We used to have a rule on family vacations that we had to eat at as many locally owned, one-of-a-kind restaurants as possible. For years my kids would gripe and grumble as we’d pass by one set of golden arches after another, each glowing with the promise of familiar food in high-tech American containers, only [...]

For most Sarasota residents and visitors, "Higel" means no more than the name of a street that runs along Siesta Key-Higel Avenue. But during the era just before the Florida land boom of the ’20s accelerated our growth, Harry L. Higel, the man for whom the street was named, was a progressive dynamo, pushing the [...]

Here’s a good way to tell if someone has a real connection to Southwest Florida: Ask if we like smoked mullet. For many newcomers and a distressingly large number of people who might otherwise consider themselves locals, the response will likely range from "What the heck is a mullet?" to "Yech, I would never eat [...]

Until fate plucked her from India and dropped her in Zambia, in the middle of Africa, when she was barely 30 years old, my mother had never cooked a meal in her life. She had spent most of her childhood in boarding school and at college; and when she went home, she buried her nose [...]

Sunlight drifts down from narrow windows and skitters over wooden floors, skirting the feet of the two priests and off-duty real estate agent who sit in the front pew. Other than their soft whispers of prayer, there’s little sound in the blue-and-white Throne of Grace charismatic Episcopal church on Florida Avenue. Across the street and [...]