Tidy Tidbits: The Local Scene

 

This was a fun week filled with theater, opera, dinners out and in, and long conversations with old and new friends.

SMALL SCREEN

After war in early 20th century Morocco, I’ve taken up a Kiwi crime series.  The Brokenwood Mysteries (available on Acorn) are set on the North Island in a very small fictional town of the same name.  Detective Mike Shepherd is new to the area and has two junior colleagues, Kristin Sims and D.C. Breen.   Often turning up to provide background information and assistance is Jared Morehu, a young Maori man who doubles as a handyman.

Murder is on the docket whether it be drowning in a wine vat, dying on a golf course, collapsing on stage, or cast adrift on the sea.  With four ex-wives and a bit of the city around the edges, Shepherd is passionate about country music and always has a cassette tape or two to pop in when he hops into his car.  These episodes are long, an hour and a half each, but I’m caught up in the experience of life and death in this beautiful somewhat rural area.

NOT TO BE MISSED

Rhinoceros at the Asolo Theater.  Ionesco’s absurdist play, first presented in 1959, has a simple plot line, but raises challenging questions for our time.  How does one remain an individual and true to one’s values when everyone around you is joining the herd?  Creatively staged and wonderfully acted, this production is both humorous and thought-provoking.  We had the added pleasure of seeing this with good friends from Philadelphia.

As a graduate student, the Chief Penguin was a volunteer usher in Boston for five nights when the Metropolitan Opera came to town.  He credits that performance of Bellini’s Norma, starring Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne, with sparking his love of opera.  Earlier this week, we were at the Sarasota Opera’s production of Norma, and it was wonderful!  The singing is not quite the level of those divas, but it was very good, especially Joanna Parisi as Norma.  The staging was also nicely done.  There are more performances of both Norma and Rhinoceros.

 

PRE-THEATER DINING

Two of our favorites for pre-performance dining are Muse at the Ringling and Louie’s Modern in downtown Sarasota.  Muse is consistently very good for both lunch and dinner, and we’ve recently enjoyed both.  The quesadilla is a frequent choice of the C.P., and I’m partial to their salads, particularly the green salad topped with grilled chicken and their Caesar.  In the evening, entrees include trout, salmon, and short ribs plus they have crab cakes, always good, as an appetizer.  Service is pleasant and efficient almost to the point of briskness. But they do want to be sure you make it in time for your play!

It’s “the season” as they say, so Louie’s is again offering their Modern Theater Menu (3 courses) for $30.  It’s a good deal!  The portions are a nice size and for each course there is a choice among three options.  We’ve eaten this menu twice recently and the North Palm salad with grapefruit is a light starter, while the salmon with couscous and the chicken breast are both excellent.  The chicken is accompanied by a silky mascarpone polenta and root vegetables.  Dessert offerings include a warm chocolate cake and polenta cake with berries, both of which we’ve sampled.  Muse and Louie’s are both part of the Tableseide group so there can be a bit of overlap between the menus—one example being the delicious and attractively presented burrata with heirloom tomatoes on a coral Himalayan salt block.  

WHAT I’M READING

Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells. Watch for more about this 1909 novel about a modern young woman in a future blog.

 

 

 

Notes:  Brokenwood image from all3mediainternational.com, principals in Norma from mysuncoast.com, and burrata photo from sarasotafoodies.com.  Header photo ©JWFarrington.

Tidy Tidbits: Food for Body & Soul

RESTAURANTS.  I’m passionate about food and love dining at casual places, fancy restaurants, and even at home.  Here are my takes on several local restaurants, two new ones, one repeat.

DINING FIND

Element in downtown Sarasota is part of Duval’s group of restaurants and is their upscale dining spot.  We went for dinner on a Saturday night and it was moderately full when we arrived.  The space is elegant and contemporary in the way that Louie’s Modern is, and the menu, like Louie’s, pushes the Sarasota envelope beyond the traditional.  There are lots of good restaurants in our region, but most of them skew toward standard fare; therefore, it’s refreshing that Element offers creative cuisine in the form of small plates and sharing plates as well as full size entrees.  And if you are a serious carnivore, there are a number of sizes of filets, strip steaks and pork chops, as well as the option to pre-order a whole suckling pig.  Talk about sharing!

Robert, our waiter, was pleasant and knowledgeable and provided good service.  Another staff member, the new assistant manager from DC, stopped by the table see how we were enjoying our food—a plus for service.  Overall the food was very good!  The bread was warm and came with two flavored butters, and the charred radicchio was excellent as was the caprese salad with homemade burrata and lovely wedges of heirloom tomatoes.  We followed these dishes with the swordfish, crab meat, and potato cake which was very tasty and the pork agnolotti.  The pasta was chewy (it shouldn’t have been), but the tomato sauce was nicely thick with chunks of pork.

The Chief Penguin liked the look of his Old Fashioned as soon as he saw the single large ice cube, and I enjoyed my glass of Chardonnay, a generous pour fitting the price.  On the house, we sampled the apple cake which was lovely.  We were shown to a table in a side area all by ourselves, but overall, we enjoyed a very nice meal and will return.

NEW ITALIAN ON CORTEZ ROAD  

We dined with friends at Eat Organico in one of the little strip malls in Bradenton (the one with Thai Palace) and thought the food was very good.  Several of us sampled their veal preparations—with mushrooms, the piccata, and saltimbocca.  This is real veal—paper thin and tasty!  The house salad had a slightly tangy Thousand Island-like dressing, and there was also a Caesar salad.  Others in our group enjoyed penne with salmon and zucchini and penne Bolognese.  Most entrees came with a choice of penne or spaghetti with tomato sauce.  The sauce was good, but not stellar.  Portions are modest size, but fine for us.

It was a Friday night and other tables were occupied, but not all.  Service was slow and a bit ragged as it took a very long time to get our salads, let alone the glasses of wine we’d ordered.  I’ll chalk this up to it being a new place that hasn’t yet worked out all the kinks.  Will definitely give them a second go!

RETURN VISIT

It’s been awhile since we last ate at The Coolinary in Sarasota and decided it was time to go back.  The Chief Penguin had praise for their Old Fashioned and I tried a Chardonnay I hadn’t had before.  The signature dishes here are Hungarian.  The C.P. sampled the slightly spicy sausage which was excellent, and I had their chicken in paprika sauce with homemade spaetzle— lovely comfort food.  We began with an order of the cauliflower fritters with blue cheese dipping sauce and a tray of toasted nuts and blistered shishito peppers, the peppers a favorite of ours. The owner stopped by the table several times, and we were treated to a taste of sweet wine with the Dobos torte we’d ordered.  We remembered why we like this restaurant and vowed that even though it’s on the second floor, we should frequent it more often.

 

READING:  LATE IN LIFE ROMANCE? 

Author George Eliot, in real life, Marian Evans, was George Lewes’ common-law wife for twenty-five years.  After Lewes’ death, at the age of 60, she married Johnnie Cross, a young man of 40.  In order to avoid calling attention to themselves, they left London to honeymoon in Venice.  

The Honeymoon, a novel by Dinitia Smith, is a recounting of that fateful honeymoon, but even more Marian’s reflecting on her life from childhood to young womanhood to old age.  The novel is thoroughly researched, and the reader learns about all the prominent men Marian was acquainted with (philosopher Herbert Spencer and publisher John Chapman, just two examples), as well as those with whom she was intimate—either by choice or seduction.  It’s an engrossing portrait of a woman who, not beautiful, but very accomplished and literate, craved love and attention.

 

 

SAXY TIME  

One of the pluses of the Sarasota-Bradenton area is the number of concerts presented at local churches.  Many of them have regular music series.  This week we were at a concert by the Washington Saxophone Quartet at First United Methodist Church.  I didn’t know there was this kind of group, but I like the sax and thought it would be fun.  WSaxQ is celebrating its 41st year and, if people know it, but don’t know they do, it’s because the quartet provides the theme and interlude music for NPR’s All Things Considered.  They play music from all eras and deliberately work not to sound like saxophones!

The members of the quartet have each played in one of the US military bands for part of their career.   Among them was a soprano sax, straight with no bell and shaped more like a clarinet; an alto sax of a beautiful copper color; a tenor sax with a prominent bell; and lastly, a seriously big baritone sax.  The concert included music by Bach, Gabrieli, Ravel, Leonard Bernstein, and Duke Ellington among others.  Tenor sax player Rich Kleinfeldt  provided chatty and informative commentary about the pieces and the group.  It was a most enjoyable afternoon.

Note:  Eat Organico photo from TripAdvisor.com; Evans and tenor sax images from Wikipedia.

Tidy Tidbits: Arts & Video

SUNNY ISLES

We made a brief trip south this past week to visit some very good friends who spend about two months on Captiva.  Captiva and its larger, more commercial neighbor, Sanibel, are lush with greenery, crowded during this season, and strung out between a bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  Pretty great venue for escaping winter’s grip and wiggling your toes in the soft sand.

We enjoyed a relaxing 24 hours which included a stroll on the beach, browsing the Tuesday farmers’ market for breakfast pastries, and dinner at The Mad Hatter.  This popular restaurant was packed with diners and the food was fabulous.  From tasty Caesar salads, we advanced to rack of lamb, black truffle dusted dayboat scallops, and gulf snapper in a stew of cherry tomatoes, artichokes, and little neck clams.  It was a memorable visit!

CULTURE NOTES

The Global Affairs lecture this week was a winner with former U.S. Representative Mickey Edwards speaking on the topic, “Does the Constitution Still Matter to Us?’  The Chief Penguin and I had heard him several times in Aspen and found him thoughtful; he delivered again.  Later in the week, we were at a Sarasota Orchestra concert.  Michael Balke, a young German guest conductor, was very good and seemed in sync with the players, but we were underwhelmed by violinist Midori’s performance.  We didn’t particularly care for the Bernstein piece she performed, and she seemed disengaged from the audience.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Sticking to my daily treadmill routine requires an engaging series.  Here are the latest two I’ve watched.

Morocco:  Love in Time of War (Netflix)  

This series is set in the Spanish city of Melilla bordering Morocco.  The year is 1921, and the Spaniards are at war with the native Berbers.  It focuses on the dame nurses and the doctors who work in the Melilla’s Red Cross hospital.  The nurses, overseen by a stalwart duchess and friend of the queen, are from upper class families in Madrid.  Working in a war zone requires a level of stamina and flexibility they could never have conjured up.

The series is dubbed, and the dubbing takes some getting used to, but I enjoyed this slice of Spanish history and all the romantic entanglements between nurses and doctors.  Fiancés show up, engagements and marriages are tested, and all the while, injured soldiers continue to be brought to the hospital.  The duchess does battle with the colonel in charge of the base and even the queen shows up to inspect.

Love, Lies, and Records (Acorn)  

This British series takes place in the records office in Leeds.  (Apparently, people in England need to come in person to register births and deaths, something most Americans can do online.)  I liked this series but didn’t love it.  Some of it is funny as much of life in this office is chaotic and crazy in the most unprofessional way.  Interim registrar Kate Dickinson deals with a transgender colleague, engaged couples with immigration issues, and a distraught young widower.  In her personal life, she is torn between Rob, her longtime partner and father of her children, and Rick, her colleague and lover.  I watched it all, but don’t know that I’ll return if there’s a Season 2.

Notes:  Morocco image from Netflix, Love, Lies image from next-episode.com

Tidy Potpourri

BIRDS

This week we’ve had several early morning low tides with a wide expanse of mud.  Perfect for the birds.  One day there was a flotilla of pelicans (white ones in a ring), the usual gulls, several groups of ibis with their heads and beaks mostly in the down position, and far out in the water a dense cluster of ducks.  Other days, I’ve watched a lone great white egret or two just standing still or a great blue heron stalking the water’s edge.  This morning it was a bright pink sherbet spoonbill by itself bobbing and darting its head into the water foraging for food.

(broadwayworld.com)

PROVOCATIVE COMEDY

Reactions to Asolo Theater’s Morning After Grace were mixed.  Some didn’t like it much and others didn’t need to see the lead character’s “naked ass.”  Actually, said actor was nicely toned.  All that aside, I liked this play and thought it was funny and very well done.  And it had a touching theme about all of us needing to be appreciated and loved, no matter our age.

It’s a three-character play with Angus, a new widower; Abigail, a grief counselor who has also been divorced for three years; and Ollie, a retired pro baseball player who also happens to be gay.  Their ages are 70, 62, and 68, respectively, which is key to the actions of the play. It’s a bit slow at the start with a few too many racy jokes, but these are probably needed to set up the extended dialogue that follows.  Overall, I recommend it!

 

WONDERFUL NOVEL

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

I loved this 500+ page novel!  And my librarian and archivist friends would find it fascinating too.  It’s about being a female academic in the 21st century, about doing scholarly research using primary documents, and about the Portuguese Jews who left that country for Amsterdam in the late 17th century, some of whom then emigrated to London.  One 17th century London resident is Ester, a young woman who, contrary to all the allowed roles for women, is tasked with being a scribe for a blind rabbi.  She is very smart and begins to question the rabbi’s views of the faith.

I admired the level of detail and the elegant and nuanced portrayal of the three main characters:  unmarried professor Helen Watt, soon to be retired; Aaron Levy, the somewhat conceited, but also confused doctoral student; and the accomplished and tortured Ester, who though ruled by her intellect, still contemplates passion and love.  There is a mystery to solve about Ester and it is this which drives Helen and Aaron’s laborious journey through a newly discovered trove of letters and manuscripts.

(miamibookfair.com)

In reading about Ms. Kadish, I discovered that she had an unusual speech impediment growing up that made it almost impossible for her to say certain letter combinations.  She learned to be very deliberate in her speech and to think ahead about different words to use other than the ones that would trip her up.  But, when she took pen to paper, she was liberated and could freely use any word she chose.  Perhaps that’s partly why this novel is very long.  I found it compelling, engrossing, and informative as I knew nothing about this aspect of Jewish history. (~JW Farrington)

 

Note:  Spoonbill header photo from carolinabirdclub.org