Frogs and Fresh Faces: Around and about South Florida

Large Tree Frog at Boca Town Center Art Fair

Each year around this time the Art Fair circuit begins in South Florida. I enjoy these events for their free entertainment value. There is always great people watching and of course, interesting arts and crafts to behold. This past Saturday, after my early morning outing to Pompano’s Green Market (see entry above), my friend Nitza and I headed to the infamous, Boca Raton, a city that is a destination for many Northern East Coast Jewish individuals, popularized in an 80s television sitcom, The Nanny. As is the case with many affluent enclaves, there are expressions such, “Achieving Boca.” I enjoy Boca Raton for many reasons: the Boca Museum of Art is top of the list, and Florida Atlantic University (FAU) has a sprawling, intriguing campus there, too, complete with the iconic Living Room Theater featuring top notch foreign and art films and a great little cafe that serves you in your cushy, overstuffed leather seat during the film, if you so choose.

Mizner Park is Boca’s true ‘town’s center’ fashioned after a Spanish Plaza and home to countless retail shops and upscale restaurants, not to forget its amphitheater which features live outdoor concerts, many free, all season long.

However, the Art Fair is held in the parking lot of a refurbished shopping mall just a stone throw from its grown-up, indoor upscale galleria cousin, Boca Town Center with anchor department stores like Nordstrom’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Of all the art fairs I’ve attended in South Florida since moving here, this one is the least stressful. Set in a parking lot, it’s highly navigable, with wider lanes between the art booth stalls, and it is less frantic, somehow, than others which typically line existing retail streets such as the one on Las Olas Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale that is extremely difficult to explore.

I purchased a very small curved photo frame in silver with ceramic details to hold a newly found photo of the 16-year-old me. But my favorite object of this fair was the large tree frog shown above just waiting to hop onto someone’s garden wall. I’ve got a thing for frogs.

The evening was still young so Nitza and I headed over to the Boca Town Center where we happily munched on falafel sandwiches in pita bread from Maoz, a food chain founded in Amsterdam (go figure) featuring Israeli tidbits. From there we meandered through the mall coming upon an Aveda Store where I needed a product. There we met the charming Samantha who gleefully offered to doll us up at her make-up counter.

Samantha from Aveda dabs Nitza

Nitza, Samantha and Susan ready for a night on the town

We were game and had a great time as Samantha transformed us. I have an affinity for Aveda products having spent 16 years in the Twin Cities where its founder, Horst, held court. Aveda stores always offer an oasis of calm in the frenetic shopping world.

Well, glowing with new glamour that we agreed we couldn’t waste, we headed on the Boca Blue Martini for totally free drinks thanks to my “VIP” membership and an old coupon! There, as we sipped our traditional and Pomegranate Martinis, we were regaled by a live Frank Sinatra sound-alike, enjoyed a happy hour snack and figured out that our whole day out cost each of us less than $15 apiece! Not bad for a whole day’s entertainment.

Okay, so next comes the book, South Florida on $15 a day!