It Comes a Calling

Change has come to our home on College Place.  Dad goes off to work, Duncan goes to school, Shaw eats things, grows teeth, brushes her hair, gets jokes, makes jokes, kisses things, tortures kitty cats, Nicole does everything including making more dinners nowadays.

     The change in Duncan was immediate after his first day of school.  At dinner when he found out we were having brussel's sprouts he emits an "Oh yeah, Baby!"  New territory.  What child is this?

     It is an enormous thing to send your kid off to school for the first time - to consign him into the arms of the establishment that will sculpt him for better or worse for the next fifteen to twenty years.   He has known only family as an institution until now, and here comes this intangibly large beast called the education system with it's infinite influences of authority figures, peers and materials.  What Duncan will emerge?

     After his second day of school, Duncan came downstairs in his jammies to say goodnight to me.  We usually have a quick fight/wrestle or some other ritual game, I get the hug and the kiss and up he goes to bed.  Tonight he went straight for the hug and didn't let go.  Finally, he peeled himself off, gave me a kiss and went upstairs.  I mentioned the deep hug to Nicole and she told me about the remarkable conversation they had had during his bath.

     Duncan asked if it was true that he would die someday.  Nicole told him it was as gently as a parent can do when asked these inevitable questions.  Also true that she would die?  Yes.  And Dad?  Yes.  And Shaw.  Yes.  And the cats?   Duncan wept in the tub.

    Nicole told me all this.  I remembered my first week in kindergarten.  I was called "Andy" back then and sitting across from me at my table was another Andy.  Andy Petingale.  We made friends immediately because of the remarkable coincidence.  At the end of the week Dad was reading the paper while mom was making dinner. 

    "Do you know a boy named Andy Petingale?"

    "Yep.  He's my best friend."

     "Oh."   Says my dad from behind the paper.

     Andy had been riding his bike between two parked cars.  A car backed over him and killed him. 

     I remember a very specific night in my bed not sleeping yet seeing, or thinking I was seeing Andy's face and the face of our cat Tiffany who also had been run over by a car.  Seeing their ghost faces and understanding that they were dead and I would die too.

     So the next Monday I'm over at Pete's house for the Monday Night Football hang in his garage.  Pete has a daughter, Dakota, also entering kindergarten .  I tell him about Duncan's revelation and it turns out Dakota has had nearly the same conversation with Pete and Nancy about death. 

     We've certainly had our share of death in our house this last year.  Paul, Guy.   Both ripped untimely.  Both from cancer.   Reawakening the tenuousness of it all for all of us. 

     So.   Is the first lesson that one learns upon entering the education system the true and undeniable nature of our morality?  Is the first lesson of kindergarten not colors and patterns, not abcs and the first halting, sound it out, tentative steps into reading; alongside the smell of paste and crayons, the sound of the bell, is the first lesson of kindergarten death?


Suck it up:

SEARED "LOLLIPOP" LAMB CHOP WITH ROSEMARY BALSAMIC REDUCTION,  COUS COUS WITH SHALLOTS AND SAGE VANILLA MUSHROOMS, ROASTED ASPARAGUS WITH SHAVED PECORINO


Lamb and Reduction

1 Rack of Lamb, trimmed of fat and cut into indivudual "lollipop" chops.
olive oil
1 Tbs. chopped fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
splash of Orange Juice

 Let chops come to room temperature and coat with olive oil.  Sprinkle both sides with rosemary, salt, and pepper.  Let sit for 15 to 20 minutes.
Heat a large skillet over very high heat.  When skillet is very hot, sear lamb chops 3 minutes each side.  Set chops aside to rest.
Add vinegar to skillet and reduce heat to medium.  Add sugar, a pinch of salt, and orange juice, allow to reduce until half the original amount remains.  Spoon over chop and serve.

Cous Cous with Shallots and Sage Vanilla Mushroooms

Cous Cous
chicken or veggie stock
olive oil
2 Shallots
10 oz. sliced porcini mushrooms
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 whole sage leaves
salt and pepper

Prepare cous cous according to package directions using vegetable or chicken stock instead of water.
In a saute pan,  heat olive oil over medium heat and cook shallot until soft but not brown.  Stir into prepared cous sous.  In same pan, heat olive oil to to very high heat add vanilla, and porcini.  Brown on both sides.  2 to 3 minutes.
Remove mushrooms and saute sage leaves until crisp.  Season mushrooms with salt and pepper.

Roasted Asparagus with Pecorino

1 lb. trimmed Asparugus,
olive oil,
salt
shaved pecorino romano

Preheat oven to 400º.  Coat asparagus with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.  Spread evenly on roasting pan.  Roast for 10 to 13 minutes, until beginning to brown.  Top with shaved pecorino and serve.
If you like, you can blanch and shock asparagus first which will eliminate some of the stringiness that might come with roasting only.

More O' Lesson

 So, at last, the one I've been waiting and wanting to write.  We are employed.  The Broadway company of Billy Elliot has hired me on a three month contract to execute a featured ensemble track ("Scab/Posh Dad") and to understudy Greg Jbara's track ("Dad")  Back on Broadway.   The relief is palpable.

     I began rehearsal a little over three weeks ago and had my "put in" into production performance last Saturday.   I have lost 10 pounds during those rather grueling three weeks, owing to  entering into a "training/rehearsal" eating regimen and the extensive physical training required of the members of this incredible company.   I haven't worked this hard, or have been asked to work this hard in a production since college. 

    I hadn't seen the show prior to being hired.  It's incredible.  If there is to be an entry for the intergalactic music theater competition from the planet earth, I nominate Billy Elliot.  We might just take Venus this year.   See it.

     I got a message from my brother Dave not long after receiving the call to work.

     " It seems like a frigging miracle, and I hope it indeed is. I tell you, though, I don't think you in any way deserved whatever lesson this was trying to teach you. In fact, it makes me believe even less in such things as these kinds of lessons than ever before."

     Oddly encouraging.  Revealing a level of concern and regard that my brother harbors for me that I find enormously moving.  One thing we have discovered over the last couple of years when our cupboards were very bare, was how deep our pockets truly were with family and friends.    The message also is very funny.

     So many of the congratulatory messages that appeared were along the lines of, "It's a miracle!"  "See, things always work out this way."  "... Closed doors, open windows!"  Etc.   All of these messages intimating an actor's religion of sorts.  A belief among artists in a great design, a higher power.  We do it all the time.  We need that faith. 

    I had a class at NYU called "Dreams, Dream Psychology and the Performing Artist."   One of the theories being - what we perceive as dreams when we sleep are nothing but random images from the subconscious.  It is only upon awakening and entering the conscious mind  that we manipulate these images into narrative, into stories.   Stories complete with beginning, middle, and end that we then actively apply meaning and moral to.

     I've come to the conclusion that us humans actively do this in the conscious world as well.   We constantly take the random events that occur in our lives and fashion them in story and utilize them.   There is no more valuable commodity to our collective and individual conscious than story.  Often folks with the best story win in politics, the arts, business, love.... life.

    In terms of our recent random events over the last couple of years the immediate interpretation is as follows:  We struggled, I had to dig deeper, suck it up, and was ultimately rewarded with this plum job.  I like this interpretation very much and will stick to this story as I have at other points in my artistic life when times were tough and was eventually rewarded.  

     Travel back with me to 1996.  There I was slaving away at three restaurant jobs at once in Manhattan with the Broadway gig of '89 and the TV gigs of  the early 90's already memory.   I had just started at the Blue Water Grill and was quickly developing bitter actor persona.  At 31, I was already the oldest waiter on staff and affectionately nicknamed  "papa" by the clever little tits.  It felt like my chosen career had completely evaporated and here I was back in the restaurants.  A failure. 

    I had a waiter's nightmare of a day.  Absolutely and entirely in the weeds for hours, angry customers, sucky tips, the money completely not working out at the end of the day.

     Back at home in my Brooklyn apartment I lamented on the late night land line to my pal Funda.  "Where did I go wrong?  What did I do wrong?  What happened to my career?'

       Funda said, "How do you expect to make it work there (where you want to be) if you aren't making it work here (where you are)?"

      Bells went off.  I sucked it up.  I determined to become the best waiter in the restaurant.  I memorized the wine list.  I sold the most specials.  I sucked up to management.  I did more side work than was required.   Work was better.  Within two weeks I was cast in  the original company of Titanic on Broadway.  

     Aha!  Lesson learned!   And yet, 13 years later, time to relearn it and suck it up again.   There is a twist, however.

      On the recommendation of many friends, I read "Heat" recently.  Bill Buford's account of a transformed life working as a kitchen slave in Mario Batali's New York restaurant.   There is a section about Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and other cutting edge chef's including David Bouley meeting regularly for late night benders and binges at the Blue Ribbon restaurant in downtown NY in the late 90's before any of them had achieved the international stardom they enjoy now.  I worked for David Bouley back then as an Asst. Mait're 'D, and remember waiters and sous chefs asking me if I wanted to go to Blue Ribbon after work.  I remember turning them down because I would have rehearsal in the morning, or wanted to keep the restaurant world from consuming me completely while I was trying to get that next theater gig, so I could quit my day job.     You see, I only worked in the food world for the money so that I could pursue my goal of making a living in the theater. 

     13 years later, willing to give almost anything to time travel back and take those guys up on that offer to hang out at the Blue Ribbon, I find that I'm working in the theater for the money so that I can be with the food I love. 

      After the Blue Water Grill, "excellence in everything" lesson learned, I thought I had achieved the "happily ever after."  Now I work in the theater for the rest of my life, because I learned my lesson. 

     So much of my drive to succeed in the theater was to show and prove to various non believers in my past that it was possible.  It was my goal to raise a family and buy a house being an actor.  I find it therefore, pretty darn interesting that I ran into the work stoppage after achieving those goals.  More interesting, I'm not really so interested in what those non believers think anymore anyway.  I stalled and stumbled and found many treasures, and am interested in pursuing them not to show anyone, but because I love doing them. 

    I love making food for folks.

     Nicole and I worked very hard to not let our economic crisis rob us of our happiness.   To not let the fear of losing what we have overtake the beautiful moments we were actually in.   Now that the tone is lighter and we can funnel money to the bank to stave off the foreclosure notice that was but two weeks away at the time I got the job, we have an even greater obligation to guard our happiness and stay in the moment.

   So here's the thing.  In the past, when I've been saved by the big job, I've thought that that was the end of the story.... not this time.  I have had my horizons broadened by our "crisis".  I stumbled and found treasure.  I want all of the things I found.  So, while I work this very temporal job in the most temporal of the arts, I will continue to pursue the Underground Restaurant, Children's Book Writing, Book Writing, Blogging, Private Cheffing, Family Raising, Television Show Developing, Musical Writing, Violin Playing, Gardening Drew and make a dozen new stories each and every day.

Suck this up:

SPAGHETTINI WITH BALSAMIC GREEN TOMATO AND SWEET ITALIAN SAUSAGE.

2 Tbs. olive oil plus a little more
1 to 2 lbs. green tomato sliced thin
2 cloves garlic minced
6 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
tsp. minced fresh oregano or marjoram
1/2 lb. to 1 lb.  sweet Italian sausage
16 oz. spaghettini
Grated Pecorino Romano


  Heat skillet over high heat for several minutes then add oil.  When oil is nearly smoking hot add tomatoes and sear over very high heat for 3 minutes.  Reduce heat to medium and add garlic.  When garlic turns golden, add Balsamic, sugar, red pepper, oregano or marjoram.

   Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook spaghettini to al dente.

    In another skillet with cover, bring half a cup of water to boil add sausage links, cover and steam for five minutes.  Remove from heat and slice sausages on the bias.  Dump water and add 1 Tbs. oil to skillet and quickly sear sausage pieces over high heat.  Add sausage to green tomato sauce. 

    When pasta is nearly Al Dente, add to green tomato sauce in skillet, toss, and cook until pasta is tender.   Add 1/2 cup of pasta water to sauce, toss and serve with grated Pecorino Romano.