EDIBLE NOSTALGIA

A Love Letter: Winter 2025

Photography By | January 13, 2025
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David Warren Curran, lover of music and food and regional accounts manager-FL jacksonfamilywines.com

Dear Edible Sarasota,

This is a confessional love letter, plain and simple. I have flipped through your pages fondly over the last 15 years, each time being filled with a sense of pride in our community and maybe even drooling a little bit over the lavish spreads. What a joy it was to be featured eventually! It was like the consummation of a marriage. And here we are, celebrating a milestone anniversary. Thank you for being a faithful and generous partner.

The “confessional” part comes in this somewhat blasphemous practice I have of collecting recipes. I am slightly embarrassed to say that I tear recipes from each edition and put them into a folder. (Do not fret: I keep an intact backup in the cabinet.) On almost a daily basis, I will edit the folder to figure out the day’s meal and make room for the next round of culinary directives. When a meal is deemed delicious by our family, those recipes are relocated to a small cedar box that my wife’s parents used to stash their paraphernalia in when they were younger. This is the “keeper” box. I look through these carefully curated and vetted recipes often, as well. Each of these scraps of paper has a memory attached to it, making the re-creation of each dish a celebration of love and reverence. A gift that you and your contributors continue to bestow upon our friends, family, and community at large.

September 10, 2017.

We were all prepared for a hurricane party, awaiting the arrival of Irma. My mother came over, as did some refugees from Key West and I threw the “Honey Roasted Chicken and Potatoes” in the oven. (Recipe courtesy of Charlotte Abrams.) As the afternoon nervously turned into happy hour, the aromas from the dish began to quell our concerns of the potentially devastating cyclone that was headed our way. As we clinked glasses, the electricity gave out. We were not at all worried because the bird was just about finished, needing only some resting time. We were grateful to be together, enjoying a simple but delicious supper by candlelight. After a hilariously raucous game of Cards Against Humanity, which my then-77-year-old mother won, we retired to our beds with the sweeping winds serving as our lullaby. Remember the next morning when we were assessing the damage and preparing all our freezer contents for an enormous neighborhood feast? That is one of my most cherished memories, illustrating the strength and resilience of the Sarasota community; the community that Edible helps nourish and foster.

So, yes. This is a love letter. As I drop a needle on the record and dig through my cedar box, I am filled with gratitude. I love you.

For the Honey Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

please visit ediblesarasota.com

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