Burlington!
Last Saturday Christian and I made a road trip up to Burlington, Vermont. We were going to see Compagnie Marie Chouinard (of the Body Remix - Goldberg Variations (NSFW) fame). They weren't doing that piece, which is a shame since that's the one we both had really wanted to see. Instead they did--apropos for the season--"The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky. I thought it would be the original Nijinsky choreography (which I had never seen outside of the film Riot at the Rite), but instead it was Chouinard's interpretation. I liked the pieces well enough and some parts were really excellent in terms of physical movement and lighting. However I admit I expected a little more, especially because in the promotional work they played up these long, glowing, orange tendrils that the dancers had attached to their fingers. Those tendrils featured prominently in only one piece, where they were arranged as aureolae on the arms and legs like sea anemones. All the rest of the piece did not involve much in terms of props. Christian didn't enjoy the performance very much because one act featured a scratching sound on the soundtrack (the music was prerecorded rather than live) that to me sounded like sandpaper but to him sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Too bad. The theater was quite full and surprisingly rowdy. There were some real fans there, but also a bunch of immature people who hooted and snickered during the opening piece's where the dancer (representing a young goat) takes one of her horns and attaches it to her pelvis as a phallus. She gyrates in heat until silver confetti bursts from above during the climax. Considering the subject matter of the piece, it was done very artfully, so I was a bit shocked at the crude reaction from the audience and felt sorry for the dancer -- this wasn't a cabaret act after all. So even though it wasn't the best performance, we'd still like to see the troupe in Body Remix, though with their limited tour schedule that might not be easy.
We had visited Burlington for only a couple hours on our way up to Montreal this summer, so it was nice to get to see the city for a longer period. We stayed in jvoight's apartment, though he was away in NYC smooching with his bf so we didn't get to see him. On Saturday we walked along Lake Champlain, stopped in some book- and homewares stores. We had dinner at Pistou, a French-American restaurant that had no individual menus but rather wrote their offerings on the black slate walls. It was actually a pretty annoying concept since you couldn't view all the walls very easily so customers had to keep getting up to stand near other people's tables just to decide what to get. And you had no clue what they had in terms of cocktails or after-dinner drinks. And tsk, tsk they didn't have any cognac or brandy so I couldn't even order my sidecar (unless I wanted the $35 per 2 oz. shot of 1972 armagnac--no thank you). We split an appetizer of grilled octopus, whose charred bits overpowered the seafood flavor. Christian got a 24-hour roasted pork shoulder. The meat was tasty, but tasted like a typical 2-hour pot roast. The dish was accompanied by a creamy polenta that was fantastic. I had veal sweetbreads and jowl. The jowl had a lot of flavor, almost approaching a barbecue-sauce viscosity and might. The sweetbreads, however, did not appeal to me. They had deep fried them, which made the outside unpleasantly dry and crispy, though the inside was even more tender and creamy than usual. However, again the side was the highlight: some wheatberries and this awesomely flavorful celery root puree. They only had two options for dessert so we ordered one of each. The chocolate cake was far too rich and decadent to top off our meal, whereas the poached parsnip was tasty but bizarre. Why there couldn't have been just a simple fruit tart, I don't know.
After the show, we went to Das Bierhaus for some huge steins of bocks and dunkelweizens. In the morning we had brunch at Leunig's Bistro, where I had eggs benedict on crab cakes and Christian had lamb hash. Pretty delicious and I almost wonder whether that would have been the better place to go for dinner. We stopped at the co-op and bought Vermont cheeses, fancy mushrooms and vegetables before heading home. We were both jealous since the selection there was far better than we get in our local co-op. And on the ride up and down I managed to finish an application for a travel grant and send it off before the deadline! It was a pretty great weekend and I'd love to do something like that again soon.
We had visited Burlington for only a couple hours on our way up to Montreal this summer, so it was nice to get to see the city for a longer period. We stayed in jvoight's apartment, though he was away in NYC smooching with his bf so we didn't get to see him. On Saturday we walked along Lake Champlain, stopped in some book- and homewares stores. We had dinner at Pistou, a French-American restaurant that had no individual menus but rather wrote their offerings on the black slate walls. It was actually a pretty annoying concept since you couldn't view all the walls very easily so customers had to keep getting up to stand near other people's tables just to decide what to get. And you had no clue what they had in terms of cocktails or after-dinner drinks. And tsk, tsk they didn't have any cognac or brandy so I couldn't even order my sidecar (unless I wanted the $35 per 2 oz. shot of 1972 armagnac--no thank you). We split an appetizer of grilled octopus, whose charred bits overpowered the seafood flavor. Christian got a 24-hour roasted pork shoulder. The meat was tasty, but tasted like a typical 2-hour pot roast. The dish was accompanied by a creamy polenta that was fantastic. I had veal sweetbreads and jowl. The jowl had a lot of flavor, almost approaching a barbecue-sauce viscosity and might. The sweetbreads, however, did not appeal to me. They had deep fried them, which made the outside unpleasantly dry and crispy, though the inside was even more tender and creamy than usual. However, again the side was the highlight: some wheatberries and this awesomely flavorful celery root puree. They only had two options for dessert so we ordered one of each. The chocolate cake was far too rich and decadent to top off our meal, whereas the poached parsnip was tasty but bizarre. Why there couldn't have been just a simple fruit tart, I don't know.
After the show, we went to Das Bierhaus for some huge steins of bocks and dunkelweizens. In the morning we had brunch at Leunig's Bistro, where I had eggs benedict on crab cakes and Christian had lamb hash. Pretty delicious and I almost wonder whether that would have been the better place to go for dinner. We stopped at the co-op and bought Vermont cheeses, fancy mushrooms and vegetables before heading home. We were both jealous since the selection there was far better than we get in our local co-op. And on the ride up and down I managed to finish an application for a travel grant and send it off before the deadline! It was a pretty great weekend and I'd love to do something like that again soon.