Friday, January 2, 2009

19 September 2008: Shakespeare in the Park




One night in September, my boyfriend and I went to Orinda to watch Twelfth Night at CalShakes. If you get a chance, go out there for a night: the theater is outdoors, set in a natural amphitheater, and surrounded by eucalyptus-grove parkland. The play wasn't great — I'm not a huge fan of Twelfth Night anyway, although Stanford Shakespeare Society did a nice production a few years back, and this version was overwhelmingly campy — but the picnic was wonderful. The corkscrew on the pocket-knife broke the cork on the bottle of Zinfandel, and we ended up getting into the wine only by pushing the cork into a bottle with a knife and exploding wine all ourselves (the folks at the nearby table were amused). In the middle of dinner, it started to rain, and we had only a fleece blanket for cover; the play was delayed half an hour so they could mop up, on account of Olivia's stilettos. Oh, and they sell hot cocoa during intermission. All in all, the evening was fantastic.

The picnic included: a potato salad (pictured) with kalamata olives, blanched green beans, cucumbers, and vinaigrette; fresh bread; smoked cod; chevre; and a white bean spread.

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