Author Archives: Him

More than Just a Crash Pad (Thai)

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

The Country House still hasn’t gone on the market. It’s taken longer than we expected to get the insurance companies to decide how much they were going to pay for the water heater accident, which means we haven’t been able to arrange for contractors to come and repair the damage. Which means the once-beautiful office is now a room we ignore, since it has a bare cement floor, a hole in the wall, and none of the equipment needed to make it a useful space.

But it’s also given us a chance to stop and think about where we really want to be next. I’ve recently accepted offers to work on two projects at The Theatre to Which We Now Have a Deep Emotional Attachment. They’re both short-term projects, and neither is big enough to support me (let alone us) without other employment as well, but they’re both very worthwhile projects that I’ll enjoy doing. But they’re up here, which means moving down there–into New York City–would make them much less attractive. But she works down there every day, and down there is where many projects I want to be involved with are based. It’s all very complicated.

She pitched a neither-here-nor-there venue from her commute the other morning, a town neither of us knows much about, but which might have exactly what we’re looking for in terms of balancing space, price, and commuting time for each of us. What it wouldn’t have is anything we know. It’s easy to find the best supermarket in an area, and a new favorite Thai restaurant; what’s harder to find are good neighbors and friends.

What I’m really worried about is finding the perfect balance of price, location, and space, and then realizing that we do nothing but sleep there. That doesn’t seem like much will have been gained. So much is up in the air.

But not tonight’s dinner.

After a ridiculous weekend of work for me, and two late nights in NYC with work for both of us, we have determined that there will be Dinner at the Country House tonight.

We watched a Good Eats episode the other day. “Except for the tofu, that looks really good,” she said of the result.

“I thought you didn’t like Pad Thai.”

It turns out it’s just the wide noodles that are often served at Thai restaurants she dislikes. This recipe calls for the very fine ones.

“Well, then. Wednesday?”

“You can make Pad Thai?”

I don’t know why this surprised her so much. I just hope the result pleases her as much as it will me. I’ve made this recipe many times. I don’t always improvise. It’s a balance of salty, sweet, sour, and savory. Sort of like finding the perfect home. Except the stakes are a little lower: if dinner doesn’t go well, there can be ice cream.

There might be, anyway.

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Tagged Friends, Real Estate, Semi Homemade, Thai, Work

Travel

Posted on May 29, 2015 | 2 comments

There’s a song we sing at the beginning of every car trip–well, every trip that’s longer than an excursion to the grocery store. The song is from a musical I’ve never seen, based on a Rumor Godden novel I haven’t read, but I love the original cast recording. The song is great fun to sing as we venture down whatever highway is next.

Take me where you want to go, make it anywhere at all…

A weekend jaunt to Paris would be nice. Christmas in the Bahamas sounds like fun. A marathon run along the Great Wall of China would certainly be memorable. But those destinations and a thousand more are still a little out of reach. We’ve gone to the theatre many times, visited family and friends, and become regulars at Home Depot, but time, energy, and budget have not yet permitted more extravagant travel.

For my birthday, she gave me a subscription to a service called Taste the World. Every two months for a year, we’ll receive a package that takes us on a virtual-culinary visit to someplace new. In addition to food, each trip-in-a-box contains recipes, cultural information, and a playlist of appropriate music. Of course we could go to a French or Szechwan or Ethiopian restaurant, but cooking with the ingredients ourselves seems more fun than choosing something from a menu.

The first box arrived. It’s very classy looking, about 8 inches square and 4 inches tall, pale green in a shade that reminds me of Tiffany blue–but maybe I’m thinking of jewelry stores more than usual these days. We opened the box with anticipation. We’re going to Marrakesh!

The box contained organic couscous, orange-peel cookies, tinned sardines, kefta rub, couscous sauce, and culinary Argan oil.

The accompanying booklet was filled with poetry, beautiful photographs, a link to the on-line playlist, and a few recipes. Oddly, they weren’t recipes that call for the items in the box.

We put the booklet aside, ported the playlist to the stereo, and figured out what to do for dinner.

The couscous was simple enough: toast it in a dry pan, add some boiling water, cover, and wait, then fluff with a fork.

I was a little disappointed in finding pre-made sauce–at first thought, it seemed like using a jar of Ragu to represent a trip to Italy. But there was a time when tomato sauce was exotic to American cooks, so I tempered my expectations and opened the jar. The sauce was sweet, a little smoky, and a little tangy, tomato-based and fairly thin. Pouring it over couscous alone sounded awfully boring, and not much of a main dish. She doesn’t like sardines–and after my tinned-fish pizza experience, I wasn’t game for them either–so I pulled some chicken out of the fridge and simmered it in the sauce along with a little onion and red pepper. Chick peas would have been appropriate, too, but we only had dry ones at hand and didn’t want to wait until morning for dinner. I chopped some spinach and added it, too–there should be greens! She was concerned that it was such a lot of spinach, but it cooked down to almost nothing in no time flat.

Dinner was great. Was it authentic? I don’t know. We poured a jar of sauce into a pan and cooked some chicken and vegetables in it. We probably had all the ingredients for the sauce in our pantry, though we might not have used them in the same combination. (Without a recipe, who knows?) The couscous tasted like any other couscous I’ve had–microscopic grains of pasta. We didn’t use the kefta rub on the chicken, fearing the sauce would be too spicy. The argan oil will wait for a day when we have flatbread in the house.

The orange cookies were breakfast on Saturday morning. They’re cute little things, looking as much like dog biscuits as treats for people–dense and grainy, made partly from almond flour, faintly sweet and nuttily fragrant, with a piece of candied orange peel in the center. They were fun, served with a ramekin of whipped cream for dipping. I wouldn’t buy them from a market shelf, but they might be fun to make if we had a recipe.

Based on this box, I’m not inclined to call my travel agent and book a trip to Marrakesh. Based on this box, I might not even be really inclined to order a second Taste the World box. But I do look forward to finding out what’s in the next one, and to where we might “go.” And to where we might go.

As the boat says to the river…

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Tagged Chicken, Couscous, Recipes, Reviews, Sauce, Travel

A Few Good Picnics

Posted on May 25, 2015 | 2 comments

Our first date, long ago, was a picnic in Central Park. Cheese, olives, baguette, grapes, and white wine sipped from plastic cups, while we sat on a bench under a pretty tree and talked for hours.

* * *

When I was commissioned to write a short musical based on the story of a couple who met in a specialty food shop, the first step in my research was a field trip to the shop. It was mid-October and cool, so a Friday-night park visit wasn’t appropriate, but we brought the feast we purchased back to the City House and had a floor picnic.

I took slight poetic license to give the story’s couple a first date similar to ours. In the last song, they bemoan their ability to find a suitable place to go:

You take an old pal to your favorite haunt.
It’s hard knowing what someone new would want,
But if we can’t agree on a restaurant,
Where do we go from here?

Then he gets an idea and proposes they take the baguette and duck rillettes he’s just bought, pick up a nice pinot noir at the wine shop around the corner, and find a bench in the park. She’s skeptical about the idea of a picnic. It seems like all is lost when she gets up and starts to walk back into the store. Then she turns and says she’ll bring dessert. One last F-major chord plays as lights dim on their happy ending-that’s-really-a-beginning.

* * *

On Saturday, we went to see the new show at the theatre where I’d just finished working–a play by one of our favorite authors, Aaron Sorkin. It’s a cabaret-style theatre, meaning the audience is seated at tables rather than in rows of seats facing the stage. Patrons are invited to bring their own snacks or meals. Deciding what to bring for A Few Good Men wasn’t quite as daunting a task as the characters in Blue Apron faced, but it was a challenge. “Should I order Thai?” she said. “Well,” I admitted, “we can’t pick up burgers from the Awesome Burger Place.” (She likes hers Well Done, and they can’t seem to get that right.)

“Wait,” I said, joking. “I’ve got duck rillettes and a nice loaf of bread. I’ll go to Oak Barrel for a nice pinot noir and we’ll find a bench.”

“A picnic,” she said. She knows the script, maybe better than I do. She has that kind of memory.

“A picnic.”

She didn’t have to think about it as long as Laura did. “I’ll bring the macaroons.”

As it turned out, she brought everything; I’d been working all day. Juicy andouille sausages, paté, an assortment of cheeses, sliced baguette, grapes, and Mason jars full of ice from which we drank sparkling cider. No macaroons, but strawberries, which I like even better.

The Saint Andre cheese was a little too funky for either of us. The Lemon Stilton–a semi-firm cheese studded with bits of candied lemon peel–was fun and bright. We both liked the goat’s-milk cheddar. Our picnic supper was wonderful, and if every aspect of the production wasn’t quite perfect it was still enormously enjoyable.

At intermission I got up to stretch my legs a bit. I hoped to find our friend the director and tell him how much I was enjoying the show, but he wasn’t to be seen. I returned to our table. She looked up from her iPhone.

“So,” she said. “We’re sitting in a theatre we both like, seeing a wonderful play. It’s two minutes until the second act. Wanna get married sometime?”

* * *

We’ve been to a lot of plays. We’ve had more than a few picnics. It will be awfully hard to top this one.

I said yes.

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Tagged Cheese, Fruit, Picnics, Sausage, Theatre

Rice, Twice

Posted on May 19, 2015 | 2 comments

“I’d kind of like fried chicken,” she said.

Since I had no time machine with which to go back 24 hours to put some chicken in buttermilk, any fried chicken I could offer would be second-best, and second-best would not do. We were on a late-evening train home; dinner needed to be quick, tasty, and more nutritious than a pint of ice cream and two spoons.

“What I’d really like is rice with Thai peanut sauce.”

She’d had the last of some Thai take-out for breakfast on Sunday and had really enjoyed it. “Okay, then,” I said.

Immediately she backpedaled, I guess thinking I was going to drive around looking for a Thai place that was still open–a fool’s errand in the suburbs on a Monday night.

“Well, that wouldn’t take 20 minutes,” I said, having sorted through what I imagined what other than peanut butter I might need. She asked what I meant. “It takes 20 minutes to make rice. I can come up with the sauce in less time than that.”

“You know how to make Thai peanut sauce?” she said, as if I’d been holding out on her all these years.

“No, but I can improvise. Find me a recipe.”

She Googled. We didn’t have the exact ingredient list of any of them, but I could get pretty close.

By the time she’d changed out of work clothes, rice was in one pot, oatmeal for future breakfasts was in another, the cherries I’d bought from a fruit cart were washed and draining in a colander, and the sauce was coming together in a big measuring cup.

The timer beeped. I turned off the stove, pitted a few of the cherries, and offered her the sauce to taste. It needed another few drops of hot sauce–easier to add more than to take some out!–and a little more lime. Easy adjustments to make. The rice was ready to fluff, bowl, sauce and serve.

Thai-ish Peanut Sauce

1/2 cup peanut butter
1 T hot water
2 t lime juice
1 t hot sauce (sriracha preferred, but if it’s 10:30 PM in the suburbs, Tabasco will do)
1 t powdered ginger (fresh would be better, but not that much better; use less if you have fresh)
1 t soy sauce
1 T cream (or, more authentically, coconut milk)
1/2 t honey
1/2 t parsley, chopped

Stir all together. Add a little more hot water if necessary to help thin and warm the sauce. Serve over rice or noodles, with vegetables or protein as desired, topped with a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Serves 2.

I had bowl of Rice Krispies, topped with a little granola and some wonderful pitted cherries. I liked the rice-and-sauce, but we didn’t have much rice–I’m sure I had forgotten to put it on the shopping list–and I wanted something a little lighter anyway.

That’s not true, in fact. We had plenty of rice, but most of it was brown. “It is a perfectly interesting grain,” she said of the brown variety, but it isn’t rice. “That’s funny,” I said, “when I have the white stuff, I think the same thing.” The case of White v. Brown may be taken up another day–or maybe it won’t. Perhaps, as in Creamy v. Crunchy, the Court will throw out the case and tell the participants that they must learn to coexist. If there is Thai Peanut Sauce, the peace will be easily won.

Still, after dropping her at the train this morning I swung by the market.

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Tagged Fruit, Improvisation, Monday, New York, Quick, Recipes, Rice, Thai

Why-Not Pizza

Posted on May 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

I knew I’d be alone for dinner last night, as she was having a dinner meeting with some people on the committee for her big summer event. The cats would be home, too, of course, but I’d be cooking only for myself. When I’m going to be home alone–which isn’t all that often–I try to make something I like that she doesn’t. Brussels sprouts were an obvious choice, but they’re not in season.

By the time I finished a rehearsal at which my kids were frustratingly unfocused, I considered just having a bottle of wine for dinner. But I knew that wouldn’t happen, not least because I wanted to be able to drive to meet her late-arriving train–and I had work I wanted to do for which clear-headedness was a good idea. So not wine, or at least not just wine.

We’ve been trying to eat from our pantry as much as possible. She reminded me the other day of a couple of tins on the top shelf, so I decided to use those. They were smoked oysters, which I had on a pizza a long time ago and really enjoyed. I’ve made that pizza many times over the years, and if it was never quite as wonderful as that first time, it was always pretty good. I knew it was something she wouldn’t want to share, so it was the perfect choice. I knew I had an open jar of marinara sauce and plenty of cheese.

I stopped at the market on the way home to pick up pre-made pizza dough. I could have made dough from scratch, but I was trying to speed things along; if the oven was internet-equpped I would have sent it a “preheat” command. While my off-line oven warmed, I gathered cheese and sauce (and mushrooms, for good measure) from the fridge, and cleaned some broccoli to steam as a side. (Yes, pizza and broccoli. I wanted something green, and remember that the object was a dinner she wouldn’t want to share.) I pulled down the cans from the top shelf and opened them into a strainer.

The tins weren’t smoked oysters after all. They were octopus and squid. (Well, at least now I had a dinner she really wouldn’t want to eat.) As for why I had tinned octopus and squid in the house, it probably had to do with thinking, “Well, I like oysters, so why not?” I like smoked oyster pizza, so why not try octopus and squid?

The dough stretched into a beautiful thin round. I topped it and slid it onto the hot pizza stone. I set the timer, fed the cats, and headed to the office. In almost no time I’d recorded a pretty good vocal part for the demo I was working on–but then I realized a measure of accompaniment I’d wanted to cut was still in the track. It didn’t take long to get rid of it and stitch back together the vocal part to make the transition seamless. By the time I finished, I figured the timer was about to go off, so I happily saved my work and went upstairs.

That’s when I realized I’d set the timer on the microwave oven, which isn’t nearly loud or insistent enough to get my attention. It had beeped and then went silent, not being smart enough to alert me again. If I had an internet-equipped microwave, maybe it would have sent me a text message: Your pizza is ready. Oh, and by the way, it’s in the OVEN, not in the microwave.

It was overdone, but not too far gone. The outer crust was too crisp, but the rest of the pie wasn’t destroyed. I let it rest on the counter for a couple of minutes while the broccoli steamed in the microwave, then sliced and plated pizza and green thing.

Octopus and squid can get terribly tough if it isn’t cooked properly. The tinned varieties are already cooked, so I was really only reheating them. I didn’t do much damage. Perhaps if I’d gotten the pie out of the oven sooner, it would have been a little less chewy, but it was far from awful.

As for my “why-not” pizza, the real question is, “why bother?” I’ll have the leftovers for lunch today, and then I won’t make it again. There are lots of things I prefer to put on pizza–and lots of pizza toppings she enjoys sharing. If I go to the tinned-fish section of the market again, it’ll be for tuna. Cooking for one–even eccentrically and somewhat experimentally–is fine, but cooking for us both is better.

This waveform is not of me saying, “Damn! I burned the pizza!”–though that would have been clever.

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Tagged Broccoli, Cooking for One, Fish, Pizza, Vegetables, Wine

It’s Just a Day

Posted on May 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

No birthday-feast-at-home cooking means the kitchen stays tidy until the real photographer arrives.

Our birthdays have passed. I worked ridiculous hours on hers, and she worked a very long day on mine. On both, we spent what little “free” time we had working on the house, since the real estate photographer was scheduled to visit this morning.

Of course, the Creator of the Universe having an occasionally wry sense of humor, that didn’t happen. The photographer quit his job yesterday, and the company he worked for didn’t tell our realtor–so there she was, first thing in the morning, setting out the jars of lemons and the sale-bait throw pillows. I’m hoping that neither cat sheds a single hair between now and the rescheduled appointment–and hoping that the agency keeps the new photographer happy long enough to get the job done.

On her birthday, we had great burgers on the way to the theatre. She dropped me off at the theatre for the matinee, went for a hair appointment, and came back to see the evening show.

On mine, I left my studio to meet her train, and we went for a Japanese performance-art dinner at a restaurant on the way home. We had the place almost to ourselves, which was fun in its own way. We got the chef’s undivided attention–as well as all the flying broccoli. We oohed and ahhed over the onion volcano, and tucked into speedily grilled chicken, steak, shrimp, vegetables, fried rice and noodles.

In both cases, we got home and finished our chores too late and tired for cake, but we can have cake another time. Life is sweet without it.

It would be nice to have an entire day to ourselves, to celebrate, or maybe just to sit. It would be nice to think that’s how we can spend our birthdays, but that’s not the way it is yet. Or maybe ever. But a birthday–it’s just a day. A celebration can be deferred so long as the event isn’t forgotten.

While replying to birthday messages this morning, I saw this recipe I’d written up and posted to Facebook years ago. I don’t think I forgot to cook the fish, or if there wasn’t time for it, or just decided not to. It could be an unconventional belated birthday feast sometime. Or maybe

Not the Special at Ocean Grill

My meat-and-potatoes Dad would be pleased that I can feed myself, but probably would shake his head at this one.

Pierce a spaghetti squash (about 2 lbs.) all over with the point of a knife. Microwave on high until tender (about 15 min.)

In a heatproof measuring cup or bowl, soak a handful of dried mushrooms in a cup of boiling water.

Film a skillet with olive oil and set it over medium-low heat. Sweat in it:

3 shallots, sliced thinly

1 t garlic, minced

1 rib celery, sliced thinly

After a few minutes, add to the skillet

1 carrot, diced

Clean and remove the tough stems from

1/2 bunch collard greens

Remove the mushrooms from the soaking liquid; slice them and set aside. Strain the liquid to remove any sandy bits, then pour the liquid into a saucepan over medium heat. Add to the liquid:

1 envelope bonito flakes (or 1 T miso)

1 t soy sauce

Stir to combine, and cook until the liquid is reduced by half.

Cut the greens into thin strips, add to the saucepan; cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until the greens are tender but not mushy (about 8 minutes).

While the greens are cooking, add to the skillet:

2 T tomato paste

1 t balsamic vinegar

the sliced mushrooms

Stir until combined. Then remove half of the vegetable mixture to the bowl of a food processor and puree. Add a little olive oil and some of the greens liquid to thin the puree if necessary. Return the puree to the skillet and stir to combine.

Slice the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, then use a fork to separate the flesh into “spaghetti.” Salt and pepper the squash to taste, and add a little butter (or olive oil, if dairy is forbidden).

Top the squash with the greens and vegetable sauce. Sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese (or soy substitute).

The tilapia that was supposed to perch atop a mountain of vegetables? Serve that another day. Maybe with the leftovers, if there are any.

Not a bit of clutter in sight. Mostly because we're not home long enough to do anything but sleep...

Not a bit of clutter in sight. For the moment, anyway.

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Tagged Birthdays, Celebrations, Fish, Renovations, Vegetables, Work

Know-How

Posted on April 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

I don’t know when it became clear to my father that I was going to be a musician, but when it did, he gave up any thought of my taking over his garage door business. Some of their parts, and the tools used to install and service garage doors and openers, are dangerous if an accident happens. Dad didn’t want to risk my losing the ability to play while I was learning a trade, so he simply never invited me to go with him on a service call again.

I barely noticed. I wasn’t drawn to his business. I enjoyed being with my dad, but I didn’t especially like being in other people’s dirty garages or handling the heavy tools, door parts, and hardware. It wasn’t until long after his passing that my mother told me about that decision. Dad knew how to do things, and how not to press an issue.

My hands were safe from the big stuff, but there was a lot Dad didn’t have the chance to teach me. He instilled in me a respect for electricity, and I knew abstractly how to use a hammer and screwdriver, but the rest I’ve had to pick up on my own. I don’t want to install my own garage door, but I’d like to rewire a light switch or a door bell, or maybe repair a leaky faucet. Do-it-yourself manuals and YouTube videos have been my friend.

We’ve hired a contractor to do most of the work of getting the Country House ready for the market, but I’ve tried to do small things on my own. The light switches are pristine white to match the pretty walls. New smoke detectors are mounted and hard-wired into the house’s system.

The glowing green LED was the most beautiful sight I’d seen in ages; and, although the cat who’d been sleeping nearby disagreed, the sound of the alarm when I pressed the Test button seemed sweeter than children’s laughter.

I’d like to think Dad would be pleased, even if he would also have been amused at my floundering. If he would have been frustrated by what he didn’t get to teach me, I’ve been at least as frustrated at what I didn’t learn.

There’s a faucet I want to replace, but I simply can’t get the old one out. Maybe it’s a question of strength or leverage, or maybe there’s something I just don’t know. Same with some electrical outlets that are supposed to be controlled by a wall switch. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but the switch is, literally, out of the loop. One of the lessons Dad didn’t get to teach me was lessons was probably When to Call a Professional.

I re-tightened the old faucet’s supply lines. I put covers on the outlets to protect them and turned turned the power back on. I baked a loaf of bread, and a batch of brownies for her birthday celebration. I’ll spend the rest of the day teaching children to sing, writing a choral piece, and conducting a performance of a musical. There are things I know how to do that my dad didn’t. I try not to beat myself up about the things I don’t.

That might be the most important lesson of all.

The marshmallow peeps melted beautifully, but didn’t brown as much as I’d hoped. Still, they are tasty brownies.

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Tagged Baking, DIY, Family, Renovations, Work

Making (Someone Else) a Home

Posted on April 22, 2015 | Leave a comment

“White. A blank page or canvas.
So many possibilities.”
–Lapine, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

Getting a home ready to put on the market is a challenging proposition. We’ve done lots of work on the Country House–and had even more done by professionals. There’s been new flooring installed, new carpeting, and new ceilings. There’s new paint everywhere. We’ve done enough de-cluttering to stock several thrift stores, and filled the recycling bin nearly to bursting almost every week. I’m finishing the last of the electrical work, and alternately being amused and incensed by the thought that a prospective buyer might lose interest in a home that had almond colored light switches and outlets rather than white ones. (Ew, almond!) She’s artfully arranged furniture and stored small appliances in cabinets in a way that makes rooms and cabinets look big and uncluttered. We’ve made the house a blank canvas on which someone else might picture their life.

Until that someone is found, we’ll live as if we don’t live there: no family photographs on display, no dishes left in the sink to wash when we get home from work, no laundry left to fold later. It’ll be tricky. But, yes on the prize, as they say, we will do what we need to do in order to make it possible to find the City House we both want.

This morning, she admitted to being cranky and hungry. She worked so hard last weekend to get the kitchen counters perfectly clean that she can’t bear the thought of using them to prepare a meal.

That stops now.

I put off changing the last outlets and switches until tomorrow, and made a batch of pineapple fried rice that she can reheat in the microwave. I washed the dishes and wiped down the countertop when I was finished.

Dinner is still served at the Country House. Even if we use paper plates and keep our toothbrushes out of sight.

House-on-the-Market Pineapple Fried Rice

Mix together:
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
2 T brown sugar
2 t lime juice
1/2 t minced garlic
Pour into a zip-top bag; add two pork chops and close, squeezing out as much air as possible. Leave overnight, or at least a few hours.

Remove the pork chops and discard the extra marinade. Dry the pork chops with a paper towel; tuck this immediately into the trash. (Resist the temptation to empty the trash right away; there are vegetables to clean.)

Brown the pork chops in a hot skillet, then set them aside. Add a little oil to the skillet and sauté:

1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
1/2 bell pepper, in strips
1 cup grape tomatoes

Remove vegetables; add to the skillet and brown slightly:
1 cup pineapple chunks

Meanwhile, slice the pork thinly. It will not be cooked through yet, and that’s all right. Return pork and vegetables to the skillet, along with:
2 t soy sauce
2 T pineapple juice
2 t ketchup

Toss the meat and vegetables in the sauce until coated, and until the sauce is slightly thickened. Add:
2 cups white rice, cooked and cooled.

Stir a bit until rice is slightly coated with sauce. Add:
1 egg, lightly beaten

Stir and cook another minute or so.

Remove from heat. Refrigerate and reheat when ready. Wash the dishes and empty the trash.

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Tagged Pork, Real Estate, Recipes, Renovations, Rice, Stress

The Enemy of the Good

Posted on April 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Late in the evening I had an impromptu conference with the Artistic Director. I also had an organic cheese puff. Or maybe 3. Hey, he offered.

The topic of conversation was our leading man, who was struggling with the high notes in one of his songs. The solution was obvious: change the key. Our director, a voice teacher by profession, was convinced the actor could become comfortable with the high notes in time. She’s probably right. And I can probably run a six-minute mile to keep pace with our assistant stage manager. But not before we open in a week and a half.

AD agreed to order the music in a new key. I heard that the actors were almost up to my next cue, so I hustled to the piano. I went back to his table during the next dialogue scene. He held out the bag of cheese puffs. I declined with thanks. What I really was seeking was advice about another song, in which four actors sing backing vocals to a featured performer. They’re supposed to sing these vocals–in high, tight harmony–while dancing up a storm. They’re perfectly good dancers, but none of them actors is a high tenor.

“Can you thin out the harmony, or have them sing in unison?”

“That’s exactly what I want to do, but I wanted to hear you say it.”

After our Act II run-through, I gathered the guys, demonstrated a new vocal part, which they sang effortlessly, with great confidence, and great relief. I worked with the leading guy, too. He understood why I wanted to make the change, but he felt like he was letting us down. I did my best to convince him otherwise. We like him. We like his acting, his ease on stage, his chemistry with the leading lady. And we like his singing. His vocal mechanism just isn’t ready to sing those high notes, any more than I’m equipped to cut my mile time by almost half.

Looking back at both of these songs, I probably should have insisted we make the changes even before the first rehearsal. But none of us wants to do less than our best. Even if the composer won’t be in the room, we want to honor her intentions. We want it to be as it should be. We want it to be perfect. But the perfect can be the enemy of the good.

She has this problem at work, too. She and her colleagues were, by their own admission, A students who felt awful if they didn’t score 100% on every test and get all the extra credit points. Often as not, though, their not-quite-perfect work is better than someone else’s A. They’ve taken to calling themselves “The B+ Girls.”

I put some rotini in a pot of water just off the boil, turned off the heat, and ran an errand that took longer than I expected. The noodles were a little softer than I’d meant, but I’m okay with that.

B+ Pasta Salad

Combine in a large bowl:

1/2 lb. rotini (or other curly, the better to hold dressing) pasta, cooked in salted water then drained. Don’t beat yourself up if the pasta is a little past al dente.

1 carrot, in smallish pieces.

3 ribs celery, or thereabouts, sliced somewhere near thinly.

1/2 cup pepperoni—but salami would do, or even ham—sliced or cubed.

1 hard-boiled egg, chopped. Don’t even try for a perfect dice.

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese–sliced or grated or in little balls. Fresh if you have it, but don’t make a special trip to the market.

6 peppadew peppers, roughly chopped.

1 cup marinated mushrooms–and don’t give a moment’s thought that you didn’t marinate them yourself.

3 cups spinach, rinsed, dried, and torn or sliced into pieces.

Toss with:

1/4 cup viniagrette dressing (from the back of the fridge), augmented with
a little brown mustard (any variety you grab), and
a splash of olive oil.

Add pepper to taste. (Between the pasta cooking water, the dressing, the pepperoni, and the mushrooms, you won’t need salt.)

This is best after a night in the refrigerator, but if you need lunch in a hurry, it’s pretty good right away. And certainly better than takeout.

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Tagged Lunch, Pasta, Recipes, Salad, Theatre, Work

Craft Services

Posted on April 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

Hourglass Sweet Hourglass

On a TV or film production like the big budget game show I worked on, there’s often no practical way to leave for meals while you’re working. Our workdays were gruelingly long: 12- to 16-hour shifts were not uncommon, with no days off. The production site was, as most are, set up as its own little city. This one was built in a former car dealership on the far west side of New York City, with a four-story-tall, open-air set built on the roof. The site didn’t have had all the comforts of home, but it had all the necessities–including a medical station, a office-supply closet that would rival a small Staples, and a wardrobe area where one could get a change of clothes.

And, of course, food.

Catering on such a production is referred to as Craft Services, since the food is served to those who work in the various technical and creative crafts: wardrobe, hair, make-up, lighting, stage hands, camera operators, and so on. From the writers’ office where I worked, I could see the caterers continually replenishing the coffee urns and snack trays, and setting up for a new meal even as the last one was barely finished. Production ran around the clock with a team of hundreds. Some meals were better than others–and, as production wound down, it was pretty clear we were being served leftovers–but overall we were very well cared for. I can’t imagine how large the catering budget must have been, but it was money well spent.

This spring, I’m working for a theatre company that’s producing a big, fun musical comedy. Everybody is working incredibly hard to make the show wonderful. And that hard work is appreciated. Our producer–a cast member’s mother–sees to that. It isn’t Producer Mom’s job to raise the money to keep the lights on, or write the checks that keep the staff employed, but she does whatever is needed to keep things running smoothly. And she feeds us.

On Sunday, I’d had a full morning of church work, and just a little time at home before going back to church for an afternoon service–and then off to the theatre for a long work-through of our show. I wasn’t looking forward to another late night and another late dinner, but it turned out I didn’t have to worry. Producer Mom had prepared a buffet for the company. The table was bursting with gorgeous chicken sandwiches and fresh mozzarella and tomato ones, as well as homemade spinach, quinoa, and orzo salads with lots of fresh vegetables and dressings as bright as the sunshine I’d driven through to get to rehearsal. And she’d assembled a centerpiece more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen on a Craft Services table. (I tried to get a photo of the table, but the hungry actors and staff devoured every crumb before I could get back to the table with a camera.)

It was a miserable-long day. We all left the theatre bleary-eyed and head-spinny from the work we’d done and the problem spots we’d identified for the next few rehearsals. But no one left hungry.

Even on the longest and hardest days on the game show, I was having the time of my life. The musical I’m working on now might not be as overwhelming an experience as that, but we’re all learning a lot and doing good work that we can be proud of. We’re all grateful for the chance to work together. And we’re very grateful for our Producer Mom and the service she lovingly provides us as we ply our varied crafts.

If you have to have Sunday dinner behind a keyboard, it should be in the company of amenable and talented people–and it should be as tasty as this.

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