Day 1 and 2: Minneapolis

Day 1 and 2: Minneapolis

Touch if u will my stomach
Feel how it trembles inside
You've got the butterflies all tied up
Don't make me chase u
Even doves have pride

…This is what it sounds like when doves cry

THB would just like to go on record that he and his mother do not scream at each other (for those of you who know the chorus).

Pics: Hung Liu work in Oakland Airport, the Aloft hotel (as DB sez: this is a hipster’s Holiday Inn Express), Rustica Bakery, art from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Maya), trash cans catching the drips at Maya, and the Walker Center

Straightforward Southwest flights to Minneapolis from Oakland. Nominated for best airport art: Hung Liu, terminal 3; terrific flying cranes in glass. We meet up with another ex-Levi’s friend, Carol, for dinner at Haut Dish (pronounced Hot Dish…or is it chickendisk?). This is updated mid-west cuisine: steak salad (without the steak, iceberg wedge with creamy topping), char-cut (country style and smooth pates), ants on a log (peanut butter on celery wrapped in rice paper), mac and cheese (giant panicotti with crab), and lamb x 5 (done five very good ways!); dessert of banana sorbet and banana fritter. With local brewskies, gimlet and wine, $150 for three.

THB and DB are up early to use the fitness center, and then a real treat: visiting one of the top 10 bakeries (some list THB manages to find and hold on to…it’s somewhere around here). And, THB feels that the listing is correct: chocolate pistachio Danish, breakfast cake, ginger-lemon chocolate scone, dark rustic bread, two café au laits, $20. Then a to-go back for tomorrow, another$5.

From there, we slide over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where we take in about 10% of the museum, looking at ceramics, modern art, and a couple of great shows of photography and drawings. Off to the Northern Clay Center for a show of Michael Simon’s work, very good. We meet up with Carol again, have lunch at the French Meadow Bakery, Cobb and nicoise salads, one drink, $33.

Visit the Walker, a great art museum, a terrific collection and again several excellent “theme” shows. That takes up most of the afternoon, and we find out the Twins game is postponed that night. A quick switch of plans, we decide to take in a play, Next Fall, playing at the Jungle Theater, with dinner at a Japanese Sake brew pub across the street. A nice doubleheader, the play is a bit schmaltzy and entertaining, revolving around a gay man in a coma and his partner’s interaction with the parents (don’t know their kid is gay), their old/current boss (candle shop) and ex-lover. Does belief trump sin?

Dinner is taro chips, skewers of chicken, pork and meatballs, bun with pickles, chicken and pork, beef and kimchee in lettuce leaf, sake and sake mojito, $90 for three.

After the play lets out, we notice that a) it is no longer raining and b) the temp is dropping to slightly above freezing. Ahhhhhhhhhh, can’t you just smell that baseball is in the air…it’s Springtime!!!!