“I am absolutely not going in here to eat.” I am usually a great food researcher, but I had made a terrible mistake, and now we were parked outside an enormous deserted mall in Crystal River, Florida (population 3,108). Looking up at the old bricks and the huge K-Mart sign, my fantasies of fried oysters and jambalaya began to drift away. I was starving, but my survival instinct would not permit this.