
You picked a fine wine to dine me, Lucille – Jeremy Kaye, Gallo Hearty Burgundy and Escargot a la Miami
One of my two closest friends, Jeremy Kaye (the other is his brother Joel, but don’t tell him that or he’ll try to get me to buy him lunch) told me a few years ago during the land crash that he was condo shopping in Florida “because I’m Jewish, so I know I’ll end up down there eventually; why not get a bargain now?” That kinda, sort of made sense, before I heard of the cow-throttling pythons infesting the place and, now, foot-long, sex-crazed giant snails that pierce tires and devour houses. Oh, and just to make them even more appealing, they carry rat lungworm, which is surely as bad as it sounds.
Today, Miami is simply overrun with the things. Not only do the giant snails chow on some 500 economically important plants in the area, they’re devouring houses. It seems they have a taste for stucco, which contains precious calcium. Without a ready supply of the stuff to fuel their amazing growth, they’ll simply turn on each other — at least in captivity.