Just Another Fajita Friday

It starts as many mornings do once the entire cast is present. Duncan in his pajamas at the table with his bagels and eggs. (One toasted thomas mini bagel topped with a scrambled egg, one glass orange juice and vitamin.) Nicole in pajamas usually with Shaw in one hand and grande size coffee (2 % milk and two teaspoons sugar or other sweetener) in the other. Carrie up from the basement "apartment" in pajamas sitting across from Duncan at the table eating cereal (cinnamon Harvest crunch with skim milk and coffee) and possibly still reading whatever book has sunk deep tentacles into her this week. I, in house clothes and slippers with coffee (2%) not having had breakfast (have to wait an hour after thyroid medication which I take immediately upon waking) having run through emails and notifications will ask the floor if anyone has a preference or an idea about dinner.

Carrie clears her cereal bowl to the kitchen and gets a banana for breakfast "dessert" and asks if there is any salmon left in the freezer.
I tell her there is not.
Nicole asks, "Well, what is in the freezer?"

I look. "Pork chops, 1 lb. ground beef, two whole chickens, chicken parts and one small flank steak."

"Ah!" Says Nicole, partial to flank steak. "What about fajitas?"

"Ah!" Says I, and we are off.

I have two hours before I have to take the train to the city for a couple of commercial auditions and quickly find a marinade online, draw up a grocery list and head to the Super Fine Fare. I snare all ingredients and notice that they have sour oranges in the produce department. I have an authentic yucatan pulled pork recipe (thanks Martha) just itching to be brought to life that calls for sour oranges... good to know.

I get back to the house with about an hour and fifteen before the train, which means 45 minutes to get this marinade happening and get some breakfast. Due to the smallness of the flank steak we have decided to do a surf and turf fajita and I pull some of the shrimp out of the freezer in the garage.

Duncan confuses shrimps with mushrooms. Don't know why, but he will call a shrimp a mushroom but never a mushroom a shrimp. There is, of course, a phonetic link, "m" sound" and "sh" sounds might be the root cause of the mix up, if you want to call it that. I do agree with Dunc that there is something vaguely mushroomy about shrimps and furthermore nothing shrimpy about mushrooms. Whatever the cause, I love that Duncan calls shrimps mushrooms. One day he'll get it straight once and for all, and we'll either remember or we won't that he used to have the confusion or perhaps the clarity. Why just last year he called scarecrows scarecrumbs. But this year they were firmly scarecrows, and it wasn't until Nicole reminded me that I remembered scarecrumbs. I would have traveled on and completely left scarecrumbs behind, and who would want to do that? You welcome, relish and delight in every inch of the growth when you're Dad, and yet there something pretty awesome about scarecrumbs or remember when he called spiders "busters"?

Does make me want to come up with some sort of recipe where you try to fuse mushroom and shrimp so that they're almost interchangeable.... hmm.

I get into the suit, get to the train and get to the city. It feels good to be looking for work because one would like to believe that's how one will find work. Auditioning for the commercials sometimes feels like playing the Lotto. But I'm anxious to try the "trick" that a David, a friend who is very successful in winning the commercial Lotto revealed to me at the Roundabout reading the other day. When you go into the room to be filmed for the commercial you have to "slate." Which means they point the camera at you and you say your name. It's humiliating. I dread it almost as much as when on the first day of rehearsal you go around in a circle and say your name and what role you'll be playing. I never hear anyone else's name because I am so full of dread as the wheel spins my way. There is always someone who makes a joke and gets a room laugh, and always someone who speaks too softly and too quickly and obviously wants the circle to move on. I'm the too softly too quickly one.
Don't get me wrong, I love attention and I love to interact, I just like to feel it out first. I just have to work first and introduce later. Ugh, those meet and greets. Ugh.

Anyway, slating. The trick that David, the highly successful commercial actor told me the other day is to not try to hide your disdain, your discomfort, your, yes, hatred when you slate. Rather look in the camera, say your name and instead of doing "fake smiley intro hey I'm a nice guy don't you want to work with me Drew McVety", give "I hate you for asking me to say my name it's humiliating either you want me or you don't and I wish to Christ I didn't have to subject myself to this B.S. just to try and feed my children Drew McVety". The theory being: allowing yourself that freedom is a gift to yourself and will free you up in your actual work on the copy and further has the added benefit of making you infinitely more desirable to the commercial execs who review the tapes later because you look like you hate them. So of course they want you. Who wants someone who wants to be wanted?

I get into the first commercial audition and slate. I show proper disdain. It feels great. I don't think the rest of the audition went terribly well, but maybe the disdain will be enough for a call back.

I walk down 8th Ave. from Times Square to 21st street for the next audition and call Nicole at home to check in. The children are well. I ask her about the marinade, she says it looks good and the smell of the garlic in the bowl is good too.

"Garlic? Did I not put that in the bag?"

"No. I wondered about that but I assumed you knew what you were doing."

"Why in God's name would you think that? Could you put it in for me and give it a good massage?"

God love Nicole and thank God I called. How could I forget the garlic?

I do the second audition disdaining through my slate and the actual copy goes pretty well on this one, so who knows? I make it back to Penn Station in time for the 3:27 train and am back in South Orange and home by 4:30.

There is a light rain and wind as I light the charcoal and fire the grill. I contacted my old friend Barbara, who is the chef/owner of La Palapa (fantastic, authentic Mexican) earlier in the day for some ideas and she suggested the spring onion idea below. She said she had other more spicy ideas that wouldn't sit too well with mother's milk right now.
I get Carrie to man the corn tortillas in the kitchen while I hit the grill on the deck. Crazy, hopeful satisfaction and happiness I feel on the deck with the charcoal and the scotch in the wind and the rain.

FAJITA MARINADE (From Rockin Robin's Cooking Mexican Recipes)
2 Tbs. fresh lime juice
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 bottle of beer
1 1/2 tsp. chile powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. oregano leaves
3 green onions chopped
1 jalepeno, seeded and minced
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/3 cup olive oil
1 Tbs. fresh cilantro chopped

GRILL
Flank Steak
Bunch of medium shrimp peeled and deveined tails on.

SAUTE
2 medium yellow onion sliced thin
1 green 1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper

Corn Totillas

Mix marinade in zip lock bag. Perforate flank steak all over with tip of knife and place in marinade with shrimp. Marinade for several hours or overnight.

Grill the flank 4 minutes each side over direct heat. then let sit on indirect portion of grill.
Skewer shrimp and gill 3 minutes each side over direct heat.
In large skillet saute onions and peppers in a little oil.

BARBARA'S GRILLED SPRING ONIONS

1 bunch spring onions
Olive oil for brushing
Squeeze of lime

Brush oil over onions, grill over direct high heat 2 minutes flip and another minute or so. Squeeze lime over and serve.

FRESH TOMATO AND CORN SALSA (From the book that came with my cuisinart.)
1 small onion, peeled, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
1 medium jalapeno pepper, seeded cut into 1 inch pieces
3 medium vine ripened tomatoes cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 tsp. fresh lime juice
2/3 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
3/4 tsp. salt

In processor, place onion, cilantro and jalepeno in work bowl. Process until finely chopped, about 5 seconds. Scrape work bowl. Add tomatoes and lime juice. Pulse until tomatoes are coarsely chopped, about 5 - 7 times. Add corn and salt, pulse once to just combine. Let sit for 1 hour before serving to allow flavor to develop.