Soaking it all in

I originally wrote this story for the June / July issue of Liberty Life Magazine published in 2015. The mere thought of losing the love of his life sparked a complete turnaround in Herbert Stacy’s daily routine. The owner of Stacy’s Florist in Hinesville says he was devastated when his wife, Donna, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. “We’ve been married 28 years. We met on a blind date … and got engaged on our eighth date,” Donna Stacy recalls. She joked that she thinks he proposed quickly because he was tired of driving to Atlanta, her home at the time. “We were a little bit older when we got married, had our children later, and it’s been wonderful,” she says. With sons Adam and Scott Stacy all grown up now, the loving couple were enjoying their lives, staying busy running the store that’s been in Stacy’s family since 1976. The news of Donna Stacy’s health condition was an unexpected jolt. “I am doing very well now,” Donna Stacy says recalling the difficult time her fa...

I miss being young and scaring my family during summer vacations. Oh and I miss the foods we ate during our outings. Our favorite destination was a place in Marathon Key called the Salty Dog Motel. This place looked like something right out of the 1950s. We used to go there often during the early 1970s. The motel sign was this huge motley looking mutt wearing a sailors’ cap and an eye-patch covering one eye. Every room was an efficiency suite, meaning it had a mini kitchen and living area in addition to the bedrooms and bath. AND IT WAS CHEAP! The best thing however was the Olympic sized pool, complete with a 33 foot tall diving tower. I loved swimming. My dad used to call me his little frog because I was always in the pool. There was one time, I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, when my brother Frank started showing off his diving skills. He started off at the diving board on the lowest point of the tower. He bounced once, twice, and then flew in the air and splashed perfectly into the...

Hey folks, I’ve missed sharing some foodie fun with you these past few weeks. It’s been a whirlwind merry-go-round around here. My recent promotion was a humbling experience and also a blessing. It is also a new chapter and a welcomed challenge in my life which I look forward to. After receiving the promotion, I did what any true foodie would do and SPLURGED. I treated myself and cooked a true surf and turf dinner - a Rib-eye steak and lobster tail. It was a massive and decadent. I savored every bite, after all I earned it baby! I went shopping too. Of course I had to buy a few new outfits as well as get my nails done. Why not? It’s what managers do right? Heck I was on cloud nine. It felt great to be recognized and appreciated after years of hard work. And it’s great to work at a place you enjoy being at and the people you’re surrounded by. But just as I was savoring a new highlight in my life, something happened that shook me and every foodie I know to the core. Famous ...

Picking up right where I left off last time, we are still in National Barbecue month. Light up the grill and pop open a brewsky! My whole family enjoys cooking on grills. My brother practically grills dinner every night. Not sure if he REALLY loves grilling or hasn’t figured out how to use an oven yet, tsk, tsk. We used to have huge family get-togethers that centered on a barbecue grill or pit. Tall tales were passed along by our elders as they downed tall brews. Seemed the more beers they drank the bigger that one fish, crab or hog (fill in the blank) was that got away. Back in the day, my dad and uncle were cigarette smokers. They would be busy prepping the pig, rib or beef. They took special care in mixing the rub and massaging it into the meat. All while a cigarette hung from their lips, ash dangling from the cigarette. I would stare at them, hoping the ash didn’t fall in the food, and wondered how long the ash would get before it fell. Thankfully, the ash didn’t hit the ...

May is upon us. It means the colder weather will soon be behind us (Are you listening Mother Nature, because lately you’ve been flipping the hot and cold switch far too often). It also means Cinco de Mayo is around the corner and, better yet, it is NATIONAL BARBECUE MONTH!! Heck yeah! Likely two of my all-time favorite things food-wise (well besides my love of Latin food and sushi and just about everything else), Mexican food cooked on an outdoor grilling and served with a tall tequila-laden margarita. I plan to make the most of this weekend’s Cinco de Mayo by grilling some skirt steak and a pork shoulder so I can make enchiladas, burritos and tacos, for like days and weeks to come. Because: I CAN AND I WANT TO. I marinate the steak and pork the day before grilling so they can soak up some Mexican flavors. I typically use a taco seasoning pack, some mojo, lime juice, cilantro paste, a dash of apple cider vinegar, minced garlic, ground cumin and a spicy barbecue sauce that ha...

“On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese “I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed….” Ah, all the old and mostly lost (thank goodness) nursery rhyme songs about food from my youth. That one was a classic and I can still recall all the lyrics even today. If you listen to the rest of the song the meatball rolled on the floor, out the door, into a bush and turned into mush that the songwriter apparently TASTED. The rest of the meatball eventually grew into a tree the next summer all covered with beautiful moss and spewing forth big meatballs and tomato sauce. It sounds like this song writer might have tasted a few magic mushrooms, if you ask me. But a huge bowl of spaghetti with meatballs all covered in Parmesan cheese would really hit the spot right now. The music industry has a long history of songs inspired by food or about food that people may not realize. Many food songs are geared toward children. Growing up I can recall a ton of children’s songs that were used ...

I’ve been craving a perfectly fried hogfish sandwich, the one you can only get from the Hogfish Bar and Grill in Stock Island, Florida. You’ve never heard of hogfish? You’ve never been to the Hogfish Bar and Grill? You are truly missing out! Listen, this place is worth a weekend trip just for the ambiance, but when you add in the fresh seafood, it is a must do destination if you’re planning a trip to Key West. Stock Island is a strip of land that serves as an entry-way to Key West and hosts some of the last commercial fishing fleets on Safe Harbor. The seafood at the Hogfish is literally hook-to-cooked, and outside patio dining allows you to take in the breathtaking scenery and sunshine. The hogfish is a funky looking sea creature with a long “pig-like” snout. It uses this snout to root up crustaceans from the ocean’s sediment. Crustacean is the hogfish’s main diet. Because of its funky snout it is rare to hook a hogfish on a regular fishing line. Most hogfish are caught by spe...