Tag Archives: Theatre

Texture, Substance, and Taste

Posted on October 2, 2014 by | 1 comment

We hadn’t gone out for sushi in quite a while, so when she suggested having dinner at East before the play we were seeing on Wednesday night, I agreed enthusiastically. We’ve been meeting there for pre-theatre dinner for years–since before she moved to New York, and long before we shared the Country House. It’s one of our favorites: comfortable and convenient, and the food is always skillfully prepared and elegantly presented.

We chose an array of items to share: a fresh, crisp green salad with a warm-and-tart ginger dressing; vegetable tempura with an incredibly light batter, which prompted a physics discussion about how the texture of carrot tempura is so interestingly different from any other method of cooking a carrot; potato wedges with an even lighter coating of the batter that had been infused with garlic and served with a roe aioli dipping sauce; and, of course, some sushi.  We both chose rolls: tuna belly and scallion; eel and avocado; and smoked salmon, cucumber, and cream cheese (or “Philadelphia” roll).

The eel was rich, well-cooked, and basted with a sweet barbecue sauce.  There’s nothing slimy or raw-fishy about it. But it’s called eel, so for many it’s off-putting. Eel needs a new marketing campaign.

Tuna belly is almost flaky, a little less sweet and not as firm as the “steak” variety but not as oily or salty as the stuff you might slather with mayonnaise and spread on white bread. The creaminess of the avocado made for a very delicate pairing.

I’m a big fan of smoked salmon and cream cheese, but I prefer them on bagels.  With cucumber, rice, and nori, it seemed an odd combination to me, but she enjoyed it a great deal.

At the theatre, we each found elements we liked and didn’t, aspects we agreed about and points of collegial dispute. As with our trip to The Country House, The Last Ship is in very early previews, so it’s hard to say how much will change before they open, and unfair to judge it too harshly.  The production was beautifully designed and skillfully presented. We enjoy sorting out what works for us and what doesn’t even if we don’t think a show is perfect.  Whether it’s a matter of texture, substance, or taste, not everyone likes the same things–sort of like dinner at a Japanese restaurant.

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The Night Shift

Posted on October 1, 2014 by | 1 comment

“How do you do it?” asked her colleague, who’d arrived from Alaska that afternoon.  I asked what she meant. “How do you eat so late?”

We were seated in a Manhattan nightclub, having just ordered dinner before a cabaret performance.  It was 9 PM on a Monday. This wasn’t an early dinnertime for us, but, sad to say, it wasn’t unusually late.

It’s a combination of things. Her commute, door-to-door, is just under two hours.  I’m often working until it’s just time to meet her train. Sometimes we run errands or stop at the market on the way home. And, of course, we both prefer home cooking to takeout.

The problem isn’t a late dinnertime; lots of people eat dinner quite late.  (I’m pretty confident that the performers we saw didn’t tuck in to their dinner until after the show.) The problem is a late dinnertime that follows a long day with an early start that will have another early-starting long day after that.

She picked up dinner for herself on the way home from the train.  I’d taken some leftover chicken and dumplings to eat between office time and rehearsal.  We were covered for Tuesday.  But we could do a little planning ahead.  While she finished the last of a closet-moving project in preparation for the painter who’ll be working in the bedroom this morning, I prepared two dishes for the Night Shift.

Overnight Oatmeal

Bring 3-1/2 cups of water to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a medium sized saucepan over medium-high heat, dry-toast 1 cup of steel-cut oats, shaking the pan to toss the oats so they don’t burn.  When they’re slightly brown and beautifully nutty-smelling, turn off the heat. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, shake once more to distribute, carefully pour the boiling water over the oats, cover the pan, and let sit for 6-8 hours.

I used to do overnight oats in a slow cooker, but like the texture of this version much better; the oats are more toothsome than mushy. Better still, cleanup is incredibly easy. The oats simply slide out of the pan, which just needs a rinse and a wipe.

Lentil-Sausage-Kale Stew (adapted from Food52)

  • 8 oz. lentils, picked, rinsed, and drained
  • 4 links pre-cooked sausage, sliced
  • 3 cups stock
  • 2 cups diced tomatoes
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1.5 cups sliced carrots
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon dried sage
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 1 bunch kale or swiss chard 

Combine all but the kale in a slow cooker, set to low; cook for 6-8 hours. Remove woody stems from the greens, chop, and add to the stew 10 minutes before serving.

Red lentils break down more than brown ones. If preparing this dish as a make-ahead, don’t add the kale until heating before serving.

At 4 AM, the aroma of the sausage-lentil stew very nearly caused me to get up for an extremely early (or extremely late) supper, but I decided to wait.

I wanted to point out to her colleague that 9 PM is really only 4 PM by her body clock, and that seems more like a late lunch than a late dinner–but she’d probably had a very early start to her day in order to fly to NYC.  And, if I have learned anything about the employee devotion of the non-profit organization for which they both work, she probably worked late yesterday, too.

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Our Weekend Condition

Posted on September 29, 2014 by | 1 comment

Work had been miserable for us both on Friday; serious food was called for. I pan-grilled a steak, made a batch of macaroni and cheese, and steamed some asparagus.  She added sea salt and chopped pecans to a batch of dark chocolate caramel brownies, and tried not to be too disappointed that the peaches she was hoping to turn into jam had been waiting too long and were more mush than fruit. We sat at the table like grownups and relaxed into a weekend that would be far more full of activity than either of us expected. (She relaxed more than she planned to, falling asleep on the couch before the brownies were cool.)

Adding a little dijon mustard, paprika, and shredded muenster to boxed Mac and Cheese takes it slightly out of the realm of comfort food for some--but puts it more in the realm for others.

Adding a little dijon mustard, paprika, and shredded muenster to boxed Mac and Cheese takes it slightly out of the realm of comfort food for some–but puts it more in the realm for others.

Fortified by a breakfast brownie, we started a gardening project first thing in the morning.  This was about cleaning up, not planting.  The forsythia on the hillside had overgrown, big branches of a fallen tree had become ensnarled in it, and the ivy that was supposed to be ground cover at the bottom of the hillside was tangled in everything, along with tendrils of some other weed that was the only thing really thriving.  I took breaks for two church services, but she kept at it, sending me texts periodically asking that I bring home more leaf-and-lawn bags.

Dainty food was not going to cut it. Scrambled eggs with peppers and cornbread for lunch.  Chicken and dumplings for dinner. Kahlua milkshakes for dessert, while we cheered on our friends who performed in the PBS telecast of Sweeney Todd. (Dumplings, yes; meat pies, no.)

While I started Sunday’s massathon, she climbed back onto the hillside; she was accompanied by our neighbor, and I joined the two of them between masses 4 & 5. By the end of the weekend, there was plenty of space for the ivy to do its thing, just the right amount of forsythia for the space, three Prius-loads of filled-to-the-brim leaf bags bound for the city’s lawn-waste site, and the satisfaction of a job well done and without injury.

(The first three bags were already in the car.)

(The first three bags were already in the car.)

We ordered takeout from a terrific and very authentic Mexican restaurant: soft corn tacos filled with steak and pork, pickled onion, and cilantro; chicken flautas; rice studded with bits of pea and carrot; creamy, rich refried beans. (Too much food for dinner, to be sure; we’re both having leftovers for lunch, and the guacamole and chips will be a post-theatre snack tonight.)

I preheated the oven while we ate, and with the energy conserved by ordering dinner, I gathered ingredients and she mixed a batch of cranberry-orange muffins for this week’s breakfasts. They’re not exactly the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook recipe; it turns out she improvises, too (and then carefully notates how well things work).

Cranberry Orange Muffins

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and prep your muffin tin for 12 average-sized muffins.
  2. Zest a large orange; reserve the zest in a small bowl and then squeeze every last drop of juice into a measuring cup. Pour enough cranberry juice cocktail into the cup to bring the total volume up liquid up to 2/3 of a cup. Add 1/4 of a cup of cooking oil to that measuring cup, and stir well to combine. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl combine 1-3/4 cups flour, a scant 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. stir to combine, then make a well in the center.  Set aside.
  4. In another small bowl (or the cup used to measure the flour), beat an egg. Pour the beaten egg and combined liquid into the well of the flour, and stir to combine. Continue stirring, scraping the bowl as necessary, until all of the dry ingredients are incorporated and the batter is smooth. Fold in one cup of whole frozen cranberries (or thoroughly chilled fresh ones) and a sprinkling of slivered almonds.
  5. Scoop the batter into the muffin tins. Remember the reserved zest and sprinkle a few pieces on the tops of each muffin, giving a quick stir with a small spoon to cover them with batter.
  6. Bake until the tops are golden and the tiniest bit of brown starts to show at the edges, approximately 22 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool for twenty minutes, then remove the muffins from the cups and allow them to cool completely. Enjoy with butter or clotted cream.
As with brownies, waiting for muffins to cool is very much the hardest part.

As with brownies, waiting for muffins to cool is very much the hardest part.

We finished Sunday evening with a mini-marathon of 1950s TV game shows, confident that we would be well fed and cooking-panic-free all week, and recognition that–although there is always more to do–we’d accomplished quite a bit. Like untangling weeds from ivy, making a home takes time.

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A Side of Snobbishness

Posted on September 25, 2014 by | 1 comment

Friends of mine are working on a new musical, and the only chance I had to see it was on Wednesday night.  The theatre is a long trip, almost twice as far as it is to NYC, but it’s a pretty drive to a charming town and a lovely theatre that does bold, interesting, innovative work.  So, even though it meant that chicken I roasted was the last Dinner at the Country House since Sunday, I headed northeast.

A few years ago, this theatre produced a show I co-wrote; one night after a performance, our director took my collaborator and me to a local pub for dinner. Now, I try to leave time for dinner at this pub every time I go to that theatre. I honestly don’t remember what main I ordered on that first trip; it’s a side dish that stuck with me. Cottage Fries are round slices of potato, so named because they vaguely resemble the shingles that might tile a cottage roof. These are mandoline-sliced, ridged rather than with flat sides. They’re heavily spiced, with very crisp exteriors and a tender center; I suspect deep frying.

Most Cottage Fries recipes I’ve found call for oven-frying with a long baking time.  These are, I’m pretty sure, deep fried.  My writing partner, who found them so tasty as to be addictive, referred to them as Crack Fries.  I doubt there is any illicit substance in the seasoning blend; I taste cayenne, salt, and paprika, and they’re served with a dipping sauce that includes dill, leeks, and sour cream–but who knows what else is in there?  The Harp and Dragon isn’t telling.

I met a friend for dinner before the show–of course, at the Harp and Dragon, and, of course, I ordered the Cottage Fries to share. She’s a theatre professor at a relatively-nearby college. She told me of a particularly disheartening master class that had been given for her students by two theatre professionals.  It seems neither of the guests–the music director for a long-running Broadway show and the director who supervises touring casts of several mega-hit productions–has any real interest in new musicals. The music director could only name one currently-writing team, and the director avoids working on anything new because “I expect to get paid for my work; I’m saving for a country house.”

(Yes, that did sting a little.)

These two have the musical theatre equivalent of cushy corporate jobs. There’s certainly nothing wrong with making a living, but the suggestion that anything other than working on big-hit shows is worthwhile does not bode at all well for the future of the musical theatre. Where, after all, will their next jobs come from?

There are lots of jokes about how training in the theatre best prepares you for a career in fast food, but I don’t usually hear the suggestion of them from people who are working in the theatre. Writing doesn’t yet pay all the bills for me or most of my peers. Many of the actors and musicians I know are primarily employed outside the theatre.  It’s a challenge to keep one’s craft alive as something other than a hobby, though even avocational art can be fulfilling. I don’t know if our waiter was an actor or a painter or a sculptor or a med student, but we tipped her well.  We would like fries with that–especially when they’re as good as the ones at Harp and Dragon.

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Very Meta

Posted on September 11, 2014 by | 1 comment

We didn’t have dinner at the Country House last night, but we did have dinner near the Country House.  Or, rather, near The Country House.

I finished teaching and walked downtown; she finished at the office and walked north; we met in the middle for the fall’s first “school night” trip to the theatre.

Theatre-date dinners require some strategizing.  When a show has an 8 PM curtain, there’s time for a relaxed meal before; an intermissionless play with a 7 PM curtain means it won’t be too late for dinner after; but a full-length play starting at 7 leaves just enough time to grab something nearby.

A respectable pizza-and-sandwich shop awaited us at the corner of 47th and 8th. There were two stools at the counter by the window from which we could people-watch while eating. (After she took a photo of our dinner, she realized she hadn’t been mindful of the passers-by. “That could have been Alec Baldwin!” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.)

My pepperoni-spinach-and-onion slice was remarkably tasty, a little like getting a salad along with the pizza.  She went with the cheese-only variety; a purist.  Thin but pliable NYC-style crust, hot and quick. It wasn’t the most luxurious meal we’ve ever had, but it was just right.

photo 2

Dinner, near…

THE COUNTRY HOUSE

…THE COUNTRY HOUSE

(The Country House  is a new play about a theatrical family–actors and a playwright-to-be–and contains lots of literary references, as well as a “reading” of a new play.  Since last night was only the second preview, it wouldn’t be fair to discuss the performance in detail.  The play is very self-referential.  But then, so is writing about it in a blog about dinner.)

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