Category: Restaurants

Tidy Tidbits: A Melange

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WILDLIFE

One of the pleasures of living on the coast overlooking the water is having nature all around us.  Not only is it  peaceful, but I love seeing the variety of birds that live or find their way here:  Great Egrets, White Ibis, scaups and other ducks, wood storks, herons of several hues, white pelicans, turkey vultures, swifts, and the occasional spoonbill.

Great White Egrets
Great White Egrets
Ibis
Ibis
Wood stork
Wood stork

I knew less about the inhabitants of  the waters of northern Sarasota Bay until we were treated to an excellent presentation on the flora and fauna of this estuary.  Not only do we have red, black and white mangroves lining the shore, but these brackish waters (I always thought it was salt water, but no, it’s a mix of river water and sea water) are home to snook, tarpon and red drum fish and lots of horseshoe crabs.  You can also spot sting rays, sea turtles, and the occasional Bonnet Head Shark.

Horseshoe Crab Remains
Horseshoe Crab Remains

IMG_8170I haven’t always been a nature lover, but working in a science museum that focused on the natural world, made me much more aware of and interested in the life around me.  The  other week, much to my surprise, I happened upon an armadillo—out on a bright sunshiny morning!  As I got closer, it quickly scurried into the bush.

 

 

 

 

CULTURE NOTES

The Sarasota Orchestra racked up another triumph last evening in a sold out concert featuring Israeli violinist Guy Braunstein in an energetic performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major which includes a haunting oboe solo in the second movement.  After intermission, the orchestra gave a rousing rendition of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8.  Under Anu Tali’s baton, the orchestra continues to engage and please its patrons and definitely deserves a concert hall of its own.  We hope that Sarasota and its community leaders will find the wherewithal to make this happen.

The Verdi Cycle has come to an end.  And we ended this year’s Sarasota Opera season with the seldom performed and, we believe never recorded on DVD, performance of The Battle of Legnano.  The plot of this early Verdi opera is somewhat cobbled together and seems a bit silly at times, but, if nothing else, you come away with a sense of fervent patriotism, Viva Italia!  As always, the sets were impressive and there was some wonderful singing.

SMALL SCREEN

Given all that I had read and heard (including a friend’s recommendation) about the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, I decided to give it a try.  I had just completed the 66th and last episode of Gran Hotel, the Spanish series set in 1906, that I’ve been living with for several months.  I got so I was hearing the voices of Dona Teresa, Julio, Javier, Dona Angela, and Alicia echoing in my head and could anticipate every note and swell of the theme music.  It was soap operaish; there were murders and murderers and not everyone was punished; and secrets and coincidences beyond belief, but I’ll miss it!

To be fair, I watched two full episodes of “Orange.”  It is raw, brutal, graphic, and probably somewhat true-to-life in its portrayal of the prison environment as experienced by women.  I found I was more drawn to Piper Chapman’s back story—how this privileged young white woman ended up doing time—and to that of Red, the tough head cook who aspired to be someone of import.  Despite this, it won’t keep me on the treadmill so I’ll be looking for another option.

LUNCHTIME

After hearing a fast-paced presentation on the U. S. military budget, our brains scrambling to keep up with the speaker, we had worked up an appetite.  Lunch at Pho Cali was delicious!  I ordered the rice noodle bowl with chicken.  It brought back warm memories (spicy and nostalgic) of the many days I bought this same Vietnamese dish from the food truck at Penn that was right outside my office window.  Lots of choices here—everything from stir fried chicken or tofu with broccoli or other vegetables to the very spicy lemongrass and shrimp soup that the Chief Penguin sighed over.  We’ll go back for sure.

All photos copyright JWFarrington

Tidy Tidbits: Mothers & Meals

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NOVEL PAIRING

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

I really enjoyed Lee’s first novel, The Piano Teacher, and so approached her new one with enthusiasm.  It too is wonderful, but in a different way.  Set in the present rather than the past, it details the daily lives over the course of a year of three expatriate women living in Hong Kong.  Like Anne Beattie, whose own stories delineate the fine structure of daily life, Lee knows this turf and her novel is rich with references to specific shops, clubs, and neighborhoods.  Two of these women are acquainted at the start (Mercy had worked for Margaret), but by the end all three, Mercy, Margaret, and Hilary, have intersected.

It is a novel mostly about motherhood—the angst of wanting a child, the tentativeness of trying out a child on loan, and the pain of losing a child coupled with, in Margaret’s case, the joys of cuddling and cosseting one’s existing children.  But it’s also a depiction of being an outsider in a culture, even if, like Mercy, you are half Asian.  I felt that Lee kept the reader at a distance from her characters; you knew their lives and habits, but you didn’t inhabit them.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Like Lee, Celeste Ng is a mother as well as a writer.  This first novel, winner of several awards, is a poignant story about a mixed race family in Ohio in the late 1970’s.  Husband James is Chinese American and wife Marilyn, a Caucasian from Virginia.  James and their three children stick out in small town Middlewood and each must deal with being singled out and looking different.  Sixteen year old Lydia bears the heavy weight of unrealistic parental expectations and when she goes missing, the family implodes.  It’s a book that makes one reflect on the sometimes unspoken demands we place on our children to their detriment.  Sobering and yet believable.  Marilyn is something of a Tiger mother.

SARASOTA SAMPLER

Expanding our local dining forays, but, we hope, not our waistlines, we tried two new restaurants this past week.

Yume in downtown Sarasota is a perfect choice for a Japanese lunch.  Among the four of us, we enjoyed several lunch specials:   chicken teriyaki and the eel, accompanied by rice and stir fried vegetables plus a small green salad or miso soup, and the spicy tuna roll with a side of seaweed salad.  Prices are very reasonable and the restaurant was not crowded.  Their longer menu also includes some Thai dishes.

Mozaic.  This is one of Sarasota’s fine dining restaurants (read a bit more expensive) and we ate here before the opera.  The menu is more creative than some other places, and we were pleased with what we ordered.  I thought the sautéed shrimp over lemon risotto was very tasty, and my spouse loved the crab cake salad and his side of lamb merguez sausage.

SMALL SCREEN SCRIBBLES

Mercy Street.  So far, I’d give this series a B, maybe a B+, but not an A.  It’s PBS’s first attempt at this kind of historical series and they just haven’t done it like the Brits do.  I’ve now watched the first three episodes.

Downton Abbey.  I’m mourning the end of Downton Abbey and the finale is still 24 hours away! I thought last week’s episode was one of the best and was particularly struck by the scene between Mary and her grandmother.  The dowager duchess opines about love and its importance in one’s life and then gives her granddaughter a hug.  Hugs are seldom seen between these folks, and I found this one touching and somehow very right.

Sarasota Scene: Music & Movies

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HIGHBROW TO LOW BROW?

In the final year of their Verdi cycle (performing all of Verdi’s music over a period of more than 25 years), the Sarasota Opera presented a beautifully staged Aida.  No live elephants, but gorgeous music, colorful Egyptian sets, good singing, and some lovely dancers.  It was a most enjoyable evening and the time flew by, even with the lengthy intermissions.  We went with friends and beforehand had a convivial dinner at Roast, just down the street.  I like the intimacy of the Sarasota Opera House.  The stage is small, the theater not large, and I am more caught up in the unfolding drama than in larger venues.

Last evening we went very early (I won’t admit to how early or my friends will think I’ve become one of “those” senior citizens) to Cortez Kitchen, our favorite “biker bar.”  It does have a bar, but is really a semi-outdoor eatery that serves local grouper fresh from the boat, shrimp, the occasional burger, and even a few sushi rolls.  The spicy shrimp roll is one of our favorites.  It being the weekend, there was live music; hence a large crowd of diners who arrived early and hung on to their tables until Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones took to the stage.  The band was surprisingly good and obviously has a fan base.  We stuck to our table too!

OSCARS

The Chief Penguin and I have already seen most of the Academy Award nominated films with a few exceptions.  Having read the reviews and seen the trailer, I have no desire to see The Revenant.  I’m afraid that it will win the Best Picture award, but I’m rooting for Spotlight, an excellent film about an important topic, and would be satisfied if any of the other nominees besides The Revenant won.

In the interest of being comprehensive, we watched about 20 minutes of Room last evening on our small screen.  I thought the novel was excellent and Donoghue’s depiction of 5-year old Jack convincing.  But, the film was more painful and so we abandoned it in favor of Trumbo, which we viewed in its entirety.  I hadn’t realized that the blacklisting of screenwriters and movie stars went on for so many years, nor had I known anything about the role Dalton Trumbo played by continuing to write and to submit scripts under others’ names.  Only in the late 1970’s did he get recognition for some of his excellent earlier work.  This is a good film and Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) has been nominated for Best Actor.  You will also enjoy seeing Helen Mirren in elegant suits and large hats as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.

ORCHIDS

To round out our week, we took our Philadelphia friends to Selby Botanical Gardens and were wowed by the impressive orchid display in the conservatory.  Hanging orchids, orchid walls, and orchid vines—a kaleidoscope of colors.  These waxy blooms plus a yummy pink bromeliad made my day!

(All photos by JWFarrington)

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Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Books

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DINING ON THE BEACH

A venue for splurges, Beach Bistro in Holmes Beach has an unbeatable setting—literally on the beach—and a dining room that is charming even when filled to capacity.  And this chef delivers.  The food is delicious, something that isn’t always paired with a fabulous view.  We were with good friends and had a table almost at the window, perfect for watching the rolling waves and marveling at the tangerine sunset.  Especially tasty were the roast scallops in a bouillabaisse sauce and the spiny lobster done like escargots with a pinch of sautéed spinach.

MUSIC CONVERSATIONS

There seems to be a focus on opera in the Music Mondays series this year.  This past week we had the pleasure of hearing from Joseph Volpe, former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera.  Mr. Volpe spent his entire career there beginning as an apprentice carpenter and then working his way up the trade ladder to master carpenter and then to assistant manager and so on.  As a child, he spent hours listening to opera recordings with his grandmother.  This, coupled with a bent for things mechanical, helps explain his unusual career path.  It was informative to hear his observations on working with the various singers and how he negotiated with them and their agents to determine what operas might be in the next season’s offerings.  Now retired, Mr. Volpe lives in the Sarasota area and just agreed to take on an interim leadership role with the Sarasota Ballet.

READING THE MORBID

Death is high on the bestseller charts this season.  Years ago, surgeon Sherwin Nuland, now deceased, wrote a fascinating book entitled How We Die, and I had the honor of hosting him for a lecture in San Francisco.  More recently, Atul Gawande, one of my favorite New Yorker staff writers and also a physician, gave us Being Mortal, a compelling and thought-provoking account of end-of life stories and how families and physicians either ignore, or don’t make the effort to understand, what the dying patient would like.  This book was enriched by Gawande’s inclusion of his own father’s last illness.

The newest books detail the untimely deaths of individuals who are far too young.  When Breath Becomes Air is Paul Kalanithi’s account of his battle with Stage 4 lung cancer.  A neurosurgeon in his late thirties, Kalanithi faces and describes his transition from doctor to patient.  He was someone who had a lifelong curiosity about death and what might be most memorable here are his ponderings about the meaning of life, what makes for a good life, and the decision to create new life, as he and his wife have a child after his diagnosis.  For more, here’s an interview he did in 2014, the year before he died.

The Iceberg by Marion Coutts is the wrenching account of her writer husband Tom Lubbock’s decline and then death after he is diagnosed with a brain tumor.  As her spouse begins losing words, their young son Ev (initially 18 months old) is embracing the world and words as he acquires language.  Coutts is an artist and I am finding her style somewhat too theatrical (who am I to judge, really, since I have never been in her shoes?), but believable nonetheless.  In some ways, it’s the harder book for me.

WHODUNIT?

As a change of pace, I’ve been mildly diverted by Walter Walker’s novel, Crime of Privilege.  Although the book cover reviews call it a thriller, that’s overstating the case.  It’s really a story of a murder investigation by a young assistant DA, set on Cape Cod in the context of the wealthy and powerful Gregory family who can silence people and pressure the police.  George Becket, the lawyer, has a guilty conscience over his own inaction years before in the face of a crime in Palm Beach and wonders if his life and position have all been a set-up.  The precipitating events are clear echoes of those involving the Kennedys.

COLORING FUN!

I included these mostly for Sally and to show the variety of images one can color.

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