Highland Park, Illinois
7/23/2015
Classical music became the inadvertent theme of this trip.
Ravinia Park is the site of North America’s oldest outdoor music festival (it’s
been running since 1904), located about a half-hour north of Chicago. Patricia
recommends taking the Metra train (this is different from the L-train), but
when I looked into it, it was weirdly cost prohibitive. A round-trip would have
cost us around $16 per person. This is one of those rare circumstances in the
Chicago area where it’s actually cheaper to drive. So, things were a little
different today, since poor Laura had to brave the Chicago traffic and pick me
up after my conference. When she arrived she looked decidedly harried, but I
had a foolproof plan to soothe her road-rage. [I hate
driving in Chicago. They’re all insane,
and out to kill you. The taxi drivers
are the worse. They honk at you even
when you can’t do anything about it. It
was a fifteen minute long drive, but it seemed like 2,000 years.]
You see, Laura doesn’t watch a lot of TV, but she loves
cooking shows. [Yaaaahhhhhhhhh] Her absolute
favorite is Iron Chef, and the king
of the lot is the original Iron Chef, Masaharo Morimoto. [Yaaaahhhhhh] She loves this guy. [Yahhhhhhhhh!!!!] One
I day I will come home to find a note saying, “I have left you for Morimoto”
and I won’t be surprised. [That could possibly happen
one day.] She’s even got the kids in on these chefs. I figure most
5-year olds argue over whether Batman could beat up Superman – mine fight over
whether Bobby Flay or Simon Mujumdar are better chefs. It’s cute, but there’s a
dark side. You haven’t seen maternal rage like the time Daniel complained his
fish at dinner “needed more seasoning.” [I think I screamed something like, “Why don’t you ungrateful
lot just ask Morimoto or Symon to cook for you, and see what they have to say
about that!”
What does this have to do with anything? Oh yeah. Well,
Morimoto only has ten restaurants in the world and one of them is in Chicago.
The only reason I know that is because when we got lost the night before we
happened to pass by it. (See, there are benefits to me not knowing where I’m
going – or so I keep telling myself.) It turns out the menu is actually fairly
reasonably priced, and after a quick phone call we had reservations for a
couple of hours before we had to be at Ravinia.
It really was worth the hype. We split a couple of
appetizers, sushi, and these artsy-looking desserts – all very unique
concoctions.
Laura thought she would freak out the waiter by gushing
about Morimoto, but the waiter said he really is an amazing guy and he does
come to the restaurant about once every 4 to 6 weeks to teach them new things.
So I guess he takes pride in what they are doing and doesn’t just slap his name
on the door. Regardless, you can’t put a price tag on this smile…[Oh yeah. I cry just
thinking about it again.]
Laura, are you feeling alright? [I
don’t understand why you said I had to stop kissing the menu.]
Ok… Now we’re getting creepy. [What,
you were pretending to eat Charlie Trotter’s food pictures……]
Moving on we made our way up to the festival. It was fairly
easy to get to in a pretty and affluent suburb. We knew we were getting close
because of all the signs outside people’s houses: “No Ravinia Parking.” They’ve
been doing this for a hundred years. Some people must be pretty sick of it.
When we got to the actual parking lot, we paid our $10 and then were led to
bored-looking teenagers orchestrating traffic. No doubt, this is the obligatory
summer job for the kids who live here. One of the kids started yelling at a
driver who got a little too close. “I’ve been hit three times this year!” When
we got out of our car we saw one of the parking ticket guys running through the
field. He started shouting at someone: “Hey! You only gave her $7, instead of
$10. You owe us $3!” The accused forked over the money.
We made it to the main gate, which forms a barrier
surrounding the park, keeping non-ticket holders out. No freebies here, folks.
Patrons of the arts only.
Inside the wall, Ravinia Park is technically a park, but
it’s kind of strange because it’s enclosed by a wall that has a restaurant,
gift shops, ice cream sellers, etc. built into it. There are some modern art
sculptures sprinkled about, also. [I bought an ice cream cone, mostly because that’s my way of
supporting the locals, and promptly fell into a comatose state. I was having
difficulty staying awake for the concert.
It just wasn’t very entertaining.]
We had lawn tickets, and smartly brought our own folding
chairs. Before the concert started it was unclear to me where the orchestra would
be. The performers were in a depressed orchestra pit, so we couldn’t see them.
They had a closed-circuit camera projecting the musicians on a screen. So it
basically felt like we had bought a ticket to watch these guys on TV. All the
while about a dozen of the security guards walked rapidly back and forth
through the crowd. Several held big signs that said, “Quiet please. Your
neighbors are trying to listen.” [Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.]
I have to say the orchestra was excellent, but the
atmosphere did dampen the experience. Maybe because it was so easy to compare
the concert with the one the night before we didn’t give it a fair shot. I
don’t know. At Grant Park, there was a definite sense that the people involved
knew why they were doing it. Ravinia has been going on for 5 generations – I
couldn’t figure out why.
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