Park day, Q’s, silent movie
13 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment
in family outing, review
We had only a few incidents at park day, found one snake (which might have been the same snake from last week..), played in the sprayground, and the Moms talked while the kids ran around and around and around.
After the park we went by the library to pick up the Life of Fred book that was on hold (Hannah says ‘Yay!’) I went to meet James at work so we could leave from there to our date night. We started at Q’s restaurant in the Hotel Boulderado. The hotel was built in 1909 and it’s the only place left in Boulder where the Arapahoe glacier water comes out of a fountain.
The glacier still supplies 2% of Boulder’s water, pretty cool. The open design and stained glass ceiling are reminiscent of the Brown hotel (that’s because the Brown was built first.)
We had dinner at Q’s restaurant inside the hotel. Our service was excellent, I’ve never been to a restaurant that took away my used silverware and gave me fresh ones after each course. James went with the 3 course meal with wine pairings and I had an appetizer and entree. I had to try this appetizer – tomato tart with basil ice cream.
I know that sounds weird, but the ice cream was not sweet, it just tasted like basil and it melted over the blistered tomatoes and soaked into the pastry, there was also a drizzle of balsamic vinegar that worked into the flavor too, very savory. James had a salad with pistachios and different kinds of lettuce for his 1st course, then it was on to seared scallop wrapped in prosciutto on top of an artichoke fritter.
For the main course he had the hickory smoked pork chop with whipped sweet potatoes, cranberries and spicy mustard.
I had a bite and it was a taste sensation of hickory flavor, sweet, spicy and was very tasty. My dish was the seared scallops on top of artichoke fritters with a pesto sauce.
The scallops tasted smoked and the fritters were crunchy and wonderful. We would have had dessert, but we were running late for our movie (and we could always go to Little man’s on the way home – we found out they are open till 12!)
We headed over to Chautauqua for the silent movie. We were watching ‘The Gaucho’ (1927) with Douglas Fairbanks and a small orchestra was there in the auditorium to accompany the movie. Here’s what I have to say about Mr. Fairbanks – that man’s got skill. He had a cigarette in his mouth, swallowed it, kissed a girl, then spit the cigarette back out and it was still lit! Tell me that’s not skill…he did lots of tricks with cigs in the movie, I might have to look up and see if he died of lung cancer (nope, heart attack.)
(berkeleydailyplanet.com)
He was a bad guy in this movie, a thief who carries away the lady and tries to steal gold from a shrine in the City of the Miracle. But, faith overcomes his heart toward the end. The movie had a good plot and had action, drama and funny parts. I didn’t know that Fairbanks was married to Mary Pickford (she had a cameo in the movie) or that he was from Denver (and even went to East High School.) He also acted at the Elitch garden theater and he, Chaplin, Griffith and Pickford started United Artists in 1919 to give themselves control over what movies they made and how they distributed them.
This was the first time James and I were in the auditorium, it’s 114 years old (and looks it from the inside, that’s called character.) It was neat being able to see the light from outside through all the cracks in the boards, I hope they never cover that up (well, it’s been 114 years and they haven’t yet, so I bet they won’t.)
(wikipedia)
If you didn’t know, Chautauqua was a movement in the late 1800′s to 1900′s that was sort of adult education. Places popped up all over the US as institutions where people could hear lectures, advance their knowledge, be entertained, hear preachers, see dances and films and have fun. They popped up in rural areas and some places became permanent (like Boulder) others were tent cities that stayed in an area for awhile before moving on. The word is Native American and means – 2 moccasins tied together, which refers to the lake in New York where the original Chautauqua was built. The Boulder Chautauqua came about like this: In the late 1890s, the Texas Board of Regents determined to establish a summer school for teachers in a cool climate. Because the Chautauqua Movement was such a powerful and popular cultural force in the United States at the time, the Regents surmised that the best way to obtain a favorable location for the teachers’ school would be to partner with a railroad company, package the school with a chautauqua, and barter with a Colorado town for a site. Boulder city leaders wooed the Texans by offering to supply land, facilities and public utilities for the assembly. The site for what originally was called the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua was expressly chosen for its spectacular mountain setting and its health-giving environment. -Colorado Chautauqua National Historic Landmark FAQ
We ended our night by going to Little man’s for dessert and yes, at 10:30pm at night there was a line. I swear, that place prints money. A wonderful date night for me and my hubby.
