Apparently, there is only one part of my life that I'm passionate enough about to write about: food.
Sidenote: Why is it that us theatrical types love food so much anyway? I know no fewer than 3 theater artists who have pursued professional cookery in some manner or other. Probably would be more if I asked around. I imagine it has something to do with the combination of simplicity and sensuality. My dinner this evening was immensely pleasurable, created inexpensively in the comfort of my own home, and -other than patience and the tiny bit of ingenuity necessary to decide to try it- required no special skill or equipment. What other activity compares?
I don't know what I would call this dish... Italian Chicken maybe? I stewed some chicken thighs (4 for about $2.50!!) in what could pretentiously be called a tomato reduction. Ready? Easiest 1 pan hearty meal ever:
Trim the fat and skin off the chicken thighs. This is the hardest part of the whole endeavor, but still, there's no reason to eat all that glop.
Coarsely chop about 1/4 of a large onion, about 1/2 a green pepper, and 4 cloves of garlic. Saute them in some olive oil for a few minutes, just to get the oil nice and flavorful.
Now the chicken goes in the pan. Season it with oregano, basil, paprika, and a little red pepper, and give it a few minutes on each side to brown.
Once the chicken has browned slightly, pour a can of crushed tomatos over the whole thing, give it a little stir, cover, and reduce the heat. Let it simmer for a good solid hour, or more, checking every once in a while (maybe every 20 min? I always have to force myself to leave these things alone and not constantly poke at them, because I get so excited... but you really don't need to bother it while it cooks.) and turning the chicken so it gets sauce on both sides.
Make some pasta and a salad, and you have a full delicious meal!
Today's Lesson in Cookery
If you buy fresh cilantro, for god's sake, do yourself a favor and buy a lime. Nearly everything you make with cilantro will be just a tiny bit better with lime.
Did I learn this lesson in time? No. Did I still manage to nearly break myself on delicious food? Yes. Did I step away from my dinner ecstatic? Yes. Do I wish I had a lime anyway? Yes.
Seriously, I am still reeling. Well, that might be the wine, but it was a damn good recipe, Oven Fried Sea Scallops with Cilantro White Wine Drizzle, and excessively easy and quick. Here is what I did (for my imaginary reader ;)):
The old red and white Good Housekeeping Cookbook turned me on to this "oven frying" thing. I had never heard of it, but since my broiler is broken, I was game. Plus, who doesn't love breading? You can do this for prepared fish or shellfish. First, lightly bread your scallops. I didn't use any sort of bonding step like milk or egg, just a quick roll in some breadcrumbs. Arrange them in a very well greased pan. Drizzle a little oil over the tops, and pop them in a 500 degree oven for 10 to 15 min. No turning or basting needed.
My local veggie stand has been taunting me lately with fresh cilantro for 50c/bunch, and since it was right by the fish market, I decided to pick some up and figure out what to do with it later. A little Google research gave me this idea, but not the recipe (mostly it just convinced me to add the wine). While the scallops were sizzling away, melted 1T butter in a small sauce pan, and sauteed about 1T each of diced garlic and scallions until they were soft. Then I added a handful of the cilantro, slightly chopped, just to bruise it really, and let the whole thing cook for a few more minutes. (What with all the chopping, the scallops were getting on towards done.) Once the cilantro had wilted a little, I poured in just a splash (enough to cover the bottom of the pan) of white wine, and turned up the heat to cook off the alcohol.
The scallops at 12 min had just started to brown their tops, and I popped them out and spooned the sauce mixture over them. It was fabulous. The only thing I would change was having a fresh lime wedge to squeeze over the whole thing.
Also, oh imaginary reader, If you try this at home, know that I only did 6 scallops, just enough for me, so if you're cooking for more then one, multiply the sauce recipe accordingly.
And this concludes Today's Lesson in Cookery. We now return you to your regularly uneventful blog.
Did I learn this lesson in time? No. Did I still manage to nearly break myself on delicious food? Yes. Did I step away from my dinner ecstatic? Yes. Do I wish I had a lime anyway? Yes.
Seriously, I am still reeling. Well, that might be the wine, but it was a damn good recipe, Oven Fried Sea Scallops with Cilantro White Wine Drizzle, and excessively easy and quick. Here is what I did (for my imaginary reader ;)):
The old red and white Good Housekeeping Cookbook turned me on to this "oven frying" thing. I had never heard of it, but since my broiler is broken, I was game. Plus, who doesn't love breading? You can do this for prepared fish or shellfish. First, lightly bread your scallops. I didn't use any sort of bonding step like milk or egg, just a quick roll in some breadcrumbs. Arrange them in a very well greased pan. Drizzle a little oil over the tops, and pop them in a 500 degree oven for 10 to 15 min. No turning or basting needed.
My local veggie stand has been taunting me lately with fresh cilantro for 50c/bunch, and since it was right by the fish market, I decided to pick some up and figure out what to do with it later. A little Google research gave me this idea, but not the recipe (mostly it just convinced me to add the wine). While the scallops were sizzling away, melted 1T butter in a small sauce pan, and sauteed about 1T each of diced garlic and scallions until they were soft. Then I added a handful of the cilantro, slightly chopped, just to bruise it really, and let the whole thing cook for a few more minutes. (What with all the chopping, the scallops were getting on towards done.) Once the cilantro had wilted a little, I poured in just a splash (enough to cover the bottom of the pan) of white wine, and turned up the heat to cook off the alcohol.
The scallops at 12 min had just started to brown their tops, and I popped them out and spooned the sauce mixture over them. It was fabulous. The only thing I would change was having a fresh lime wedge to squeeze over the whole thing.
Also, oh imaginary reader, If you try this at home, know that I only did 6 scallops, just enough for me, so if you're cooking for more then one, multiply the sauce recipe accordingly.
And this concludes Today's Lesson in Cookery. We now return you to your regularly uneventful blog.
Wow, my blog is dead in infancy.
See above.
I don't think I'm a daily life journal-style blogger. It doesn't seem to work. For one thing I am not motivated, and for another I'm usually too busy. I could review the theater I see, but it's not generally wise to shit where you eat, and also, unless I'm getting paid for it, I don't so much see the point of reviewing for no one's benefit. In short, I need a task, a feat if you will, like the man who bowled in all 50 states, or countless travel blogs. I do have tasks in life, but they're providing remarkably little literary fodder: get health insurance, get healthy, get into school... a veritable treasure trove. Maybe I will think of something....
I don't think I'm a daily life journal-style blogger. It doesn't seem to work. For one thing I am not motivated, and for another I'm usually too busy. I could review the theater I see, but it's not generally wise to shit where you eat, and also, unless I'm getting paid for it, I don't so much see the point of reviewing for no one's benefit. In short, I need a task, a feat if you will, like the man who bowled in all 50 states, or countless travel blogs. I do have tasks in life, but they're providing remarkably little literary fodder: get health insurance, get healthy, get into school... a veritable treasure trove. Maybe I will think of something....
Some songs are not for singing, some thoughts are not for thinking all the time.
Yep, the title says it all. I've been going through a lot, and I'm just trying not to read too much, not to self-diagnose too much, not to think "cancer," because that is step 30 and at least 2 doctors away, and I am on step 4 maybe. I realized this morning that there is nothing wrong with me today that hasn't been wrong with me for at least two months, and I've been only inconvenienced in that time. I can't let labels scare me into thinking I'm not ok. Get up, go to the gym, go to work, eat dinner, watch a movie, go to sleep. All of this, I can do. For once I'm glad no one reads this blog. I don't want to share this with you or even You, just the void.
This is the Sort of Thing that Keeps Me Up Nights (yep, big geek, and too fond of parentheses to boot).
It's hot out tonight. Sticky. I'm completely exhausted but I can't sleep. Woke up at 7 this morning, went to the gym, then spent 3 hours wandering the West Village/High Line Park with a friend. May post later on the park...
Saw a show today that makes me wonder why we put things on stage in the first place. It was definitely quality, well written, acted, directed, produced. Riveting even. And deeply disturbing. Curdled the pit of my stomach. I wanted to leave the theater, or at least look away, but I couldn't. By the moment of crisis, I was convinced I was about to see someone kill themselves quite bloodily on stage, and I really cared (to the writer's credit, he fooled me well).
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Some backstory:
"Whore," by Rick Viede, documents an unlikely friendship between sex workers, a novice who is increasingly haunted by a ghastly series of murdered prostitutes, and an expert who descends into kink, self-loathing and a neurotic obsession with saving money. The way Viede plays the audience off the two main characters is brilliant: you don't see the play truly through the eyes of either one (despite a couple of monologues), and only know what they tell each other about themselves. Like the characters, your footing becomes less and less certain as the play moves forward. The urgency and fear becomes more and more heightened, until, like it or hate it (and there were plenty in the audience that seemed to hate it), you're enthralled.
Right after the show, I was still too full of emotion to think about what I had just seen, but now I can't help wondering what the whole point of it was; "Whore" does the thriller genre so well that you forget to ask. Unfortunately, it doesn't end as a thriller like, for example, "Veronica's Room." The crisis resolves ambiguously, offstage somewhere, and both characters rise above their circumstances, also ambiguously, offstage somewhere. Of course, to tell you this completely spoils the entire effect, but the show closes this weekend and no one reads this blog anyway (I dare you, reader, if you're actually out there, to comment!) so I don't feel too bad about it. I don't actually remember very much about the final scene, because I was preoccupied trying to catch my breath and settle my stomach, but as far as I can tell Tim and Sara both just sort of get over it and move on. Flash forward in time, and they each monologue as well-adjusted adults. Really?
So then my question becomes, why tell this story at all? If it's for the sheer morbid novelty (valid in its own right) then the ending betrays the piece. If it's to document the character's personal evolution, then it would be better served by ending with a continuation or resolution of the immediate story, rather than just informing the audience third-person that there was one. If it's public therapy for the writer (who claims to have based it mostly on people he met while backpacking around the world, as well as some autobiographical content), then I certainly don't want to get deeper into his head than I already am, and probably won't look out for him in the future.
I don't know the answer, but it's still bugging me at 2am: why put this piece on stage?
It's also in interesting juxtaposition with another highly visceral piece I saw in Chicago, but that's probably a subject for another blog: intentional, intellectual participation vs. unintentional, emotional participation. Yep, that's a whole nother can of worms.
Saw a show today that makes me wonder why we put things on stage in the first place. It was definitely quality, well written, acted, directed, produced. Riveting even. And deeply disturbing. Curdled the pit of my stomach. I wanted to leave the theater, or at least look away, but I couldn't. By the moment of crisis, I was convinced I was about to see someone kill themselves quite bloodily on stage, and I really cared (to the writer's credit, he fooled me well).
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Some backstory:
"Whore," by Rick Viede, documents an unlikely friendship between sex workers, a novice who is increasingly haunted by a ghastly series of murdered prostitutes, and an expert who descends into kink, self-loathing and a neurotic obsession with saving money. The way Viede plays the audience off the two main characters is brilliant: you don't see the play truly through the eyes of either one (despite a couple of monologues), and only know what they tell each other about themselves. Like the characters, your footing becomes less and less certain as the play moves forward. The urgency and fear becomes more and more heightened, until, like it or hate it (and there were plenty in the audience that seemed to hate it), you're enthralled.
Right after the show, I was still too full of emotion to think about what I had just seen, but now I can't help wondering what the whole point of it was; "Whore" does the thriller genre so well that you forget to ask. Unfortunately, it doesn't end as a thriller like, for example, "Veronica's Room." The crisis resolves ambiguously, offstage somewhere, and both characters rise above their circumstances, also ambiguously, offstage somewhere. Of course, to tell you this completely spoils the entire effect, but the show closes this weekend and no one reads this blog anyway (I dare you, reader, if you're actually out there, to comment!) so I don't feel too bad about it. I don't actually remember very much about the final scene, because I was preoccupied trying to catch my breath and settle my stomach, but as far as I can tell Tim and Sara both just sort of get over it and move on. Flash forward in time, and they each monologue as well-adjusted adults. Really?
So then my question becomes, why tell this story at all? If it's for the sheer morbid novelty (valid in its own right) then the ending betrays the piece. If it's to document the character's personal evolution, then it would be better served by ending with a continuation or resolution of the immediate story, rather than just informing the audience third-person that there was one. If it's public therapy for the writer (who claims to have based it mostly on people he met while backpacking around the world, as well as some autobiographical content), then I certainly don't want to get deeper into his head than I already am, and probably won't look out for him in the future.
I don't know the answer, but it's still bugging me at 2am: why put this piece on stage?
It's also in interesting juxtaposition with another highly visceral piece I saw in Chicago, but that's probably a subject for another blog: intentional, intellectual participation vs. unintentional, emotional participation. Yep, that's a whole nother can of worms.
Me/Chicago/Intuition/Analysis/Schooling
I spent most of this past week in Chicago. I had intended to use that to spur on the blogging with a general diary of "today we went to the museum. I love the museum," and so on and so on. It didn't happen. I was too immersed.
I did go to the museums, and I did see some fabulous (as well as some merely good) theater, and ate delicious things and filled my thoughts with art and food and the beautiful water. And I felt better than I've felt in months and months. Part of it, of course, is getting to see someone I almost never get to see, and feeling like the center of attention, but I also spent a fair amount of time on the ride back trying to figure out what happened to me in Chicago. Why did I feel so in focus, so functional? And why did I dread going home so much, because I really really did. My whole body felt like a lump that just scrunched up into a little ball whenever I thought about it.
In some ways, New York has gotten too easy I think. It's not easy to do, but it's easy to understand. I have to seek out things to feel wonder towards. And sure, if I lived in Chicago, it would be just the same, but the reach out of the comfort zone is important, and the vitality of the scene in the 2nd City was much more impressive than I had expected it to be. All I could think was, "Friday night I have to go back to my real life." Wait, what? Isn't everything I do part of my real life? Why can't my real life be like this? And why don't I like this "real life" thing to begin with? In short, what the hell is going on with me?
I love New York. Really, deeply, and truly. I am a New Yorker; it is my home. I hate the off-Broadway electrician thing. Not doing it: I like being at my job, I just can't stand barely supporting myself, no health insurance, having to live with other people, and on top of it all, little to no ownership of the projects I work on, or any kind of reassurance that there will be another project next week or next month. This is no way to live. I need to be assisting on big shows and designing my own, and I'm really not sure how to go about all that.
So then I was thinking and thinking.... and I thought "really I need a path and a plan and a purpose. If I had a way to really fix this, just working at it would make me feel so much better." The obvious solution: Grad School. OY.
I did go to the museums, and I did see some fabulous (as well as some merely good) theater, and ate delicious things and filled my thoughts with art and food and the beautiful water. And I felt better than I've felt in months and months. Part of it, of course, is getting to see someone I almost never get to see, and feeling like the center of attention, but I also spent a fair amount of time on the ride back trying to figure out what happened to me in Chicago. Why did I feel so in focus, so functional? And why did I dread going home so much, because I really really did. My whole body felt like a lump that just scrunched up into a little ball whenever I thought about it.
In some ways, New York has gotten too easy I think. It's not easy to do, but it's easy to understand. I have to seek out things to feel wonder towards. And sure, if I lived in Chicago, it would be just the same, but the reach out of the comfort zone is important, and the vitality of the scene in the 2nd City was much more impressive than I had expected it to be. All I could think was, "Friday night I have to go back to my real life." Wait, what? Isn't everything I do part of my real life? Why can't my real life be like this? And why don't I like this "real life" thing to begin with? In short, what the hell is going on with me?
I love New York. Really, deeply, and truly. I am a New Yorker; it is my home. I hate the off-Broadway electrician thing. Not doing it: I like being at my job, I just can't stand barely supporting myself, no health insurance, having to live with other people, and on top of it all, little to no ownership of the projects I work on, or any kind of reassurance that there will be another project next week or next month. This is no way to live. I need to be assisting on big shows and designing my own, and I'm really not sure how to go about all that.
So then I was thinking and thinking.... and I thought "really I need a path and a plan and a purpose. If I had a way to really fix this, just working at it would make me feel so much better." The obvious solution: Grad School. OY.
On a Warm Night...
...coming over the 59th St. bridge with your hand out the window you can see your arm long and slim flicker flicker in the ambient light of the city. All of Manhattan guttering behind you, and all of Queens splayed out in front of you with her myriad limbs a pulsing and glowing. The bones in your wrist seem to curve to the contours of the river, slick and tender.
Somehow my clock has gotten an hour off...
...and so I woke up an hour before I was supposed to.
I think it's strange how much I wanted to start writing this blog, and how it's been a whole week now with no entries. Does nothing actually happen in my life? Don't answer that, or do... Sure things happen, but none of them feel inherently interesting.
I spent a lot of time waiting for doctors on Tuesday, and used the time to start reading Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer. Mailer intrigues me, but I've never read any of his books before. The prose is so dense and interior, that in my heightened state of "please anything distract me" every word stood out and seemed brilliant. Now, continuing to read on the train or in the theater it seems far more muddled. I need to chew each phrase thoughtfully, and the commute is much more conducive to literary gorging. I suspect Of a Fire isn't going to make a great traveling book for my July Chicago trip either for just the same reason. You can't read a paragraph, look around, notice something, and go back to your reading without loosing the thread of it. Maybe I'm wrong about that though: sometimes place and travel inform the reading in unexpected ways....
I had my first experience with the Mid-Manhattan Library last week too, speaking of place informing the reading. It's a strange world over there. The building is a beautiful monument to the published word, but I found it frustrating. Not only does the collection not circulate, but patrons can't access the books themselves. Each book has to be requested by filling out a form and submitting it at the proper window in the proper room. Some books are visible on their shelves around the room, but they're behind low rails and velvet ropes. Here's from the notes I made while waiting for my book to be delivered to me (Due to Staff Shortages, Wait for Requested Materials May Be 30 to 60 Minutes):
In other words, give me my damn book already, because I don't have nearly the time to sit here all afternoon reading all 300 pages of it! You may have the only copy in this city, but someday I'll get a Kindle, and I'll download it, and you can keep your wait time! Ha! (Just kidding, I have no desire to ever own a Kindle. I like paper too much).
Also, my favorite part of libraries and bookstores is wandering the stacks. Not being able to do that takes all the fun out of the fieldtrip. How do you know what you want if you can't look at your options and feel them all out? (Libra what? not me ;)).
Anyway, I've now used up my extra hour, and it's time to go to the gym. It's a truly beautiful morning out.
I think it's strange how much I wanted to start writing this blog, and how it's been a whole week now with no entries. Does nothing actually happen in my life? Don't answer that, or do... Sure things happen, but none of them feel inherently interesting.
I spent a lot of time waiting for doctors on Tuesday, and used the time to start reading Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer. Mailer intrigues me, but I've never read any of his books before. The prose is so dense and interior, that in my heightened state of "please anything distract me" every word stood out and seemed brilliant. Now, continuing to read on the train or in the theater it seems far more muddled. I need to chew each phrase thoughtfully, and the commute is much more conducive to literary gorging. I suspect Of a Fire isn't going to make a great traveling book for my July Chicago trip either for just the same reason. You can't read a paragraph, look around, notice something, and go back to your reading without loosing the thread of it. Maybe I'm wrong about that though: sometimes place and travel inform the reading in unexpected ways....
I had my first experience with the Mid-Manhattan Library last week too, speaking of place informing the reading. It's a strange world over there. The building is a beautiful monument to the published word, but I found it frustrating. Not only does the collection not circulate, but patrons can't access the books themselves. Each book has to be requested by filling out a form and submitting it at the proper window in the proper room. Some books are visible on their shelves around the room, but they're behind low rails and velvet ropes. Here's from the notes I made while waiting for my book to be delivered to me (Due to Staff Shortages, Wait for Requested Materials May Be 30 to 60 Minutes):
The building is beautiful and grand and inspiring. The brochure talks about the great democratization of knowledge, the idea being that public access to works of scholarship is societally important. ... If I am going to incorporate this history, scholarship, and critical thought into my life, it has to be in pieces, on trains, in rehearsals. ... To me, critical writing (on the rare occasions when I seek it out) is no less relevant than memoir, poetry or fiction. It can directly influence and inform daily experiences, so it is important to me to be able to live in and with the reading experience, rather than sequester myself in windowless rooms for study. I think the fluidity of information in my society has accustomed me to this, for better or worse.
In other words, give me my damn book already, because I don't have nearly the time to sit here all afternoon reading all 300 pages of it! You may have the only copy in this city, but someday I'll get a Kindle, and I'll download it, and you can keep your wait time! Ha! (Just kidding, I have no desire to ever own a Kindle. I like paper too much).
Also, my favorite part of libraries and bookstores is wandering the stacks. Not being able to do that takes all the fun out of the fieldtrip. How do you know what you want if you can't look at your options and feel them all out? (Libra what? not me ;)).
Anyway, I've now used up my extra hour, and it's time to go to the gym. It's a truly beautiful morning out.
In Which I Start a New Blog...
Descriptive, right?
It's kind of a funny thing, me starting a new blog. The last time I started a new blog (the only blog I've ever had), I was a college freshman. It was March of 2001. Very few people were blogging, relatively. I had gotten an email in response to my GeoCities homepage (which I had coded myself in basic HTML back in high school. I had animated bullets for listed items. I felt special.), which invited me to join a "weblog community." The writer, unknown to me, complimented my writing style and hoped I would be her friend. "Bianca Broussard," Xanga's spam bot, had recruited me.
Xanga was tiny at the time. Most of the people who wrote thoughtfully were aware of each other, and there are a couple of bloggers from that time that I still follow. I even remember vehemently resisting the term 'blog, (does anyone remember that it used to have an apostrophe?) which seemed like cheesey artificial slang to me. Now Xanga is massive, populated mostly by teenagers in Asian countries, and converting its format to a feed style cribbed from Facebook. Only my family reads my blog, and no one comments. Indeed, I hardly ever write.
I guess I feel like I've grown out of Xanga. I somehow feel inspired to capitalize the first word of my sentences. I seem to think that I should have structured paragraphs and something to say, rather than pure gossip. I want cleaner formatting, no annoying widgets blinking for my attention, an end to the constant stream teenybopper feedback logs and survey points.
I also finally feel like I have a few things to say. I've been indulging in whole lot of mental nothing for the past couple of years. It's time to create something again. Time to read criticism and have thoughts. Even if I only express them to myself, at least I'm forcing them out into a legible format, and maybe eventually there will be dialog.
So, welcome to the inaugural post of Because I Say So. I think I'm going to try this out for a while.
It's kind of a funny thing, me starting a new blog. The last time I started a new blog (the only blog I've ever had), I was a college freshman. It was March of 2001. Very few people were blogging, relatively. I had gotten an email in response to my GeoCities homepage (which I had coded myself in basic HTML back in high school. I had animated bullets for listed items. I felt special.), which invited me to join a "weblog community." The writer, unknown to me, complimented my writing style and hoped I would be her friend. "Bianca Broussard," Xanga's spam bot, had recruited me.
Xanga was tiny at the time. Most of the people who wrote thoughtfully were aware of each other, and there are a couple of bloggers from that time that I still follow. I even remember vehemently resisting the term 'blog, (does anyone remember that it used to have an apostrophe?) which seemed like cheesey artificial slang to me. Now Xanga is massive, populated mostly by teenagers in Asian countries, and converting its format to a feed style cribbed from Facebook. Only my family reads my blog, and no one comments. Indeed, I hardly ever write.
I guess I feel like I've grown out of Xanga. I somehow feel inspired to capitalize the first word of my sentences. I seem to think that I should have structured paragraphs and something to say, rather than pure gossip. I want cleaner formatting, no annoying widgets blinking for my attention, an end to the constant stream teenybopper feedback logs and survey points.
I also finally feel like I have a few things to say. I've been indulging in whole lot of mental nothing for the past couple of years. It's time to create something again. Time to read criticism and have thoughts. Even if I only express them to myself, at least I'm forcing them out into a legible format, and maybe eventually there will be dialog.
So, welcome to the inaugural post of Because I Say So. I think I'm going to try this out for a while.
