Ain't Done Eatin' in Dunedin

     It was a beautiful sunny and 65 degrees in downtown Dunedin Florida yesterday, and my wife and I took a walking food tour with Alex of Tampa Bay Food Tours ( https://tampabayfoodtours.com/ ) Dunedin (pronounced Dun-Eden) is a quaint little beach town, right next to some of the best beaches in the world, Clearwater, St. Pete, Honeymoon Island, Caladesi, etc.) with a population of about 36,000.  It's also the Spring Training home of the Toronto Blue Jays, and when the 2021 season opens, the Blue Jays have announced that they will play their first few homestands in Dunedin due to COVID-19. We have been to the beaches, but we had not been to downtown Dunedin, so we figured the tour would be a great way to get acquainted.

    Downtown Dunedin was full of people walking, riding bikes, and enjoying the beautiful weather.  Locals joke that the town should be called Dog-edin, because it is a very dog-friendly town, and dogs were everywhere.   If you have never taken a food tour of a city, check it out; it's a great way to get a feel of the city. The tour guides generally lead a leisurely walk of a mile or two in a 2-3 hour period during which you stop at several restaurants for a sample of their menu. Restaurants serve their most popular or well-known dishes, hoping that you will return for future meals.

    We started at Lucky Lobster, where we met our guide, Alex, born and raised in Dunedin. We also met the other 8 members of our party. Being a part of a group from all over is a big part of the fun, and this was a fun group. Besides ourselves, there was a couple from Illinois, a pair of friends from Washington state, another pair from Indiana, and an aunt and niece who were locals to Clearwater. At Lucky Lobster, we had their shrimp and lobster pizza.

    From there, we went next door to the Cueni Brewing Company and Cotherman Distilling Company, a couple of doors down. Dunedin must set the record for most breweries and distilleries per capita; and many are with the same block or two. We sampled Cueni's beers, and Cotherman offered samples of their rums, gins, and vodkas.

    The most unusual stop was Harley's Gourmet Popcorn and Cider, where they had the most unusual flavors for us to sample: Smoked Maple Bacon, Buffalo Wing, Salted Caramel, etc.

    The next stop was Sea Sea Riders, a seafood restaurant located in one of the oldest buildings in Dunedin, from the turn of the 20th century.  There, we sampled their Tsunami Shrimp with a sweet chili sauce.

    At Hog Island Fish Camp, we enjoyed hogfish sliders. Hogfish was a first for us; it's a very firm, meaty fish, mild-ish, with a texture like grouper. It was delicious, and we will be seeking out hogfish in the future.

    The tour ended with coffee and dessert at Veskolini cafe, owned by a Ukrainian couple and only open for a couple of months.

    It was a fun afternoon, and we can't wait to get back to Dunedin for further explorations and to take the Tampa and St, Petersburg tours that Tampa Bay Food Tours.  

History TV

     If you're like me, you've been disappointed by the History Channel for several years. Channel bigwigs apparently decided ratings were more important than history and flooded their programming with staged show Pawn Shop and American Pickers. Granted, those shows can be entertaining, but they broke down the door, and viewers were subjected to Gator People, Ancient Aliens, car restoration shows, and even butchery and metal working competition shows. The History Channel lost me for years. Believe it or not, history seems to be making a bit of a comeback. There are some interesting shows for history buffs now.

    First on the History Channel, two shows are returning with new seasons. Food That Built America is a show that kind of follows the Men Who Built America  model. The show uses expert talking heads and dramatic re-creations to tell the story of America's favorite foods and restaurants. The chocolate episode tells the story of America's biggest chocolate makers, Hershey, Reese, and Curtiss. The second episode is about the creation of fast food pizza and the pizza war between Pizza Hut and Domino's. ( https://www.history.com/shows/the-food-that-built-america )

    The new season of Modern Marvels focuses on iconic foods also, revealing the engineering behind the mass production.

    The Smithsonian Channel is back with new episodes of America's Hidden Stories. These documentaries provide exactly what the title promises, stories behind American history that

many people haven't heard. So far this season, there have been episodes on New England vampire killers, spy rings operating at Pearl Harbor leading up to the attack, and a 1980s U.S. cyber attack on the Soviet Union.

    I've only seen the first episode of my last recommendation, because, unfortunately, it's on Discovery+, and I am resisting signing up for services as long as I can. It's Six Degrees With Mike Rowe, I love everything Mike Rowe does, and if you know Mike Rowe, you know he's got a bit of a history bug. Six Degrees  is reminiscent of the classic British documentary series and books produced by James Burke, like Connections and The Day the Universe Changed.  Rowe's has called the show a "love letter to his dad", a retired history teacher. In the show, he takes seemingly disparate events and connects them with his trademark clever wit. I definitely want to watch the whole series.