Year: 2005

When Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature a few weeks ago, it highlighted in a way how he has lately been better known for his politics than his prose. Although it’s easy for one’s art to be overshadowed when one makes front-page news for likening George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler and calling Tony Blair a “deluded idiot,” while one’s theater reviews are buried in the entertainment section. But Pinter’s early works, written in the late 1950s and 1960s, hinted at the rabble-rousing that was to come. Plays like 1957’s The Dumb Waiter explored the dark incidence of oppression and earned Pinter’s work the ominous-sounding label “comedy of menace.” In honor of his Nobel, members of Actors’ Equity are reviving this one-act starring two bickering assassins, in which Pinter was following in the tradition of Beckett–and also setting the stage for scores of imitators to come. 105 First St. N., Minneapolis; 612-730-5951

Do you remember how Hansel and Gretel came to be lost and wandering in the woods? Consulting our Brothers Grimm, we read that they were sent there to die when their parents didn’t have enough food for them–an act that renews our appreciation for civilized society and its social safety net. Add to the starving children some mysterious beasts and a witch with a taste for young human flesh, set it at a prestigious venue like Orchestra Hall, and, by jove, you’ve got a fantastically festive holiday production! With a puppet ensemble from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre–whose creations, even the lovable ones, are always slightly disturbing–this could be a new tradition: something fresh, a little spooky, and slightly twisted. Sopranos Christina Baldwin and Jennifer Baldwin Peden lead the lineup of local vocal stars, which includes the Minnesota Boychoir. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org/orchestra_hall

You needn’t worry about proper pinky etiquette while drinking tea at Fox & Drake; they’ll forgive you if you don’t perfectly emulate Queen Elizabeth. You also needn’t worry about dry, tasteless pastries or soggy sandwiches. An afternoon respite here can include a proper roast beef sandwich with Stilton and chive mayonnaise, or a savory shepherd’s pie. Evenings bring a positively civilized menu of roasted Cornish game hen with a ginger sauterne sauce or an elegant warm duck salad with strawberries and oranges. Look for traditional Sunday roast dinners in the colder months and holiday teas throughout the year. 647 E. Lake St., Wayzata; 952-476-6200

Snap! is the sassy younger sibling to Northeast Minneapolis’ stylish Pop!–a casual dining spot that makes us wish we’d had somewhere this cool to spend afternoons when we were in school. Generously topped pizzas boast names like Snaparoooskie and Shizaam, and hot hoagies come with or without red sauce (try the Far Out with spicy peppers and meats). The sundae creations are a blast from a past. We’re glad no one is tallying up the caloric damage inflicted by the Do the Hustle, a fudge brownie mess with coffee ice cream, toffee pieces, and butterscotch sauce. But that’s nothing compared to the Gilbertha option, for lovers and friends to share: twelve scoops and six toppings for twelve bucks. If Snap! were closer to the U, it would already be a campus institution. 2851 Johnson St. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-788-9800

This is one of those places you’ll be tempted to keep to yourself. Or maybe you’ll be okay sharing it with the lucky few deemed worthy–but then you have to decide: Does my co-worker deserve to know about Hot Plate’s outrageously yummy pumpkin buckwheat waffles? Is my neighbor witty enough to appreciate the paint-by-number collage and the Eric Estrada egg bake? But the restaurant’s good cheer is infectious, and you’ll soon realize that it’s impossible to be so stingy about dishes so generous, whether it’s the sourdough French toast, the BLT heaped with guacamole, or the beautiful Hot Plate burger topped with smoked tomato, spinach, and Brie. Besides, any restaurant that serves a Hotdish of the Day is meant to be shared with the world. 5204 Bloomington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-824-4794

St. Paul’s Chinatown isn’t of the polished, touristy variety celebrated by chambers of commerce in other cities. There are no novelty pagodas or souvenir key chains. What exists here is a multi-ethnic community that lives, shops, and eats within its borders. Every shop entrance is a mural of advertisements for practical services: tax preparation, real estate, life insurance, auto repair. Stores stock Thai parrot soap right next to hundred-pound bags of road salt. Try finding that in San Francisco.

From storefronts along Rice Street selling dim sum and Korean-style beef ribs to signs on University Avenue promising, “Men suit, short,” St. Paul’s Chinatown—or, more aptly, Southeast Asia-town—is bustling with color, activity, and commerce. Shoppers admire the Gaudi-esque public art piece Mosaic Chimney by Angela Carlson, in front of Somkeo Sengmavong’s on University, before popping inside for incense, a gold necklace, or lunch at the cafeteria. Around here, if you can’t find the perfect tea and a reasonably priced pot to go with it, you’re just not applying yourself.

The Sunrise Oriental Supermarket, located inside a University Avenue warehouse, is easily identified by its enormous sign proclaiming, “Asian Fabric.” A true community market, Sunrise is all things to all people. It offers a grocery, a pharmacy, a video counter, a portrait studio, an accountant’s office, an arcade, a small café, and a selection of very reasonably priced designer handbags. As advertised, the store is also stocked with a blinding array of fabrics—bolts of teal and red, silk and velvet—embossed, embroidered, and bejeweled. The walls are lined with traditional Hmong formalwear, and the sewing machines are always running.

Nearby sits Hmong ABC, which touts itself as the first and only Hmong bookstore in the world (the Hmong alphabet wasn’t developed until the 1950s, so, culturally speaking, Hmong books are pretty rad) and sells works by both local authors and Hmong writers worldwide. Besides books, the store has a smorgasbord of native crafts. Embroidered bedding is stacked floor to ceiling, along with dolls, jewelry, journals, and baskets from Thailand.

Walking into the simply named Market on nearby Como, it feels as though you’ve left the United States. Teens check out designer clothing, and each other. Children run screaming from one loud electronic toy display to the next. The arcade buzzes and pops. Old men and women socialize over tea, gossiping and discussing politics. Rows of tables are laden with dried mushrooms and fragrant twigs, icons and incense burners, jewelry and clothing. Children’s Mandarin-styled dresses hang next to neon green platform boots, and—as is always the case in these urban bazaars—there is a large table covered with industrial-looking bras and granny underpants. This must have been what New York’s Canal Street was like before it was overrun by fake Rolexes and I ™ New York

T-shirts: frenetic, dirty, and thoroughly amazing.

If you insist on spotless floors and airtight food packages, head to Double Dragon Foods, the Kowalski’s of Asian supermarkets, at the corner of Maryland and Rice. Here you will find moonfish, baby octopus, fresh lobsters, and six types of shrimp. The bok choy and the taro root are neatly stacked, and the baby limes are misted regularly. The housewares department stocks all the usual suspects, along with the not-so-usual red plastic shrines, electric dragon candles, and ginseng soaps.

Perfect places to take your time and browse, to slurp noodles and eavesdrop on conversations you don’t understand, University Avenue and Rice Street are no longer simply routes to somewhere else. The byways are now their own destination.—Sarah Lemanczyk

"I’ve always found you get more spiritual energy if you have things made by two hands—especially your own two hands,” said Kimber Fiebiger. If so, then her home is coursing with such energy: The entire place was built with her hands, and those of friends. It sits atop Fiebiger’s Joan of Art gallery, which, with its bronze Humpty Dumpty sculptures perched on stone-wall pedestals along Franklin Avenue in the Seward neighborhood, is a colorful Minneapolis landmark. When she purchased the hundred-year-old building, in 2000, it was a wreck. The entire second floor was but a shanty attic, so Fiebiger, along with her kids and friends, “tore it off and built a house. We had about fourteen people in the middle of winter—friends, my kids—and we just framed it up. It was like an old-fashioned barn-raising.”

Windows were the touchstone for Fiebiger’s architectural vision. She bought a handful of one-of-a-kind pieces from the Marvin Windows Outlet in Warroad, Minnesota, and “we just designed the building around the windows,” she said. Her whimsy is on view along the living room’s east wall, where a picture window and three boxy, smaller panes are lined up to keep the room flooded with sunlight. At night, they cast geometric shapes of moonlight all over. “People do drugs to get this effect,” she said with a chuckle.

For home furnishings, Fiebiger headed to dumpsters and alleyways around the city, adopting others’ cast-offs; her kitchen’s retro cupboards were salvaged from the Reuse Center. But Fiebiger mainly creates fixtures and housewares, such as her artsy dishware, in a suite of basement studios equipped for welding, woodworking, potting, and making stained glass (some of which she sells in the gallery). She often makes use of remnant materials from art and building projects; for example, she nailed down—by hand, of course—leftover spalted maple and Brazilian cherrywood strips for flooring. For her son Gabriel—or rather, his collection of Lord of the Rings action figures—she improvised a landscape out of hardened drizzles of insulation foam. The delighted twelve-year-old made it the centerpiece of his bedroom.

Even in a home where every square inch has been lavished with handcrafted care, Fiebiger’s expansive bathroom is extraordinary. Outfitted with both a hot tub and an upright shower, it’s plastered with thousands of black and white tile shards. Curlicues and fiddleheads coil around the floors and walls of what she calls her “homage to insomnia.” The catalyst, apparently, was the end of a long-term relationship. “I was pretty wiped out, so I broke a lot of tile and made an art piece out of it,” she said. Her troubles turned out to be transformative: “This is my favorite thing I’ve ever made.”—Christy DeSmith

A long time ago we were very serious about going to art openings to take in whatever was on the walls (or hanging from the ceiling, or stuffed into a crack in the floor, or lurking beneath a staircase). Now, though, the crowds at such events are simply too distracting. But who’s complaining? Not us—especially if the scene includes men in chunky eyeglasses with crisp shirts underneath their jackets, and women who’ve gone to the adventurous outer reaches of their wardrobes for the occasion. For the simple, often solitary act of perusing art, one might as well come back another day; save opening-night receptions for studying the well-dressed human form.