It’s November, and we’re in the thick of the Overscheduled-Season. If its not a football game, running event, birthday party, or holiday weekend – then its the Orchestra, school event, kids soccer, or some other important-not-to-be-missed thing on my schedule. Of course, the only reason we had a free weekend is because we ditched all plans this week and had to deal with 2 cases of strep throat (including mine!). This does explain completely horrid race last weekend, and the fact that I finished 13.1 miles as a human petri dish now elevates my running status to: ninja.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so naturally I could only stand one day of staying home and relaxing. Today found the Redland Fish Fry – an outdoor festival featuring my favorite thing of all: FOOD. We live in South Florida, so I’m not talking the run of the mill, crappy, carny-dipped fried Twinkie. Nope, we get the good stuff – fresh shrimp, conch, fritters, ceviche, and BBQ.

We trekked down to the Homestead/Redlands area. It was so nice to be out of the city and the tourists. Believe it or not, you can get sick of palm trees and beaches. The Redland area is full of farms. Amazing to see wide open spaces. Theres not a lot of that here unless you are with the gators in the Glades.

We stared off with a little fishing around the lake. Catch and release with bread. Both kids caught fish. Not nearly as fun as out off-shore adventures, but the kids do love to fish.

Next, we dove into the food. I’ll admit publicIy that I have a mild conch fritter addiction. If you’ve never had them, they are basically hush puppies with peppers and conch in the batter. If you’ve never had conch — well, please add this shellfish to your bucket list. You can thank me later.

I really don’t  have a conch fritter addiction. Quite frankly, I have a conch addiction. I had 2 servings of conch salad — imagine ceviche (veggies and seafood ‘cooked’ by the acid in the lime juice it is sitting in) using conch instead of shrimp or fish. My best friend is Bahamian, and I got spoiled by her dad’s homemade conch salad over the last decade or so — I was only quality checking to see if any of these recipes measured up. NOPE. But I gotta be sure!

We ended the day with some good ‘ol rolling in the grass and listening to music, then posing for the obligatory funny-head photo. Turned out to be a great, unplanned day.