Monk's Kettle does it again - and cabs?!

A full write up will come later, but suffice it to say that Monk's Kettle pulled out all the stops last night for their Lagunitas Beer Pairing dinner. The hops were ever present and well balanced by the delicious food.

Dinner was a bit slower paced than normal, which meant we had to rush out to catch a cab. It took us forever to find one that wasn't occupied, but then the driver we got DIDN'T KNOW WHERE CALTRAIN WAS! How can you be a cab driver in San Francisco and not know where the Caltrain stations are? There are only two....by the time we got out of that cab, it was no longer possible for us to make our 10:45PM train, so we had to wait it out 'til the midnight train.

Sayer made sure our wait was bearable, though, by bringing us out some of the leftover dessert chocolate and some beer - YUM!

So, is there a good way to find a cabbie in SF that actually knows where the train stations are? Any recommendations? Or do I just need to print out a directions and take them with me?

Now Appearing in Gypsy!

Sorry for the long delay since my last post - I've been busy rehearsing for my opening of Gypsy at Hillbarn Theater in Foster City!

I'm playing the role of Miss Cratchitt in Act I and Renee in Act II, and having a blast! I haven't been on stage at Hillbarn since I appeared as Minnie Fae in Hello Dolly several years ago. It's a great production with an amazing cast and crew!

Annmarie Martin is amazing as Mama Rose and inspiring to me as an actress. When I have my scenes with her, I feel a passion and character connection that forces me to be perfectly on my game and in the scene. She's a total pro - literally! Not to mention an incredibly nice person who does some amazing knitting and crochette. Oh, and she's an avid Sharks fan - check her out singing the Canadian and American national anthems in the Shark tank!

Every actor I'm sharing the Hillbarn stage with are taking the production very seriously - always in character, hair & makeup always done as designed, costumes kept nice, and engaged in the scene - even if they don't even have any lines.

And the crew.... first of all, it's the first time I've ever been on a show with an entirely female run crew! [1] Yay, women techies! They are super organized - everything just runs smoothly. Sets are where they need to be and props are always in the right place. Thank you, Joey, Rosie, Haley, Aya, and Andrea!

Beyond the run crew, the orchestra is spot on; the sound guy, Steven, monitors the levels perfectly throughout the show; sets are repaired as needed by our fantastic set designer/builder, Lee Basham; gorgeous costumes from Shannon & Mae; lovely hair-dos from Dee & Kathleen; and things run smoothly thanks to producer Lee Foster!

If you get a chance, please come see the show - we've been selling out nearly every night, so buy your tickets sooner than later! Let them know you're coming to see me. It's a wonderful production - you won't be disappointed!

[1] Nick, our fill-in techie, is not a woman and still really awesome!

First Firkin Friday at the Tied House!

I was given the very cool honor of getting to tap the firkin (a small barrel of Real Ale) this past Friday at the Tied House, for being such an avid Tied House fan on Twitter, Facebook and my blog. I was very nervous when I discovered this was a good ol' fashioned type of tapping - with a pointy tap and a mallet! I'd heard the last person to do this got sprayed in beer - and I did *not* want to waste fine beer!

Carolyn and the gang walked me through it, and with one (okay... two) swift swings, the firkin was tapped!



This month's beer was a fine Mai Bock from Peter Licht and Ron Manabe. While I've complained in the past that the firkins can suffer from too much yeast (most likely from not sitting long enough before being tapped), this Mai Bock had no issues there. The *imperial* sized pints were filled nearly to the brim by the happy bartenders, and the beer went down smooth. At one point I heard the ABV was 7%, so we all tried to be careful with the quantities, but the beer was so yummy that I think there were a lot of hang overs on Saturday (don't worry, most of us walked there!)

I don't have much experience with Mai Bocks, but this one reminded me of all the things I love about a hefeweisen, and none of the things I don't. It was light and crisp, with a slight citrus flavor. It was a bit cloudy, but like I noted before, was not yeasty.

I think our group made a pretty good dent on the firkin :-)

I don't know what the special beer for next Month will be, but I can tell you this: if you go to the Tied House in Mountain View on the first Friday of every month about 5PM, you won't be disappointed.


(in interest of full disclosure, I did get a free pint for my tapping efforts, but if this wasn't a good beer, I wouldn't have bothered discussing the taste :-)

Sweet Charity at West Valley Light Opera

We were lucky enough to catch the great production of Sweet Charity at West Valley Light Opera down in Saratoga CA this Saturday. While I'm familiar with most of the songs (like, Hey Big Spender!), I'd never managed to see the show before.

One thing that really stood out to me in this show was the ensemble! Each and every one of them were able to dance, sing and act! When they were on stage, they were in the scene - never just standing there.

Katie O'Bryon was amazing as Charity, getting you immediately on her side, no matter how bad her choices were. She was hysterical - especially in the Vittorio Vidal's Apartment scene - the portions where she was in the closet (which, very cooly, we could see into through a scrim) had me laughing myself silly.

My friend, Michael Carey, was charming, sweet and endearing as Charity's first "sensible" love interest, Oscar. His chemistry with O'Bryon, particularly in the Coney Island and Barney's Chile Hacienda scenes, was delightful.

Other standout performances were seen from ensemble members Ian Teter (loved him as door man for Club Pompei & in Rhythm of Life Church) and Valerie Valenzuela (fantastic dancer & super cute Fairy), Marcie Marshall (Ursula), Patty Reinhart (Nickie), and Brittany Blankenship (Helene).

This only runs for one more weekend, so please be sure to check it out!

Monk's Kettle: Shelton Brothers Beer Dinner

Okay, so I'm behind on writing up the beer dinner's I've attended... This one, which was fabulous, was on December 2, 2009 at the Monk's Kettle. While these dinners usually feature a specific brewer, which makes for an interesting challenge for the chef to pair to a limited set of beers, this one was coordinated with an importer, Shelton Brothers, so we got to "tour" the world at Monk's Kettle that evening.

We started out with a delightful visit to Germany with Weissenohe Monk's Fest, which featured a slightly hoppy caramel flavored Marzen style beer. This paired amazingly well with our starting course: chicken liver braunschweiger with pickled shallots on a crostini. I don't know about you, but I love braunschweiger and feel that it is a type of mystery meat that has been largely neglected by the American masses over the last few years. I was glad to see it back and with such a nice beer.

A short jaunt over to Belgium for De Ranke XX Bitter (Belgian IPA). This was an abbey style "farm ale", which I found was a little too hoppy for me to start with, but once I tried it with the mussels in fresh herbs and tomatoes, WOW! This pairing completely changed the flavor of the beer in the most amazing way. My notes say: "made it very yummy" :) And none of us, excepting the one that doesn't eat shell fish, could not get enough of these mussels and broth! Of course, they were served with amazing Belgian style pommes frites. This was the course I could've eaten over & over again.

Onto the Netherlands - land of tall and very polite people, and amazing beer. We were treated with Christoffel Nobel (Imperial Pilsner), apparently the first Trappist brewery to open in the Netherlands. We felt for certain that this could easily be a terrible hangover beer, due to the fact that it was remarkably delicious and 8.7% ABV. My friend, Julie, and I both tasted Bing cherries and mandarins in this beer, and it was again another amazing pairing! Served with house-cured gravlax with a hovmastarsas sauce, capers, shaved red onion and toasted Metropolis Bigio.

Then, surprisingly, we came back to America for a Michigan brewed beer. I guess Michigan is like another country to those of us that live out in California, but more importantly, it was a good cask ale - specially made just for the Monk's Kettle! This was an odd beer, with an odd name: Jolly Pumpkin Barn Noire, which tasted sweet with hints of cinnamon and orange peel. Chef Kevin Kroger felt that such a strange beer deserved a strange course, and for the first time in my life I had lamb tartare, served with house made crackers. I found the lamb so tender and tasty. I wasn't sure I'd be a fan of raw ground lamb, but Chef Kroger worked magic and made an amazing pairing (and was super nice and provided Mark with some roasted goat cheese, as he just couldn't tolerate the thought of eating raw meat).

Now for our cooked lamb course, a delicious lamb stew, we went to Norway for Nøgne-Ø Porter (American Style Porter). Like many porters, this one tasted heavily of chocolate and espresso and ... pure yumminess. Another friend at the table stated that he loved this beer more than anything, and yes, "I want to marry it". His review of the stew: "Like being wrapped in a snuggie". The lamb stew, with onions, carrots, celery, turnips, Bay leaves and fennel, paired so well with this beer, it really showed how well Chef Kroger can match up entrees when given a wider selection of beers.

At this point, I can't lie, we were getting a little tipsy. While it's not like each of these beers is coming in a pint glass, they do keep coming. Fortunately, the staff at the Monk's Kettle is well prepared for happy beer drinkers and kept all of our water glasses full and kept quickly bringing out the food :-)

Our next stop on our international tour was in Denmark for Mikkeller Christmas Chokladbollar, served with a "traditional dessert" of chocolate balls rolled with oats and covered in coconut. I definitely got apricots on the nose of this one, but on the palate a different beast arose: nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolate - well, to me & Julie, this beer tasted exactly like Toll House chocolate chip cookies. To Phil, it was "Christmas in the mouth". Okay, at 11% ABV, we were more than tipsy, but did all love this beer and the chocolate balls that came along with it!

The dinner ended with a Belgium Redux: Struise Pannepøt (Quadrupel) at 10%. We all loved this beer. Julie thought it tasted like "a great espresso that you have with a dash of nutmeg". Sirena said simply, "This is good".

Chef Kevin Kroger has grown by leaps and bounds. This dinner was amazing, the pairings were intriguing, and the service was phenomenal. I really enjoy hearing directly from the importers and hearing various stories about the beers and the brewers.

Soon I'll be writing up the March dinner :-)

First Big Training Ride and Request for Advice

Last Sunday, 1/2 of Team Salty Dawgs (plus a bonus rider) headed out on our first big training ride in preparation for my first century: 58 miles! We started in Mountain View (though one rider started in Sunnyvale...), headed up the bay shore trail to the Sun's Menlo Park campus, and made a right turn onto the Dumbarton Bridge. After we got over the bridge, we continued on beautiful bicycle trails through Alameda County until we found ourselves at Niles, where we had a delightful lunch at a little cafe (complete with cafe lattes!) and watched the steam trains go by.

After lunch, we reversed our route, pushing hard against the head winds that had come in since the morning. My dear friend Eileen had only ridden 11 miles previously this year, so I was very proud of how she stuck with the group and had no complaints (other than dreaming about a warm bath and cookies back at her own home).

We jokingly called it the Tour de Toilettes, as it seemed one of us always needed to stop every time we came across one. Fortunately, all of them, except one dreadful port-a-potty, were well maintained and clean. :-)

We did this in 4 hours and 19 minutes of ride time - it was mostly flat, though, so this weekend we'll have to start on the hills!

My only complaint, though, which is one I seem to have after every long ride (greater than 3 hours) is a headache and a stomach ache. My stomach seems to get incredibly filled with air during a ride - like I'm swallowing air or something? It's sort of like drinking a couple of Diet Cokes or beers really fast. That full feeling that, I'm sorry to say, does come with burps and nausea.

I'm certainly not drinking soda during a ride like this. I was also not eating, except for my lunch stop. I drank water pretty continuously from my Camel Bak.

So, any ideas? Anyone else have this problem of stomach ache on a long ride?

One of my team mates, Bryn, thinks the headache might be from lack of electrolytes and has suggested Cytomax. What do you think?

I've also been focusing on my speed - I want to finish these 100 miles in less than 24 hours :) My normal average speed on a ride like that is 12.5 mph, I've got to do better. That was my normal speed into work, but with all the riding I've been doing lately, I've gotten that up to around 15 mph (no hills).

btw, I'm still looking for folks to join our team! The ride is in Sonoma area, 65 or 100 miles, on June 26. You can find information on our team page. If you can't ride, please support us with a financial donation! Thank you!

Enjoyed Sheherezade: Year in Review!

Mark & I made it up to San Francisco last night for the Playwrights' Center's annual fund raising presentation of 8 short works, Sheherezade; Year in Review! My friend Phil was in the show again, which is a great motivator for getting me up to the city for theater :-)

You know what I love about short works? It gives the authors a chance to explore some really bizarre topic, but not for very long - so before you realize how ridiculous this is. Like, Fara Fawcette and Michael Jackson meeting in a hair salon in heaven. :-)

Each of the pieces deals with some big event from last year. In addition to the deaths of those two beloved celebrities, they covered the Muni problems, H1N1, trouble in Tehran, gay politicians, Bernie Madoff, a 14 year-old's discovery of a new type of supernova, and... a cult of transvestite Radha worshipers.

My favorite had to be Muni Aphrodite, by Bob Hayden. I loved how straight both actors (Phil Goleman and Cory Tallman) played what could've been just a silly story. Of course, they brought humour into it as well. While I don't live in SF, so couldn't fully relate to the Muni problems of 2009, it was obvious that most of the audience was right there with those actors.

They have two more performances - tonight & tomorrow. It's for a good cause and lots of fun, too, so go check them out. I'm also hoping to catch Sweet Charity with West Valley Light Opera this weekend, which I hear is great!