The Roosters of Ybor

I've never figured out why, but there are a lot of chickens running loose around Ybor City. This rooster, far from being shy, followed us a great distance, seemingly thinking he'd get thrown a snack.

Vincente Martinez Ybor Statue

This statue of Vincente Martinez Ybor stands in the city he founded, Ybor City, annexed by Tampa by 1887. Ybor, in addition to making Florida the cigar capital of the world, achieved many great civic wonders and innovations improving the lives of citizens.

Centro Ybor Sign

Gotta love this sign overlooking the Muvico Theatre at Centro Ybor in Tampa's Ybor City, designed to resemble a giant cigar band.

Roland Manteiga Statue

This statue in Ybor City honors Roland Manteiga, the former editor of Tampa's weekly newspaper La Gaceta, founded in 1922 by Roland's father and now carried on by his son. Published in English, Spanish, and Italian, La Gaceta is the only trilingual newspaper in America.

Saxapahaw Sam

Did a double-take when I passed this paste-up graffiti in Ybor the other day. Some sort of parody of noted groundhog Punxsutawney Phil called Saxapahaw Sam, and with the cognitively-dissonant caption "I Will Kill You."

(What is up with Florida and "kill you" graffiti lately?)

According to this:

Richie identified the work as that of Saxapahaw Sam, a well-known Franklin Street tagger in her UNC-Chapel Hill years. He was popular until he took it a step too far, rather than defacing an abandoned or under construction building, as is the case in Durham, he painted on the walls of an open establishment, which was naturally quite upset.

That article, from 2013, made it sound like Sam is retired from the tagging game, but this graffiti is new. New enough that a fellow seeker of arcane lore, one BXGD, took this picture of the very same graffiti in Ybor just days earlier. And then there's this recent aggregation of Sam's oeuvre in other locales.

I haven't delved much further into the matter because it's often the case that finding the story behind enigmatic graffiti is disappointing, and I usually much prefer not having it explained. I just like Sam in all his mystery the way he is, on his own merits.

Stone Soup Company

I didn't come all the way to Tampa to eat Cincinnati-style chili. Well, wait, maybe I did. They sell it at Stone Soup Company in Ybor and I dug it.

The delicious sangria came served in an ice cold metal goblet which was great fun. I have to say, though, if were to pour it into a normal glass like the kind they serve sangria in at Rumba, it wouldn't even fill it a third of the way. Oh well. Living here in a privilege, and sometimes with it comes the tax of parsimoniousness.

They have an interesting selection of primitive Outsider Art hanging on the walls, such as this decidedly Spunt-like rendition of Marilyn Monroe.

Columbia Restaurant

You're probably too young to remember this, but in 1905 the greatest restaurant in the solar system - Columbia Restaurant - was founded in Ybor City. Today it has numerous branch locations around Florida, including St. Augustine, Tampa and Clearwater, but the one nearest and dearest to my heart is on St. Armand's Key. This was the first Columbia's I experienced, so I suppose I've been imprinted on this one.

(Yes, I am a habitual indiscriminate adder of apostrophe-S to places whose names lack them, at will. Sue me.)

If I could choose only one thing to eat for the rest of my life, dear reader, it would be Columbia's Steak Palomilla - and I think it might take a billion years before I began to get bored with it. Maybe two. It's a very holy thing, and words cannot convey the alchemical magic that occurs in this dish, so I won't even try. I'll just say that even if you don't take seriously any other opinion proferred herein on this blog about matters culinary, listen to me on this one. Columbia's is the alpha and omega of Florida foodiedom.

And then there's the drinks. I usually have a pitcher of Mojito or Sangria but sometimes indulge in random stabs like the Absinthe Sazerac (pictured above.) The server sets up a folding table beside you and mixes your drinks (as well as your salads) tableside while you watch. I still remember years ago, watching in awe the first time I ate here, as our server Cecilia squeezed the limes and poured the rum and conjured up a pitcher of Mojito that was more than the sum of its parts. You never forget your first time.

Did I mention that their black bean soup, covered in fresh cut onions, is worthy of being a meal all to itself?

And that their Crema Catalana dessert takes Creme Brulee to a whole new level?

Or that they have their own line of cigars, the mere mention of which has me twitching and jonesing even now? Must cut this short now and step out for a puff by the pool...

Carmine's Devil Crab

Like New Orleans, there are so many amazing bars and restaurants in Tampa that one could devote one's entire life, like a monk or an entomologist, to their observation and classification. (And some do, of course.) Even the Ybor City area alone presents the predrunk with a bewildering array of choices, and most of them I confess I haven't tried yet since I don't get to Ybor nearly as often as I'd like. All in time, though, all in time.

And so it was, then, that my selection of Carmine's (1802 E 7th Avenue) was born more of randomity than research. But my lucky numbers came up on this one - Carmine's is one of my all time favorite joints in Florida now.

"Is it because of their Mojitos?" you may ask. While it's true that I'm a Mojito snob (so much so that I demand it be capitalized) and that Carmine's Ten Cane Mojito more than fit the bill for my pretentious palate, it actually *wasn't* quite as good as others I've had, such as my beloved Columbia's.

The grouper sandwich, then? Well, it certainly was delumptious, and definitely up in the running for best grouper sandwich ever, but I wouldn't drive all the way back to Ybor just to get one. And truth be told, my favorite grouper sandwich at any given time is the one I'm eating at that moment or the one I ate last.

No, what really impressed me about Carmine's was their world famous "Devil Crab" - a giant amorphous blop of a crabcake that resembles a potato, or a hush puppy on steroids. I didn't take its picture at the time because I thought it wouldn't be that big a deal. I was so wrong. Mark me, I will at some point soon be driving back to Ybor specifically to have another one - or two - of these amazing Devil Crab devices. Tell 'em I sent you by!

Cat Found!

Seen on a window in a shop in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida.

State of Smoke

It's fitting in a way that the two states which I declare my home are both hubs of the tobacco industry, but in two very very different ways. Kentucky, on the one hand, has long been synonymous with Big Tobacco's little death utensils called cigarettes; Florida, on the other hand, is the land of the cigar, the gateway to ancient tribal tradition, the door into summer. The dichotomy couldn't be more pronounced.

I've expounded elsewhere on why cigars are not even close to being comparable to cigarettes in any way, so I won't belabor the point here. Suffice it to say, the tobacco in common man's cigarettes is laden with additives, weird chemicals, radioactive tailings and God knows what else. The tobacco in cigars may not exactly be "healthy" (as opposed to, say, car exhaust, factory air pollution, aluminum and benzene-laden personal care products/fragrances, BPA-tainted receipts, or Fukushima fallout?) but at least it's 100% real compared to the crap Philip Morris pushes - like the difference between farm-fresh organic Amish cheese and a box of Velveeta.

You either get the cigar thing or you don't, and I have long since lost patience trying to explain it to the non-getters.

Cigarettes are a very modern innovation, not gaining traction among smokers until the 19th century and not outselling cigars until the early 20th. Unlike cigars - which are whole pieces of leaves rolled together - cigarettes have almost always been tubes of paper filled with tiny fish-food-like flakes of effluvia purported to be tobacco but could really be anything and who would really know? The smoking of a cigar is a very old practice, hallowed by usage and consecrated by time. It goes back at least to the Mayan era - the very word cigar is ultimately derived from the Mayan sicar (verb meaning "to smoke tobacco".) Wikipedia says:

Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of tobacco to Europe. Two of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, are said to have encountered tobacco for the first time on the island of Hispaniola, when natives presented them with dry leaves that spread a peculiar fragrance. Tobacco was widely diffused among all of the islands of the Caribbean and therefore they again encountered it in Cuba where Columbus and his men had settled. His sailors reported that the Taínos on the island of Cuba smoked a primitive form of cigar, with twisted, dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves such as palm or plantain. In due course, Spanish and other European sailors adopted the hobby of smoking rolls of leaves, as did the Conquistadors, and smoking primitive cigars spread to Spain and Portugal and eventually France, most probably through Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal, who gave his name to nicotine. Later, the hobby spread to Italy and, after Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to the Americas, to Britain. Smoking became familiar throughout Europe—in pipes in Britain—by the mid-16th century and, half a century later, tobacco started to be grown commercially in America.

Commercial cigar rolling first came to Florida in the 1830s, but it wasn't until 1869 when Florida became the cigar capital of the world. That's when Spanish cigar manufacturer Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his business from Cuba to Key West to escape the Ten Years War. Other cigar manufacturers quickly followed suit, and for a short time Key West became the world's cigar manufacturing center. But in 1885, Mr. Ybor moved again, buying up land near Tampa and building what was then the world's largest cigar factory. After an 1886 fire destroyed much of Key West, all the other cigar companies once again followed Ybor's lead and made the move north to Tampa. Ybor's cigar empire no longer exists, but his majestic Ybor Square still stands today.

Nowadays, practically all of Florida is a hotspot for cigar action. Tabanero is keeping the hand-rolled tradition alive in Tampa, while my friend J.C. the Cuban Roller stays busy rollin' 'em up one at a time in St. Augustine, Alec Bradley's got it goin' on in Ft. Lauderdale and my all time favorite cigar maker, Drew Estate, is based in Miami.

Funny thing is, I don't even consider myself a smoker. Even though I reluctantly take part in the Twitter hashtag #nowsmoking, I prefer the term "cigar tasting", similar to that of wine tasting - meaning you're just sampling small quantities and not seeking to get falling-down-drunk on wine nor frantically herfing down a stick as fast and as hard as possible seeking a make-the-room-go-spinning buzz. My doctor and my insurer would probably disagree with my philosophical position, that is, if I had any interest in having a doctor or an insurer. Which I don't. They work their side of the street and I work mine.