The Green Parrot on Panama City Beach
Our first day in Panama City Beach, I watched AdventureMan’s head swivel 120° to the left as we drove down the main drag.
“Did you see that?” he exclaimed! “A ‘Mediterranean’ restaurant!! Woooo HOOOOOOO!”
We’ve come to learn that ‘Mediterranean’ is code for comfort food. It is not Mediterranean-Italian, or Mediterranean-Greek, it is Mediterranean like Lebanon or Syria or Palestine . . . it is comfort food.
Sigh. Or close enough. There is no machboos, and sometimes the felafel aren’t home made. Still, we know we’ll give it a try.
On our last night in town, it is the perfect night to go. 
The owner is a delightful Lebanese import named Hani, and he is a word-of-mouth phenomenon on Panama City Beach. He has many fanatically loyal customers, and people recommend him all the time. We can see why. He loves what he is doing, and it shows.
Mixed appetizers/Mezze
His food is DELICIOUS 🙂
Everything tasted so good. We can understand how he is developing such a following – his food is really good.
Thanksgiving on the Beach
An assortment of photos from Panama City Beach:
Walking off Thanksgiving dinners . . .
“They Must Not Be From Around Here . . . ” kids playing in the surf while all the rest of us are in long sleeve shirts and jeans, LOL!
Round 2 “They must not be from around here” these kayakers caused a lot of comment, LOL
Southern Family Thanksgiving
Oh, what fun!
Some photos from the gathering.
My daughter-in-law made these fabulous bacon-wrapped stuffed dates:
The kids dish up their plates first, and go to the Cousins Table:
These are all the desserts waiting to be unveiled:
AdventureMan did the roasted root vegetables on this table 🙂
Re-telling old family stores – so much laughing!
Uncle Woodrow introduces the cousins to farm-grown sugar cane:
Schooners For Dinner
We usually start our stay at Panama City Beach with dinner at Schooners, a very local beach bar with a aid back atmosphere. It is a cold cold windy night, the bar is packed, but there is a table for us.
We start with the smoked tuna:
AdventureMan has a Cuban with so much meat he can’t even eat it all:
I have the seafood gumbo, perfect for a cold night; sticks to your ribs kind of food, LOL:
A View from the Sunset Inn, Panama City Beach
We love this place, the Sunset Inn, a little Mom and Pop kind of motel, hard to find in over-developed Panama City Beach with its huge soulless condominiums towering over the white sands.
As we walk in the door, the view hits us and we breathe in the sea air and go “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.” The minute we walk in the door, we start to feel relaxed.
We both have cooking to do, so we get busy, but busy with glances at the view, and trips to our balcony to breathe. It is COLD, with a cold wind, but so gorgeous, so breath-takingly gorgeous, and we are happy.
Soon, there are cranberries cooking for Mom’s Cranberry Salad and hot juice brewing for the punch, redolent of cinnamon and cloves and orange peel, wonderful smells filling our room – and that view. Life is sweet.
And then, just when you think it can’t get any better, the sun starts to set, the light goes all golden and soft and oh, life is sweet.
PF Chang in SanDestin: A Much Needed Stop
After you’ve been married so many years, your mate knows exactly what buttons to push, and not just in bad ways.
“Hey! Look at the time! It looks like we’ll be near PF Changs for lunch!” said AdventureMan, pretending to be excited. Chinese food is comfort food to me, and he likes it OK, but he is relatively – relative to me – indifferent. And while PF Changs is pretty good, it is also good relative, relative to Pensacola, Navarre, Crestview, Niceville, Destin, Panama City – pretty good. It is a chain, and it is not San Francisco, or Seattle, or other cities where good Chinese food is sought after and valued.
So he feigns excitement, knowing I will happily eat at PF Changs, because relatively speaking, I am yearning for some good Chinese food.
We get there just as the Thanksgiving lunch crowd is beginning to head into the restaurants to take a break from shopping. We are happy; we can see many empty tables still. There are times this restaurant has been so packed that we have chosen to go elsewhere.
“It will be about ten to fifteen minutes before I can get you to a table,” the hostess says, bustling by and barely giving us a glance.
Oh oh. I can see AdventureMan’s testosterone level rising. But he has learned a lot in his years, so he tackles the problem nicely: “But I can see empty tables,” he says, and gestures to the large assortment of empty tables.
She seems annoyed to be interrupted in whatever her busy-ness was, and annoyed at being questioned.
“I have the tables,” she said shortly, “but I’ve had to call in extra staff to wait on them. They should start arriving shortly.”
The wait is actually short, and that welcome was the worst part of our meal, and not even that was so bad. Actually, AdventureMan and her had a nice chat while I wandered off to find the ladies room. When I came back, he had been seated, and we quickly ordered a big pot of tea and lunch. It arrived quickly, was hot and beautifully presented, and was delicious, seasoned by our hunger.
Our server was attentive and efficient without being intrusive. He made excellent suggestions and made sure our orders were customized – AdventureMan wanted his extra spicy, and he got lots of fabulous peppers. AdventureMan had Kung Pao Scallops and I had Spicy Chicken. We both had the Hot and Sour Soup, which we thought was pretty good.
I think his was better . . .
I am thankful for a lunch at PF Changs AND I am yearning for Seattle, and the countless places to get authentic and tasty Chinese food.
Qatar Fields Huge New Traffic Force
This is from ILoveQatar.net, reprinted from Gulf News. I think I loveQatar.net is a very cool website, and I am thankful they continue to send me updates: 🙂
A BIG Wooo HOOOOO on Qatar for training and implementing a PROFESSIONAL traffic force. Woooo HOOOOO! I can only hope the laws they will enforce include children in the back seats in car seats and seat belts for every passenger. I pray that part of the training included instructions that traffic rules are to be applied equally and fairly against all nationalities, including citizens.
A new highway patrol police force that will augment the efforts of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in improving road safety will start work in 2014, it was announced at the graduation of the first batch of the force.
Consisting of 50 officers and cadets, the graduation ceremony of the first batch was held at the headquarters of the Traffic Department. The training programme was implemented by the Northwestern University, Chicago.
The team has received specialised training in enforcing traffic laws and booking common violations like tailgating, use of mobile phones, exceeding speed limits and not wearing seat belts.
The officers also acquired advanced skills in investigation of accidents, modern methods to interrogate drivers, preservation of evidence and making specialised reports on accidents.
According to Traffic Department officials, the new force will use both radar and lidar, a device used to monitor speed using laser.
The officers were also trained on skills needed to manually control traffic flow and its mechanisms in addition to the use of tools and methods for data collection.
The initiative was organised in collaboration between the Ministry of Interior and RasGas in the context of the priority given by the MoI and the National Committee for Traffic Safety (NCTS) to ensure responsible and safe driving.
The graduation ceremony was attended by Traffic Department director Brig Mohamed Saad al-Kharji, NCTS secretary Brig Mohamed Abdullah al-Maliki, traffic safety adviser at MoI Ademola Ilori and Brett Doherty, safety, health, environment & quality chief officer, RasGas.
Speaking on the occasion, al-Kharji said that the new force would support the MoI’s efforts in road safety.
“The new force will monitor and enforce road safety measures on highways. It includes monitoring speed limit, keeping space between vehicles and handling accidents and emergency situations.”
He added that the trainees got theoretical and practical lessons on controlling traffic movement on highways, safe parking and stopping of vehicles on highways as well as training on dealing with the public.
Speaking on the sidelines, al-Kharji said that there was a plan to equip traffic police vehicles with speed radars so they could catch violators while on the move.
He thanked RasGas for its collaboration with the MoI in this initiative and said the move would play a proactive role in reducing traffic accidents.
Al-Maliki said that the initiative came as part of NCTS and thanked RasGas and Northwestern University for their support for the initiative.
He awarded trainees with certificates and exchanged mementos with RasGas and Northwestern University. Gifts and appreciation certificates were awarded for lecturers and translators.
Others present on the occasion were RasGas public affairs manager Abdulla Hashim, Security & Emergency services manager Faisal al-Hajiri, road safety adviser John Cling, safety systems head Jive Price, road safety training head at Northwestern University, Antony Patila.
“Ho Ho Ho” AdventureMan
We were leaving a restaurant and AdventureMan started laughing. “You’ve got to see this!” he said, and when I did, I just walked on and left him laughing, but when I got to the car, I had second thoughts, and said “I need to go back and take a picture,” and I was laughing, too.
AdventureMan, get your mind out of the gutter.
He thinks this is hilarious.
“That reindeer is having a very merry Christmas!” chortles AdventureMan.
Breakfast at CJ’s in Pensacola
We love the early service at our church; it is quiet, it is contemplative and focused. It is also the Episcopal service “lite;” with little music we are in and out in an hour. We occasionally go to the commissary after church, and one morning, on our way there, AdventureMan said “how about THERE for breakfast?” and swerved into the parking lot.
The sign in front says ‘BEIGNETS.’
CJ’s, at the corner of Garden and Pace, is not undiscovered. We have never walked right in and been seated, there is always a wait, but as early as we go, the wait is not too long. There are seats at the bar almost always, but we prefer to wait for a table. Service is excellent; I don’t know how they serve so many customers so quickly and accurately, but everyone leaves happy.
My photos are not representative of the breakfasts most people were eating because AdventureMan and I try not to pig out. We got the smallest breakfasts. Most people had platters laden with eggs and ham and sausages; this is a breakfast feast.
The beignets come in 1, 3 or 5. I am not supposed to eat beignets, so I only ordered one. 🙂
You can shake some of that sugar off. It’s powdered sugar, so there aren’t so many calories. And I shared half of it with AdventureMan. Oh man, these are beignets! These are like light fluffy yeast doughnuts, so light. . . so delicious. They could become a very bad habit if I don’t exert extreme self discipline.
Here is my breakfast, which is the two egg breakfast:
and here is AdventureMan’s omelette breakfast:
I know. It’s a lot of food. You should see the other platters, LOL!
CJ’s is a great value for the money. Delicious local foods at reasonable prices.
CJ’S Kitchen & Grille
2100 W Garden St, Pensacola, FL
(850) 435-9543
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