APALACHICOLA, Fla. - From the start I knew I was going to like Apalachicola. On my first morning in town I joined the line for breakfast at the counter of Café con Leche. The woman in front of me took one look at the freshly baked Apalachicola kumquat and devil’s food cake with fresh ginger and Triple Sec liqueur and ordered a slice. “If you are going to eat a bunch of calories, I say do it early in the day when you have a better chance to work them off,” Caroline Weiler explained.

The logic and the cake were both irresistible. As I dug into my slice, I listened to the mostly local crowd discuss real estate, trash pickup schedules, the seemingly ageless Mick Jagger, church concerts, and American Indian traditions. “I moved here from south Florida 22 years ago,” Weiler told me. “I love it. We’ve got our characters.”