Saturday was the best all over day I have had in a long time, cheap yarn, friends, commraderie, good food, drinks and two celebrity sightings, wow right?
The day started early, really, REALLY, like 7 in the morning early. We in the Windy City Knitting Guild take our yarn serious and when Beth at Lorna's Laces opens the doors to us for a mill end sale and dye tutorial we jump at the chance. The thing is, the doors open at 10 a.m. and she has only enough room for 20 people at a time to come in go through the seconds and purchase, as each person leaves the workshop one more can come it. You don't want to be the last person, not if you're looking for something in particular and you never know what maybe be available. So, if you have a shopping list you want to get in early, hence Rachael and I arriving at 7:30, in time to be numbers 6 and 7 in line with Linda and Adrienne meeting us and getting numbers 8 and 9. For the next two hours we drank desperately needed coffee (I'm not liking Metropolis' French Roast, it was very charred tasting and not at all good and I was very hangry) and bagels at the local coffee shop biding our time and chatting with other knitters with the same game plan. At 10 a.m.-ish we were in and it was fun. Like last year there were a couple of tables piled high with sock yarn.
I knew there was going to be plenty of sock yarn to go around so I bypassed the table for the moment to see what else was available. I did snag a bag of 12 skeins of the Green Line first production yarn (before the line was revamped), which was organic yarn AND organic dye in a lovely red color. I carried it around for awhile then admitted, I did not need it, I have plenty of sweater's worth of yarn from the Knitting Workshop sale and NO! I needed to save as much as possible for Sea Socks and purchases on that trip. So I handed it over to someone else who will give it a good home and walked back to the sock table. Beth was very nice and generous and I asked if she had any of the Grumperina color way mill ends available, and the nice person that she is, found two skeins in sport weight. While not as fine as the shepherd sock it's still perfect for socks and I can't wait to play with it. My haul from the sale:
2 Skeins of Shepherd's Sport in Grumperina~For Sock Consumption
2 Skeins of Shepherd's Sock in One of a Kind, in my mind I call it Bloody Sundae but that sounds bad so how about Mint Chocolate Chip with Cherry Sauce~For Sock Consumption
4 Skeins of Shepherd's Sport in Black Purl, (black being more brown and prettier I think)~Project yarn required for class on Sea Socks Cruise.
Lots of yarn drying and wanting to be adopted by a knitter.
People in line with their haul waiting to pay.
I skipped the dye tutorial, I've already seen it several times, I was tired so I volunteer to watch purses, bags and yarn and take a little nap on the bench in the hallway. If I did see the dyeing it would use these items:
By 11 we were done and very hungry for real food and off we went to Cafe 28? A nice Cuban/Mexican food restaurant in the neighborhood. I ate sorta light, bowl of fruit, bacon and a bit of potatos because Rachael was taking me to Frontera Grill for a belated birthday gift. There was a group of people at a table behind us that I paid no attention to and when they left someone said they though one of the guys was Harold Ramis, yea, from the Ghostbusters a movie I saw when I was 8, he's a local here.
Yup, it was him.
I got a good look at him as they were getting into the car they parked in front and yea, I think it was him, kewl, a celebrity sighting in the wild! The plan was that after the sale to go and hang out with the chickens at Linda's place, but I was tired and needed a nap.
After a little R&R Rachael and I were ready to go. We arrived at Frontera around 6:45-7ish and were told there was a 2 1/2 hour wait, um okay I guess, the food is supposed to be really good so why not, it's Saturday night right? I had a gift certificate to Lettuce Entertain You that was set to expire in a few days so I figured we should go over to Maggiano's and hang out at the bar and have a drink or two. We both had a cocktail and the waiter, knowing it was my b-day gave us both a snifter of GlenLivet because I've never had good whiskey before, apparently my splurge on a bottle of Bushmills was just barely an accept brand. So the drinks were good, I was buzzed, which was good because after waiting forever we finally got a seat at Frontera, at the bar, so we had an appetizer to hold us over.
Art hanging above me at the bar, kinda freaky to look at when you've had a few.
We met some nice people, Rachael talked Motorola, I was buzzed and we were both happy to finally spot Rick Bayless.
I'm a big fan, being a very picky eater, but also a cook, I love to watch his show and how he explains things, he makes me want to try new food, slowly. I have one of his cookbooks that I got signed when he did a visit to Marshall Fields a couple of years ago, I used to work for a coffee company that specially roasts coffee for him, and a neighbor on the other side of the alley does his graphic designs.
The meal was yummy perfection (we got seated at 9:45-yes 3 hours later from when we arrived and it took less than 10 minutes for our food to come, actually, it felt like 5 minutes really), I had chicken in tortillas with mole, which ties roasted chicken ravioli w/pink sauce as my most favorite dish in the world. When we were seated it was at a 4 seater bar by the kitchen, good for people watching and such, not the best was waiter attentiveness. The people sitting next to us left and then the a seating for two was laid out, with wine and a dish that had ribs, and it sat there for awhile, until Rick Bayless himself and his wife sat down to eat.
What Rick Bayless ate for dinner.
I really wanted my picture with him but there was no good time and I'm not about to interrupt his meal, how rude. So, I can't wait to go back, but will either arrive earlier or have reservations.
So, yes it was a very good day
No comments:
Post a Comment