The Bazaar by Jose Andres

This is a newish restaurant in the SLS Hotel. The chef is a protege of Ferran Adria of El Bulli, who pretty much started the whole 'molecular gastronomy' thing. The menu is divided into more traditional takes on tapas and a modern menu. The staff was asked to design our meal and we were told that we would be presented with a story in food. Eating at a place like this is not so much just about good food, good service, good wine. The actual eating of the food (placing in mouth, tasting, chewing or drinking) is an experience. The decor is kind of crazy, the design being by Phillipe Starck. We sat in the dark room with a great view of the kitchen. We could clearly see a former 'Top Chef' contestant working away back there. This was a meal unlike anything I've had. It started out with a series of cold dishes. 'Bagel and lox' was in a cone with some kind of fish eggs on top of cream cheese. There are dishes called 'organized' and the caesar salad was one of those. The ingrediants are composed in small sushi roll sized pieces with either a quail egg or parmesan cheese on top. The caprese was small balls of liquified mozzarella with cherry tomatoes and little mini 'air breads' on top of a pesto sauce. You combine the ingrediants on a spoon. Even the more 'ordinary' dishes were amazingly good. 'Corn on the cob' consisted of grilled baby corn on top of corn puree but the taste was phenomenal. They served us a brussels sprouts dishes that actually made the vegetable taste good! I find them usually rather bitter, but here they were combined with peaches, grapes and other fruits and the sweet fruit acids combined beautifully with the sprouts. I probably ate more sprouts than I have in my entire life. Lamb came on top of mashed potato foam and the taste was pure buttery, potatoe-y goodness but with the texture of foam! The meal progressed from lighter fare to heavier. We started with champagne, had a shot of vodka to go with the caviar cones, their amazing white sangria went with the lighter fare and finished with a delicious red wine. There is a lot of description and often instruction to go with the dishes and the servers are clearly having as much fun as the diners. The end of the meal was a caipirinha made tableside with liquid nitrogen to form a beautifully smooth and potent slushy texture (photo). For dessert, we moved into another room where we sat at a little table and had chocolate 'popsicles', flan and mousse. Altogether an amazing dining experience.

Disneyland!

It's been years since I've visited the park. I think the last time was when Foster came for her 3rd birthday. I think she turned 14 this year. A lot has changed. The whole California Adventure and Downtown Disney area has taken over the old parking lot. Now there is a shuttle network that takes you from various hotels in Anaheim to the park. Harbor Blvd. has become completely inundated with hotels and restaurants catering to visitors. This visit was to accompany my sis' family. Neve is almost 4 and Mason is 1 1/2. This visit was mostly for Neve. She's particularly into the princesses. Apparently there is a whole princess marketing phenomenon that has successfully infiltrated the minds of young girls all across America. They bring their princess dress to wear in the park and the sizes and skin tones of the various young 'princesses' is rather remarkable. We did two princess-y themed activities. The first was the Princess Fantasy Faire which has taken over the old theatre next to Small World. You line up for an hour or more to spend quality time with 3 different princesses. We saw Belle, Mulan (I didn't even realize she was a princess) and Cinderella. Neve was particularly excited about her! The second princess themed event was lunch at Ariel's Grotto. You meet Ariel before you sit at your table and then during lunch 4 different princesses come to meet you. Cinderella and Belle made repeat appearances (same actresses as yesterday) plus Snow White and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). I do have to give props to the young women who played the princesses and who must smile for long periods of time, and were particularly sensitive to noting a camera aimed in their direction. The food was okay and actually pretty reasonably priced considering the cost and quality of food elsewhere in the park.

The other unique thing we did this visit was to have lunch at Club 33. This is a private club within Disneyland and the only place in the park that serves alcohol. I didn't even know it existed. It's a rather formal place and quite pricey but you get buffet appetizers including crab claws, choice of entree, and a dessert buffet. The quality of the food is very good and they have some of the best raspberry lemonade around. The kids got apple juice in a plastic cup with a straw that changes colour when the cold liquid hits it. I'm not sure it was quite worth the cost, but it was a quiet air-conditioned oasis.

Aside from the princesses, Mason quite enjoyed the Carousel (he rode it twice) and Neve liked Small World (she requested a second go around on day two and we were actually glad to oblige given that it is dark and air conditioned inside). We spent half a day in California Adventure (very sparsely populated) and we all got a kick out of the Heimlich train there. He's the caterpiller in A Bug's Life and the mini train takes you through a giant watermelon where you get sprayed with 'watermelon juice' (photo above) and animal crackers (complete with scent) and candy corn.

Disney critters were in abundance all over the park, however lines formed quickly to get face-to-face meetings and autographs. We viewed most from afar. The park is very loud, with constant noise and music from loudspeakers. And as I mentioned food is of poor quality, high in calories and very expensive. The nice thing about going with young children is that the rides they favour tend to be less popular and have shorter lines. They do get a little overstimulated and there is so much Disney paraphernalia being pushed at them. It's amazing the number of items you can make into mouse ear shapes!

Home sweet home!

We're all home today after a night in our own comfy beds. It was another amazing week at camp. Got to spend time with friends from previous years, and meet new ones. The performance was amazing. Travel home was smooth as silk, unlike the trip to Richmond. This year, I felt like there was a lot of focus on breaking down dance into its elements. I loved that because it really helps me to learn how to work properly. I feel like it's even more important for someone with my body (i.e., not naturally flexible) to learn the right way to work and not try to 'look' right. I also loved being able to see the improvement over the years of fellow campers who've been here as long as I have. Every year I'm so grateful to Heidi for providing this venue for me to learn how to dance!

Friday is the big performance!

Today starts later than the rest of the week and with a short warm up class. Pedro taught the class and as usual he had a great class with a lot of humour (which I really needed because I was so tired, more mentally than physically). We then run through variations. It didn't start off very promisingly but I managed to get everything pulled together before our time ran out. We than ran through repertory. The timing is still tricky, and Kathy did some final tweaking. It's going to be interesting to see how that works out. It really all depends on if we get our timing right. The music itself is kind of tricky but at lunch I figured out that we need to listen for the bass notes of the timpani and not get distracted by the upper melody notes.

This year, a lot of us had to drive to the theatre (because of the hotel change) which made it a little confusing. We got to Grace St Theatre, which is like coming back to an old home now. The performance order changed this year. The upper level repertory started the show. They are doing a mazurka from Swan Lake and it looks really complicated! Very fast and lots of character dance, but they looked great as always. We did our variation after that. I was extremely nervous about this particular dance this year. I had a few minor boo boos but nothing horrible. I hate that all of these variations end with turns and so frequently chainee turns, because they are a weak point for me. But I tried to finish strong nonetheless. The 3B's did their variation after that, which was Kitri from Don Q. This is such a fun variation. The men did a really neat dance and most of them were quite good at being in character. They had 3 jumps landing on their knees and amazingly, Dennis the oldest of them, did all three with aplomb. We did partnering after that. Dancing with Danny was quite fun. He's a very strong dancer. I wonder if his having taken ballroom helps at all with this. The last thing was our rep piece. We're going to have to see the video to see how it went. I started off being able to hear the timpani beat, but by the time we got to the front-side-back part, I had totally lost it. Kelly said it looked pretty good, but was better in the practice run, which is often the case. Heidi had a nice little speech at the end, and she was kind of teary, which immediately got me all teary but it's such a great celebratory feeling to be at the end of the performance. Tonight was the final dinner. We were a little delayed in getting there due to some airline difficulties (which I won't go into because it's just stupid and irritating). The locale turned out to be not as great as last year. The outdoor setting meant there were a lot of mosquitos and the indoor areas had smokers nearby plus loud music. We cut the evening short in order to be packed and ready for tomorrow morning.

It's magic Thursday at dance camp

Just like last year, I woke up feeling much better today than I could've anticipated from what I felt like when I went to bed last night. Today is the last day before the performance. We had tech class with Danile. She did a really fun center combo with a Spanish flavour. Pedro taught pirouette class and helped us with attitude turns. His suggestions really made a difference. The trick with all of these tips and suggestions from camp is to remember them when I go back to class. We ran through repertory again. There are some really tricky rhythms in this piece. I think we have it but we could really use another day of practice! Every year, though, it does end up coming together somehow. Our second day of partnering was in the afternoon. I'm going to be doing the performance with Danny and Mike, both campers. Danny is quite strong, but Mike is a little weak. Luckily the routine is something I can mostly do on my own, so it'll be okay. Again, there are a few tricky rhythms so we really have to pay attention to the music. Probably a good suggestion for ballet just in general!

Wednesday is a very long day at dance camp

Today is the first day of partnering. It's usually a favourite class for all of us, but it makes for a very long day. We had Scott Putman for tech class. He was amazing! He taught in a very different way, mainly focusing on helping us to learn how to work on pulling out of our pelvis and use it properly. The way we worked, it really helped me to feel my legs extending and this is the first time that an arabesque has felt good. Instead of feeling myself trying to crunch up my back to get my leg higher than the pathetic height it normally reaches, by pulling out of my pelvis, it gave me room for my leg to extend. It felt really good. We continued with variations, with Danile setting the groups for the performance. For once, I'm in the front (because a lot of the girls don't like being in the front). I love it because I've always hated being crowded by other people. I'd rather take the chance of totally screwing up and at least have empty space in front of me. We continued to work on the repertory piece and we're almost through the whole thing. It is really starting to come together, and I'm ever more amazed at Kathy's ability to picture this whole thing in her head! It's going to look really amazing. Partnering was with Pedro. He's really funny. He did a really good class with some trust exercises at the beginning and some traveling across the room with the guys. We are doing part of the Sugar Plum pas de deux from Nutcracker. The guys are mostly all different this year. There are a couple of young guys still in high school! Sheesh, do I feel old. But as usual, they're good fun guys and really great to dance with.

It's Tuesday and I'm not feeling as sore as I thought I would

I woke feeling not so bad today! I thought it would be much worse given how I felt last night. Today we had Pedro for tech class. This is the first time he's taught at this session of camp. He is a kick. He's originally from Venezuela and danced with Richmond Ballet. His class is quite hard, however it echoed the difficult things my regular teachers Joan and Onisha do, so I felt prepared! Joan has prepared me for the endless promenades, and Onisha for the echappe and beat jumps over and over. Heidi did pirouette class, and every year I learn some new thing to think about or focus on that improves my ability to turn. It's one of the most amazing things about camp. She also taught pointe and again, breaking down the way you need to work in your shoes, it helps me to work correctly which builds strength in the right way so I can do more difficult things. We had another repertory class and now I'm beginning to see how this is all going to come together. I can't believe Kathy can put this all together in her head. We were getting to the ending but the fire alarm went off and we all had to rush downstairs. Of course that meant all the pros from the Richmond Ballet who were upstairs rehearsing did as well, and my goodness there are some attractive young men in that company. We did another group photo session at the end of the day, and this time we kind of played around with some ideas. It was a lot of fun and I think we'll have some great photos from it. Chris and Kathy were great in putting our group of 6 together in various interesting ways.

It's only Monday and every muscle is sore!

I'm going to have to look back and see if I felt this sore on Monday last year. It's the first full day which means we learn our variation and our repertory piece. Tech class was with Kathy, who is so great. She did a lot of fun center runs. Variations is with Danile, which is perfect. She always does a great piece for us and this year is no exception. We're doing one of the women's variations from the Pas de Trois in Act 1 of Swan Lake. The music is beautiful and the piece includes jumps, turns, lots of little steps and A LOT of arm and leg coordination! It's going to be tough, but fun. Kathy is doing our repertory. She picked the 'Stars' from Cinderella, the last part of Act 1. The music is amazing, Prokofiev is just so dramatic. He also composed the ballet music for Romeo and Juliet. There are 19 women and 2 men for Kathy to coordinate. She has an amazing ability to put it all together and see the patterns. I know it's going to look great. Tonight is the trip to Ellman's and then dinner in Carytown. One thing I'm happy of is that the beds at the hotel are really comfortable. This year at least I'm sleeping well.

Back in Richmond!

It's the end of the first day of dance camp. Familiar faces are back again-the two school teachers from Connecticut, little Rachel, Theresa, Jenn, Todd, Tracey, Ann the physician. Lots of new faces are joining us, including a small contingent from Detroit. This time, my aunt (Gugu) is with me. I'm sticking with the 3A group. It's a good pace for me, it lets me focus on the technical things I need to work on but isn't so challenging that I can't also focus on being more present in the moment, and not so much in my head. Danile taught technique and that's just the perfect way to start. She gave a great class-I felt warmed up. Heidi taught pointe, and she was really good at focusing on correct positioning in the shoes and rolling up. Every year, the kinesthesiology lecture is one of the most informative and this year was no exception. The instructor is a former dancer and physical therapist and taught us quite a bit about how our bodies are (or are not) properly aligned. I learned that my knees are hyperflexed (which is why I can't get the backs of them on the floor like the ballet teachers always want). I also learned I have some curvature in my spine and I need to stretch my right side and strengthen my left. She also told us that despite what teachers say, it's not possible to penche with your supporting leg turned out! We were all feeling vindicated by that! The final class was modern. The teacher is the same dancer who taught us jazz last year, and as last year, he gave us a bajillion ab exercises. He ran us through a lot of releases and taught us some Horton and Graham techniques. The thing that's great about him is he really tries to get us to focus on being present, connecting with the imaginary audience. After class and cleaning ourselves up, we went for dinner and met up with Kitty Felde. She is a reporter for Pasadena station KPCC now based in DC. She used to take class with Joyce, Ronnie and Kelly and she was a fun addition to the dinner company.

Travel hell day

Yesterday, Joyce, Suzanne, Kelly, Peggy and I were flying into Richmond for dance camp. Unfortunately it turned out not to be the best day to travel. Of course there was that incident in La Guardia with the nutjob with the fake bomb. On our coast, we just had 'mechanical difficulties'. We couldn't get out of LA until 11:30 (when we were originally scheduled to leave at 8a). That meant we were going to miss our connection at Dulles. The one positive thing about the delay was that by the time we took off, so many people had been rebooked that the plane was mostly empty. We got into Dulles at around 8p. We waited in line for customer service for a long time before finally getting to an agent. Her solution to our problem was to fly us the same night back to Chicago and then put us up for the night before shipping us to Richmond. Richmond happens to be about 2 or 3 hours south of DC! That's not even a solution worth mentioning. We decided to rent a car and drive. It was all going rather well, until we got into Richmond and the GPS failed us. We circled Richmond a couple of times before finally getting to the airport to drop off the car. Of course the rental counter was closed so we had to figure out how to return the key. Thank god Ronnie was there with the other rental car (the one we had planned to get) to get us to the hotel. Unfortunately we missed the exit on the freeway so had to make a very long u-turn. We finally got into the hotel at about 1:30a. What a day! It turns out we were only one of many misdirected travel plans. Several people didn't make it to camp today until quite late in the afternoon. Reasons given for other people's delayed flights included more mechanical difficulties, missing flight attendants and missing pilots. Suzanne had a theory that because of the bomb scare in NY, the airlines putting off flying people out until that situation got cleared up. Doesn't sound like a bad theory.
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