Editor's Note

Tobin Bennison

In the annals of anthropomorphism, which are some annals I just made up, A.A. Milne’s tumbly, bumbly, stuffing-brained Winnie-the-Pooh certainly takes a slice of the honey-slathered cake. There are plenty of other ingeniously conceived characters out there — including any number of Disney creations, from the fox-like Robin Hood to the persnickety owl Archimedes in “The Sword in the Stone”; the imperious Garfield; Bugs Bunny, and probably Pogo, whom I never fully understood... [Read more...]

Features This Month

Jim Lasley

Disneyland, 1962 — New Mexico, 2009 — Wherever, 2010 By James Lasley http://www.jlasley.com/ Travel is the spice of life, they say. In the summer of 1962, my father and I hitchhiked 2,512 miles from North Carolina to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The “spicy” mode of transportation... [Read more...]

Tobin Bennison

Jason Santini of Happy Healthy Human • Tobin Bennison • It’s hard to imagine now, but three short years ago Jason Santini was one unhappy, unhealthy human. Once he adopted a raw vegan diet he began to feel worlds better, both physically and mentally. So dramatic were the changes he experienced... [Read more...]

Tobin Bennison

Jeff “Cynic” Noble • Tobin Bennison • Most visual artists will tell you that their most precious creative tool is imagination, the ability to give shape to formless thoughts and emotions. Imagination certainly plays a major role in artist Jeff Noble’s eye-popping, graffiti-informed... [Read more...]

Tobin Bennison

BEACHSIDE BARBECUE You’d think that the last thing anyone would want to do in this infernal heat is stand over a hot grill flipping slabs of meat. But that’s human nature for you. We’re as willing to sweat over a fire in 98-degree weather as we are to do a few early morning backstrokes... [Read more...]

Word On The Street

Read about local news and events from in and around the Space Coast community. Got something to post? Let us know by emailing staff@thebeachsideresident.com

Local Scribes

Judy Forney

Double Ds of Summer • Judy Forney • “Honey,” I lowered sunglasses from wave-tumbled hair to shield my eyes and looked over at my hubby, who sat in the shade of our beach umbrella reading a book. “I was just thinking about… Whoa! Check that out…” “What?” “Obviously... [Read more...]

David Sherman

Wackjob Wisdom • David Sherman • Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Aquarian Wackjob Air. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for take-off. You need not return your trays to their upright position, as a cocktail may actually prove helpful during this flight. Any... [Read more...]

Dan Reiter

A Tall Tale From the Heart of the Redneck Riviera • Dan Reiter • Well you asked, so I’m gonna tell you straight. I reckon you’re old enough to hear it without all the jingle-bells, since life ain’t all roses and ice cream and it ain’t no use pouring gloss over it neither,... [Read more...]

Rick LaClaire

Sam • Rick LaClaire • “Death steals everything except our stories” — Jim Harrison I belong to a unique club. We don’t skydive nude, catch fish with our bare hands or invest large sums in Internet startups. We don’t go en masse to early bird specials wearing funny hats... [Read more...]

Previous Restaurant Reviews

Tobin Bennison

I think I’m part Lebanese. There’s no earthly accounting for this feeling, of course. On paper, my father’s family came from Ireland in the 1800s and my mother’s family sailed from southern Italy around the same time. I have no real genetic link to Lebanon, yet I experience a... [Read more...]

By: Tobin Bennison

Rock shrimp are such an integral part of Florida’s unique cuisine and identity that it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t available, cast aside as inedible pests. But as recently as the early 1980s, rock shrimp were still considered too labor intensive to be a lucrative fishery.... [Read more...]

By: T. Bennison

When you talk about jazz around here, you talk about Heidi’s. And when the subject of fine dining comes up, the Heidelberg is rarely far from anyone’s lips. Just as music and food are inextricably linked to both establishments, so serendipitously are the club and restaurant joined to each... [Read more...]

By: Tobin Bennison

If any nation lives up to its hospitable reputation, it’s Jamaica, and Montego Bay native Trevor Dixon is the perfect ambassador for the friendliest tropical isle in the world. To be fair, Jamaica isn’t without its share of problems, but he’s the right man to remind you of the good things;... [Read more...]

By: T. Bennison

A lot has changed since we first featured Enigma three years ago. Back then, my daughter was a somnolent tot just 8 months out of the womb and Enigma was a cozy café occupying a small space in Satellite Beach’s Atlantic Shopping Plaza. My daughter is a big sister now, and won’t nap for... [Read more...]

By: Tobin Bennison

In one of the most referenced, praised, and unread books in the world of literature, Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past,” it’s the chance bite of a madeleine, a small, scallop-shaped cake, that spurs the author on a 7-volume rediscovery of his youth. The episode proved... [Read more...]

By: Tobin Bennison

They say you can’t go home again, but places like the Blueberry Muffin prove you can still get pretty darn close. Like thousands of small, independently owned restaurants scattered all over the country, Indialantic’s Blueberry Muffin acts as a home away from home for individuals throughout... [Read more...]

T. Bennison

If you have trouble finding Gracie’s Café, blame Georges-Eugène Haussmann. I know it’s a stretch, and rather unfair of me to attack a man who’s been dead for 118 years, but I hold the controversial urban planner wholly responsible for obscuring one of downtown Melbourne’s best... [Read more...]

By: T. Bennison

For all our supposed ignorance of other cultures, Americans seem to misunderstand Europe — the one culture closest to our collective heritage — the most. We revere Europe for its historic charms, but all too frequently we obscure its soul in the replication process. “European bistros”... [Read more...]