Bistro Sauce is located in lush Shelburne, Vermont, just minutes away from Vermont's most happening city of Burlington. Sauce is a complete embodiment of Vermont's morals: a farmhouse turned restaurant, complete with a colorful garden and cozy terrace for the warmer days, Sauce offers homestyle dishes made from local, organic ingredients. It also has a prideful wine list and an amazing staff who will greet you by first name and remember your favorites on the menu. Open every day for dinner, with lunch Monday to Saturday and brunch on Sunday, Sauce is always an appealing option.
LOCAL LOVE
What's better than homestyle cooking? Homestyle cooking made from ingredients not more than 50 miles away. Bistro Sauce in Shelburne, Vermont supports local farmers and businesses from their greens to their beef, down to their bread and butter, not to mention local wines and liquors. Sauce's dishes will not only please your taste buds, they will also ease your mind knowing where it came from, sometimes personally! And just as Sauce knows their farmers, they take great pride in getting to know their frequents. If I could sum Bistro Sauce up in one word, it would be community--supporting it and it supporting Sauce, evident by the full house every weekend!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
quatre gatz
im surprised i havent written about this. in fact, im sure i have, well not 100 percent sure but it would be pretty strange if i havent because this was one of those times, ya know?
so as we all know i had some visitors in september, within 2 weeks of being in barcelona. as i have stated, i did enjoy this; family is always comforting, especially thousands of miles away from home. i go to meet them at their hotel and they have asked the concierge to recommend to them some delectable places to dine; while she wasn't their definition of "helpful," she did offer a couple of spots, one of which turned out to be a really "well-known" place, the quatre gatz, where picasso and friends used to chillax and be awesome in the midst of making their mark in the world. my visitors got very excited, increasing with walking in the charming gothic quarter streets and finally seeing what appears to be a hole in the wall. i do give props to the owners of quatre gatz: they've done a standup job at maintaining an authentic atmosphere, it would be easy to picture the artists discussing their next big work if i could see past the shopping bags and english words being tossed around.
so we get a table and look at the menu. food looks good, one of the visitors and i always end up getting two plates and splitting them because we're kind of related, and the other one is somewhat of a sissy when it comes to food, especially when in a foreign country! (figure that one out, its beyond me) our camerero comes over and says hello and asks us what we would like, in spanish of course. ordering the wine is easy, its just a point and nod kind of thing, but one of the visitors really has a hard time not talking so he begins to speak in english about something, i'd already hid my head in my cloth napkin upon seeing him open his mouth. here we go. i see this kind of thing go down in the states with people that speak english and get embarrassed, i was not ready to see this adding a language barrier to the equation. i try to interject in spanish as the visitor begins to make jokes as well as try to get the visitor to understand that our courteous waiter, who keeps his smile on while the visitors spews words he doesn't understand, doesn't understand. i tried to say something about how he's trying to joke, sorry, but the visitor continues. ordering food is kind of a blur also, as the visitors ask about the ingredients, etc., etc., and by now our camerero has asked an english speaking camerero to the table. it just got too weird for everyone, i think. nonetheless, the food was good, except for the sissy visitor not getting what she had ordered--horrors!!!--and sending it back. let's just say, in general, based on trying all the food we had at the table, the quatre gatz is definitely not famous for its cuisine. that's kind of rude but sorry, lets be real. good cheesy sauce on the overcooked asparagus, though!
and i guess to top it all off, one of the visitors asked the spanish camerero to take a picture of us three at the table. i felt really cool. the anti tourist sentiment overwhelmed me, i could hardly feign a smile so i hid my mouth with my clasped hands on which my chin rested. the other two were happy, that's all that counts.
so as we all know i had some visitors in september, within 2 weeks of being in barcelona. as i have stated, i did enjoy this; family is always comforting, especially thousands of miles away from home. i go to meet them at their hotel and they have asked the concierge to recommend to them some delectable places to dine; while she wasn't their definition of "helpful," she did offer a couple of spots, one of which turned out to be a really "well-known" place, the quatre gatz, where picasso and friends used to chillax and be awesome in the midst of making their mark in the world. my visitors got very excited, increasing with walking in the charming gothic quarter streets and finally seeing what appears to be a hole in the wall. i do give props to the owners of quatre gatz: they've done a standup job at maintaining an authentic atmosphere, it would be easy to picture the artists discussing their next big work if i could see past the shopping bags and english words being tossed around.
so we get a table and look at the menu. food looks good, one of the visitors and i always end up getting two plates and splitting them because we're kind of related, and the other one is somewhat of a sissy when it comes to food, especially when in a foreign country! (figure that one out, its beyond me) our camerero comes over and says hello and asks us what we would like, in spanish of course. ordering the wine is easy, its just a point and nod kind of thing, but one of the visitors really has a hard time not talking so he begins to speak in english about something, i'd already hid my head in my cloth napkin upon seeing him open his mouth. here we go. i see this kind of thing go down in the states with people that speak english and get embarrassed, i was not ready to see this adding a language barrier to the equation. i try to interject in spanish as the visitor begins to make jokes as well as try to get the visitor to understand that our courteous waiter, who keeps his smile on while the visitors spews words he doesn't understand, doesn't understand. i tried to say something about how he's trying to joke, sorry, but the visitor continues. ordering food is kind of a blur also, as the visitors ask about the ingredients, etc., etc., and by now our camerero has asked an english speaking camerero to the table. it just got too weird for everyone, i think. nonetheless, the food was good, except for the sissy visitor not getting what she had ordered--horrors!!!--and sending it back. let's just say, in general, based on trying all the food we had at the table, the quatre gatz is definitely not famous for its cuisine. that's kind of rude but sorry, lets be real. good cheesy sauce on the overcooked asparagus, though!
and i guess to top it all off, one of the visitors asked the spanish camerero to take a picture of us three at the table. i felt really cool. the anti tourist sentiment overwhelmed me, i could hardly feign a smile so i hid my mouth with my clasped hands on which my chin rested. the other two were happy, that's all that counts.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
sarcasm
sarcasm has been pretty difficult for me lately which is a big change from being at home in vermont where sarcasm is the mother tongue. people that don't know me very well will obviously read me differently than my childhood friends. so on that note, it can be hard in a foreign country even when speaking in english. attempting in spanish is another level entirely. i don't know why i think i'm at a level in spanish that i can convey my sarcasm efficiently. i've had many an experience of failing.
my first crack was at a jazz bar with some asshole whose name i dont remember because i never want to see him again. anyway, the oh-so-original conversation about how americans speak spanish began and this guy said that americans usually elongate their vowels like ooooos and aaaaas and iiiiis. sure, make that generalization. i dont know if im granting myself higher honors but i'd like to think that practicing spanish for 4 years i should be past the basics of vowel pronunciation. professors have been stressing that since day 1. so this guy's all how we make words longer than they are blah blah blah, and i say, what? like hooooolaaaa?--making it like a five second hello with a smile. he says yeah, like that!! and points. and i say, what? why was that wrong?
-its hola.
-hooooolaa?? coooomoooo???
-jajaja...no no.. shorter!
it became a lesson. im not sure what i expected.
i guess its just bothersome because, as we discussed in our travel writing class, as an anti tourist i make a hard effort to not be american. its kind of unnecessary and unreal but i dont want to be labeled; its rather counteractive i suppose.
and my next encounter was at a gallery opening. (i need to write about meeting the artist at a later date.) there was a cast of characters there, including a local older gentlemen a few drinks in with terribly intoxicating breath and a lot to say. we discussed america's politics, his point of view based on two trips to san francisco a couple decades ago, which of course evolved into gun control; hombre said that everyone in america has pistolas and people are dying all over the place because of it compared to nobody carrying metal in barcelona. a little bored by his repetitveness but feeling fortunate to be practicing, we spoke in sport. maggie said that its hard to say that its like that all over the country when america is like 5 times larger than spain and has polar opposite states/regions. he was hearing but not listening, but cordial all the same, so we spiced it up with some sarcasm, something about how all of our friends have guns. he looked at us surprised but almost like "see!?" and we nodded to confirm then laughed. "es sarcastico" and he said that our faces are too straight, too serious when we are sarcastic, how he thinks we are being truthful! (im too tired to continue, edit later)
my first crack was at a jazz bar with some asshole whose name i dont remember because i never want to see him again. anyway, the oh-so-original conversation about how americans speak spanish began and this guy said that americans usually elongate their vowels like ooooos and aaaaas and iiiiis. sure, make that generalization. i dont know if im granting myself higher honors but i'd like to think that practicing spanish for 4 years i should be past the basics of vowel pronunciation. professors have been stressing that since day 1. so this guy's all how we make words longer than they are blah blah blah, and i say, what? like hooooolaaaa?--making it like a five second hello with a smile. he says yeah, like that!! and points. and i say, what? why was that wrong?
-its hola.
-hooooolaa?? coooomoooo???
-jajaja...no no.. shorter!
it became a lesson. im not sure what i expected.
i guess its just bothersome because, as we discussed in our travel writing class, as an anti tourist i make a hard effort to not be american. its kind of unnecessary and unreal but i dont want to be labeled; its rather counteractive i suppose.
and my next encounter was at a gallery opening. (i need to write about meeting the artist at a later date.) there was a cast of characters there, including a local older gentlemen a few drinks in with terribly intoxicating breath and a lot to say. we discussed america's politics, his point of view based on two trips to san francisco a couple decades ago, which of course evolved into gun control; hombre said that everyone in america has pistolas and people are dying all over the place because of it compared to nobody carrying metal in barcelona. a little bored by his repetitveness but feeling fortunate to be practicing, we spoke in sport. maggie said that its hard to say that its like that all over the country when america is like 5 times larger than spain and has polar opposite states/regions. he was hearing but not listening, but cordial all the same, so we spiced it up with some sarcasm, something about how all of our friends have guns. he looked at us surprised but almost like "see!?" and we nodded to confirm then laughed. "es sarcastico" and he said that our faces are too straight, too serious when we are sarcastic, how he thinks we are being truthful! (im too tired to continue, edit later)
preface
this blog is turning into a homework assignment, literally.
im in a "travel writing" class and am supposed to be journaling (every day); while i really don't agree with being forced to reflect on things for a grade, maybe i could get into this. i didn't write enough last semester on here so im hoping for more. so far its been pretty rad, as i will elaborate.
enter: barcelona spring 2010!
im in a "travel writing" class and am supposed to be journaling (every day); while i really don't agree with being forced to reflect on things for a grade, maybe i could get into this. i didn't write enough last semester on here so im hoping for more. so far its been pretty rad, as i will elaborate.
enter: barcelona spring 2010!
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