Visitors
The joy of discovery
Our dynamic changed at Casa Cocoa once our first visitors arrived. We weren’t entirely done with our house chores, but my brother Geoff and his wife, Barbra, were happy to be on the crew. Geoff helped John with the stash box for beach items, putting together a nightstand, and fixing the broken microwave handle. Barbra helped me finally finish lining all the shelves and tacking them down with Gorilla tape. Missions accomplished.
But the weather turned cold! With temps in the 30’s at the beach in the morning. John suspended his sunrise ocean swim routine for a few days.
But we walked on the beach in the morning, seeing this display of roses. When we asked the woman setting it up what it was about, she said her cousin died and that this was her heartfelt message of love and loss. How coincidental, and sad, when we learned later that day that we too, my brother and I, lost our cousin Philip Shinoski at age 56. Life is short. We try to make every day count.
That afternoon, we found a box on the doorstep that was supposed to have arrived weeks earlier. Soon come, mon. A case of breadfruit that Alex had ordered for the holidays finally arrived, forcing us to think outside the box about how to use it.
We went up to Port Canaveral to watch the cruise ships sail out on Friday evening, having a glass of wine on the dock behind Seafood Atlantic, our favorite seafood market. We purchased some Sebastian Inlet oysters there, and some local pompano for dinner. Barbra declared that the pompano was the best fish she had ever tasted—and I did not disagree. Prepared simply, just brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper and then topped with some capers, the fish cooked in about 15 minutes, the same amount of time it took to roast the oysters. Dinner in under half an hour? Yes, thank you!
On Saturday, we found another seafood market in Sebastian when we went down to the coast to see what we could see. They were sold out of their local Sebastian oysters, but we purchased tilefish, local shrimp, local mullet roe, and non-local escargot—because John cannot resist that French delicacy when he sees it. We had another quick dinner with roasted squash and baked potatoes—and topped it off with Key Lime Pie.
After checking out and running home from the still-cold beach in the morning, we got experimental. While the oven was on the night before, I roasted one of the breadfruits for 2 hours, until a knife could be easily inserted. John peeled it in the morning, and then I trimmed out the core and sliced it to fry up. Barbra was busy cleaning the eggs out of the mullet roe sacs to make little patties that the ladies at the seafood market told us about. We tried the mullet patties—salty, fishy, grainy—and decided to add them to scrambled eggs and that was a winner. For some. It was a rootsy breakfast with some corn muffins.
Once we finally headed into town, we needed more coffee and went to Surfinista right on the main drag in Cocoa Beach. This coffee and surf shop has a pingpong table in it, and Barbra challenged one of the players to a game while waiting for her latte. She lost, but we had fun cheering her on in the lively shop. We headed over to Ron Jon’s, the iconic surf shop that put Cocoa Beach on the map (or was that I Dream of Jeannie that put Cocoa Beach on the map?). It was quite a tourist destination and we don’t have to go there again—unless we have more visitors.
Since it was Geoff and Barbra’s last day, we went up to Seafood Atlantic, where John, behind the counter, helped us purchase dinner—pompano, and rock shrimp to stuff it with. A perfect combo!
Everything was prepared for dinner before we went out to see the Falcon 9 launch at 6:30. It was a spectacular display and we enjoyed the muted pinks and mauves of the sunset sky intersected with a blazing rocket. This is a very special place!
And our last supper was so, so good too.
Fantastic! Y’all know how to live!