ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Pictures from top: 1. The Confederate flag 2.Manatees: Malabar, Central Florida 3. My good friend Steve Thorpe with NASCAR racer. 4. Welcome to Georgia signboard 5. A Sunday aftertoon blue grass jam. 6. Carwash girl Melbourne, Florida 7. The Desert Inn at Yeehaw Junction near Kissimmee 8. Deep-fried duck with black-eyed peas and collard greens 9.Menu at the Marsh Landing restaurant, Fellmere, Florida 10. Barbecue joint in Mount Doro, Florida I moved to Princeton, New Jersey recently, after a year's stay in Melbourne, Florida. Melbourne is on the east coast of the Florida peninsula, right in the center between Jacksonville in the North and Miami in the south. Florida north of Fort Lauderdale is pretty much Southern USA. Not the caribbean culture of Miami and The Keys. Central Florida is more like Georgia and the Carolinas, though with some differences due to it's geographical features and climate. The land of alligators and swamps, cattle ranchers and cowboys called crackers, ci...

During the great Depression of 1929, many railway dining cars were converted to mobile restaurants or 'diners'. Originally catering to blue-collar workers at factory sites, the Diner soon evolved to become a quintessentially American institution evoking images of a home town/ small town meeting/eating place serving typical American fare at a fair price. This is where you brought your girlfriend for a steak and a milk shake and to listen to the juke box, and this is where you met your friends for a chat after work. Or this is where the small-town police officer goes for a quick bite. You can sit at the counter, order your breakfast of two eggs sunny-side up with corned beef hash and coffee, read your newspapers and chat with the cook frying up your meal three feet away. This is also where the single-mother waitress with the stringy blonde hair who is on a first-name basis with every customer confides in you about her latest beau and you left her a big tip as consolation. Diners ...