Two shots of jamais-vu, please

Peering down the paths not taken; plus biscuits, foxes and home.

When my son was young, he had some minor health issues that required us to travel to Tampa to see specialists. On one such trip, our doctor was tall with long, dark hair and an orange-and-blue UF pin on the lapel of her white coat.

She looked like me and talked like me: constantly gesturing with her hands; laughing easily; fidgeting with her sneakered feet.

It felt like peering into an alternate life, like seeing a snippet of how things could have been had I gone to medical school and done the doctor-thing as I long planned.

I remember feeling dizzy watching her. That funky, karmic swirl of the universe. Like déjà-vu but upside down. Apparently they call this jamais-vu or “never seen” — a glance down the path not taken.

At the Tampa Bay Wine & Food Fest earlier this month, I had that same feeling. I was there visiting friends. The event just happened to fall on the same weekend a young, up-and-coming musician by the name of Taylor Swift was in town.

The city was pure chaos.

Even though the Wine & Food Fest was in downtown Tampa, several miles away from the concert, the area was still packed with Swifties, most of them young, glittery and glowing. Walking through the gates of the festival felt like entering a different world, an older and slightly more serious one with fewer sequins but more booze.

As different worlds go, this one was great. There were endless pours of wines and cocktails, and dozens of restaurants passing out plates upon plates of food. The Friday-night of the event, there was also a Chef Showdown, and on stage to help judge the showdown was Helen Freund, the esteemed food writer and restaurant critic for the Tampa Bay Times.

Cue the swirling.

Back in 2019, I was up for that position. I toured the Times’s offices, met their editors and executives, and lunched with their reporters. I wanted more than anything to take that job. To advance my career in a larger city. To climb the journalism ladder and not look back. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I had — I have — too much tying me to Fort Myers.

Namely two cute kids and a diabetic mother with early-stage dementia who we no longer trust behind the wheel.

Namely two cute dogs and an even cuter husband whose career is in Fort Myers (and who earns slightly (far) more than I ever did in journalism).

I did not get the job. Helen did. And there she was looking happy, healthy and beautiful on center stage.

The thing I’ve learned about jamais-vu is that, if you sit with it for too long, you can lose yourself down a rabbit hole of what-ifs. It’s like a shot of tequila. One or two, properly timed, and you’re golden, centered, able to see the world anew. More than that, and you’re a crumpled mess, half-asleep at Taco Bell, blabbering on about Fourth Meal and asking for the special packets of green sauce.

I know. I know. “I’m here for a reason!” … “I’m where I need to be!” … “Blah blah blah blah!” But really, do I know? I could have kicked ass and saved lives as a doctor. I could be on my way from Tampa to The Washington Post or L.A. Times or San Francisco Chronical.

But I refuse to sit with jamais-vu for too long. My stomach can’t handle Taco Bell like it used to.

Restaurant of the Week

Survey Cafe, Bonita Springs

It doesn’t take long to feel at home at Survey Cafe. It helps that this is a home, or was a home, back when this clapboard cottage was first built in 1940. Now, it’s more like a soul; a heartbeat that tells you downtown Bonita Springs is thriving and very much alive.

You feel that soul in the kind server who seems genuinely happy to take your brunch order at the off-kilter counter. She hands you a table marker with a picture of a fox on it. “For my table of foxes,” she says, winking in a way that tells you she’s hilarious and makes you want to be her friend.

You taste that soul in fluffy omelets, hefty sandwiches and custardy wedges of quiche. In glossy tarts and flaky biscuits and massive carrot-cake muffins piped with thick swirls of cream-cheese frosting.

You hear that soul in the conversations that bloom around you on this creaky wooden porch and at your own table. In the pulse that thrums in your chest with each good bite.

Survey Cafe has soul. It has heart. And Bonita Springs is lucky to be its home.