Alternative Holiday Diversions
SURE WE’RE SAPS FOR IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, “LISTEN DADDY, EVERY TIME A BELL RINGS, AN ANGEL GETS ITS WINGS...” YEAH, YEAH, WE GET TEARY-EYED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT, TOO. BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MAY CRAVE SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE SAUCEY THAN SWEET, MABYE AN OUTING WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS TO ONE OF THESE MORE IRREVENT SEASONAL PRODUCTIONS IS IN ORDER.
Richmond’s Firehouse Theater presents Kyle Jarrow’s A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant. The OBIE-winning musical satire blends avant-garde performance art and children’s theater. A jubilant cast of children aged 812, directed by Jase Smith, performs this completely unauthorized look at L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology. A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant runs December 18 – January 18.
What if Mrs. Bob Cratchit weren’t so goodygoody after all? In Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge, Christopher Durang replaces the saintly matriarch of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with an angry, stressed-out modern-day American woman who wants out of harsh London 1840s life. To make matters worse, the ghost’s magic is off, and Scrooge and the ghost keep showing up at the Cratchit’s house too early. Billy-Christopher Maupin directs this staged reading on December 22 at the Firehouse. Swift Creek Mill Theater in Colonial Heights is your portal to the fictional town of Tuna, Texas, “the third-smallest town in the state.” A Tuna Christmas is the sequel to Greater Tuna and, like its predecessor, looks at small-town Southern life with quirky satire. This production is no winter break for John Hagadorn and Richard Koch, who portray over twenty eccentric characters of both genders and various ages. A Tuna Christmas runs November 13 through January 10. Petersburg’s Sycamore Rouge presents Inspecting Carol, a holiday farce that has been called A Christmas Carol meets The Government Inspector meets Noises Off. It tells the story of a man who auditions for A Christmas Carol at a small theatre, but is mistaken for an informer for the National Endowment for the Arts. Everyone caters to the bewildered wannabe actor and everything goes hilariously wrong. Inspecting Carol runs December 4 – 20 at this showpiece of historic Petersburg. g
Experiment with European Beers Next time you’re in European Market (2001.5 W. Main St., Richmond) browse the beer selection. “We have on any given day between 75 and 100 [beers], which rotate seasonally,” owner Jason Savedoff says. “All are available by the bottle…This way, if you’ve never had a given beer before, you are not forced to purchase the entire six-pack.” A shopping bonus: mix and match your own sixpack and receive a 10 percent discount. A case gets 20 percent off. Two winter brews to try are only made once a year. Austrian Samichlaus, which means Santa Claus and is cellared in the Swiss Alps for an entire year, packs a punch: it’s 14 percent alcohol and the strongest lager in the world. Belgian Gouden Carolus Van de Keize is brewed on Feb. 24, the birthday of Charles V: “Expect flavors of caramel and coffee, with some residual sugars.”
Get the Latest Kitchen Gadgets If you haven’t updated your kitchen gadget collection lately, a trip to Belle & Kitchen Kuisine (3044 Stony Point Road, Richmond) may be in order. They’ve got the latest tools to make culinary experimentation easy. Are you a fan of egg salad? Check out the new egg slicer from Oxo. “After you’ve cut the egg in one direction, you can swivel the base and slice it in another direction to dice it,” housewares buyer Mary Deitrick says, adding that this makes working with eggs much easier than the old-fashioned slicers that only worked in one direction. For eco-friendly home cleaning, pick up a pack of three micro-fiber sponges. These babies are designed to shine, clean, dust, polish or dry without leaving dust behind. Plus, once you’re done with them you can throw them in the washing ma-
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chine and then reuse them. You’ll never need another disposable sponge. Bamboo is also an ecofriendly fiber worth experimenting with, and Belle carries bamboo potholders. Deitrick says these potholders are the softest she’s ever touched, and, since bamboo replenishes itself faster than cotton, it’s a more eco-friendly choice. For cooking, the must-have is a small silicone device: “Normally you try to put the lid on a pot crooked to keep what’s inside from boiling over. This piece of silicone holds the lid on and lets air in to keep it from boiling over,” Deitrick says. Lastly, anyone who loves cheese must pick up a specially grooved plastic cheese knife: “Every time we demo it, people buy it,“ Deitrick says. “It cuts cheese so easily, and because of the way its grooves go, the cheese doesn’t stick to it.”
www.URg Eonline.com | WINTER 2008
A Kitchen Dweller’s Dream Come True Modeled after the famous culinary shop in Paris, E. Dehillerin, The Happy Cook (1045 N. Emmet St., Charlottesville) bursts with vibrant colors and reflective shine. Owner Monique Mosier supplies only “tried and true” cookware, refusing the “gimmicky” products you’ll find in large box stores. Specializing in American and Europeanmade products like Pillivuyt, The Happy Cook frequently performs in-store testing to ensure the ultimate functionality of all products.