A Side of Sweet

As a part of the residency interview process, I had a job interview at the children’s hospital in Salt Lake City.  It just so happened to be the same weekend as the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which was only 45 minutes away in Park City.  The Sundance Film Festival has always been on my bucket list, so I knew I had to make it happen!

Pat was already out in Colorado skiing, so he drove to meet me in Salt Lake City.  We were also joined by our friends, Holly and Steve.  Thanks to some work rewards points, Holly was able to snag us a beautiful room at the  Marriot Mountainside, at the base of the Park City Ski Resort!  The best thing about the rooms is that they have full kitchens.

We decided to take full advantage of all the Mountainside had to offer.  Before Pat left, I packed his car with the spices and dry ingredients to make several meals for us, as well as lots of snacks for when we were hitting the slopes!  I don’t think the staff at the Marriott had seen anything like us.  It took two hotel carts to unload Pat’s car – it was like the Beverly Hillbillies were moving in!

We had the last laugh though – we ate like kings all weekend!  We stopped at the Costco in SLC and picked up a huge fillet of salmon, a 2.5 pound bag of spinach (!), blue cheese, eggs, and yogurt.  This was enough food that we did not have to eat out all weekend.  We had pomegranate-balsamic glazed salmon, turkey chili, egg scrambles, couscous, delicata squash and lots and lots of spinach!  It became a running joke that the spinach bag refilled itself.  Even though it felt like we had used so much of it, it never showed signs of emptying.

Our kitchen was stocked with bright yellow Fiestaware – isn’t it gorgeous? I had to suppress the urge to run out and buy a set as soon as we got home.

We also packed some homemade limoncello and some Wisconsin beer, anticipating that alcohol would be expensive and hard to come by.

We were able to see three films over the course of the weekend.  They all turned out to be in the ‘Next’ category, which is reserved for up-and-coming filmmakers with small budgets.  I wish I could say that our minds were blown by the films we saw, but unfortunately they all seemed to teeter on the brink of art and….what-the-heck?

Our favorite film was This is Martin Bonner, which won the audience favorite award.  It tells the story of a man just out of prison and his mentor, Martin Bonner, as they both help each other get their lives back on track.  It was definitely a gem.

The other two films – Computer Chess and I Used to Be Darker – were just a little too weird for our simple tastes.

Stay tuned for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Part II on Monday!

 All photos courtesy of Steven Knurr