An all-play weekend

Last weekend was an all-play and no work weekend, so relaxed, in fact, that I’m just finally finishing writing about it now, Wednesday, Friday, the start of the next weekend, and it’s Memorial Day, too.

Friday was gallery night in Madison, artists & galleries all over the city opening their studios and spaces to the public, coordinated by the art museum. We started off on the North side because one of the participating artists lives next door to friends. Proceeded on to Tandem Press, a UW-Madison affiliated fine arts printer, where artists from all over the world go to work, and where there was a lot of art but few people. Our final art stop was at a cohousing space where 9-10 artists have studios. Two friends live there, Katie Kazan and Dan Slick – not sure if they have studios there, because their work was in the cohousing commons area, but it was fun to see them. Probably more people there than any of the other places we stopped in at. We finished up with dinner out at a Food Fight restaurant (the Lettuce Entertain You group of Madison), Bar Corallini.We split an appetizer, crostone, mortadella on top of burrata on top of bread with a basil spread on it, with hot honey and pistachios on top, and two pastas, a shrimp scampi and a Bolognese. It was really dark in there, though, so I didn’t take any pictures. It’d been hot all day but the temperature was supposed to drop and it surely did, because when we came out of the restaurant I was freezing on the short walk to the car. Food Fight prides itself on restaurant design and Bar Corallini was definitely a quality remodeled space, with plenty of space and nice finishes.

Saturday morning it was cold, but we went to the Farmers Market. I bundled up and biked and Mark went on foot. I got us coffees and we met up and went around two sides of the market and got to the top of State St. in time for the mini-parade in honor of 150 years of the Madison Public Library.

We bought some really pretty flowers. I made Mark carry them home because I was going to head over to the Willy Street Co-op after the market to do a little more shopping. 

They still looked good on Sunday

After the market, we left our purchases on my bike and walked to the library, where we separated. I went in and listened to the Mayor read the whereas’s to proclaim that May 31 will be Madison public library day.

And chatted with a variety of librarians who I know from various connections, chiefly teaching at iSchool for 23 years.

As a reward for volunteering at the WI Film Fest back in April, I had a couple of free passes for Flix Brewhouse that were going to expire on May 31, so on Saturday afternoon we went out there and saw Thunderbolts*. We pretty much agreed with the NPR review, kind of a mess, but “It also happens to be the most enjoyable Marvel adventure in some time.” It’s got characters making snappy banter while fighting and lots of stuff blowing up and smashing. Exactly what you want in a Marvel movie.

After the movie I tried out this rhubarb pound cake, thinking we might eat it Sunday morning. It’s a Melissa Clark recipe, and I know lots of people love her, but I tend to have trouble with her recipes, especially baking. See maple brown butter corn bread. When we got around to tasting it Sunday, turns out it’s a very nice vanilla pound cake and the rhubarb is completely unnoticeable. 

For dinner we ate reheated leftover pasta from our Friday night out, and eventually watched the finale to the 50th season Saturday Night Live, with Scarlett Johansson and Bad Bunny. I thought it wasn’t as great as it could have been IMHO, but I liked Weekend Update and Bad Bunny’s first number. And I agree with the NYT that the Mike Meyers elevator ride was the best. Our local NBC must’ve run out of time because they cut the curtain scene a bit, we didn’t get to hear all the thank-yous and the music and everyone hugging, but we did get to see Colin give Scarlett flowers and a kiss.

Sunday Mark went for a walk, and I went to the Monroe St. Farmers Market to Curbside Bikes pop-up, because each of my bikes had a minor thing wrong with it. The new Liv had something rubbing and the shifter on the handlebars of the white Giant needed to be tightened, it was slipping around making it hard to shift. I mean, it’s only got a single sprocket, so not that many gears, bu usually more than one! The first time it started slipping I went out to the garage with a screwdriver thinking I could fix it myself, but couldn’t figure out how to get into it. I took the Giant over first. Ian took one look and said, oh it’s a hidden allen and had it tightened up in about 10 seconds. So I rode home and got the Liv and what was rubbing was the brakes which were a teeny tiny bit out of adjustment. I enjoyed talking with Ian and his wife (blanking on her name sorry), and son Cypress. Their big news is Cypress’s little sister is on the way, due in November, and they bought a house.

We had asparagus tart and smashed potatoes for brunch, and samplings of the pound cake, see above.

And, I updated my asparagus tart recipe based on this one.

After brunch I biked over to WORTstock. Nice afternoon to be outdoors. Jane took a picture but I’m just outside the frame.

The last band, Katrina deVille and the Nobody Famous, were pretty good and looks like they’ll be playing more free shows in Madison later this summer.

And I guess we’ll have to end with a few Jasper pictures from the Wednesday before last weekend. I only took one last Wednesday and it’s not great, just a shot of him eating raisins from a little cup with his eyes glued to Cars shorts on TV.

Oh, and I found my sweater. I thought it was lost, maybe left on the plane from Philadelphia, but it was folded up in the bike trailer from when we went to the park a week ago Wednesday.

And here’s a perfect iris, from walking to campus a week ago Thursday.