November 17, 2019

CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF WBBT

Nate Jacobs and WBBT Company

Tomorrow (Monday) join the celebration, as West Coast Black Theatre Troupe celebrates 20 years of live entertainment.  The place to be is the Van Wezel Monday November 18, as Nate Jacobs and performers past and present sing and dance the songs that makes this theatre one of the best attended in Sarasota.

Good seats remain starting at $35 to $200 which includes performance and after party.  Call 941-366-1505 or WBBT box office 1012 N.Orange.

Tickets are going fast for the 46th annual Singing Christmas Tree.  First Sarasota Baptist Church and its member choir perform all your favorites in this Sarasota tradition.  First date is December 4 at 7:00pm, with matinee and evening performances ending December 11.

Adult tickets are $15.00, while children

under 12 are priced at $10.00. They are available at the church lobby ticket office 1670 Main Street  10:00AM-1:00PM, or by phone at 888-884-5272 from 9:00AM-5:00PM Monday thru Friday.  For those of you who love Christmas music, this is an event not to be missed.

An article in

Sarasota Singles Enjoying Sarasota

Wednesday's Herald caught my eye...Five Florida Cities make list for singles....Guess what?  Sarasota was not one of them, to no one's surprise.  Our neighbor to the north, Tampa, was one of the winners, along with Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tallahassee.  Since Sarasota is not a singles paradise, we'll take our Best Place To Live #1 ranking and move on.


Continuing two more weeks is this year's Sarasota Medieval Fair.  Running weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) 10am-5pm.  Conveniently located at Ringling Woods behind the Fairgrounds with ample parking at Fairgrounds.   There are several ticket packages available online at www.Sarasota MedievalFair.com , and by purchasing online and using Discount Code JOANSRQ you get a $3 discount off each ticket. Be prepared for continuous entertainment, pub food, beer and exhibits with a Medieval theme.

There's a reason we keep going back to some of Sarasota's older restaurants.....good food, good service, and fair pricing.  This past week we visited one for brunch and the other dinner.

 Since opening in 2011, Toasted Mango, 430 N. Tamiami Trail has been serving breakfast and lunch 7 days a week 7:00 am-3:00pm.  The menu has not changed much in their 8 years, nor has the service; in fact, based on our meal this past week, they are even better than remembered.  The scrambled egg-white omelette was perfect as were the fries, fruit and home-made biscuit.  Writing this, I have the urge to go again this weekend.

Mango Egg Before Scramble

Tables turn over quickly, so even on most busy days, the wait is not long; and if you can call ahead at 941-388-7728 most days you can walk right in to a table.  One word of caution; Mango's parking lot is small, and street parking can be difficult during the week, but walking a block is a small price to pay for a reasonably priced meal.

For dinner with two other couples we chose Mediterraneo 1970 Main St.  Since opening in 1996, Mediterraneo  has been serving contemporary Northern Italian style cuisine, and though others have attempted to do the same, and still do, Mediterraneo does it consistently better!  From pasta to pizza to seafood, you won't go away hungry.  The meal starts with bread and bread stick basket and ends with their homemade biscotti.

Open for lunch and dinner for casual or special dinning there is no better location than Mediterraneo. To make your experience even better, sit in their back room with Amy as your server.

This year's recently concluded Cine World Film Festival showcased several movies being released in the next few weeks.   The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce is a true story taken from 2012 headlines when Pope Benedict retired.  The Report, which has had no advance publicity until Thursday's NY Times insert stars Annette Bening, Adam Driver and John Hamm.  Both films should be in Academy Award conversation early next year.

Good news for those of you who have Amazon Prime and Netflix!  Report will be streaming on Prime later this month, and Pope debuts on Netflix in December.
 

Now in its 30th year, Cine World sadly has now grown but regressed, as attendance, except for Popes, was abysmal for most of the screenings I saw.  With little promotion, and less word of mouth, it didn't surprise me.



JIM'S RANT....For many years I have driven by Booker High School and wondered what was inside all those impressive buildings.   This week I had a chance to see for myself, as Roberta and I were treated to a tour.  Booker could easily pass as a college with building after building of classrooms, labs, gymnasium and athletic fields far surpassing any high school I've ever been to.  And everyone we met from students to teachers to principals were first rate.  One more "attraction" that makes me fortunate to live here.....JIM.....thanks for reading....see you next week.

 Library

Entrance to Booker

Gymnasium