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Author: Susan Viebrock

The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre stages "Grease" at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House, Feb 6-8

Hindsight is not always 20/20. Sometimes it needs glasses.

Grease poster When Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey penned "Grease" in 1971, Americans were nostalgic for the white picket fence days of the 1950s. But the innocence of that era was largely fiction: the headlines of the Eisenhower years included Communist witch hunts, polio, the hydrogen bomb, the Korean War, and racial segregation.
Pop culture was all about Mitch Miller, Elvis, James Dean and "Rebel Without a Cause," doo-wop and Doris Day – but also Jack Kerouac, who wrote "On the Road" in 1957. To the road warrior and his legions of fans, America of the 1950s seemed to be many flavors of strange under a white-washed veneer of pristine sameness.

The authors of "Grease" chose to sanitize those realities and dress them up in poodle skirts and leather jackets. The world of "Grease" never existed and always existed.

31 January, 2009 /

the background

Susannainthekitchen The Showtime hit, "The United States of Tara," is about one woman with a multiple personality pile-up. In Tara's case, the condition is pathological. In Dr. Susanna Hoffman's case, it is merely circumstantial: her interests are as wide ranging as her achievements and talents.

Lucky for us, Susanna's gift for cooking – she has written five cookbooks – intersects with her passion for, no kidding, football.

The story is that growing up her older sister was all pink and lace and girly girl, and so she became the rampaging tomboy: "I knew all the baseball stars and football signals."

31 January, 2009 /

Hear Todd Snider sing (5274.8K)

[click to listen to Todd Snider interview]

TS Lone Star Music 1 (Todd Purifoy) Beaverton, Oregon's proud son Todd Snider is his generation's Will Rogers, an amiable, plainspoken, wise-cracking story teller and champion of the common man – just add a guitar and a pickup truck.

Todd is appearing in concert at the historic Sheridan Opera House, January 31, 8 p.m., with his friend and mentor Keith Sykes, whose most recent album the younger man produced.

You may not know Keith, but you know his music. He wrote songs made popular by Jimmy Buffet ("Volcano," "The Last Line" and "Coast of Marseilles"), John Prine ("You Got Gold," "A Long Monday," and "Everybody Wants To Be Like You"), Guy Clark ("She Loves To Ride Horses," "Shut Up And Talk To Me"), Jerry Jeff Walker ("Very Short Time"), and Rosanne Cash ("Rainin' On My Soul").

29 January, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Jill Roisman]

  2009 Poster 010609
Poster by Kim Hilley

Chocolate predates Telluride (and its famous Fling). The history of chocolate actually dates back at least 1,500 years, when the Mayans of Central America crushed cocoa beans into an unsweetened beverage. The Aztecs had a name for that beverage: xocolatl or bitter water. The Aztec ruler, Montezuma II, is said to have consumed 50 or more golden goblets filled with bitter water each day.

Chocolate, also called “food of the gods,” was used in religious ceremonies. Its seeds were traded as currency.

The Spanish conquistador Cortes is said to have called chocolate “the divine drink which builds up resistance and fights fatigue.”
Years later in Europe, chocolate was prescribed for depression and made into love and death potions. (Its bitter flavor masked poisons.)

28 January, 2009 /

  Images from 2008 Fling 1.   221 South Oak - chefs Eliza Gavin & Sue Govindsamy2.   Allred's & Telski - chef Jason Lemon3.   Argentine Grille @ The Rico Hotel - chef Eamonn O'Hara4.   The Bistro @ The Hotel Telluride - chef Michael Dellaporta5.   Cosmopolitan...

28 January, 2009 /

To purchase tickets to the Chocolate Lovers' Fling, go to Two Skirts, Between the Covers, Telluride Bottle Works, and in the Mountain Village, Telluride Coffee Company. Online, go to tellurideticket.com. Act now and the price is $35 through January 31.After Saturday, the price goes up...

28 January, 2009 /

The one, the only KOTO Lip Sync takes place this Friday at the Sheridan  Opera House. This is a SOLD OUT show. However, KOTO will auction off two sets of two tickets, on Thursday from 10-11.These tickets are valued at $56.00 a pair. Call...

28 January, 2009 /

[Click to hear interview with TNCC's Kim Wheels & Julie Schoenfeld] The Telluride region’s New Community Coalition and The San Miguel Power Association are pleased to announce a partnership with The Governor's Energy Office and the Colorado Solar Energy...

27 January, 2009 /

They sit glowing lime green, tawny ochre, brown gold, rusty red, in their bins at the market, thankfully almost always present, because they come twice a year, in summer and early winter. So it is rare that we undergo a dearth of pears, one sort or another always states “here I am” to the grocery list roll call. 

For that reason, pears are a preferred fruit for a poached fruit dessert. Besides, their resolute flesh more than endures a hot treatment, it triumphs in it. But while pears are plentiful, there seems to be a paucity of ideas on how to poach them, almost always entailing some version of red wine. Rather, why not turn to white wine, and for a real twist flavor it with one of the herbal teas so popular now. Here the choice is chamomile tea simmered with white wine into a luxurious, silken syrup.

For fun, crunch, and color, top off the pears with a sprinkle of tasty, green chopped pistachio nuts.  Green tea can also replace the chamomile, and a spoonful of a colorful fruit preserve can replace the nuts, make the dish fruit on fruit. Any way, the dish is an exceptional treat and will draw gleeful applause.

27 January, 2009 /