The Kindness of Yeast

I had a couple of appointments in the city earlier in the week; an audition for a new musical up at ART in Cambridge this spring, and a dinner meeting with the publishers of the children's books I'm writing.

Audition was first. I took the train in and arrived at the studio, there was one fellow ahead of me. I organized the four scenes they had asked me to prepare and got my audition book open to the song I would sing. I gave into a pacing/wandering between the studio and drinking fountain while I waited. The fellow went before me. I could hear him through the door. He sang and then read one of the same scenes I was asked to prepare, so I knew we were up for the same role(s). He was shorter than I, rounder, and bald. What is called a "character" actor in the business. Over time it is the slot that I find myself in. On the breakdowns with the audition info that the agency sends me via the emails I often see the words "seeking a character actor to play..."

I heard genial laughter and "thank yous" coming from the room and knew that I was next. The other guy came out with the casting assistant who said, "Drew? Are you ready?" I walked to my laid out materials, gathered them and said "Yes."

How many auditions? Truly. I wonder what the actual number is.

I walk in and there are the two readers facing me off to the side in their chairs. One male, one female. There is the audition accompanist behind the piano. There is a group of three people behind a long table facing me. There is a woman sitting center who I presume is the director, the casting associate, and another man... perhaps the writer?

"Hello," I say and make my way to the accompanist. I put my book in front of her and ask her if she knows the piece, she says she thinks so. I arrange the material for the scenes on the body of the piano for quick retrieval after the song.

I sing the song. I stand in front of the strangers and sing a song. I arrange myself at a slight angle off stage left and sing. At the key change the accompanist who had been doing doing well, doesn't change the key. One corner of my mind says, "c'mon accompanist... you can do it... key change." She does. Another corner of my mind is in the song, telling the story, "acting". This part controls what is being seen. Another corner of my mind is running a kind of narrative like this: "This is too much song for these "roles". The parts I'm auditioning for don't need this much of a song. But dammit, this is a song I sing well. It's difficult, it's complex. I've worked on it for years now and have had successful, fruitful auditions with this song. I sang this song for Stephen Sondheim and got the job." In yet another corner, another mind monitor is hard at work driving the physical work of the song production, "Easy, easy now. Big breath... flat tone and... wait for it.... vibrate. Volume! Breath! More Volume....pull back and.... head voice."

I finish singing the song for the strangers. There is no response. I walk to the piano to retrieve the material for the reading/acting section of the audition.

The woman who I presume is the director asks me what the name of that song was. I tell her. A phase that must easily repeat 12 times in the piece. She says "Ah. Okay let's take a look at 'Yawkey'". Yawkey is a character in one of the four scenes and four characters that I have been asked to prepare. I say, "Great!"

I think, "Shit. Yawkey is the one I like the least, and in my own humble opinion, the one that is written the most poorly. 2 and a half pages of dialog that is colorful "character" dialog, but with nothing much happening, no actual event.

I step back, hold up my sides and begin. The first line is a kind of joke. No response. No response throughout the scene as I read and (death) try harder.

The voice coming out of me doesn't sound like me. I feel fake.

I am done. The woman who I presume is the director says. "Thanks." Which means, "no" and also means "we're done, we're not going to read the other scenes."

I gather things, make eye contact with the accompanist and say "Thanks," which means thank you for not screwing me up too badly, and I leave the room.

I probably spent an hour and a half reading the script for this play. Another hour and a half working on the scenes, differentiating characters. An hour in on the train, an hour back. 1/2 hour waiting in the hall. 9 minutes in the audition room. You do the math.

As I take the elevator down from the studio and emerge on 8th Avenue I have instant post audition regret. I think that as a result of experiencing what didn't work in the scene I now know what would have worked. "If only I'd played the opposite."

No really. What is the number? 23 years in. How many auditions?

I have performance regret for an audition for a job I didn't really want in the first place. Do I really think that the resentment doesn't show? Do I really think that I still have the eye of the tiger? I have the eye of the beaten dog and frankly I wince when someone moves too quickly in the room. Hard to believe I'm going to get a job this way. In fact, sort of ludicrous.

I walk slowly up 8th Avenue. Thirties, Forties, Fifties, to the Lincoln Center area where I have the second appointment. A dinner meeting with book people. I take twenty dollars out of the bank and give it to a bartender at P.J. Clarke's and he gives me a scotch on the rocks. I kill more time until I'm supposed to meet the next group of strangers by walking around the upper West Side. I call Nicole and she fills me in on kid status. She makes me feel better by saying, "Oh well." when I tell her about the audition. And I do. I feel better.

I feel myself steeling a little as it gets close to time to meet the second group of strangers for the day. I'm sitting on a bench on the perimeter of Central Park, and I say "breathe Drew. Let the crap go. Have a little birthday today on me."

I walk to Cafe Fiorellos and meet the book people.

I recognize the first stranger Emily immediately. This stranger, whom I have met only via the internet gives me a glass of champagne, an embrace and says "I'm so excited and happy to meet you." I recognize the other stranger Sarah because she actually looks like she did in high school, and although we didn't hang out, I know her too. Another embrace. The subject of the book arrives, another stranger who I recognize because I have done my research. And the final stranger who is a complete stranger to me arrives, a dinner guest who is an interested party in the product.

(Sorry for being semi vague about this stuff, but as to content of the books I have been advised to be discreet.)

The dinner flies by. Truly the 3 hours seem much much shorter than the nine minutes I spent with the other strangers earlier in the day. We order food. We order wine. The publishers present slick and beautiful materials and outline their goals. The interested party tells his story and explains his interest. I tell my story. The subject of the book to be tells his story. We laugh and the publishers brush away some tears. We talk about how to tell the story. The strangers listen to me and show signs of liking my ideas. I like my ideas. I eat a semi okay thin crust Pepperoni pizza. Emily has a disappointing ragu pasta. Subject has a disappointing broccoli rabe pasta. Sarah and Interested Party share a semi okay Margherita pizza. We finish wine, have some personal talk and make plans for the next step.

The voice coming out of me sounds like me. I feel real.

We leave the restaurant and all walk down Broadway for a bit before we separate with more hugs. There is a true warmth that I take with me as I walk the rest of the way down Broadway and catch my train at Penn Station.

Without giving too much away, the subject's story has much to do with following bliss. I think about that on the train.


here's a better pizza:

The Dough

2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 cup warm (105º to 115º) water
3 cups all purpose flour
1 Tbs. salt
2 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil


The Sauce

1 28 oz. can diced San Marzano Tomatoes in juices
1 Tbs. fresh chopped oregano
1 large garlic clove minced
2 Tbs. fresh chopped basil
2 or 3 Tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt to taste

1 lb. fresh mozzarella cut into strips and drained
Fresh basil leaves
drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Toppings of choice

In a bowl combine warm water and yeast. In a food processor with dough blade on dough setting combine flour, salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly. Add yeast mixture and olive oil and combine until dough forms into a ball. If dough is too sticky add more flour 1 Tbs. at a time, if too dry add warm water 1 Tbs. at a time.

Remove dough from processor and knead on a floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes. Form into a ball, place in an oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour or until doubled in size.

Combine tomatoes, oregano, garlic, basil, olive oil and salt in a bowl and marinate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 450º

Punch down dough and knead for another 5 to 10 minutes. Divide into two balls, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 to 20 minutes.

Take one of the dough balls and stretch into desired size pizza round. Then repeat with second dough ball.

Top each pizza with sauce, cheese and desired toppings.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, remove from oven and let rest for 3 minutes before slicing and topping with basil leaves.

Indirect Heat is Still Pretty Hot

A couple of days after the Manhasset experience, I took the train into Manhattan to an upscale hotel just off of Times Square and met with the Masterchef people. We did an on camera interview for about 45 minutes. What was revelatory to me, was how much I had to talk about, and about how all of it was true. The Masterchef blurb in the email said, "Do you love to cook and want to change your life?" I love to cook and frankly I need to change my life so how could I not respond? It was tempting to let it become a "should have /could have" because the odds of getting in are just crazy. These folks went to every region of the country and met with thousands and thousands of people who felt just as "called" as I did. And yet, sometimes you have to buy the magic beans and play the lottery, especially when it pretty much is your only option.

In the hotel room the camera rolled and the casting producer asked me the basics: "Why do you cook?" She asked about my first experiences with food, what is my signature dish, yada, yada. She asked me about my career, my family. I told her about Paul and my kids. I told her how Capra-esque this whole experience seemed to me with cooking itself acting as some sort of Clarence the angel causing me to view what is most important in my life each and every day just in the act of getting food on the table for my family, all the while the Potters of the world getting closer and closer to the front door.

I felt myself getting passionate.

She asked me what it would be like to win this competition. I scoffed. I said I hadn't allowed myself to think or imagine that far ahead; that the rejection ratio inherent in my business has taught me to kind of "stick and move." Not to try to dwell on the "what ifs" when you're up for a big job, because the repetitive stress of the crashes when the jobs inevitably fall through is too tough on the psyche.

I went on about how it is silly to call this show "Masterchef" anyway. The idea that I could go from amateur to master in five weeks is absurd. More scoffing from me.

She said, "Imagine what it would be like to bring home the cash prize on this show. Imagine that you are telling your wife that you won and are bringing her the money."

She had found the button, and she had pressed it.

I was overcome. I was awash in tears. Just the idea of bringing home a big pot of golden bacon and relieving the stress around here for a while did me quite in. I was embarrassed. I tried to breathe through it and respond to the question. I managed "We've been through a lot, and my wife has been pretty wonderful."

As I emerged from the emotion with some laughter I said, "Is there a cash prize? I really hadn't even thought about it."

"There is a sizable prize."

After the interview, the casting producer pressed her card into my hand and said, "I really want you to do this. I would root for you."

And I felt that thing that I hadn't felt in acting auditions for a very long time. When you feel it it's golden. The feeling of, "Oh, I'm the one they're looking for."

Over that weekend we made the home movie that Masterchef required. We did pizzas from scratch with Duncan assisting, Shaw observing from the bouncy seat and Nicole on camera. In my mind ever preparing for let down, I'm thinking "Even if this doesn't happen we'll have this great home movie."

I sent off the movie, food photos, family photos, show photos with the very personal 27 page background check to the address in Southern California and did my best to forget about it. I wrote about the first experience here in this forum.

I received an email saying that I should not write about my Masterchef experience or tell anyone about it as I am still being considered and talking to the press or blogging could jeopardize my chances.

So, they had read my stuff. I took the entry off and let them know that I had.

Another two weeks go by and I get another email. This one telling me I am still be considered and I need to now make arrangements to have certain dates open for a 4 to 6 hour interview/psych test and be prepared to go to California for as long as 5 weeks. The email tells me they should be able to tell me if I am a finalist on Feb. 15.

In the meantime, I'm going to acting auditions and starting to wonder what would happen if I did get Masterchef. Maybe I would get more of that golden feeling. Then it dawns on me. "The greatest thing that could happen to my acting career would be to get the cooking show." Even if I got knocked off after the first week, it would give me some level of D list celebrity cred that seems to be absolutely required to get a part on Broadway these days. And what if I did win? What if I won? Could I instantly become a Masterchef? Would I travel the world and become a food network celebrity and eat and drink and.....

I started to want it.

I started to think, what if I did become a chef? What if I did leave the acting business behind? What if I did something else? Now, you must understand, I have been focused like a laser on making my living in this business for the last 26 years, and never really have entertained the notion of imagining doing something else, not really, not like this. And frankly the idea of doing something else thrilled me no end. The idea of not dragging myself to auditions for pieces I don't really want to do and trying to squeeze myself into some concept of what it is I think the folks who are casting want, the idea of not having to deal with a 96% rejection rate, the constant failure, to have some say over the outcome of my life, these ideas, the newness of them, the almost naughtiness of them made me quite drunk indeed, and I fear/hope might have changed me forever. Because I tell you, the thing that hurts me lately is I don't enjoy the acting enough. I'm mad at the acting for not staying lucrative and I wonder if I could take that onus off of it, if I could love it again someday... I kind of hope so, because I miss loving it. It is, after all, just an art form. My economic problems are not it's fault.

Masterchef folks were not the only ones who read my last piece here. An old friend from high school read it. Sarah Sandback. She read my stuff on Facebook and liked it. Sarah wrote me to tell me she is starting a publishing company called Kid Zenith and asked I be interested in writing children's literature for them. It was the Masterchef piece that she responded to.

I stood at the grill with the chicken. The charcoal smell reminding me of camping and Michigan like it always does. Smells like Dad-hood. I thought, "My life is changing. Whether or not it happens, the Masterchef thing, packing my stuff in the cooler and driving to Manhasset changed my life."

I wrote Sarah back and said, "Oh yes. Oh yes indeed." I submitted some material, they liked it and asked for more. They sent me stipend checks and contracts. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed.

I was in Michigan on February 15 when the Masterchef folks were supposed to let me know. They didn't call. I got grumpy.

On the 16th around 5:00 as I was making some pasta for the family (broccoli rabe and sausage) my phone vibrated. I saw it was a southern California number. As I finished laying out the sliced Italian sausage in the saute pan I felt the second vibration indicating that there was a voice message.

I stayed in the moment of not knowing. I allowed myself the thought of "Why would they call if it was no?". I thought that if it is no, I'm glad that I was cooking when they called because yes or no, I'm going to keep cooking.

It was no. The casting manager in Southern California told me that casting and the food judges were very impressed with me but I would not be a finalist on Masterchef. They wished me well and said that had my file now and I would be considered for future seasons.

Back in New Jersey, in the house that we are now considering leaving in a very real way. Trying to squeeze the concept into our upright midwestern thoughts that maybe there is no shame in not meeting a mortgage. Trying to wrap our minds around the concept of foreclosure in a real way. Knowing that if writing and cooking are the future, well we could do that anywhere; it doesn't have to be in the most expensive area of real estate in the world. The Kid Zenith stuff is awesome and points to a kind of future, but does not stop the boat from it's immediate sinking. As far as the acting, I keep thinking about that definition of insanity, "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome."

I'm cooking differently lately. With more precision, with more purpose. Masterchef changed my life.

BARBEQUE CHICKEN WITH DIJON FRIED RICE

MICHAL SYMON'S BBQ SAUCE
(If I don't have time for this, I use Famous Dave's)

1 Tbs. butter
1 c. chopped red onion
2 Tbs. minced garlic
2 Tbs. mince jalepeno
1/2 c. espresso beans, mashed with the flat side of a knife
4 ounces Worcestershire
4 ounces tomato paste
1 ounce apple cider vinegar
1 ounce balsamic vinegar
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
2 ounces apple cider
4 ounces veal stock
1 Tbs. chile powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander


Melt butter and sweat onion, garlic and jalepeno. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on very low heat for 1 hour. Strain through a chinois.

BBQ CHICKEN
(I usually use chicken thighs with skin and drum sticks that I buy from Costco)

Put 2 quarts of water in a large non reactive bowl and dissolve 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup kosher salt. Put chicken (8 to 10 parts) in the brine and let soak for at least 4 hours.
Remove chicken and pat dry with paper towels.
Place about 30 charcoal briquettes evenly on one side of grill and light.
Take about a 1/2 cup of olive oil and brush on the chicken parts. Grind fresh black pepper over pieces.

Sear chicken in batches over the direct heat side of grill about 2 minutes per side. Should flame a great deal.
When chicken is seared on both sides transfer to the indirect side of grill and brush on BBQ sauce. Cover grill with vents open and cook over indirect heat for twenty minutes. Flip chicken brush on more sauce, cover and grill for 20 minutes more.

Sprinkle with chopped fresh herbs of your choice. (I like chives and basil among others.)

DIJON MUSTARD FRIED RICE

Vegetable oil
1 onion chopped
chopped mixed veggies - ie: broccoli, green peas, carrot, etc.
2 eggs beaten
4 cups cooked sushi rice
2 Tbs. soy sauce
3 Tbs. Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup chopped basil (Thai if you can get it)
1/4 cup chopped scallion
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat oil in a wok over high heat. (1 Tbs. at a time) Saute onion until soft and set aside. Add oil and saute veggies in batches until bright in color and soft and set aside. Add oil and cook eggs until firm remove, dice into 1 inch chunks and set aside. Add oil and heat rice through. Add soy sauce and mustard mix thoroughly. Fold in previously cooked ingredients and basil. Grind pepper over and mix again. Remove to large bowl and top with scallions.

Room Temperature is Relative to the Room

Nicole's Dad died the day after Christmas. I guess I sort of wanted to more artfully work that in, but really what else is there right now? Nicole, Duncan and Shaw stayed another week in Missouri after Carrie's wedding and helped Angela (Nicole's mom) with stuff. I came back to New Jersey so that I could jump back into whatever might come along work wise, and as of January 23rd, I remained poised like Michael Phelps on the block - ready, ready.... and... ready.

During my week alone I dismantled Christmas, deep cleaned the house, slept very little and cooked for one, something I hadn't done in a long time. On Friday on the phone with Nicole, who was returning Monday, she asked me if I had missed the date for the amateur chef reality show entry that Kara had sent me via the emails. I checked and by God it was that Sunday. I downloaded the application, map quested the Manhasset location, and began constructing the dish I would plate for the judges in my head.

To my mind the challenge was to create a dish that would be yummy at room temp or chilled. There would be no heat element provided, you had to wait in line, go in the room and plate your dish.

One of the side effects of eating alone all week was that I was drawn to the wok. In order to keep my middle aged waist line in check I find that I need to eat small meals (Low fat protein, simple carb, veggie) every three hours. This regimen is easiest to maintain when I'm doing a show. I can do all the cooking in the morning and load up small meal sized tupperware in my bag and head to the train. I save money and drop weight. When the family is all home and I'm in between jobs, it's more difficult to perpetuate this regimen because of the high value we place on the dinner ritual. However, during the alone week, I discovered that putting the protein, carb, and veggie together in the wok with some asian seasonings was providing a tasty new angle on the small meal regimen. So, I was in an Asian frame of mind.

So, Asian, room temp and show them chefiness. I had salmon in the freezer. I researched poached salmon and learned the french way. Ah! It started to form.
I would do an East meets West across the plate poached Salmon. On the right side of the plate I would do Satay noodles and continue the Satay sauce on the fish. On the right I would do broccoli rabe with shaved parmesan or pecorino and a green pea/mint sauce that carried over to the fish. Across the bottom of the plate Asian marinated mushrooms. While each sauce would be pure East or West, the sides would have secret elements that would foot them in both East and West cuisines. In other words, the satay noodles would use Italian spaghettini instead of bean thread noodles, and the broccoli rabe would be prepared in the wok using soy, oyster sauce, and toasted sesame. The fact that the salmon was the common ground felt very right due to it's prominence in both cuisine worlds.

I had a plan and I had a whole day to prepare. After a trip to the market, I put on my Iron Chef chef's jacket Nicole bought one Christmas in Brooklyn years ago and spent the day preparing my dish.

One of my last conversations with Paul, he sat at the counter in Marshfield while I made the sweet sausage/cream spaghetti for dinner. I told him that I had made a decision that I would somehow get some formal culinary training this year. I told him what he already knew, that we couldn't survive another year like the one we'd just had unless I had another way to make money. He said he thought it sounded like a good idea. What I loved him for is what he didn't say. He didn't say, "Are you crazy for ever trying to support my daughter and grandchildren by singing and dancing and telling stories? You better get a real job McVety." No, he didn't say that, and I loved him for it. He said the spaghetti looked good and asked me what "caramelized" meant.

I have made such a decision and since I can't afford any training until I get my next lucrative acting job I am sort of Catch 22ing it here. My toes curled over the starting block, head bowed, knees flexed, measured breathing, eyes on the prize, ready... ready...

I spent the day before making the sauces, poaching the Salmon, rehearsed plating the dish and then packed everything in the cooler so that I could plate with ease and rapidity in front of the judges in Manhasset, bringing all necessary tools with me.

I followed the map quest instructions arrived and waited with the other amateurs for three hours in the 22º Long Island air. When my turn came, I plated the dish on a waist high table with eight other amateurs on either side of me. The judges came and I explained my dish. I had gotten as far as "hidden clues in each side element" when one of the two judges, the food judge I guess, asked me if I had had any culinary training. I said "No." She nodded and moved on with out tasting. The other judge, who I guess was the personality judge, asked me what was the most life changing event I had ever experienced. I told him about Paul, and that I now am really responsible for his and my family and I have to find a way to keep feeding them. He pointed me toward the girl in the back.

I cleared my plate and repacked everything. I made my way to the girl in the back who told me that I would be going on to the next round. I was actually giddy like any American Idol contestant going to Hollywood. While I had been waiting in line, I watched the people relate to each other, telling about their dishes, struggling to keep their Lobster Fra Diavalos, their venison stuffed peppers warm. I found I didn't have anything to say to anyone, and I worried about it. I worried that I wouldn't have the reality TV show personality thing kick on when I needed it. But an interesting thing happened. Once I got into the room and plated the food, and saw other people's food all I wanted to do was talk to them about it. "Man, that looks great! Beautiful." Not sure what that's all about except that I'm not very good at small talk.

There will be more Masterchef to come. It's not the same as enrolling at the French Culinary Institute, but it keeps me moving in a certain direction.

SPICY ORANGE SATAY/PEPERONCINO NOODLES

6 tablespoons smooth natural peanut butter,
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 to 3 teaspoons hot chili paste (Sambal Oelek)
1/4 to 1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 lb. Spaghettini Noodles (I used ones pre-infused with peperoncino. )
Cucumber, peeled and cut into match sticks
Radish cut into match sticks
Chopped scallion green part only.

Whisk sauce ingredients until smooth and season with salt and pepper.
Boil pasta in salted water until al dente. Toss with enough sauce to coat pasta. Refrigerate serve cold garnished with cucumber, radish and scallion.

MARINATED SHITAKE/PORTABELLO/OYSTER MUSHROOMS

1 tsp. sliced garlic
1 Tbs. sliced fresh ginger root
3/4 pounds mixed mushroom caps wiped clean and stems removed.
1 tsp. Sambal Oelek
1/2 cup sesame vinagrette
2 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup Rice wine vinegar

In heavy saucepan, heat the sesame oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger root, and mushrooms and saute for three minutes. Deglaze pan with vinegar and reduce over medium high heat until almost no liquid remains. Stir in sambal oelek and salt and remove from heat. Add the vinagrette and stir. Cover and refrigerate and allow to marinade for at least six hours.

EAST/WEST BROCCOLI RABE

1 bunch broccoli rabe
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic sliced
2 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. Oyster sauce
Shaved Pecorino Romano

Fill stock pot to half with water and bring to boil. Submerge broccoli rabe in boiling water for two to three minutes. Remove from boiling water and submerge in ice water immediately.

Heat olive oil in wok over high heat. Add garlic and saute for 20 to thirty seconds. Add broccoli rabe in batches, do not over crowd. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, and toasted sesame seeds, salt and pepper and saute in wok until wilted and tender - two to three minutes. Remove from wok and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate. Garnish with shave Pecorino Romano.

POACHED SALMON

Two Leeks,
2 cups white wine
2 cups water
Bay leaf
3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper
Salmon fillet

In Dutch oven with lid, heat all ingredients until wine and water are boiling. Place salmon skin side down until just submerged. Reduce heat until liquid is just barely bubbling. Cover and poach salmon for 15 minutes. Remove salmon and reserve broth as fish stock. Allow salmon to come to room temperature then cover and refrigerate.

GREEN PEA SAUCE

1 cup frozen or fresh green peas
1/2 stick butter
splash or two of cream
1/2 cup fish/poaching stock
Tbs. fresh chopped mint

In blender combine peas, butter, cream, fish stock. Blend until all elements are incorporated. Add more stock as necessary until desired consistency is reached. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Stir in chopped mint.

Nothin But a Chicken Pie

All right then. Nicole is at the NJ DMV with Duncan getting her license renewed. Shaw, momentarily asleep in the swing in the dining room, is snoring through her cold. We keep the house @ 60ºF in the winter here at the house where we live. It gets cold. We wear sweaters and put a single duraflame log in the tiny fireplace and stay forcefully cheerful, almost maniacally upbeat. We giggle self

righteously when we hear other folks complaining about the cold when their houses are turned down to 68ºF. If someone visits and says, "It's freezing in here.", I say, "No. Freezing is 32ºF. It's 60ºF. Almost twice as warm as freezing!"

If it gets absolutely unbearable, we just run out and jump in the incongruous hot tub that we own and that heats you up to 104º and keeps you warm for a good 45 minutes on your return.

I hadn't used the hot tub in awhile because it didn't seem to be in line with our our borderline poverty circumstance. How could I take something so luxurious as a hot, bubbly bath when the situation is so dire? Didn't fit. Rich people hot tub. Poor folks are cold and miserable and stay that way. I jumped in the other night when it dipped below 20º outside and realized that this was the first indulgence I had allowed in a while and that now is exactly the time to yield to this extravagance.

In my mind, I guess I was thinking, "I'll use the hot tub when I get a steady job." Silly.

Once I had submerged and was staring at Orion and the occasional jet on it's descent into relatively near Newark International, I thought, "Darn this feels good. Should have been coming out here every night. Fool. Who are you to deny yourself the pleasures that are readily available in the moment because you deem yourself not worthy in general, in some self imagined broader judgment sphere? If this thing is gone someday, Fool, you're going to be good and pissed that you didn't enjoy it while you had it. Fool." Seems to be a running theme.

Which of course leads me to Chicken Pie.

It's later in the day and Shaw may or may not be more sick than we thought. She's pretty miserable and crying long and loud at times when she usually smiles and bubbles. She has a chest full of phlegm that you can feel and hear when she breathes. Nicole called the doctor and she's going in this afternoon. We're worried because 11 week old Shaw is not covered on our insurance because we can't afford it and what is going to happen at the payment counter? Hey Joe Lieberman. Hey.

Duncan's watching some Christmas movies. He's been kind of defiant and gloomy the last couple of days. Not like him. I saw a piece in the Times the other day, a poll about how 50 % plus of out of work folks are worried that their kids are being emotionally affected in an adverse manner by their parent's unemployment. You have to wonder. Kids know everything, even if they can't express it. They know it and they feel every current that flows in a family. I know I did. I think I might be able to cheer him up with a late afternoon hot tub.

Which of course leads me to Chicken Pie.

It's later in the evening. Duncan is in bed. Shaw is fine. The doctor says she has a cold. Something nice in knowing that we are over cautious with the second child too. By the time Nicole got to the doctor's office, Shaw was completely over being miserable. In fact she was in a terrific mood. She was bubbling to every one she met, smiling, laughing, complementing them on their taste in jewelry. The doctor was like, "There's nothing wrong with her. At all." Nicole felt relieved. At the payment counter, they said, "Cigna Co pay?" Nicole said. "Sure. Yes." She paid the $25 and came home. We live to fight another day.

Which reminds me of Chicken Pie.

When I mentioned that I was stuffing a chicken into a pie in my status the other day, the response was immediate and visceral. I believe people like to hear two things in life. They like to hear "Chicken", and they like to hear "Pie" put them together and there is a definite Gestalt phenomenon. This was a little labor intensive, but definitely worth it and made us food drunk with the awareness that the whole was indeed greater than the sum of it's chicken parts.

CHICKEN PIE (Adapted from Ina Garten)

1 whole chicken (3.5 to 6 lbs.)
1/3 cup dijon mustard
1 bunch green onions
Kosher Salt
Pepper
5 cups chicken stock
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 cups chopped yellow onions
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups diced carrots, blanched for two minutes
2 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

Pastry:

3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/4 pound cold butter diced
1/2 cup to 2/3 cup ice water
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Kosher Salt and cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Rub Dijon mustard all over chicken and rub salt in the cavity. Stuff bunch of green onions in the cavity, truss, and roast for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
Remove meat from bones and carcass and discard skin. (Save bones and carcass for stock.) Cut or shred the chicken into bite size pieces.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the chicken, carrots, peas, and parsley. Mix well.

For the pastry, mix the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor on the dough setting. Add the shortening and butter and mix. Pulse until well mixed. With the motor running, add the ice water and process until it comes together. Dump the dough onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Divide dough in half. Roll dough out flat and cover the bottom of a large pie mold with 1 to 2 inches of overhang. Roll out another piece for the top crust. Pour filling into pie and lay top crust over. Fold overhang and crimp. Brush the dough with the egg wash and make slits in the top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour or until the top is golden brown and the filling bubbling hot.

Pepper Pity Party

Off campus today. Got out of the house. Sitting in the South Orange Library to write. Left Nicole in charge with Shaw napping and Duncan watching Horton Hears a Hoo, which he calls Horton Hears of Hoo. He's watching it for the fourth day in a row. Cabin fever? You betcha.

I woke around 5 AM this morning. Shaw was wanting something to eat and Nicole was seeing to it. Duncan had heard the human movement on the second floor and assumed it was time to get up. We got Duncan back to bed and I headed back to our room. I took the radio that I keep next to the bed, adjusted the volume so that I could just hear it if I pressed it next to my ear and listened to right wing talk radio. This has evolved to being the way that I put myself to sleep every night. It works very well, I usually fall asleep in about 10 minutes this way. If I don't use the radio, I start to think when I lie there. Thinking gives way to worry, and worry transforms to panic. The right wing content allows me just enough anger/distraction to keep me from my own poisionous thoughts and lulls me to sleep. In the morning when I'm making coffee and Duncan's bagels and eggs, I put on the NPR.

NPR for the kitchen, Fox radio for the bedroom.

The 5 AM radio trick wasn't working. My own thoughts were louder than the radio.
The spiraling began. When I came downstairs around 7:00, Duncan was on the couch with a book.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"No. Mom."

"Well, I can make it for you if you want."

"No. I just want Mom."

Since Nicole and Shaw have returned from Missouri, I have slipped back firmly into second position in Duncan's family hierarchy. It's okay. It's as it should be, and I do think my second position, while still second, is a slightly higher second since our Michigan odyssey.

Now, if I was a smarter man, and some days I am, I would march upstairs, get some running clothes on, do a nice slow 5k and let the endorphins do their magic. Probably that day is tomorrow. Today, apparently I'm going to worry. Not smart today. Probably smarter tomorrow.

I talked to my therapist for the first time in several years a couple of weeks ago after a day like this. He told me I need to make money. He's right. For the last twelve years straight, I've made the money by acting in plays on Broadway and occasionally appearing on television. My life expanded around that streak of employment in the entertainment industry. A house was bought, a family grew. Now, I'm weathering a dry spell and I find that I don't know how to do anything else. (This is where the worry starts.) I look at friends who have gone on to have wildly successful careers in theater, film and television and made oodles of money. (This is where the spiraling begins.) I look at other friends who got out and now support their families in more traditional ways week to week and go on skiing vacations and such... and I... Damn it. Now I'm there.

It's just money. Probably in the grand scheme of things at the end of it all, I'm going to be pretty pissed that I spent so much time fretting about things that I couldn't control. And things have always worked out somehow in the past so things will probably work out in the future. I have hope as in "I hope that phone's gonna vibrate some money into this house."

I'm pretty sure that the upstairs bathroom shower drain pipe is leaking into the plaster of the kitchen ceiling, because when someone takes a shower you can hear a drip and there is a crack appearing.

I have friends who would give anything to have my problems.

I did have a day of employment last week on a major motion picture. Henry's Crime starring Keanu Reeves. I had a scene with Keanu. I was the detective who was trying to keep him from making a terrible mistake that would result in his needlessly going to prison for three to seven years. It went well, and I shared a black SUV from the Suffolk County Jail back to the city with Keanu. We talked a bit. I told him about my family. He said he didn't have any children.

"Huh." I thought. "Huh."

Listen, I get it. I just need more money.

And so, I do what I can do. I cook. And hope.

I'm gonna go home and go for a run, then make dinner.


Polenta Stuffed Peppers

4 to 8 red or yellow bell peppers (depending on size)
3/4 lb. sweet or hot Italian sausage
1 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup polenta
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano Cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella or Gruyere

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and remove seeds and ribs. Blanch for two to three minutes in boiling water to soften slightly. Arrange in a shallow buttered baking dish.

Preheat oven to 375º F.

Remove casings from sausages and heat in saute pan, breaking up the meat over med. heat until no longer pink.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion softens, 3 minutes. Add polenta and stir to mix. Slowly pour in the chicken broth, stirring to combine. Add the cream, corn, basil, cilantro, salt, sausage, and 1/4 cup of the Pecorino. Cook, stirring constantly about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Fill the peppers with the polenta. Sprinkle with the remaining Pecorino Romano and the Mozzarella/Gruyere. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and bubbling Serve hot.

O Holy Pasta

 Have been besieged by real life lately . The news of Nicole's dad being so sick has been accompanied by the whole family having a mutual cold for the last two weeks. All of us coughing into our elbows, except for 9 and a half week old Shaw, who just sneezes and smiles knowing she is exempt from the elbow rule.

We split up for Thanksgiving, Nicole and Shaw flying to Missouri to be with Paul, and Duncan and I driving to Michigan to see my folks there. When Nicole's not around I magically become Duncan's number one and I gladly lap up the sloppy seconds. He is the best traveling companion I have ever known. Content to pore through his Seuss in the back seat or gaze out the window with the obligatory "Are we there yet?" only appearing at the six hour mark into the 12 hour drive. We gazed at the mysterious fog on route 80, exclaimed with delight when the sun appeared, sang as much of the score of Rudolph that we could remember, felt some early Christmas magic when we turned on the radio and the score of Rudolph (and I mean the entire score) just happened to be playing on a station somewhere between Dubois and Youngstown and sucked every ounce of happiness out of the Happy Meal at the service plaza.

Other than Duncan's bagel and eggs in the mornings, I did not cook for the four days in Michigan. I had my mom's Thanksgiving feast. Pretty much the way it has been since I've known it. My earliest memories of cooking of course are with mom. I seem to remember being an expert flour sifter, pan greaser and beater licker. Mom makes terrific pies. Mom taught me how to make spaghetti.

Two boxes of Kraft Italian Spaghetti, aka "Zesty Italian", the one in the green box. In the box is half a pound of dry spaghetti and two envelopes. One containing Kraft Parmesan Cheese and the other something called Italian seasonings. The instructions have you mixing the Italian seasonings with a combination of canned tomato sauce and/or paste with water, boiling the spaghetti, sprinkling the cheese and Presto!

Mom showed me if you browned the hamburger first with some chopped onion and add a can or two of Pennsylvania Dutch mushrooms and then followed the sauce instructions on the package, you ended up with the ambrosia of my mid-western youth. I do not not exaggerate when I say that I could not stop eating the stuff. There was a terrible night when I was left alone with some spaghetti in the pot on the stove that had been set aside for my brother to eat when he came home from swim team. On commercial breaks in the living room I would slip into the kitchen and just have one more bite. By the time Dan got home all that was left was a sad little lump of noodle in the corner of the pot. He knew, and he was pissed. I'm sure he too would remember this incident today.

I generally have a hard time playing the favorites game: colors, movies, memories hard to pick one over another being as the lists are so long and I'm vaguely over aware of the subjectivity involved in making these choices, moreover, I don't want to be tied down to favorites. However, if I ever am in a situation where the last meal is being offered to me, I know that it would be spaghetti. I might quibble over sauces but of the pasta itself there would be no question. Rolled around the fork or slurped up the chin, it has an indescribable comfort level for me that has never wavered since those days in Port Huron, Michigan.

My first job in New York in 1983 during my freshman year at NYU was busboy at a place around round the corner from my dorm on Waverly and Mercer called Zi Pepe's. After paying the dorm fees and tuition with my student loan checks I had exactly $14 dollars in my brand new Citibank account when I walked in Zi Pepe's and asked for a job. I remember that I made $6 the first night and broke a glass but mostly I remember the first staff meal. It was a spicy spaghetti, tomato based with mozzarella and maybe spinach stirred in....

The earth shaking, volcanic, wondrous new reality wherein spaghetti could be puttanesca, bolognese, carbonara, amatriciana, prima vera and on and on not only made the $6 a night bearable, it made it downright desirable. My midwestern mind was blown and when I revisited Michigan for that first Christmas break and mom made Spaghetti just for me, well...I had changed... forever. I knew what al dente was. I knew what herbs were. (I had always assumed that the Italian "seasonings" in the packets were man made by Italian men. Had no idea they were herbs.) I knew what cheese was. I hope I was kind. Conveniently, I don't remember that part.

The day after Duncan and I drove the 12 plus hours back from Michigan and still had a day before Nicole and Shaw returned from Missouri, we had one night of home alone cooking. Imagine my joy when I asked Dunc what he wanted for dinner and he looked me in the eye and said, "Spaghetti."

 SPAGHETTI WITH CREAMY TOMATO ITALIAN SAUSAGE SAUCE (From SImply Recipes)

3 Tbs. olive oil
4 to 6 shallots, chopped
3 to 4 garlic cloves chopped
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. sweet Italian Sausage, casings removed (Or hot or any combo)
1 cup heavy cream
2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes in juice
3 to 4 Tbs. fresh chopped sage
1 1/2 cup frozen green peas
1 lb. Spaghetti
grated Pecorino Romano

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add shallots and garlic and saute until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Add sausages and saute until no longer pink, breaking up sausages 5 to 10 minutes. Add cream, simmer 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices, sage, and frozen peas. Simmer until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in large of of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain.

Return pasta to pot and add sauce. Toss over medium heat until sauce coats pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to serving bowls and top with cheese.

(I usually wind up with enough sauce for another meal down the road.)

Please Make Yourself Extremely Comfortable. Please.

I've been fully aware for quite some time the role that cooking plays in my life. I guess I'm most aware when some one else in the house decides that it's their night to cook. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, when prep would usually begin, I pace nervously, I get extremely cranky some might even say "cross", I fidget, I curse... you get the picture. Then, when I eat the dinner that usually Nicole has prepared, I'm in ghastly awe of what a great chef she is. I think, "Who am I kidding? Slaving day after day when she can whip something like this out going from zero to sixty?"

The next day, when I have regained the reins in the kitchen, I will ridiculously put a little more oomph in my usual menu trying desperately and sadly to "one up" and regain an imagined lost territory with some culinary testosterone. I attempt to mask it all in good humor, jolly good fun. But I feel the others in the house seeing through me like cheap muslin. I feel their pity. It is palpable. Palatable but palpable pity.

I cook to assuage. I cook to impress. I cook to satisfy. I cook to occupy. I cook out of curiosity. I cook to seduce. I cook to comfort. Yes, I cook to and for comfort.

Thursday morning we had the saddest news. Paul, Nicole's father, has cancer. He has had a series of tests for the last several months that have all come back negative where cancer was concerned and Thursday morning was going for surgery for a different procedure that the doctors were sure was the issue. When they opened him up they discovered to their shock, that he had cancer.

Because he had been tested so many times already and the tests had all come back negative, I confess to not being too concerned about the procedure that he was going to have Thursday morning. So when the terrible call came from my mother in law Angela letting me know the situation and asking me to tell Nicole who was in the car driving Duncan home from school, well, I wasn't ready. But like all of the great events in life, none of us is ever really ready. Not really. It just suddenly, always suddenly becomes time.

It isn't necessary for me to go into any of the details of our grief that day in this particular forum, other than to note that all comfort that day was derived through necessary occupations. Every duty that normally would be one of the daily drudgery of child rearing was now a gift, now was a blissful momentary occupation that removed one temporarily from active grief. Every diaper, every tissue, every wipe, every explanation to Duncan was a visceral, fierce blessing.

At one point as we were in the eye of the storm, Carrie, who had run home from school the second she heard the news, suggested that tonight was a night for Chinese food. In the moment I agreed. About an hour later though, I knew I had to roast a chicken. I knew it for entirely selfish reasons.

When I was doing Sunday in the Park with George on the old Broadway, I would regularly bring in culinary delights that I had whipped up in the kitchen in Jersey.

"You're so generous!" Dressing room mates would say, slurping down chicken legs or chocolate chip cookies.

"Ha!" I would think. "They fell for it! Now they like me, and now they think I'm a good cook! I win! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!"

I did it for very selfish, self serving, self loving, egotistical, narcissistic reasons.

I needed to roast this chicken selfishly, right now, to feel better. To do something. And then to eat it with my family and have it provide momentary, blissful, albeit fleeting, comfort.

 I have gradually evolved through many roast chicken recipes over the years (Whole pierced lemon in the cavity/butter under the skin with paprika/sitting upright in one of those chicken roasters looking so very civilized in the oven) - this is my current favorite. Juicy and very, very flavorful.

ROASTED MUSTARD TARRAGON CHICKEN (Adapted from Gourmet)

1 chicken 3 1/2 lbs. or larger
salt and pepper
1 bunch tarragon
Dijon Mustard

Preheat oven to 425ºF with rack in the middle
Rub salt and pepper inside cavity of chicken. Stuff bunch of tarragon in the cavity. Truss the chicken and slather mustard all over. Roast until instant read thermometer inserted into fleshy part of the thigh reads 160ºF. For me it was about an hour and 10 minutes.

BEETS AND ONIONS

3 large beets
two or 3 medium onions
2 Tbs. butter
salt and pepper
lemon juice

Boil beets in salted water. Peel two or three onions and boil them in a separate pot in salted water until they star fall apart. Drain the beets reserving 1/2 cup of beet juice. Drain onions and combine with beets, beet juice, butter, salt and pepper to taste and several dashes of lemon juice.

MASHED POTATOES

Listen, all I did was cut up the potatoes with the skin on, boiled them in salted water and then mashed them with 1/2 stick butter and salt. I have fancier mashed potatoes methods, but they are for another day. Duncan went on and on about how delicious these were, so I'm good.

All Hail The King of (Legal) Herbs

I had noticed that Carrie hadn't been eating all her dinner lately. There were significant portions of duck left on the plate, the duck onion soup was eaten but the pork belly pieces went untouched and when she saw me working the duck fat into the mashed potatoes, they received barely a nibble. I tried to see past my rage and realized that Carrie is getting married in January. I remembered my own frugal nibbling prior to my wedding, back when I was a vegetarian. People like to look good when they get married and that trumps any desire for duck fat. It's only after you get married that the duck fat tastes good again. By the way, Carrie looks awesome.

Out of deference to Carrie's feelings, appetite and the sanctity of prenuptial dietary restrictions, I decided we all could use a break from the cream laden, duck fat paved road I'd been driving the family gastric jalopy down lately. We generally have one or two fish nights a week and a vegetarian night as well just to keep our feet on the ground.

Some online tips lead you astray. Tis the truth I'm afraid. I was interested in saving the bumper crop of basil that I had grown over the summer and researched freezing herbs on line. I read that if you freeze the leaves of basil separately on a cookie sheet in the freezer and then place them neatly in a freezer zip lock bag, stacking them like a deck of cards, then you will be able to tap them all winter.

Seemed like a great idea. But alas, the leaves that I have pulled out of the freezer are kind of chewy and papery and while they are edible and retain some flavor, I am not satisfied that they are anything close to the wonder of fresh basil.

Basil, to me, is the king of all herbs. The steak of the herb family. I am always amazed every time I make a pesto that something so flavorful so filling and delicious could really just be a leaf.

Last winter I took all the basil and made a huge batch of pesto that I then put in ice cube trays and transferred in cube form to zip lock bags. Next year I'll do that again. You can just drop a cube to perk up any sauce, cream, tomato or otherwise or use four or five cubes as a pesto proper. Very effective. I have used the papery frozen leaves as final pizza toppings, but am loathe to try them as an actual pesto, perhaps by February I'll give it a go. I suppose I have to try. Maybe the food processor will eliminate the papery quality and we'll be left only with flavor..... Maybe.

I headed to the Super Fine Fare and picked up some whole wheat thin spaghetti. I am always a little less than satisfied with whole wheat pasta with tomato or cream sauces, but I think the nuttiness of the wheat works very well with Pesto. The boxes of pasta now are no longer 16 oz. but 13.25 oz at the same price. Very clever those pasta people. Made me wonder if I should buy two boxes or decrease portion size. In the spirit of the evening I opted for smaller portions.

I have learned the interpretive tap dance of our local supermarkets well enough to not be surprised by the fact that I can pick up banana leaves at the Super Fine Fare, but have to travel to the Eden Gourmet if I want something as exotic as fresh Basil.

Before I left for the super market I took the remaining shrimp from the fajita night out of the freezer and put them in a bowl with the remaining lime juice. When I got home they had already thawed and I gave them a little toss.

I truly don't know how I lived before the food processor, but I do remember being awfully frustrated when I would scan through a recipe and the phrase, i"n the processor combine blah and blah" would pop up. Now, not unlike my cell phone, I can't really conceive of life without the processor.

Again, in homage to basil, it's kind of wonderful how just processing the basil has the same effect as heating olive oil, garlic and onion on a kitchen. The fragrance that whets appetites throughout the olfactory contact zone.

Carrie was delighted by the menu when she came home from school and finished every bite. And we all felt a little self satisfied and more than a little self righteous for having pleased our palates and filled ourselves to the near brim without harming a single duck in the preparation of our herby feast.

 BASIL SPAGHETTI PESTO WITH GRILLED LIME SHRIMP

12 lb. of medium shrimp peeled and de-veined with tails on.
1/2 cup lime juice

4 cloves garlic
Two bunches basil leaves
1 Tbs. Kosher salt
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
couple of handfuls of grated pecorino romano
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Toss shrimp with lime juice in a bowl and let set for a couple of hours.

Pulse basil and garlic in processor until roughly chopped. Add salt, pine nuts and pecorino romano. Turn and processor and slowly dribble in oil. Process until pretty darn smooth.

Fill pasta pot with salted water cook whole wheat spaghetti to al dente and drain.
Toss with pesto.

While water is heating up, fire up the charcoal grill for direct high heat. Remove shrimp from the marinade and put shrimp on skewers. Season with kosher salt and pepper. Grill over direct heat for three minutes each side or until you just know....

Put pasta in large pasta bowl and shrimp over top. Pass more pecorino romano around the table.

What Do You Do With a Ducky Carcass? (Sung to the Tune Of...)

Carrie nailed it the other day, when we came to Friday which is the day off from her internship/graduate study program at Seton Hall. By the by, Carrie is Nicole's second cousin from Missouri who lives with us while finishing up her graduate degree at Seton Hall which is, quite literally down the street. She has been a God send. Not only is she an unbelievable and, at least it seems, cheerfully willing aid to the daily household chore-age, a baby sitter in the pinch, an un paralleled sous chef, an inspiration to us old folks to keep running, she is also unfathomably easy to live with. She leaves in just a little over two weeks for good and we are dreading the day. She will be missed so much. Everyone should be so lucky to have such a graduate student live with them.

Anyway Carrie nailed it. She said that she looks forward to Friday because it's her day off but then when it's here she panics a little cause "What's to do?".

"Ah, Carrie." I said to myself. "Welcome to my world." Even though it is everyday that I am unemployed right now, It's the Saturdays and Sundays that get me. When you're unemployed on a Monday, the call might come for an appointment on Tuesday... but on a Saturday all you can do is wait for Monday when a call might come for Tuesday. Therefore on this last Saturday, before panic could set in, I thought of the duck carcass in the freezer.

At the Super Fine Fare the other day I bought a questionably fresh 10 lb. bag of onions for $1.98 and sometime Saturday morning realized that it was time to modifiy my Tuscan Onion soup recipe to a Tuscan Duck Onion soup. I figured I could use up at least a third of those onions in one go. I pulled that nearly gone carrot and a few stalks of celery from the crisper in the fridge and peeled a couple of garlic cloves. I put the frozen carcass from last week's duck along with the innards and the bones in the stock pot with the veggies and the garlic covered it with some water, brought it to a boil then reduced it to a simmer and walked away.

The recipe calls for prosciutto but I wanted to bring a little more gusto to it and found a piece of smoked pork belly at the Super Fine Fare that did quite nicely.

By the time that I got back from the Super Fine Fare Carrie had revealed her present to Duncan.
"Pixar's Up!" He cried with delight, sounding more than a little like an ad for a delighted child than an actual child.

As the onion simmered and the stock gurgled Duncan snuggled next to Carrie on the couch and Nicole and Shaw rocked on the glider and they all watched Up while the Saturday rain fell.

"Stay in the moment Drew." I said to Drew. The moments are awfully wonderful. For God sake, there's duck broth brewing.

 DUCK BROTH

Duck carcass, bones and innards
A carrot or two
A celery stalk or two
A quartered onion
Couple cloves of garlic
Maybe some thyme
Salt and pepper

Cover the carcass, innards, vegetables and herbs with water in a large stock pot. Bring to a boil then simmer, skimming fat off of top for five to six hours.
Strain broth into a large bowl through a colander. Rinse out the stock pot, then strain broth through a sieve back into the stock pot and boil for ten minutes to concentrate flavors. Season to taste. If necessary drop in a couple of chicken stock cubes to bolster flavor.

TUSCAN DUCK ONION SOUP

2 Tablespoons Duck Fat.
3 lbs. white onions, peeled, thinly sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tomatoes diced
8 cups duck broth
1/2 pound smoked pork belly cut into 1 inch dice
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
Pecorino Romano

In skillet fry diced pork belly until it begins to crisp. Drain on paper towel and set aside.

Melt duck fat in heavy large pot over medium- high heat. Add onions and saute until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Add wine, simmer until it evaporates, about 4 minutes. Add tomato and saute 1 minute. Remove from heat. Transfer 1 cup onion mixture to blender. Add 1 cup duck broth and puree until smooth. Return puree to pot. Add remaining broth, pork belly, and thyme. Bring soup to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes to blend flavors.

Ladle soup into bowls and top each serving with pecorino romano.


Serve with a great loaf of bread and maybe some fancy cheese.

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.

Sweet Mother Of Gnocchi

It was a day of active child rearing. It was yesterday. Nicole had been called into the city for some theater business and I had sole charge of Shaw the 6 week old and Duncan the four year old. I managed. I brought the reserved breast milk in the fridge to room temperature gently in a bowl of warm water. Shaw ate/drank the milk. She burped. She pooped. She burped again. She wanted more.

Duncan wanted to watch 101 Dalmatians. I acquiesced. Fine film that it is. Although I would have preferred a more wholesome, verdant nurturing activity for Duncan like quietly rubik's cubing while the Paganinni Violin Caprices play gently in the background, him humming along and abstractedly and unknowingly articulating the left hand fingering all the while cubing, the idea of him settling in for some classic Disney leaving me free to deal with Shaw's apparently increasing appetite seemed an appropriate 90 minute parenting solution. Duncan's greatest skill by far is movie watching, he is truly a top notch movie watcher and not above shushing a distracting Dad.

Shaw reiterated her need for more of absent mother's milk. I brought the second and final reserve bottle to room temp and lord be if she didn't down that one as well. Nicole calls and says they're running behind and she'll be getting back out to South Orange a little later.
Okay I say. For what else is there to say?

This is not to be a day for cooking. This is not to be a day for writing. This is a day to be a parent and day to parent. A day for the nitty gritty of parenting. Probably the kind of day I will remember far too well when I am 87 and wish to God I had again, and yet in the moment of the day all I feel is increasingly frustrated, frazzled and less than fruitful.

I think the cooking is important. I like to make the food. It eases some of the inherent Dad/husband guilt. I can't make the breast milk that Shaw craves at 3:00 AM, but I can make a mean spaghetti and meatballs that Duncan craves at 6:00 PM, and that should count for something. I think having the dinner at or around 6:00 with everyone present kind of makes for instant family. Kind of like those Tina Landau viewpoints make for instant ensemble. It's my thing and I do love it. And I plan to keep the dinner thing alive in our house.
And cooking the real bacon keeps me rather sane when I'm not bringing the metaphorical stuff home.

After the movie is over, Pongo has saved the day and there is indeed a Dalmation Plantation, after Duncan and I do every trick we know to keep Shaw's 6 week old mind off of her gnawing hunger and I become increasingly more curt in my correcting Duncan's gender pro noun problem, "She's hungry, not He's. Shaw is a girl so you say She.", after we attempt the pacifier for the umpteenth time and she just isn't buying it anymore, after Shaw has descended into full-on wail, Nicole mercifully enters. We place the babe on her breast, a temporary peace is restored and we have cold leftover duck for dinner.

Today, when I wake, I have the exceedingly pleasant and comforting notion that I will have time to cook and that enough time has passed to allow tonight to be pasta night. We try to keep it to one night a week. If I could I would eat it seven days a week, and there have been times, earlier, more metabolically agreeable times, when pasta every night was possible.

As I'm driving Duncan to preschool nursing my stiff neck, a legacy of the hours of Shaw burping yesterday, I am thinking of pasta. I think... Putanesca? The very Novemberness of this day makes me remember the home made sweet potato gnocchi I have in the freezer and wonder if maybe that would pair up with some pancetta and peas and cream. Nothing sticks yet but maybe there is something I can do with the duck fat....

SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI WITH SLAB BACON, KALE AND TARRAGON

Wow, This was one of those recipes that just simmered on the back burner of my mind all day and by the time dinner rolled around, it just rolled out of the kitchen as if we made it every night. The duck fat added a rustic, idiosyncratic dimension to the overall flavor of the sauce that I was frankly, very proud of.

GNOCCHI (try the sauce here or try mine below)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/40-a-day/sweet-potato-gnocchi-recipe/index.html

SAUCE
2 Tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 garlic cloves roughly chopped
2 c. chicken stock
I bunch Kale cut into two inch ribbon

1/2 lb. slab bacon cut into 1 inch cube
2 med. onion finely sliced
1 red pepper finely sliced
1 yellow pepper finely sliced
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 c. heavy cream
2 Tbs. duck fat
3 Tbs. chopped fresh chives
3 Tbs. chopped fresh Tarragon

Place a large stock pot of salted water on the stove to boil.

In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add garlic and saute until fragrant (about 30 seconds to a minute). Add chicken stock and heat until boiling. Add Kale in batches until all is wilted. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until tender.

In a large skillet, heat bacon over medium high heat until fat is rendered (about 6 minutes). Add onion, red pepper, yellow pepper and salt and pepper and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add Kale with juices and bring mixture to boil.
Reduce heat to medium and add cream and duck fat. Simmer.

Drop gnocchi into the boiling water and when it floats, remove with strainer and add to the sauce.

Once all gnocchi is in sauce bring heat to high and heat through. Toss with tarragon and chives and serve in a large pasta bowl.

Duck Day

MENU: Roast duck, mashed rutabaga with caramelized shallots and pecorino romano, mixed greens (Lacinato kale and collard greens).

It wasn't until I stumbled into the duck idea that the day had anything resembling focus, anything resembling purpose. Now I can safely say, this is the day the duck hath made. The 6.5 lb. Long Island Duckling is in the oven now doing the second hour of the 300º four hour roast. The first hour is spent breast side up, the second breast side down and so on for four cycles. At the end of the four hours you "blast" the duck with 400º to extra crisp the skin and add a glaze.

As the web site that is nursing me through my delicate maiden duck voyage suggested, I fried the duck liver in butter, garlic, salt and pepper tossed it in the food processor and Nicole and I ate it on some toasted Arnolds bread for a snack. Since that very positive experience, I'm a little giddy with pate possibilities...

I took the extra fat that I trimmed off of the bird and rendered it for later use with the mashed rutabaga. Not sure that I did it correctly in that the web site is a little unspecific about amounts.... though I sort of like that.

Kitchen timer just went off. We are turned breast side up again now and into the third cycle. Duncan ran into the kitchen as I was 'flipping the bird" and we had a talk about the duck which he suggested was chicken.
I said "No. It's a duck."
He said, "What's a duck?"
I said, "You know what a duck is, it's a bird."
He said, "Oh. This is a duck?"
"Yes."
"Oh."

I wasn't sure how far to pursue this - the ducks that we've seen at the pond by Flood Hill, the Click Clack Moo duck, I sure as hell didn't want to bring up Donald. Duncan had a bit of a weep last summer when the grilled peppers and sauteed carrots we picked from our garden made their way to the table.
"They were my friends." He wept. So I didn't want to press the duck issue, best to get it into his four year old tummy first and save the moral dilemmas for another day.

Having never bought a duck before, wasn't sure how much they cost. I went to the Whole Foods, thinking that's where the duck would be, armed with the fifty dollar bill the Roundabout Theater company gave me yesterday. I was asked to do a fancy reading of a Kaufman and Hart play in the fancy new Henry Miller theater with many fancy folks: at least three Tony winners, two Oscar winners, and even a Pulitzer prize winner all in one reading. While it all passed pleasantly enough at the time, I woke up at around 4:30 AM feeling generally.... less than. Promptly at 7:00 AM When Duncan and I did the morning breakfast routine of bagels and eggs, with me breaking a glass even before coffee and forgetting that it was Tuesday and that means garbage and doing that Dad cursing under his breath thing I do as I dragged the can to the curb in my slippers..... I needed something. This day was headed down and taking me with it.

It wasn't until I was sitting in the glider next to Shaw's crib and glancing at the copy of Julie and Julia my mother in law left here a couple of weeks ago and simultaneously getting Shaw to nap....that the day's savior appeared...
"We're having Duck!"

I took the Roundabout fifty to Whole Foods and found nary a duck. Have to say.... Whole Foods doesn't always come through with what I'm looking for. Whole Foods always has something I didn't think of, like Lacinto kale, but quite often not what I went there for. Today that was duck. Whole Foods did have rutabaga and some French rolls. But the duck was bought at Eden Gourmet. The Whole Foods bill was roughly $20, the Eden Gourmet duck came in @ $32. It seemed well.... fated? Ordained? A charming coincidence? In any case, I read a Kaufman and Hart Play at the Henry Miller Theater last night and on their sweet $50 we eat duck tonight!


CREAMED RUTABAGA

3 large Rutabaga chopped into 2 inch dice
2 Tbs. Olive Oil
2 Tbs. Butter
4 to 5 Shallots thinly sliced
salt and pepper to tasted
2 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup
Pecorino Romano
2 Tbs. duck fat

Fill large stockpot with salted water and heat to boiling. Add rutabaga and cook until fork tender roughly 20 to 25 minutes.

Heat Oil and Butter in meduim sauce pan over medium high heat. Add shallots when butter is melted and cook until shallots are soft (3 minutes). Add salt, pepper and sugar. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, stirring often until light mahogany brown.

Drain rutabaga in colander. Add rutabaga, shallot, Pecorino Romano and duck fat to food processor. Process until smooth. Serve immediately.


MIXED GREENS

2 Tbs. Olive Oil
2 garlic cloves sliced
2 c. chicken stock
4 bunches of even parts Collard, Kale, Mustard or Turnip greens cut into 2 inch ribbon.

Heat olive oil in medium sauce pan over high heat. Add garlic and cook over high heat until fragrant (30 sec. to 1 minute). Add stock and bring to boil. Add greens in batches until fully wilted. Cover, and reduce heat. Simmer covered for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

ROAST DUCK

http://www.thehungrymouse.com/home/2009/02/11/the-best-way-to-roast-a-duck-hello-crispy-skin/