As Mike drove down the road toward the restaurant, I said, “It’s too dark to see the old section of Mandarin right now, and in truth there’s not that much to see anymore. Mandarin’s chief claim to fame is that in 1867 the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, bought a cottage here. For the next seventeen winters, she welcomed tourists debarking from the steamers making their way down the St. Johns River and charged them seventy-five cents each to meet her and admire her surroundings.”
My recitation lasted until we reached the restaurant parking lot. Inside the restaurant, we were shown to a small banquet room, where we found six of our wine friends already standing around, sipping wine, and inspecting an array of bottles on an empty table. We took our bottles to the table an
