After Virginia for a couple of weeks, I had a lot of outside work that needing doing, and we had to pick up our mail at the Swansboro Post Office

On the way back home, I suggested that we stop at Nicky's of Swansboro which is located between the bridges on the way to Cedar Point on Highway 24.

After all my hard work, I was ready for a treat, and an appetizer of hand breaded clams strips from Nicky's qualifies as a great fried seafood treat.  I love their homemade sauce which is served with the clams.

After splitting the clam appetizer with my wife,  I ordered a veggie wrap.  I thought perhaps that might come close to balancing the clams.  At least it is a lot closer than ordering one of their eight ounce cheese burgers.  The veggie wrap was very good, as was my wife's chicken Caesar salad.
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While I no longer grow a huge garden like I did when we lived in Canada, I still love fresh produce.  I am a regular at Winberry's Produce in Cedar Point.  From the first strawberries to new potatoes, corn, and watermelon, I have enjoyed all of summer's treats this 2010.

The one thing that I still grow is tomatoes.  In fact I have a contest with some friends each year to see who has the first ripe tomato.  We had a little controversy this year, but I was dethroned as tomato king by my fishing buddy Dean.  I was visiting with Dean and his wife. Gail, the other day, and he said that being king was not all it was cracked up to be.

In fact, he said that he suspected that I had put a curse on his tomatoes when he defeated me. Apparently his tomatoes are not producing well.  I didn't say a lot since you don't want to kick a man when his tomatoes are having a hard time, but sometimes you lose a battle and win the war.  read more »

We are at the mid-point of summer, and it is time to get one of those delicious Bogue Sound watermelons.

Here along the Southern Outer Banks, eating one of those delicious melons is one of the special treats of summer.

On a hot summer evening while you are spending a week at the beach, eating a Bogue Sound watermelon is just one of the things you do while visiting Emerald Isle.

Yesterday I stopped by Winberry's produce stand and picked up a couple of the smaller melons.  As you can see from the picture, the melon I cut was picture perfect.

I talked to Sara, the owner, while I was paying for my produce.  She told me they have been growing watermelons for over 55 years.  She said that at this time of the year almost everything in their stand comes from right from their fields.
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Today I needed some Carolina coast comfort seafood, and I remembered that I had seen a post on Facebook from Sam at Ballyhoo's about some new seafood lunch baskets.

What had stuck in my memory was that you could get combination baskets of shrimp, oysters, or grouper fingers.  The individual baskets are $9.99 and the combination of two items is a few dollars more.

With a morning thunderstorm shutting down the possibility of doing any further work outside, I decided to run a few errands in town and head over to the Island.

Traffic was definitely less than it was on the weekend, but the cloudy skies made me yearn for some that magical blue sky and emerald water that we have seen recently.

I have enjoyed going to Ballyhoo's for a quiet a while.  I first went after Sam invited me to try one of his delicious burgers.
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Today went by in a flash.  I was out with clients all day.  My wife joined me for the last showing of the day at around 5 PM and once my last client was on the road, we headed home. It was then we both decided that some fried flounder would taste mighty good and be a fitting ending for such a nice day.

Our experiences with the T&W Oyster House have been particularly great since Earl has come back.   T&W is also practically on our doorstep so once the decision was made to go flounder hunting, we headed up Highway 58 to T&W.  We got there just a few minutes after 5 PM.  They were already busy.  We were very surprised by the large early crowd.

Fortunately T&Ws is a huge place so we did not have to wait for a table.  We did end up in the last of the great dining rooms which have cedar posts supporting their ceilings. 

That we ended in the last room was a testament to the rapidly filling dining rooms.  We placed our orders not long after getting our iced tea.  My wife got a senior flounder fillet.  I got a combo of flounders and fried oysters which I shared with her.
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Last night we visited Las fincas, the Mexican restaurant that just opened on Highway 24 across from Sanders Ford.

We were dining with coupons,  and in order to take advantage of the coupon we both ended up eating fajitas.

I had a huge sizzling platter of fajitas, shrimp, chicken, and beef, to go along with their handmade flour tortillas.  My wife, Glenda, had just chicken fajitas which was also a very big serving.

They came with the traditional beans, rice, guacamole, and sour cream.  We also got to enjoy some chips and salsa before the meal.  They were good chips.

I was very impressed with the meal.  The restaurant is very well done inside, it is certainly the nicest restaurant on the inside in Swansboro.

There is no a lot of parking out front but apparently there is more in the rear.  I have talked to at least one other person who brought a family, and everyone enjoyed their food.
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Yesterday was an extraordinary October day.  For one thing, the official temperature was in the mid eighties.  Our porch thermometer read in the nineties.  It was a summer day in Oct.  I will bet it was hot at the Mullet Festival.

When we crossed the bridge to Emerald Isle, there were probably forty to fifty boats fishing for spots in the Intracoastal.  It was an impressive site.  When we came back, the boats had all moved.

When we got to St. Francis by the Sea for lunch, there coolers upon coolers of lobsters.  I think they told me that they ordered 980 lobsters from Maine.  It was such a nice day, I heard someone say they could have sold 1,200.

We enjoyed our lobsters, and that will hold us until year.  We like to eat lobsters once in a while since I cooked lobsters for my wife on our first date.

It is amazing, that after 36 years of marriage, I still have to get the lobster meat out of the shell for her.  Well at least she did not steal a claw this year.

This morning instead of waking up to 77 degrees and blue skies, our temperature is at 64 degrees and we are overcast.
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