How could I forget boiled peanuts with a coca-cola?

Nothing like a good SEC/ACC Florida rivalry.

1. weather
2. weather
3. the relaxed atmosphere
4. weather
5. when UF beats FSU
6. great orange juice (not that gross Cali kind) :)
7. swimming with dolphins and manatees
8. the amazing sunsets in Clearwater and the lovely sunrises in St. Augustine
9. it's cheap
10. not having to say "I wish I lived in Florida"

I thank my dad almost everyday for moving us to Florida 25 years ago.

Gosh, I should make a trip to Jay-actionville soon. It surely doesn't sound like the Jay-actionville I know. What are some of those museums you're talking about? And an opera? Hmmmm. I need to get with the program. I don't believe we have an opera in Tampa. I hope you're not fooling yourself about those restaurants (except for Beach Road Chicken, of course -- been there?).

PS -- we all call it Jay-actionville down here so start getting used to it. I read a recent post on Chowhound that said NY-ers are moving there by the dozens.

Tandoori Girl! You certainly haven't been up on the news. Jacksonville is an up-and-coming city. Professional sports team, yes, opera, and lots to do. All this has happened to Jacksonville in the last decade. It's really changed.

My city, Indianapolis, used to be called "naptown" and people who haven't been there in the last five years or so are absolutely amazed at what a great city it's become. JAX also had a similar, and now undeserved, reputation. You should head over to the Atlantic Ocean side and see what's happening!

Boiled peanuts? How do you do that?

Scarlett, I have a friend who lives on Myra Street in Jax. Is your place anywhere near there? Her daughter is on Amelia Island - we had a lovely visit there a few years ago. The art gallery in Jax was excellent - and yes, we had boiled peanuts one day when we took the ferry to St. Augustine. They were - er - interesting.

Never mind, found few recipes, gotta try... but the boiling time span in different recipes from 25 minutes to 3 hours! I guess I'll take some out every 1/2 hour to taste :^o

Faina, if you have the courage to try making boiled peanuts, will you let us all know how they taste? Ten years I lived in Georgia, and I never had the guts to try them!

Faina,
You take raw green peanuts and boil them in salt water for a very long time - 8-10 hours, if I recall. Folks used to (and I'm sure still do) sell them from roadside stands out of cut-off beer kegs set on propane burners. That's it in a nutshell. :)

Some people like them and others think they're gross - much like grits, for example. It's really more of a North Florida thing - you won't find boiled peanuts on South Beach!

Boiling is the best way I know of to ruin a perfectly good peanut.

And I guess I'm the only person who enjoys cold weather. I'm from Minnesota but have lived in the south for the past 25 years. I still miss an occasional snow. What's so great about warm weather year round? Don't you people miss an occasional fire in the fireplace? And I don't mind playing golf bundled up once in a while. Or maybe I just need to move to Florida to see what the fuss is about.

When you boil the peanuts (yes, start with green/raw peanuts) for every cup of water you must use 1/2 cup of salt. They are best served hot with a coca-cola. Not diet but regular ice cold coca-cola in the glass bottle.

Jay-Actionville?

GolfBall you can keep the tundra and no, no one wants to bundle up to play golf.

Florida gets fireplace weather.

Reasons I personally don't want to live in the north;

Snow is only fun for the first hour.

Ice is hazardous.

I don't want to have to plug my engine into a heater (friend who lived in Alaska did this in the winter).

Not into ice fishing.

Don't care about running the heat 7 months of the year.

Winter wonderland is an oxymoron.

Outdoor snow sports are fun for a week and then it's time to go back home.

Down parkas make me look like the Michelin Man.

Golf,
No, you're not alone. I now live in Colorado and for all I miss about Florida, I have no intention of ever moving back there. A week or so every year is enough for me, then I want to get back to the cool nights and wide open spaces!
Also, like GoTravel, I have never heard of "Jay-Actionville" before - is that a new saying?

Green peanuts? Never even heard of this variety! Hey, San Franciscans, are they sold anywhere here?

DLN, yes, I have the courage to boil them. Even for 3 hours if needed! But I won't have the courage to taste... this is what we have the husbands for :)

Take it from me -- you don't want to spend all day boiling peanuts when you can buy them from some old redneck off the side of the road (or at a 7-11) for a dollar-fifty. Because believe me, he knows how to make them a lot better than you ever will. If you knew how much salt was in them you probably wouldn't eat them. I love them -- but you have to eat them with lots of napkins and nothing else to do.

There's nothing like snow. That's why every year I try to take a week and go up to the in-laws mountain retreat in the Shenandoahs. And that usually does it for me (although my Florida baby boy wants more and more of that snow-boarding stuff).

And I get away to "the city" every now and then. I don't mean Miami -- I don't mean Jacksonville -- and I sure don't mean Atlanta.

Florida is ever so interesting. There's always something going on. It is our little Banana Republic, never dull. But I wish we could do something about those signs in restaurants that say No Shoes, No Shirts, No Service. What's a barefooted barebreasted tandoori girl to do?!? They don't have those signs anywhere else in the US, do they? I think that's discriminatory!!!

Yes. Jay-actionville. What do they call people from Jacksonville anyway? Surely not Jacksons? You know what they call people from Tampa.

FainaAgain, you either love boiled peanuts or hate them. I'm a southerner that hates them. Some people will say, "You've just never had good boiled peanuts"! Trust me, I have tried to like them, but just can't do it.

Same with grits, hubby thinks you can't have a good country breakfast without grits.......ugh!!! Don't like them either.

Born and bred in the south but just can't eat boiled peanuts, grits, chitterlings or cracklin cornbread!!

Good Grief!! Jay actionville!! I haven't heard that one yet, hope I don't either!
I know they refer to it as Jax all the time, which is a little more normal sounding.
I know where Amelia Island is, we were there in March and I thought it was very charming. I look forward to going there often and shopping on that little street in Fernandina. We have friends who have homes in the Plantation area.
Tandoori Girl, there is a Museum of Modern Art, right on the StJohns River, across from the Adams Mark Hotel, can't miss it, it is a part of the River Walk they have there. Beside the Hilton.
There is a beautiful museum that is a former mansion with amazing gardens and very nice artworks, there is a new and very large concert hall right in town a well as a renovated old Theater.. you really should venture up north a little~
Never heard of that resto but we do like a place called Bistro Aix and BB's and there are some really good BB@ places that remind me of childhood days in NC. And speaking of NC, they boiled peanuts there too! I would taste them but prefer them roasted.
And funny thing (at least I think so)
I never would touch grits, until I made them for my children here in NYC! Now I like them :) I do look forward to some decent hushpuppies though~
Meesthare, I don't know that street, but then, I don't know where my street is either LOL..I will have to get a GPS to find my way home whenever I go out!
Golfball-
Jax gets cool enough at in the winter to need heat and our house has a fireplace, so I think that will suffice in the cold weather dept. Although, my Daddy has a house in the mountains of NC so I can always get a snow fix if NYC is too far.
I like these lists!!

Boiled peanuts. My in-laws used to make them all the time--they even lived in a small southern town, so Scarlett has the Yankee and I guess I have the Redneck! :LOL They're OK, I remember giving one to my Yankee Mom when my husband and I lived in Savannah...she must have chewed that one peanut 20 minutes before she could swallow. And she politely refused the next one.

Now as for the J-action thing, never have heard it used in reference to Jacksonville either, but I have heard it in reference to ALL of FL and as far north as Savannah, referred to just as the "J curve". It doesn't have as much to do with culture as it does the climate. For those who aren't tuned into the meaning, picture the letter J. The top of the J is people leaving the northeast, the bottom is them getting to Savannah (in our last case) or FL, then later turning around and heading a bit further north (the hook in the J). But you notice they didn't go all the way back to the northeast, they went to the Carolina mountains...not necessarily a hotbed of culture...but a bit of a cooler climate with more seasonal variation.

Now, two nice things about JAX: they <i>do</i> have some seasonal change for those who want it, AND, and this is a big &quot;and&quot;, they DON'T have Joe Redner and all that he brings to a city...Mons Venus, Tanga Lounge, and a whole <i>host</i> of others whom we must claim. I do believe we are even internationally dubiously famous for this aspect of our &quot;culture&quot;! :-/

I will stay blissfully ignorant of Joe whatshisname then :)

OK, where is the list??
Peanuts was the last thing, hushpuppies? cole slaw? sweet tea? what else?

Patrick, I bet you can stay quite busy even if you retired from designing, with all the people moving to Fl and needing help with their new homes.
Thank goodness I have friends with Gardening and Paint know-how!

I think the boiled peanuts are a low country thing. My born and bred Ashville NC husband never had them until he moved to the beach. He used to hate them until I made him try good ones and now he loves them.

Green peanuts are raw peanuts.

They are the best around the end of April when the new crops come out. We always make tons, let them cook forever and then freeze them. They really freeze well.

Even though I am in South Carolina I am only a couple of hours from Jacksonville, I have never heard it called Jay-actionville.

Quite frankly, the term makes my skin crawl.