Once, Twice, Three Times a Blog Post

Well, actually, just once a blog post about two trips to the theatre. 

Last week, we had the good fortune to go to our first downtown theatre district show!  For Michel's birthday, I had gotten him tickets to Once, the musical based on the movie of the same name featuring the Oscar-winning song, "Falling Slowly".  I had been waiting for this for over a month, and finally Tuesday arrived.  It was a big deal for us.  First theatre district show, first time getting dressed up since we moved, first big "date" night downtown.  We started with dinner at Troquet, a cute little French bistro about 5 blocks from our apartment.  It was a gorgeous night for the short walk to the restaurant...until we realized that we had both left our train passes and ID's at home.  (Well, when you are changing purses, sometimes things get left out!  I have no idea what Michel's excuse was.)  Our short walk turned into a much longer hike, but we finally made it to Troquet.  It was comfort food on special for the night, so it was a veggie croque monsieur with spinach, brie, and carmelized onions and sausage poutine for us.  Lest we blow our calories all in one place, we got cupcakes, including a Bluth Banana cupcake, at the cupcake food truck right outside the bistro for dessert.  Meh.  They were fine.  The best thing about the truck was its clever homage to Arrested Development, but, man, was it nice food trucking again!  While we have many wonderful restaurants here in Chicago, food trucking does not quite seem to have caught on here the way it has in Houston or Austin.  We miss them.  And honestly, food trucks are often as good and sometimes better than sit down restaurants.  Plus there is the thrill of the search, tracking your favorite truck's Twitter and facebook feeds, finally locating them in some weird part of town, and then enjoying your favorite item from their menu.  Or the joy of the HEB food truck court (Montrose Market HEB, for all you Houston food truck lovers who haven't yet been to the food truck Mecca that is the HEB parking lot the first Friday of every month).  But I digress.

After an unusually fast and rather terrifying train ride through the night, we headed to the historic Oriental Theatre on Randolph Street.

The Oriental Theatre (or Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, as it is known today---yes, Ford the car company not Ford's Theatre of Lincoln's assassination) was built in 1926 as a movie palace on the site of the former Iroquois Theatre that burned down in a 1903 fire.  The Oriental was one of many movie theatres built in the '20's, but patronage began to decline in the 1960's.  Finally, it closed in 1981 for more than a decade.  The theatre was restored and reopened as a performance venue in 1998, sparking the resurgence of the downtown Chicago theatre district.

All of that is fascinating to you, I'm sure, but the main thing is the interior of this theatre.  It is spectacular!  It totally reflects all of the stereotypes engendered by early 20th century orientalism, but that doesn't really matter.  It is one of the most intricately designed, gorgeous theatres I've ever been in!

Lobby

Lobby

Lobby Ceiling 

Interior of the theatre

Truly spectacular.  Now I did take a picture of the stage, despite instructions against photography, but it didn't really come out, and I don't want to get in trouble with whatever theatre set copyright police might read this blog.  However, the set of Once is a working bar.  Super cool, right?  Audience members can actually go up on stage before and after the show and during intermission for drinks.  Sadly, we were high enough up in the theatre that it would take too long to get down there and back to our seats.  But what was really lovely is that the simplicity and rustic nature of the set complemented the ostentatious nature of the theatre beautifully and in a way that really placed the focus on the stage.  It was coincidental, I'm sure, but it was a really neat effect.

As for the show itself, we both loved it.  It is quite true to the film and makes for a wonderfully unique piece of theatre.  It's a blessed relief from the plethora of jukebox musicals crowding Broadway these days, and it is unlike anything I've ever seen.  The show opens with most of the actors on stage, at least 15 to 20 minutes before the official start time, essentially having a jam session of traditional Irish and Czech music.  The party melds seamlessly into the opening of the show, so you almost don't realize that the show has officially started. The music, composed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, is hauntingly beautiful, much of it coming from the film, and the actors all play their own instruments, along the lines of the recent revivals of Company and Sweeny Todd.  The show is about an Irish busker and a Czech flower seller and pianist.  The girl pushes and encourages the guy to pursue his dreams of a music career and win back his girlfriend, for whom all of his songs are written.  The girl helps the guy write more music and record a demo, and in the process they fall in love.  The end of the show left me completely breathless.  For me, it was one of those truly special, revelatory theatre experiences.  Both Michel's and my only complaint was that the excess choreographed movement was frequently distracting and unnecessary, but the Act I finale, where the entire cast dances with their instruments as the Guy sings, was a spectacular piece of theatre.  It was a perfect evening, and we cannot recommend Once highly enough.  (Houston peeps, it's coming to you soon!)

I actually had the opportunity to attend the theatre twice last week.  My friend Debbie, with whom I taught at Kinkaid, was in town to see her daughter, Lee, perform in a play.  Debbie graciously invited me to a wonderful dinner at Bella Notte on the west side (delicious Italian, highly recommend!  Particularly the seafood salad, tortiglioni carbonata, and the flourless chocolate cake) and then to Lee's show, The Goddess by Paddy Chayefsky, at the Artistic Home Theatre.  The show is an adaptation by the show's director, John Mossman, of the 1958 film of the same name.  It is about a young, troubled girl who heads to Hollywood in search of fame, attention, adoration, and love and explores the dark and dangerous side of fame, Hollywood, and excess.  So it's not the feel-good-story-of-the-year.  However, it was an excellent production in a tiny space that made ingenious use of gorgeous, vintage costumes as indicators of time and scene transitions.  And Lee was a tour de force.  I highly recommend checking out The Goddess, which runs Thursdays through Sundays through November 17.

Needless to say, I felt very theatrically cultured last week!  Next up may just be a Chicago Lyric Opera performance!

Elizabeth Conquers the Maize Maze

First of all, apologies for the short hiatus in our blog posting.  Michel has not had time to finish his birthday post, so I finally decided to keep posting without it.  I know he has a ton of school work, but it's all about priorities. 

SO!  Here we are, three weeks into October, and fall has finally decided to come to Chicago.  Yesterday and today it has been rainy, dreary, and in the 50's, and our apartment has been wonderfully cozy with the radiators occasionally sputtering and clanking to life.  And that, my friends, is a terrifying thing, especially when you've never dealt with an old-fashioned radiator in your life and even more especially when they clamor and hiss to life at 5 in the morning.  It sounds like the infantry is trying to shoot up the apartment.

But I digress.

Before the coming of fall, Michel and I headed up to the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin to visit my cousin and guest blogger, Stephen.  Stephen lives in a gorgeous little community with gently rolling hills, trees displaying their riotous fall colors, charming farms and red barns, the most beautiful drive to work you've ever seen in your life, and corn.  Endless seas of corn.  And corn was, in fact, was my main purpose in being here.  (Although Stephen's house is a pretty great place to watch UT beat-the-hell-outta OU last weekend!)  You see, I had come to engage in that most Midwestern of fall activities: the corn maze.  Or Maize Maze, as we like to call it.  (Clever, right?  No one's ever thought to call it that before, I'm sure.)

Stephen chose a delightful little farm called Schuster's Farm in Deerfield, Wisconsin.  It's a farm full of good, wholesome, Midwestern family fun including a pumpkin patch, baked apple goods and homemade fudge, apple cider, a petting zoo, and, of course, a corn maze. 

 

Michel and Stephen were inexplicably low key at the prospect of traversing Schuster's Farm's epic corn maze.  I, on the other hand, was giddy with excitement.

The maze is in two phases: Phase 1 and Phase 2.  As we prepared to enter Phase 1, we overheard the ticket girl tell another maze goer that it would take about an hour to complete the maze.  Ha!  We were prepared to do it in much less time due to our top-notch directional skills and superior knowledge of corn.  And no, of course we didn't need a map!  We don't rely on such crutches.  (Actually, we didn't know there was a map until we were too far into the maze to go back, but that doesn't make for a very good story.)  So of we went, three gallant maze goers, determined to conquer the Maize Maze!

This is where we entered.

The corn was tall.

 Taller than Stephen.  And, unlike Michel, Stephen is very tall.

The corn was real!!!  Just in case you didn't know.  

We flew through Phase 1, keeping track of our progress by these cute little progress signs and pausing only to solve the terrible "Corn-nundrums" posted throughout the maze.  As if we needed additional entertainment during our trek!

After a few short minutes, we reached a platform.  I assume the platform is designed to grant some relief after being down in the maze for so long.  For us, it showed that our directional instincts had not yet failed us, and we were close to completing Phase 1!  Plus it offered some pretty gorgeous views of the surrounding...corn.

On the platform!  It is hard to take a selfie with all three of us, but we had to document the accomplishment.

Schuster's Farm

We decided to go that way.  And we were correct.

After only 15 minutes, success!  I had successfully led the men through the corn maze!  An hour, please.  Since Phase 1 only took 15 minutes, surely we'd be through Phase 2 in 20.

Boy, was I wrong.  It took forever.  We kept wandering in circles, retracing our steps.  How could we tell we were retracing steps,  you ask?  It's a corn field after all.  Oh, after a while, you know.  You just know.  Every time I chose a direction at a fork or led us down a corn hallway, fully expecting two creepy little girls with long, dark, stringy hair and white dresses to appear out of nowhere at the end of the row, we ended up in a dead end or lost.  We eventually made it to the second platform, but even that was not enough.  And yes, our egos so inflated by our earlier corn maze victory, we had again declined the option of a map, this time knowing full well of the existence of said maps.

There was a lot of corn.

At one point we found the edge of the maze...but it was not the exit.

Finally, after weeks of wandering, slowly being driven mad by the increasingly narrower paths that created the head of University of Wisconsin Coach Anderson and about to die of thirst and starvation, Stephen heroically identified the correct path and led us out of there.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, I conquered the maize maze!  I survived!  I am the greatest corn maze solver that ever lived!  Well, ok, fine, Michel and Stephen conquered the corn maze, too.  Or, to be accurate, Stephen and Michel conquered the corn maze while I mostly followed, increasingly convinced that no one knew what they were doing and we were going to spend the night in the maze. And we were in Phase 2 for about 45 minutes, so, yeah, the maze only took about an hour.  But!  We still did it.  And so we adjourned to the store for apple crisp and hot cider.

My verdict?  Eh, I don't need to make going to a corn maze a fall tradition, but for a girl from Houston experiencing her first real autumn with the accompanying activities, it was pretty fun!

Fountainhead Earns the Michel Bigelow Stamp of Approval

Of this world’s many pleasures, few delight me more than a truly great bar.  What makes a great bar, you ask?  While I’m sure there are many criteria by which people judge their public houses, mine are no doubt best and most indicative of greatness.  I don’t ask a great deal of bars, but should they desire to hold my custom, I expect the following:

1.      Booze Selection

First and foremost, any good bar should have a wide array of quality beer (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, etc. do not qualify) from which to choose, preferably with many of these on tap.  (A side note on taps: They are important.  Never trust a bar without taps.)  In addition to beer, a solid selection of other beverage options is always a plus.  (Elizabeth: For those of us who are not beer aficionados, a good wine selection is appreciated.)

2.      Food

If one is going to be taking part in an establishment’s alcoholic offerings, it stands to reason that one may also wish to eat.  Therefore, at the very least, a menu of traditional pub fare is a must.  With the advent of the so-called “Gastro Pub” (one of the most significant happenings of the last thousand years), however, expecting more than store bought jalapeno poppers and mozzarella sticks is not entirely unreasonable.

3.      Non-smoking

With apologies to any smokers who may be reading this, I despise the smell of burning tobacco, and, as such, prefer a bar that prohibits smoking.  Besides, one should really indulge one’s vices one at a time.

            As I said, I do not ask much of a watering hole, but what I do is non-negotiable.  Imagine my joy at discovering that, not half a mile from our apartment, there is a bar that emphatically checks all of my boxes.  This house of alcoholic wonder is known as Fountainhead.  Looking at the name, one might expect it to be some sort of objectivist meeting place, but it is, in fact, a bar with such an extensive and detailed drink menu that it has to be put into a binder.  When one opens this drink binder one is greeted with a list, with descriptions, of about twenty-five draft beers and another 200 or so beers in bottles, bombers, and cans all arranged by style and place of origin.  On subsequent pages one finds similar lists featuring over one hundred varieties of Scotch and about twenty-five types of bourbon, including two types of Pappy Van Winkle (at least in theory; the Pappy is, at present, out of stock).

            The food menu, though less extensive, is no less impressive.  Using primarily locally sourced ingredients, they make pub food with a delicious and sophisticated spin.  As with their drink selection, the stress is on quality.  Try to find another bar that makes such wonderful things as duck fat home fries.  I was actually afraid that Elizabeth might leave me for the turkey sambal sandwich.  What’s more, I probably wouldn’t have blamed her.

            When I was in college, I spent six weeks in Salzburg, Austria for a summer opera program.  It is a time of which I have many fond memories.  Quite a few of these are related to beer.  More than any other brew, Stiegl is the one that I associate with my time in Salzburg, as it is the official beer of the city.  It can be found every five feet or so, in restaurants, bars, and even vending machines.  Unfortunately, once I returned from this adventure, I could not find Stiegl anywhere.  That is, until our first trip to Fountainhead, which carries both the Pilsner and Goldbrau (Later I would come to find that Stiegl is available all over Chicago.  I’m not sure why that is.).  As you might imagine, I had a Stiegl with my burger that night, and it pleased me to my core.

            On Sundays, Fountainhead has a brunch that is above reproach.  It is here where one can get the aforementioned duck fat home fries, which I believe were also covered in Stephen’s guest post.  Duck fat home fries are multiple blog posts good.  The brunch menu also features what is hands down the best bagel sandwich I have ever had.

            Lest anyone think I am too enamored with Fountainhead at this point to judge it fairly, I will say that the turkey burger is a little dry and short on flavor.  The turkey burger should not be confused with the turkey sambal sandwich or the actual hamburger, both of which are great.

            Making your way through the world today takes everything you’ve got.  Wouldn’t you like to get away?  Sometimes you want to go where there is a genuinely impressive drink selection and delicious, well-made food.  There’s also a rooftop garden, but I’ve never been up there, so I can’t comment on it.  I’m sure it’s nice, but it has a more limited menu, and, besides, I’m not an animal.  I will eat inside, thank you.

            Unfortunately, now that this entry has been posted and seen by, presumably upward of one billion people, the crowds at Fountainhead will be so enormous the no one will be able to get in.  Such is the gift and curse of the Michel Bigelow Stamp of Approval.

The Most Fascinating Library Post You Will Ever Read

Yesterday was a very exciting day.  Yesterday we got our library cards.  Now, you may be thinking, what is so exciting about that?  Well, I have gotten in the very bad habit of just buying books that I want to read, and when I decide I don't like the book, I am stuck with it.  So now, with my library card, I can borrow and return the ones I don't like!  I supposed I have to return the ones I do like, too, but that is a small wrinkle that can be overcome, I'm sure.

Our local branch of the Chicago Public Library is the Conrad Sulzer Regional Library.  It is an impressive building overlooking beautiful Welles Park.  Inside it is quite spacious, light, and airy.  The well-organized adult sections are upstairs, presided over by a giant clock that I secretly wish had magical clock powers to transport me to whatever land I'm inhabiting in my book.  It is not exactly beautiful but is clean and inviting, as a good library should be.

But the real joy is the children's section, downstairs and surrounding the check-out counter.  The library was filled with children, particularly small ones, carefully picking out their books for the week, cradling the most prized chosen book in their arms like it would disappear if they weren't careful.  One little boy was so excited, he couldn't stop staring at the cover of his book, a giant smile of pure joy creasing his face.
The children's section brought back such great memories for both of us.  For me, those memories were picking my own treasured books of the week with my mom and brother each week during the summer, storytime with Joan, my local librarian and childhood friend of my mom's, and the summer that I read over a hundred books...real books, not picture books...more than anyone else in the library's reading club.  My first summer "job" was volunteering several hours a week in that library.  But the best thing about this children's section?  It smelled like a library's children's section.  It appears that no matter the library, the children's section will smell the same: of hundreds and thousands of pages of sometimes old, always well-loved paper.  You might ask, doesn't the adult section smell the same?  No.  Why not?  Because they don't have storytime in the adult section.

The children's section, ostensibly organized by the Library of Congress system, was fairly chaotic.  Organization on the shelves did not really follow logic.  So while it was easy to find the travel section, or what I thought was the travel section, as it was clearly visible from the check-out counter, it was not easy to find the book.  What book?  THE book, the most important book that separates the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the super awesome libraries from the just ok libraries:  THE NORWAY BOOK!! 

What is the Norway book, you ask?  ONLY THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!  The Norway book is part of a series called Enchantments of the World, a series designed to introduce young, elementary readers to the various countries of the world and their histories and cultures.  I found the Norway book when I was in about the 3rd grade in my lower school library.  Despite weird looks from the parent volunteers, I checked it out, thrilled at my find.  The book was a revelation.  It told me ALL ABOUT NORWAY!  And from my reading of this book, I realized that Norway was clearly the greatest country in the whole world and this was the best book about the greatest country in the whole world.  Now I have absolutely no idea why I reacted this way, but I did.  I was in love with Norway.  My brother, who was in nursery school at the time, had a Norwegian friend, and I even wanted my mom to ask his mom if she would teach me Norwegian.  All of this because of a book.  I must have read that book at least 40 times.  Finally, Mrs. Germann, my favorite librarian of all time and now dear friend, told me, "Elizabeth, dear, you do know there are other books in this series, right?"  WHAT????  Mind. Blown.

This weird interest in a country I have no connection to continues to this day.  I absolutely love Norse mythology.  When I graduated from high school, Mrs. Germann gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card so I could pick out a "grown-up" version of the Norway book.  The only reason we did not go on our honeymoon to Norway is because Michel really did not want to go to Norway, and, for the sake of maintaining our new marital harmony, I did not press the point.  And I have actually read many of the other books in this series and learned a lot about our world.  I honestly think it was this series, and the Norway book in particular, inspired my love of travel.  But enough of the mushy book love.  I'm sure you are simply dying to know the answer to the all-important question:  Does the Conrad Sulzer Regional Branch of the Chicago Public Library have the Norway book????

YES!!!!

Blog Entry Title Goes Here by Stephen Sadowski!

This week we have a special guest blogger, my (Elizabeth's) cousin, Stephen Sadowski, visiting us from the barbaric hinterlands of Madison, Wisconsin!  (Wisconsin, lest you forget, I love your cheese.)  Thank you for visiting for the long weekend, Stephen, and we're looking forward to your next visit!

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Readers, I’d like to tell you I came to Chicago to audit the veracity of Michel and Elizabeth’s blog entries, but that is completely untrue. I came to Chicago for the same reasons I always do: because Chicago is awesome – and made more so by the fact that my cousins are living here.

Let me state for the record that getting to Chicago, for me, is always an adventure. I currently live in Madison, and so I take the train to Chicago at every opportunity. It saves me money on tolls and time when it comes to the unfortunate mess that is I-90. It’s also very comfortable and allows for working, napping, or – depending on one’s fellow passengers – quiet self-reflection.

It turns out my adventure getting to Chicago was a bit different this time.  There was a bus – and cranky passengers. I was subjected to the single loudest instance of preachy Christian schlock music that I’ve ever encountered, but ended up being delivered to my destination via stretch limo… in the pouring rain.

If this all seems a bit bizarre to you and a slight deviation from those who live in the northeast corridor who generally have the ability to get on to an Amtrak train and get where they’re going with very little fanfare, you should know that this is generally not possible in the Midwest. My train from Madison has never been less than 1.5 hours late, and at most has been simply canceled (though this was the first time for that) with alternate transportation provided. To be fair, if it happens again, I will feel justified in asking “just to be put in a stretch limo to Chicago” because there’s now a precedent.

However, travel adventures aside, the real purpose of this missive is to talk about life off (or on, depending on perspective) the Brown line.

To that end, the following happened: I arrived, ate pizza, played board games, slept, woke, attempted to go to a brewery tour – wait, hold up, let’s talk about the brewery.

The brewery is called Half Acre, and it’s located a short half-mile walk from Elizabeth and Michel’s place. We set out around 10:15 on Saturday morning in a light drizzle, making our way towards toward the brewery. We arrived and stood in line – in the drizzle – for a while only to have the tour cut off three people in front of us. This was sad, in a way, for Michel and I as we were interested in their brewing set-up, though all was not lost: we’ve both seen many a brewery before, and the real interest is what the brewery produces – beer.  We trundled over to the tap room and got started on doing what – at least I – do best when surrounded by Chicago hipsters in a craft beer establishment: criticizing.

I think of myself as a fairly decent judge of beer. I would probably be even better if I bothered to keep notes and do proper tastings and yada yada give me beer, notes are boring. We, as a group, went through the full set of beers (as tasters, 2oz pours or so) that were available and I think we’re agreed on the following: Half Acre has a way to go yet. There is nothing disappointing about what they brew, but there was nothing exceptional or terribly exciting about it either. They had four different IPAs (one a double)  in a selection of 10 beers, along with a golden ale, a pale ale, an American pale ale, and American wheat ale, a ‘styleless wonder’ – the Over Ale, probably my highest rated of all the beers, and a pilsner.

Needless to say, we were rather disappointed in the linearity of the brewing, but as was mentioned, none were poor entries.

We waited out the rain which had become a full-on downpour, and sipped through the tasters as Elizabeth chose, instead, to drink a strawberry Jarritos. Michel had – unbeknownst to me – also spent time in Austria, and so we spent some time talking about Kolsches and the Stiegl brewery (and I found out you can get Stiegl in Chicago!)

Moving on we went to Marmalade for brunch, which I’d tell you about except that I don’t have to, because it’s already been done in a prior post! From there, onward –to the Zoo!

 Elizabeth was excited about the giraffes.

I realize at this point I’ve forgotten to mention, we’re all in our burnt orange because the plan is to attend the watching party for the UT season opener against NMSU, so we were constantly acquiring unsolicited assistance and advice from people who assumed that because there were three of us together in Longhorns colors, we must not be from Chicago. That’s fine – it proves the general friendliness of Chicagoans.
The zoo was nice – it is the Lincoln Park Zoo, which is an excellent free resource for the city of Chicago and surrounding areas, but nothing terribly amazing in my opinion, just a fun way to spend and afternoon.

 Lounging like Shakespeare

 A friendly Chicagoan offered to take our picture, asked where we were from, and hoped we were enjoying our visit to Chicago.

Onward, then – to Stanley’s Kitchen and Tap! Following another short walk, we found the Texas Exes viewing party (part of the way trailing a couple also in colors). Nothing terribly remarkable here; the food was solid, the bar was loud, and I introduced Michel to Shiner Premium. At one point there was the strange occurrence of a leggy blonde showing up in Sooners colors. In a sea of burnt orange, there’s really no hiding when you’re in maroon and white – and there’s no doubt that for the perhaps half-hour she was there, the eyes of Texas were, indeed, upon her.

 Stanley's is the official Chicago bar of the Texas Longhorns...

The real issue – and part of the reason we were at Stanley’s was to watch the game, which was being streamed on LHN, but it kept stuttering, stalling, and skipping, and the noise level was such that just shy of halftime, we gave up and headed back to the apartment in the hopes that we could stream it there. We were only partially successful upon arriving, having to settle for the audio and the ESPN gamecast, but the 56-7 outcome more than made up for the lack of TV viewing.

 
Sunday was a late-rising day, and we basically started with a trip to Fountainhead, which is a solidly inspiring upscale bar with great taps and a solid menu. I was able to collect a delicious saison with my brunch (a brunch that included duck fat fried home fries) and will heartily recommend the establishment to any and all in the area. There were, sadly, a lack of Ayn Rand references, but as a friend put it, I could hardly expect a bar relegated to hate sex and architecture.

 Stephen's breakfast burrito

 Michel's "Eggle"

 Elizabeth's veggie omelette with cheddar

From there it was on to the International Museum of SurgicalScience, and there’s nothing I can do in written description to do this museum justice. Yes, it is a museum, but it’s awesome – tons of historical surgical instruments and data, history of procedures and now-common practices and tools – and some very disturbing statues.

 
The day was capped by two exciting events:  visiting Sprinkles and acquiring a cupcake and making a nice dinner for my hosts.

I got the maple bacon cupcake, and folks, while it was not a life-changing experience, it was one of the better cupcakes I’ve had in my life. It was basically all the good things about breakfast in a cupcake.  A+++ would cupcake again.

 
Dinner was a simple pasta fresca with a salad; a good summer dish!

Danke, meine Gatsberger, for a wonderful time… I’ll be back soon for more adventures!
 ---
Stephen