“A little of what you fancy does you good.”
– British saying

The hardworking folks behind this non-award winning blog are enjoying a deserved warm weather break on Florida’s Gulf Coast right now. No offense to the locals, but we did not pick this particular destination for its well-known and highly prized food culture. Instead, it was selected as a fitting location for our first post-baby trip that would be easy to get to, easy to negotiate in situ and with guaranteed good weather, something we’ve been craving after a hard winter made tougher by a sleepless infant.

However, we are happy to discover that we didn’t touch down in a food desert at all, and we could have posted about the delicious and moist blackened mahi-mahi sandwiches we had yesterday at Randy’s Fish Market, but after a preparatory month of near-total meat deprivation that helped us fit into our bathing suits with less embarrassment, we were feeling decidedly carnivorous. So, here are some grilled cross-cut beef short ribs, leftover from the tablita parrillada we gorged on during last night’s visit to Martin Fierro, an Argentine-run parrilla hidden away in a strip-mall on the other side of town. Named for the central character of Argentina’s famous epic poem by Jose Hernandez, it’s a faithful recreation of the parrillas we so enjoyed almost exactly two years ago during our visit to Argentina and Uruguay, in every respect but the strip-mall.

Joining them were a quick salsa criolla and some rounds of fried yucca. Sure, it’s not exactly beach food, and we stripped off at the pool with noticeably less enthusiasm today, but it was delicious and exactly the kind of indulgence we had been looking forward to for weeks. And, as every Englishman knows, a little of what you fancy does you good.