honeybell

I escaped New England, where another 18" of snow has fallen, to Naples, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. A different universe--sun and color. The core of old town and the beaches are beautiful, but surrounded by concrete sprawl and shopping strips that seem to reach into infinity.

 My brother-in-law Steve lives in the "rural fringe" of Naples (a legal description that is quite apt) with a 3-legged dog (and a 4-legged one) and a rescued decommissioned trolley car from Marco Island. There, amid the big trees and bright stars, I get a feel for old Florida.

Old Florida/New Florida--surreal images of Taco Bells and orchids, swamplands and golf courses, orange groves and Disneyland--fueled in my imagination by the novel Swamplandia, and those of Carl Hiassen; Florida Poems by Campbell McGrath and The Orchid Thief  by Susan Orlean.

I had a Honeybell orange at Steve's, plucked from the tree, the flavor so intense, juicy and orangey. Actually not an orange, but a hybrid of a tangerine and a grapefruit. And yet so very sweet, just the perfect amount of sweetness and orangeness.