing and enjoying having no agenda.  Later we headed back east, stopping in Pensacola to browse a few more stores and to grab some dinner.  We made a full day of it.  Nice.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Sparky.