Goodby 2008!!

Wow! It is hard to believe that another year has passed. I am reminded by what my Grandpa always said...."the years just keep getting faster, as you get older." Well I just wanted to wish everyone a great 2009! May you have a great new year!

I also wanted to create some best of 2008 lists...here it goes:

Best Music acts I saw:

• MIA at the Myth
• The Hold Steady in July at First Avenue
• Lucy Kaplansky and Storyhill at the Fitzgerald
• Jeremy Messersmith at Mears Park
• Trampled by Turtles at MN State Fair

Best Albums:

• The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
• Mates of State: Re-arrange us
• Cloud Cult: Partying Thur Tornadoes...
• Mike Doughty: Golden Delicious
• Jeremy Messersmith: Silver City
• Bon Iver: For Emma, forever ago

Best Trips:

• Month long trip in Colorado
• Presidents day weekend in Chicago
• Leesome Lake multiple times
• Philadelphia
• X-mas in Chicago

Best Eateries for Dinner:

• Great Waters Brewery
• BonXai
• Peninsula
• Seven Sushi
• Nala Pak

Best Eateries for Breakfast:

• West Egg Fork (Chicago)
• Longfellow's
• Highland Grill
• Egg and I
• Trotters

December

I am always amazed by how fast time goes…once again several weeks have gone by with out an entry. My bad!

Besides the typical routine of life we have been up to a few activities. In early December we went to a charity benefit for Asian American Journal Association at the Children’s Museum in Saint Paul. It was a good time we met some great people, ate some good Asian food, and were entertained by varies forms of entertainment.

There was also a silent action and we bid and won on a gift certificate for True Thai and Midwestern Mountaineering. It was nice because we benefited the AAJA and got a great deal. It also gave us an economical dining option that we took advantage of.

Then a couple of weeks ago, a friend of ours (Karl) organized an outing. We attended The Holiday Pageant with Kevin Kling, Sarah Agnew, Luverne Seifert, and Amy Matthews at the Pantages Theater in Minneapolis. It was festive, entertaining, and full of slap stick comedy which got you in the holiday sprit. Yeah!

Christmas this year was spent in three places Illinois, Wisconsin, and Saint Paul. We left for Illinois the Friday before Christmas. We broke up the trip by staying one night in Madison, then traveled to my Grandparents house in Northern Illinois. It was great to see both my immediate and extended family.

Then on the 21st we headed to the Sheraton in Downtown Chicago for a three day stay. It was great to be in the windy city again and enjoy everything that it offers. We did the usual…run, eat, wander, eat, relax and then repeat. I look forward to traveling there again, maybe when it is summer. I think one day there were minus 40 wind chill. Burrrrr.

We then returned back to Saint Paul to celebrate Christmas with Tracy’s parents on the 24th and mine parents in St. Croix Falls, WI. on Christmas day. It was a great Christmas. I received more then I deserved and enjoyed the time spent with family.

Back from Philly!

We are back from the, "City of Brotherly Love." I really enjoy this city, every time I return home, I think about what I would like to see the "next time" I go back. That being said, this was a great trip! Tracy and I got there on Saturday morning and left early afternoon on Tuesday. We stayed in the Rittenhouse Square area, in a beautiful hotel right in the middle of Center City. It was nice to stay in this area because it made everything we needed, accessible on foot.

Here are some of the highlights...

• Participate in the half marathon and watch the Philadelphia Marathon. (Nice Job Karl!)
• Walk through the historical district and see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Constitution Center, and Federal Reserve.
• Take a Tour of the Eastern States Penitentiary (Wow...this was very interesting)
• Cruise through the Reading Terminal Market and sample all the treats (Yum!)
• Walk around the neighborhoods and streets of Philly!
• Eat at some great restaurants....Tokyo Sushi and El Vez....

Rock and Roll Means Well.

This just in….a full report from Saturday. My last post was about the anticipation of the rest of my (our) Saturday night.

Tracy and I went to Seven Sushi in downtown Minneapolis. I can say this with confidence, if you want an entire dining experience go here. The wait staff is very friendly, attentive, and courteous. The restaurant creates a perfectly cozy, warm environment, located on the second floor of R. Normans Steakhouse. The sushi was great it was very playful, flavorful, and presented very creatively. My only word of advise…watch what you order because your bill can add up quickly…WOW! I am glad that we had a gift certificate.

The walk to the show, at the First Avenue, was a block away from the restaurant and I am glad that it was. We arrived at the door right at the stroke of 7:00 and the Hold Steady were already playing. (When do concerts ever start on time??? ) Anyways, like the tour name: Rock and Roll Means Well.

Now I really enjoy the Hold Steady and I have seen them three times in the last year. But this was my least memorable experience. Maybe it was because the H.S. was the opening act or that the band lacked the excitement they usually portray? I am not saying that the show was bad, but I have seen them perform better. They played songs from several of their albums and sounded good, but not great.

After about a 75 minute set the Hold Steady left the stage and the Drive By Truckers closed the night out. They were good. I have never seen them perform, but have heard some of their music. Their Alt-country sounds makes you want to grab a PRB and do a shot of Jack Daniels, if you know what I mean?? Pretty smooth sounding and great background music for a night out with the boyz!

All in all the night was great night.

Click here if you would like to hear about the show from music critic Chris Riemenschneider of the Star Tribune.

Saturday Night
Sunday Night

Triple Play!!!

As I am waiting for my counterpart to get herself ready to roll. I was thinking about how great today has been. Started it off with a run with some friends I haven't seen in a while. Followed by a great breakfast at Trotter's Cafe in Saint Paul, with Tracy. It was a great meal with even better company.

If the morning was any indication of how great tonight will be, I am excited. We are having dinner at Seven Sushi in Minneapolis followed by going to First Aveune to see one of my favorite bands...the Hold Steady!

Stay tuned for full report...

Weekend reVIEW

Another weekend is in the books, and this one had a different cultural flair. As usual, we went out to dinner -- this time to Jewel of India on the University of Minnesota's West Bank. The food far surpassed the cheap prices (you can't complain when you get dinner for two for a mere $26), and I'd definitely return. We had our typical Indian restaurant choices: vegetable samosas, wheat naan and two different entrees -- some sort of cauliflower-spinach-potato mix, as well as a chicken in a rich and nicely-seasoned sauce. I left satisfied, and the food seemed to swell within my stomach as the night wore on, so I was satisfied -- along with downright parched due to the sodium -- for many hours following dinner!

The thirst was a bit of a distraction at first, but I soon forgot about it at our next event: a showing of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge at the Guthrie Theater. My aunt gave me a gift certificate last Christmas for the Guthrie and I spent many months wondering what I'd use it on. I'm glad I waited -- the play was truly riveting, entertaining and thought-provoking.

Set in the late 1940s/early 50s (hard to tell exactly when), the play is a true, modern-day Greek tragedy. The "bridge" in the title is the Brooklyn Bridge, and the play examines the story of a unique family situation in Brooklyn: a woman and her husband have raised the woman's late sister's daughter(her niece) since childhood, and the daughter, now 18, is on the brink of branching out on her own. This in itself brings the inevitable struggles, but throw in an additional element: the woman's two male cousins have come to Brooklyn as illegal immigrants, seeking to work and earn money -- something they're unable to do in their home country of Sicily.

The full house leads to expected tensions and interesting situations, including the men's venture into American culture, but most notably the budding romance between the niece and one of the men. This romance is the straw that breaks the camel's back in the niece's descent into independence -- she's ready to move out and marry and discover life on her own. There's just one problem: her uncle can't let go -- almost to the point of going insane. And the underlying reason for not being able to let go are his inappropriate feelings for his niece that grow apparent to everyone, most noticeably his wife, except for him.

The play's themes -- including lust, betrayal, immigration and what it means to live in this country, women's independence -- could have well been pulled from present day politics, it seems. That's what makes it such an entertaining work: the themes transcend time and tell a story with a cyclical familiarity. We know it won't end well, but it's extremely compelling watching everything unfold. Add to this a very dynamic cast -- these are true professionals -- and you have a captivating evening.

I might have even cried at the end (I'm a bit of a softie) if it weren't for the man and woman with their adult children sitting behind us. Apparently nonstop yammering and thinking out loud runs in the family, because both generations were very vocal throughout the show, making comments like "Oh no!", "What did she say?" "Are you serious?" and "Look, he's still breathing," when a character dies in the end [It's a play; use your imagination!]. The talking kind of kept me from getting truly engrossed, but overall the power of the play was too strong to be completely ruined by some annoying talkers behind us. A wonderful night overall!

Eat, Drink, Be Merry

We're two days removed from the Iron Fork and my hunger is finally starting to return and my sodium levels feel like they're back to normal. Slightly kidding, but Thursday was basically the second annual Derek and Tracy Eat Their Faces Off Day -- a.k.a the City Pages' Iron Fork event at International Market Square. We had so much fun last year that we had to go again. This year's outing was also enjoyed with friends Steve and Katya, proving the more the merrier when you're eating and drinking with abandon. Where to begin...

As Derek previously explained, the centerpiece of the event was an "Iron Chef"-style competition between top local area chefs. This year's secret ingredient was chocolate. I heard the announcer mention some unique combinations, like chocolate and mushrooms, but that's about as much as I can recall -- we were waaay too busy sampling the dishes from the more than 20 different restaurants at the stations surrounding the competition.

As for my favorites, it's hard to say...I love this event because, like last year, you discover new restaurants and dishes that you would have otherwise not known about or considered. Here are a couple of highlights from the night:

The Tommy Bahama Rum Servers - These ladies wandered the floor with trays of (free, of course) mini shot-glass-sized martini glasses filled with various rum concoctions, including the crowd-favorite mojito. The only remote problem we had with this was keeping the eating up-to-speed with the mojito-drinking. This turned out to be the perfect apertif-- along with the sample glasses of Leinie's Honey Weiss -- as we waited in some of the longer lines for the more popular restaurants of the night, including the back-to-back-to back stretch of three restaurants, including...

Marla's Caribbean Cuisine - Was that Marla dishing me up the spicy red beans and rice? Not sure, but the somewhat exotic-tasting comfort food stuck to my bones with the extra kick reserved for the more adventurous. Coupled with Jamaican jerk chicken and cocktail samosas, I could have stuck to this restaurant alone for the night and been happy. We tried Marla's last year at this event and talked about going to the restaurant all year long, but never did. Maybe this will be the year, finally..

Holy Land - I've always enjoyed the Holy Land staples, including their pita bread that you can buy at about any grocery store in town. In recent years, though, I've become more of a fan of Grand Avenue's Shish, a similar restaurant that I find often tastes a bit fresher and cleaner. Both Shish and Holy Land were at last year's Iron Fork and we went back to Shish much more than Holy Land. Well, Shish was absent this year, but Holy Land made up for it by tasting better than ever. Pita chips, silky-smooth hummus, grape leaves and falafel were enough to bring me back for seconds -- ahem, thirds...

Dancing Ganesha - There's this awesome vegetarian Indian restaurant, Nala Pak, in a distant land called Columbia Heights. Nala Pak is so good that I'm willing to make the drive on 694 to an area I otherwise never go to. Well, Nala Pak's new sister restaurant is Dancing Ganesha, and from what I can tell, it's the sassier, hipper, meat-lovin' sister, as well. And delicious! DG served up some delicious pastry-style, samosa-like items called poories. Excuse my ignorance -- they're actually called Sev Batata Puris, which are poories topped with yogurt, mango and red onion with tamarind and green chutney. Yep, and I ate about three of them in the same time it took me to spell all that out. The other item DG offered was one of the best desserts I've had in a while -- chocolate samosas. These pieces of heaven had white and dark chocolate, as well as coconut and carrots, and were topped with caramel sauce. I ate one of these in the middle of eating all of the other dinner items and almost had to call it a night. But wait! There was more...

Pizza Luce - What can I say about this crowd favorite? Potato pizza. Genius.

In addition to these highlights, I also enjoyed the not being on crutches like I was at least year's event. It made the eating a lot easier -- more trips and free hands to carry more food! I recall also avoiding partaking in all beverages at last year's event out of fear of a) balancing liquid in a cup while crutching around and b) compromising my shoulder-crutch-one legged balancing act. It was a lot easier this year!

As my hunger starts to return, my thoughts are already turning to next year's event...In the meantime, we'll have to check out Dancing Ganesha and Marla's Caribbean Cuisine. And maybe I'll mix up a couple of mojitos here at home.