So, like I said, we spent Saturday night in Minneapolis. Ethan wanted to meet up with his friends and go to the Gopher hockey game, so it was just me & Mark for dinner. We ended up at a brewpub called Republic. We were on the early side, so we could make our 7:30 play at the Guthrie, and it turned out to be happy hour – so reduced prices on beer and burgers. We both had the burger with Widmer (good WI cheese) cheddar, bacon and caramelized onions. We split a salad with a warm, crusty, goat cheese disk, pepitas, and a chipotle vinaigrette – good, but there was a too-prominent herb, I think oregano, in the dressing. The goat cheese was good on the accompanying grilled bread, but they brought out the burgers so fast after that I didn’t really have enough time to enjoy eating the cheese that way. The fries came with aioli – that was a pretty plain mayonnaise – and a homemade, cinnamon-y ketchup that I liked a lot. I felt so full after the meal, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t give the salad more attention. Even the skirt I put on to wear to the play seemed a lot tighter than it had when I wore it last Wednesday.
It was 40° when we arrived in Minneapolis around 2:30, and by the time we were walking back to the hotel after dinner at not quite 7:00, it had dropped to 17° with a stiff wind, dropping the wind chill into the negatives. Even with bellies full of food we were cold.
The play was The Servant of Two Masters, a play based on Italian Commedia dell’Arte, already somewhat modernized in the 18th century by its original author, Carlo Goldoni, and brought up to the 21st century in the Guthrie production. The Guthrie is kind of like a multiplex – there were three plays all going on at the same time, and theater-goers mingled at the various bars and concessions stands at the intermission. The new building looks out over the river, and is next door to an old flour mill that is now a museum. The neon sign is intact, and I tried to take pictures of it reflected, looking out from the Guthrie windows, with limited success. There was also a monster truck show at the Metrodome, and traffic on Washington Avenue was bumper to when both it and the Guthrie let out, between 10 and 10:30.
On Sunday morning we went to Hell’s Kitchen for breakfast (I had a waffle with their rosti – grated potatoes fried with bacon and green onions – and a poached egg on the side) and took Ethan grocery shopping, before getting on the road back to Wisconsin. We stopped for coffee at a Starbucks in Hudson, and it was my best handwashing experience in a public bathroom all morning. The water at Hell’s Kitchen was freezing, and only blower dryers; the rainbow Foods had towels, but harsh institutional soap. Starbucks had warmish water, mildish soap, and softish paper towels. Ah.
