“The Artist” is a charming movie, deserving of all the Golden Globes awards it received, and then some.  (Watching that otherwise uninspired awards show, who wouldn’t want to see the movie after Uggie the Dog took to the stage with the rest of the cast and got the biggest laugh of the night?)  By all means, see this movie, and see it on the big screen, as my dear husband and I did recently.  As a tribute to moviemaking and movie stars before “talkies”, it should be seen as it might have been back then, when going to the movies was a Big Event and a reason to get dressed up.  (For those of you who loathe the inevitable audio input from uncouth audience members, “The Artist”, a mostly silent movie, was so engrossing that the audience was silent!)   Better yet, if you are fortunate enough to live anywhere near one of this country’s remaining movie palaces from that era, see it there.

We saw “The Artist” in just such a movie palace, the legendary Tampa Theatre.  There is one shot in “The Artist” taken from the vantage point of the stage of a similar theater, looking out at the packed house.  My immediate reaction, looking at the rows of cloche-hatted flappers and their Brillantined male companions gazing raptly at the screen, was “That’s us!”  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Tampa Theatre is at its best before the lights go down.  

Venice, Florida is a great little town.  True, it does have the reputation of being “God’s Waiting Room”, along with other towns favored by midwestern retirees up and down the Gulf Coast, but it’s got incredible retro charm.  And, it’s got a diner, which is a rare thing in these parts.   The Lucky Dog is a Valentine Diner that was delivered from the company in Wichita to a little triangular sliver of property between Tamiami Trail and The Rialto in 1955.  (From a website devoted to Valentine Diners, it looks like some version of a Dyne-Quick, part of their line of “portable steel sandwich shops”.)

This diner was christened the Bel-Bree, after its owners, the Breedings.  Originally silver stainless steel trimmed in red and white, it was a local landmark - a real "old school" diner and community gathering spot for 39 years.  But after "Mama Carrie" Breeding, died in 1994, it changed hands, and names, a few times.  In 2007, it was purchased by its current owners, Alan Laskowski, a local chef who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and his sister Dawn Surak.  They've given the place a makeover with a bright, lime green exterior, tropical colors on the inside, and a funky mid-century vibe.  It's a tiny place, just 28 seats, and it has a miniscule  kitchen that is too small for an ice machine or a conventional oven.  Luckily, ice can be carried over from Laskowski's other restaurant nearby, the menu does not suffer for lack of that stove, and the close quarters actually create a nice sense of intimacy as waitstaff and customers wiggle around each other.

Hot dogs are the big feature on the menu, twelve different varieties.  My dear husband tried the sauerkraut, and I had a chili dog.  They were good, almost as good as the guilty pleasure of eavesdropping on the gaggle of local ladies dishing about their upcoming 50th high school reunion at the next table.  (One of their classmates is still gossiping about who was dating whom back then, and she just needs to move on!)  While some purists may grumble about the redecoration, apparently the locals still love the place....  As for me, I can't wait to go back to sample more of their menu items, which include health-conscious items (a Boca burger), gourmet treats (grilled cheese on sourdough with basil and tomatoes), and one of my favorite foods on the planet (Philly pork roll breakfast sandwich - guilty pleasure goodness).  There are pancakes, omelets, eggs aplenty, and biscuits and gravy for the breakfast crowd, as well as burgers, fries, shakes and apple pie a la mode to keep the traditionalists happy at midday.  (I was tickled to see "Root Beer, Dreamsicle, or Creamsicle Float" on the breakfast menu - woo hoo!)

As a Gulf Coast girl, I heartily recommend a visit to Venice.  Be sure to check out the city's new Venetian Waterway Park lining both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway, the studio and gallery of legendary nature photographer Clyde Butcher, the charming downtown shopping area, and the fabulous beaches.  (It's the Shark's Tooth Capital of the World!)  And be sure to have a meal - or two! - at Lucky Dog.  Tell 'em Flo sent you.

The Lucky Dog Diner: http://www.theluckydogdiner.com/
Valentine Diners:  http://www.kshs.org/p/history-of-valentine-diners/10396
Venice Mainstreet: http://www.venicemainstreet.com/
Clyde Butcher: http://www.clydebutcher.com/

Much has been written lately about Disneyworld’s 40th Anniversary, officially observed at the park with a ceremony at Cinderella’s Castle on October 1st.  On the USA Today site, I found news photos of various “suits” onstage with Mickey and Minnie, along with a far more telling one of a line of “guests” outside of a Main Street bakery that stretched down the street, all of them waiting for a 40th Anniversary cupcake.  The endless queue was a familiar sight.

Surfing on to the DisneyParks blog site, I also found a rather charming commemorative map of the original Magic Kingdom that brought back memories of my own first trip to Disneyworld, back when I was a teenager and recent Florida transplant living in Miami.  Sometime in those first few years the park was open, my family made the pilgrimage for a vacation that was, in fact, quite magical.  (At that time, an adult admission ticket was $3.50.  One also had to purchase ride tickets, which were sold in booklets of 7 for $4.75 or 11 for $5.75.)

I never met a buffet I didn’t like, and one of my favorites, back in the day, was BuddyFreddy’s in Plant City, Florida.  In business since 1954, Elton and Evelyn Johnson’s place evolved from a gas station that sold sandwiches into the favorite of locals and tourists alike for Southern comfort food, served buffet style.  We made many pilgrimages as a family for their righteous Southern breakfast feast: eggs, waffles, French toast, pancakes, bacon, sausage, grits, home fries, consumed in a large gracious room decorated with the glorious large-scale paintings of John Briggs.   TImes change, though, as did the fortunes of this restaurant.  The restaurant was sold, there was expansions, then the other locations closed.  Folks said that BuddyFreddy’s just wasn’t the same.  We no longer made the trek to Plant City for breakfast.

Then, there was good news.  The Johnson family was back in the restaurant business when Elton and Evelyn’s son Fred Johnson and his wife Tammy opened another buffet-based restaurant, Fred’s Farm Market.  Being situated right next door to the State Farmer’s Market in Plant allowed Fred and Tammy to get fruits and vegetables “as fresh as it gets” for the restaurant.  On our first family outing, we were not disappointed.

As my dear husband and I drove along on an epic day trip through small-town Central Florida, today, we heard wonderful news on NPR, that the Secretary of the Interior has proposed the creation of a new national wildlife refuge and conservation area of 150,000 acres in the Kissimmee River Valley, south of Orlando, as part of President Obama's America's Great Outdoors initiative.  With this proposal, the survival of one of the few grassland and longleaf pine savanna landscapes in eastern North America would be guaranteed.  This is the kind of landscape that was bulldozed into oblivion with the advent of that 20th century phenomenon, the Theme Park, in Central Florida -  initiated by Walt Disney with his acquisition of 27,000+ acres of  flatlands and cattle pastures in the 1960’s.  What is gratifying about the deal is that it is the result in great part to a new approach: agreements with Central Florida cattlemen to create conservation easements on their property.  These “cracker cowboys”, descendants of some of Florida’s oldest cattle families, see this as a way to preserve their way of life, according to the NPR report.  In so doing, they are giving an incredible gift to their fellow Floridians - folks who don’t like to see the what is most beautiful and unspoiled transformed into generic developments: commercial, residential, or theme park.