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Restoring McKee Botanical Garden  Vero Beach, Florida     By Leigh Fulghum

The Spanish Kitchen

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Directly opposite the west-facing balcony of the Hall of Giants is the Spanish Kitchen, famed for its marvelous old-time Florida cookouts. Weekends cooks in white uniforms would prepare scores of steaks on the triple grill with its huge chimney. The men drank to the hum of
mosquitoes while the potatoes roasted slowly to perfection and mingled with the scent of night-blooming orchids and sulfur from the artesian well.
sk3.JPG (25617 bytes) Sexton's original finishing materials had an ancient quality to them, the result of his utilizing odds and ends of his personal collections. Time was tough on his collages during the years of abandonment and it is now a difficult design task to recreate the patina  that was so distinctly "Waldo."
sk1.JPG (27702 bytes) Preparation areas will be slightly modernized in the new Spanish Kitchen which people will be able to reserve for events in the Garden's romantic and historical setting. It will probably be preferred that no cooking actually be done in the new Spanish Kitchen, and that parties arrive complete with caterers.

The Sixties

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