Foodie hell in Orlando

Okay, maybe "hell" is overstating the case slightly. And perhaps "Orlando" is too broad an area to disparage, as I stayed within the confines of a golf resort 25 miles from downtown. And I suppose it's even a stretch to call myself a "foodie," given that my predilection for eating, and talking about eating, is a trait shared with, oh, just about the entire population.

But if I'd titled this post "A few not-very-good meals in a golf resort somewhere in Florida," where's the fun in that?

In fairness, I wasn't there for fun; I was at the Healthcare Internet Conference, a fabulous few days of full-on marketing nerdery with 450 other people looking to figure out how to make their hospital websites more inviting, valuable and user-friendly. From that perspective, it was great, and I came away with a notebook of scribble and a list of ideas to put into practice.

But outside of conference hours, I was pretty much on my own for foraging purposes. Had this been New York or Miami, I could have strolled out of the hotel and into any number of dining options. Instead, I was surrrounded by 36 holes of Greg Norman-designed lawn atop what was once swamp.



So I ate:

• A straight-from-the-fridge sports-bar chopped salad, arranged on the plate as though intended for a child going through the "none of my foods can touch each other" phase
• A chocolate croissant topped with icing
• A blackened grouper sandwich with the consistency of a sock
• This:

Disturbing as the above looks, it was a godsend; being a high-end resort, prices were elevated, and my travel budget didn't include meals. So the hors d'oeuvres served during the early evening networking session became dinner, supplemented by

• Trail mix and bananas.

Perhaps, then, you can understand my gratitude when I arrived back in Boston, and The Boy met me at the airport and said, "Let's go to Hungry Mother."

An hour later, I was sipping a gin martini sweetened with honey syrup and sharing a bowl of boiled peanuts. And then this arrived.



A choucroute of collard greens topped with a pork rib, a thick slice of bacon, and the most amazing garlic sausage I've had in ages.

There's no place like home.