It's November Again!
By Margit Bisztray, Food Critic

It's November again: a month I am thankful for.

This is when my northern friends and relatives start moaning about this "rainy, cold, brown, dreary month" that opens the long winter ahead. I totally remember it: November feels like an eternity broken by Thanksgiving, which takes on the role of a pre-hibernation meal.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at sparkling clear, Florida-November skies. Do tourists know how great a month this is to travel to Florida? It's beautiful, breezy, not too hot and not too cold, and there aren't many tourists! If I could pick the best months in Florida, they would be May and November. It feels like my own private secret, except anyone who lives here feels the same giddy insider knowledge. This is still the month when restaurants are so happy to seat you and let you sit as long as you'd like, and when the owners and bartenders still have time to sit and talk to you, but everyone's back from their September/October vacations, it isn't too hot to move, and the snowbirds are all moving back for the winter, stirring their money and enthusiasm into the local mix.

This is also, of course, the month of Thanksgiving–––a holiday I've always enjoyed because it revolves around food and not a bunch of gifts or decorations to buy (gourd centerpieces and paper accordion pilgrims notwithstanding), and because it centers on the idea of gratitude and the communal table. It feels so easy to share during Thanksgiving (unlike the December holidays, when it just feels expensive). I sent $12 to a Miami mission, which promised to feed six homeless people Thanksgiving dinner for that amount. Six people for $12? How easy is that?

Since both my parents are European, they didn't come bundled with Thanksgiving traditions to pass along. What we always did was get invited to Other People's Thanksgiving Dinners. Besides the fact that my parents always had very nice friends who liked to have us over for dinner anyway, I think there was also an element of "share our American culture with the European immigrants," because my parents were very curious and grateful and always contributed bottles of the year's Beaujolais Nouveau (which is an excellent tip, by the way, as it pairs perfectly with Thankgiving's motley mix of flavors). I don't think we ever went anywhere twice, so no Thanksgiving dinner was ever the same. But some were better than others.

And what this did was make me a bit of a Thanksgiving brat. As in: I want to go where the best food is, not where it's the most polite or dutiful to go. I've always piggybacked on other people's Thanksgiving dinners based on which place I was invited to would have the best food. Here in Key West, we do it potluck style. We get together with our closest friends at whoever's house has the most room, and we all make what we feel like and share buying an organic turkey. This year, for my part, I'm making Brussels sprouts with roasted chestnuts, roasted vanilla-maple glazed carrots, a mushroom stuffing and a brown butter pumpkin pie. I don't know who's bringing the Beaujolais yet.

NOTE: Margit Bisztray has been reviewing restaurants and writing about food for ten years. She has published three editions of The Complete Key West Dining Guide, and her work has appeared in such publications as Vogue, Gourmet, Islands and Metropolitan Home. To read more restaurant reviews, log your own personal opinions, rate your favorite restaurants and watch streaming video archives of these shows and other reviews, visit Margit's Top 5.

May & November are our favorite months, too!
In May, it's plenty warm enough for us Northerners & the beaches aren't overly crowded yet.
This will be our 3rd Thanksgiving in a row spent in PCB and we're getting anxious. It gets a little cool at night, but we don't care!