In the north in the summer people give you zucchinis. In South Florida they give you mangoes.
At the bar of the pizzeria, the man next to Hania asked where she was from. On hearing her answer, he began listing his favorite Polish directors.
32 East is closing its doors, after almost 30 years on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, to be replaced by Louie Bossi's.
For years my complaint about Ft. Lauderdale was that practically every new restaurant was an Italian restaurant. Now something more irritating is happening in South Florida: practically every new restaurant is an already existing restaurant. It used to be that every main street had to have a Kilwin's; now apparently each will have a Louie Bossi's, a Rocco's Tacos, and whatever the local iteration of Big City Tavern is. In the age of diversity, South Florida - at least its culinary scene - is embracing uniformity.
I spoke last night at the Wilton Manors Public Library, one of a handful of public libraries that are not a part of the Broward County library system, and the final question of the evening was not a question, it was a statement, delivered by a white-haired woman who wore a look of disgust on her face: "The Sun-Sentinel Travel section is awful."
Memories of the Miami Open – which started as The Lipton more than three decades ago – as it begins its final year on Key Biscayne:
“Checking the electronic schedule in the middle of Crandon Park that first Saturday, I realized that it resembled a departures board at an international airport that, for some strange reason, was displaying surnames instead of destinations: Van Roost. Likhovtseva. Dragomir. Li. Enqvist. Costa. Philippoussis. Campbell. Prieto. Vinck. Appelmans. Halard-Decugis. Sawamatsu. Brandi. In that septet of singles matches (only a small sampling of the long day’s duels) you had, I figured, the representation of at least a dozen countries and possibly five continents. The world was spread out on hardcourt before me.”
….
“Tennis globalism was beautifully captured a little while later when Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden met Leander Paes of India. It would be difficult to think of two more diverse countries, yet there on the same court, in vaguely similar outfits (Bjorkman’s decidedly baggier) and with almost identical weaponry, the two men stood separated only by a net. During one of the changeovers – as if underscoring the benign exoticism of the meeting – a giant iguana scurried across the court.”
from “Love on the Key” from A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Traveler.