Fiber Fool

We actually were back home on Friday morning. The trip was nice, though the B&B was rather susceptible to traffic noise and much farther away from our points of interest than we had thought. I actually was quite happy to get home. *Very* early Friday morning there was a condo fire just a few blocks from us so we were awoken to the sounds of news helicopters getting footage for the morning news. There was much walking and little sleeping so getting home meant a chance to get some sleep and rest. Of course, that is how it goes, right? One needs a vacation from their vacation!

It was still a nice trip. We dined at some great places. I got some more massage bars from Lush (thanks for turning me onto those, Bakerina!) and we did lots of window shopping in neat boutique stores. My fav is Two Hands Paperie. I totally wanted to ask for one of everything. I actually left with no purchases. Though I have to admit, if the retro orange Namiki retractable fountain pen had been a bit cheaper it might have come home with me. It did make me itchy to get back to the bookbinding thing again.

I did get several new to me CDs at Bart’s - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations by The Eels, Faces Down by Sondre Lerche, Cimarron Manifesto by Jimmy LaFave, and upon DH’s recommendation, Songs to Learn & Sing by Echo & The Bunnymen. I also picked up a brand new CD that I have been lusting after for months, but have been unable to locate locally - Sparrows in the Bell by The Pines. So far I’ve only heard about the first half of the first disc of The Eels, but I should have them all listened to by this evening.

We ended up moving our arrival home ahead by several hours, but it gave us the chance to take in a matinée of Across the Universe before getting Emma form the kennel and her grooming. The remainder of the weekend was still mostly “vacation” at home. There was a Halloween party on Saturday night and the retrieval of our copy of Leopard from DH’s office. But I did no spinning or knitting that was for design work for the entirety of the weekend. That doesn’t mean I didn’t knit, but more on that later. I need to start catching back up. I did come home to some work in the Inbox that needs my attention.

It is International Waffle Day today! For many of you there is still time to sneak in a waffle today…

A few of us gathered for brunch this morning at a newer eating establishment, Dempsey’s. They are our new favorite restaurant. They have an amazingly huge breakfast menu that is very vegetarian friendly (even more so than most breakfast joints) and they serve breakfast daily until 3pm! But, they are also incredibly veggie friendly for dinner and they have the best french fries in town!

On Friday night we celebrated my SIL3’s 26th birthday by heading up to Old Town Fort Collins (the historic downtown area) and enjoying a couple rounds of martini’s at this great martini bar on Lyden Street called Elliot’s. A good time was had by all.

SIL3 had recently returned from opera study in Italy and bounced through the roof when her new friends who were still in Italy called and sang happy birthday to her in Italian, LOL! We had fun teasing her with the aid of our great server, Sydney. DH and I aren’t real regulars but we seem to get her quite frequently and I believe SIL3 and her BF and friends are probably semi-regulars over there.

I also had a blast taking photos… You’re surprised, right? LOL!

Sunday was the BIG day, the whole reason we spent 30 hours on the road and was only in Minneapolis for about 30 hours. Mom, needing audio description for plays can only see the plays on one day in the entire run so she gets a little lead time to get tickets. So, as sort of a way to celebrate her birthday (at the end of this month) got 7 tickets to Wicked at the Orpeum on Sunday afternoon. That was three for she, my dad, and my sister, and we paid her back for the other four for DH and I, and his parents who live only three hours from Minneapolis. We decided it was a good Birthdaymotherfathereasteranniversary gift seeing as how they just got done downsizing for retirement and that. We figure it is better to give memories than “stuff.”

The show was amazing! The costumes were ornate and gorgeous and crazy all at once. The music was fun (though not as catchy as other shows I think). I adored the Galinda charater and I was in awe in how they were able to change your perceptions of these characters you grew up “knowing.”

I have to confess that I still haven’t read the book that inspired the musical. I bought it last summer and tried reading it, but it took me a couple weeks to get about 50-75 pages in so I set it aside. I thought while I was watching the play that I’d jump right into the book when we got home since I’d have some momentum but then mom crushed it for me… She said the book and the play have the same characters and a similar premise, but that is where the similarity ends! I think I’ll let the book wait until the fall.

The show did however cause me to expand my amazon wishlist with a few things - a-hem :-) Though last night in looking for inspiration for SIL3’s birthday gift for tonight we went to Best Buy and DH bought me the soundtrack! Guess what I’ll be listening to today??? LOL!

If you like musicals I don’t think you would be disappointed with this one. My dad isn’t a big musical fan and he enjoyed it. I think it can help to have a familiar story, that and mom made him get a set of headphones for the audio description as well so he might have caught on a bit better :-)

Before we went to the matinee though, my parents came and picked us up at Rob’s and we brunched at this great restaurant in Eden Prairie called Red Stone Grill. I’m not quite sure how to explain their cuisine… Kind of nouveau homestyle cooking perhaps? Anyway, the food was awesome. If you go, don’t miss their Lodge Cornbread! Yum! The AC was up a little high though, so my shot of the building is a bit mysterious because my lens fogged up when I tried to take it. It had just finished raining. The service was also top notch. I’d really like to go back sometime and try their regular menu. Chances are I’ll get to sometime as it is pretty much on the way to the farm from the airport! :-)

After the play all seven of us were going out to dine. Upon a recommendation (whom I won’t credit and you’ll understand why in a moment) we went to Bar Abilene in uptown Minneapolis. It was just a few miles from the theater, so not too hard for the in-laws to find, but far enough away to kind of avoid the post-theater crowd. It did still end up being a bit interesting getting there. DH’s parents do not know the metro area at all and we were not parked in the same location so we couldn’t quite get into a proper caravan. So, they were a few blocks behind us and MIL was on their cell and I was on mine and were dictating directions to them as we went. It was quite an experience, LOL!

Bar Abilene is a nouveau TexMex place (the menu on the web site is very out of date). They have an interesting menu that made it quite difficult to decide. They also had a very extensive margarita menu with some interesting concoctions. Mom ordered a Mango Mariachi that was mango with a bit of adobo sauce in it. It was *yummy* and I would have ordered one myself if we hadn’t decided to drive down to DH’s parents’ house that night to cut a few hours off of Monday’s drive. We also tried to make our own last night. What we made was good, but it wasn’t the same. We’ll have to try it again soon.

Our end of the table (FIL, MIL, DH, and I) decided to go the taco route. They have a taco menu that has small soft-shell tacos and you buy them onesie twosie so you can mix and match. DH and I decided to split a gruyere artichock quesadilla and then each get two tacos. My tacos and the quesedilla were great. I ordered a chicken and apple taco and then a more pedestrian steak fajita taco. DH ordered a three cheese and roasted peper one, but when it came out it had bacon in it. But, because he hadn’t asked them to hold bacon or any meat products because they weren’t indicated to be in the taco he hadn’t checked the taco and ended up eating almost half of it before discovering the problem. Since he’s been vegetarian for so long we were quite afraid he’d be sick for our drive home on Monday, but it was okay. The other taco he got was an avacado and grilled tomato taco which he said was really good. My parents end of the table all got monster burgers that every one declared great. The fries were thin home-style skin on fries with a touch of season and the onion rings were really thin with a season batter that was quite delicious.

Now, if the only screw up was DH’s taco I’d wouldn’t be so negative. That said, the taco he ordered didn’t even have bacon in it and what he got wasn’t one of the other tacos on the menu either so I still don’t understand. However, upon our arrival, they had our reservation down as 4 rather than 7 so they were not ready to seat us. Then, once we were seated the waiter came quite promptly to take our drink order, most of which was for water. Well, he didn’t bring the waters out for 15 minutes and he forgot a water for my sister and she didn’t get it for 30 minutes! Keep in mind that we got there at 4pm, the place was empty except for some bar flies. Then, he only refilled FIL’s soda and never my dad or I’s. When dessert rolled around MIL & FIL ordered the same mudslide dessert to share that DH and I did. It took a looong time to come out and when it did only one was brought out. The waiter gave us some line about how only one can be made at a time and ours was coming. Well, after the first one had been eaten he finally came near enough to our table to ask about ours. It took over 30 minutes to come after they had gotten thiers! That was completely inexcusable! Needless to say there was no tipping involved.

There was obviously some mix up in the kitchen staff, but I think 95% of our problem was our waiter. The food was great and the service the worst I’ve ever had. They were getting busy by 6:30 pm (2.5 hours it took to eat there, I’m not kidding) so I suspect we just got a shitty server who should be seeking employment in some other field. So, while I cannot in good conscience say with enthusiasm that one should go there, I trust the person who recommended them and I am sure we were just very unlucky that day.

Probably 5 years ago or so DH and I flew into the Twin Cities for a mini-vacation. We opted to stay in the metro rather than go out to the farm to keep DH from being overwhelmed by my entire family. This way he got to meet my parents, my sister, and a few relatives I was closest to. On that visit we met up one evening with my mom’s cousin, Dawn Rae. Now, Dawn Rae is a free spirit and was attending the U of M in the women’s studies department. She took us to Gardens of Salonica in downtown Minneapolis and DH and I were hooked. We haven’t managed to make it back there before now and were happy read that they were still in business. So, when it came time to choose a place to dine on Saturday night there was no question that if our host, Rob, was up for it we would be headed there.

What I hadn’t planned on was being the one to drive us there so I hadn’t printed out directions or that, I just had their address and phone number. So, Rob was navigator and we got turned around a few times as I guess Rob usually hangs in St. Paul. But we found our way to 19 5th St NE (that’s across the river, if you are like me and not in downtown Minneapolis much). It looks like a bit of a hole in the wall and I’m not sure there any other eating establishments on that block, but the inside is very nicely decorated in an understated mediterranean manner. It gets a bit noisy in the first room, but the food and service was excellent!

Arriving a bit after 7pm on a Saturday night meant we had a bit of a wait for a table, but it was just right as we sat at the bar and debated on how to attack the menu to get the most exposure to the food as we could without bursting. It was decided the best way to attack was to order two appetizer combo plates. As a bonus, each combo plate held three appetizers of your choice and there were three of us so we each chose two from the menu. That gave us exposure to nearly all the vegetarian appetizer options. We ordered one plate of Piperies (marinated roasted red peppers), Tyro (a puree of feta, red and hot peppers, garlic, and olive oil) and Anginares (marinated artichoke hearts) and the second plate had Piaz (black-eyed pea salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing, onions, and parsley), Skordalia (a puree of potatoes, garlic and olive oil), Melitzana (an eggplant puree similar to babaganoush). These items were accompanied by all you could eat pita. I have to say the pita bread there was AMAZING! It was soft and moist and hot and it stayed hot until you had finished the plate. Being of German and Scandinavian farmers it made my bread-loving self soooo happy (though it probably wasn’t great for my weight loosing self).

At DH’s urging we also order a vegetarian mousaka to split. I wasn’t terribly excited about this, but knew DH was curious to have an authentic (well, as authentic as you get once you make it vegetarian) mousaka. Boy, I should have been excited! It was so good, filled with a complex combination of spices that you couldn’t quite pinpoint. We decided there was probably clove and perhaps nutmeg involved, but we’re not sure. You know the old saying “When in Rome…” Well, when in Minnesota, do as the Minnesotans… We kept halfing the mousaka over and over again until there were only two bites left and Rob finally just took that last little bit, LOL!

We also did a trio of desserts. It was great because the desserts are smaller and more appropriately proportioned so we each chose one. The one I chose was sold out so they advised me to try the lemon cream boughasta, saying it was quite similar. DH chose the figs and Rob chose an apricot cream boughasta. We of course split all of these too and every one of them was delicious!

Aside from the spectacular food and great service, it was *very* affordable as well. Our tab was around $40 and that included one beer, two iced teas, and a coffee. The entrees were mostly around $9-$10, the appetizer combos were just under $9. Very reasonable for a downtown meal on a Saturdy night!

If you enjoy Greek food I would highly recommend Gardens of Salonica in Minneapolis.