On a slow Monday . . .

Taste of Key West was Monday night at Truman Waterfront, with 50 of the city's restaurants offering nibbles and 80 vineyards serving sips to benefit AIDS Help.

It's the group's biggest single fundraiser of the year, bringing in about $100,000 in a few crowded hours.

We ran into the entire crew from the bank, plus Martin, Dave, Deco, Dee, Mike, Vie, Big Bob and the Mrs. and kid, two city commissioners and a few thousand others, and watched the sun go down from the Coast Guard Cutter USS Mohawk, which patroled the pitching North Atlantic with 100-plus intrepid sailors jammed aboard in World War II, and is now a floating museum moored out there at the end of Southard Street.

They ran out of this year's commemorative wineglasses and T-shirts almost instantly, and food soon after. The Outback folks kept blowing the breaker on their deep-fryer, so several hundred pounds of coconut shrimp slowly turned into cat chow.

So we made our way to Virgilio's, which was almost as crowded as the quay, and made dinner out of olives, specially marinated, and listened to a bit of music.

As usual, Key West tasted great.