Tag: Sarasota dining

The Local Scene: Culture & Food

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CLASSIC THEATER

Our Town

George, Stage Manager, & Emily (heraldtribune.com)

Most everyone of a certain age has been exposed to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in junior high or high school.  I recall that we read it in English class and may even have acted out a scene or too.  When we were young, many of us (theater folks included) found the whole business dull.  Therefore, I approached the Asolo Theatre production with skepticism.  To my surprise, I enjoyed it much more than I anticipated. 

The staging is spare, and a diverse cast made the residents of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, come alive.  The stage manager describes the layout of the town and introduces us to the main characters, then steps in and out of the drama to move things along or to go back in time.

Yes, the play is dated.  It is set in the early 20th century when milk was still delivered by a horse-drawn wagon, and mothers focused on preparing meals and raising children.  But the themes of love, duty, and death it explores are universal.  The last act, set in the cemetery with the dead talking to one another, delivers a gentle punch to the gut.

Unlike the stilted, formal presentations of this character I remember, Kenn E. Head imbues the stage manager with humor, verve and a bit of sass.  He makes the role, and by extension the play, memorable!  Performances continue through March 26.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

Camron Wright (amazon.com)

I’m currently reading The Rent Collector, a novel for our local book group.  It’s by an author I hadn’t known.  Like the nonfiction work, Beyond the Beautiful Forevers, set in a trash dump near the Mumbai airport, the setting here is also a dump, but in Cambodia.  People live in shacks constructed out of paper and cardboard, and they pick through the trash for items to sell or recycle.  This is a more hopeful work and is also based on real people.  

Sang Ly, the main character is learning to read, and she and her husband Ki Lim and their sickly son Nisay eke out their existence midst this challenging environment.  Winner of several book awards, this is an absorbing and uplifting novel.  (~JWFarrington)

EATING OUT

BOUTIQUE RESTAURANT IN SARASOTA

A Sprig of Thyme

Interior (tripadvisor.com)

This cozy restaurant close to Sarasota Memorial Hospital offers an appealing menu of seafood and meat entrees which should tempt and satisfy any palate.  Friends introduced us, and we were very pleased with our choices.  I ordered Scallops and Shrimp Taulere on a creamy parmesan risotto with a chardonnay wine sauce.  The scallops were large, the shrimp perfectly cooked, and the whole dish saucy in a good way.  The Chief Penguin opted for Saltimbocca of Scallops (sea scallops) being a saltimbocca kind of guy.  

Our friends each ordered the Mediterranean Shipwreck which was a grouper paillard, three jumbo shrimp, and a diver scallop all broiled on a cedar plank.  Most entrees came with asparagus and yellow pepper strips plus a choice of the risotto or mashed potatoes.  Other menu items range from a selection of salads to beef, lamb, duck, veal, and chicken entrees.  Service was both professional and friendly.  We’ll go back!

CASUAL LUNCH FARE IN BRADENTON

Central Café

It was several years ago when we last dined at Central Café.  In the interim, they have expanded their dining room and still serve a great variety of salads, sandwiches, and fries to die for!

Plate of fries (sarasotamagazine.com)

We were there with friends and shared a heap of skinny fries.  Two of us had the Caesar salad with either shrimp or tuna while others ordered the beet salad and the Californication sandwich (made of ahi tuna, bacon, and condiments).  We arrived before noon, and within about fifteen minutes, the place was full!  A perfect place for as much lunch as you’d like.

The Local Scene: Comedy, Food, & Letters

JWF Leave a comment

COMEDY MID MARITAL DISCORD

Grand Horizons

Bill & Nancy struggling to communicate (heraldtribune.com)

The Asolo Theatre seldom fails to present wonderfully designed sets and compelling productions.  Grand Horizons, a comedy from Broadway, showcases Nancy and Bill, a long-married couple.  They have just moved to a retirement community when Nancy announces she wants a divorce.  Initially, her statement gets almost no response from her husband. But when she gets in motion with her plans, their two sons become overly involved in trying to make things whole. The family members argue and fight over past and present slights. Later, Carla, Bill’s punkish “so-called girlfriend” shows up.  

It’s a funny play, but not a perfect one.  I thought some of it was overdone and that Nancy’s character was dated in terms of things she had never done or had, like her own bank account.  Nevertheless, it’s good entertainment and it was well worth returning in person to the theater!   The play runs through April 1.

PRE-THEATER DINING

Ringling Grillroom

Formerly known as Muse, this restaurant in the visitor’s pavilion at the Ringling Museum of Art, has new owners, a new menu, and a lighter brighter interior.  We dined here before seeing Grand Horizons, and the food was very good, a notch or two above what we’d experienced under the old regime.  

We shared the Sicilian calamari appetizer, lightly battered and very tasty. The Chief Penguin enjoyed a Caesar salad along with the ahi tuna poke appetizer.  I sampled the bamboo steamed trigger fish which came on a bed of basmati rice with spinach and artichokes.  The fish was delicate and lovely.  And, because I just couldn’t resist, we ordered a slice of key lime pie to end the meal.  Overall, we were pleased and satisfied.  That means more meals here in the future!

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship:  The Correspondence of E. B. White and Edmund Ware Smith

E. B. White & Edmund W. Smith (downeast.com)

I don’t often read books of letters, but my friend Jill, who also spends time in Maine, gave me this book.  It’s a delightful exchange of views between two writers from 1956 to 1967.  Neither E. B. White nor Edmund Ware Smith was a native Mainer; they both moved there in middle age.  Both loved the outdoors and were natural storytellers.  

Their letters share the details of daily life in the country and dealing with publishers and editors, along with their personal aches and pains.  After a few missives, they graduated from the formal, “Dear Mr.   “, to addressing each other as Whitey and Smitty.  The volume also includes a pair of essays by each of them; one by E.B. White is “The Hen:  An Appreciation,” while “The Outermost Henhouse” is by Edmund Smith.  

My Maine friends will find it noteworthy that this trove of letters was only recently unearthed from a bank vault in Damariscotta.  In 1980, E. B. White gave the letters to the Skidompha Public Library there after the death of Smith’s widow.  Smith and his wife had made their home in Damariscotta.  The library stored the correspondence at the bank for safe keeping, but it was subsequently forgotten.  

When we visit Maine each summer, we are in and out of Damariscotta and always drive or walk by this library.  I’ve long been intrigued by its unusual name, and this year I will go inside.

Note: Header photo is the dining space at the Ringling Grillroom (heraldtribune.com).