Dade City

2/9/22
Sunny and dry this morning, yay!  We drove over to Dade City, in the city center, which is still operating with many businesses.  We were wandering the streets and found Lanky Lassie's Shortbread bakery.  We chatted with the woman who owns and runs it and she was really full of information for us.  She's even won prizes in Scotland for her shortbread!  We picked out 4 kinds to take with us:  Belgian milk chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, pecan-chocolate-caramel and kumquat.  It is deserving of prizes!  

We walked over to "Lunch on Limoges", a landmark restaurant nearby.  It was a fun lunch stop, very popular with the luncheon ladies crowd.  Food was excellent.  Instead of a bread basket, every table got a muffin basket.  Bob loved these mini freshly baked blueberrry muffins, they had that little bit of crunchy edge around the top that he loves!  And blueberry pineapple butter.

Next, we took a short trip to a kumquat farm, and learned all about them!  The owner told us about his orchard's history.  Prior to 2014, he had big groves of large kumquat trees.  Then a nasty insect invaded the area causing greening disease and killing all his trees along with most other citrus groves.  They uprooted and removed all the trees possible to try to eliminate it, but there was too much damage.  But he has replanted a new type of kumquat plant more disease resistant.  He has nursed along the new trees through other disease and weather crises, which are yielding a much smaller crop.  They have an organic treatment for that insect now, so he's hopeful the orchard will continue to grow. He kindly taught us how to eat a kumquat, which is about the size of a large grape and eaten with the skin on.  It's very tart on first bite but sweetens as you chew the center citrus portion.  He had a number of kumquat products to sell, from jam to vinaigrette, to chutney and lotion.  Click on the link to find out more about the fruit and how to use it.  It's a whole new world of kumquats!

2/10/22
This morning we did some walking, there is a nice paved trail around the perimeter of the park, and a tall observation tower.  Also a boardwalk across a low-lying area.  After lunch we stopped at the Dade City Brew House to find out what was brewing.  Bob liked the Citra City IPA, and I liked the Kumquat Wine.  While there, we enjoyed watching the Olympics, since we haven't really been following that.  I most enjoy learning about the stories and backgrounds of the participants.