AWOL

I feel a little guilty that I have been AWOL lately, but I literally haven't had a spare second in the day.  It makes me wonder how people with children manage to do everything, because I can barely manage my own life.

David and I went to Las Vegas over Labor Day weekend, and I have lots of restaurant reviews to share.  But the truth is that I haven't cooked much since I returned.  Here is a list of things that have happened since then:

1.  Work is insanely busy.  I have an appellate brief due at the beginning of October, a case scheduled for hearing that same week and a mediation the following week.  That's on top of all of the depositions, meetings, and other miscellaneous pleadings that need to be filed in claims that don't have huge deadlines.

2.  Rehearsals--On Golden Pond is just two weeks out from opening.  Although I'm very pleased with how the show is shaping up, I don't get home until 9:30 at night. 

3.  David left Las Vegas and went to a training in Colorado.  This means that care of the house and the Grande Dame Ingrid has totally fallen to me.  This might have been more manageable if we didn't lose power for the better part of three days last week, wiping out the contents of the fridge and freezer.

I will be back in a couple of weeks once the appellate brief is underway and the show is open.  In the meantime, I'm going to try not to feel guilty about this blogging vacation, which is a challenge considering my finely-honed sense of guilt.

Looking forward to catching up with everyone then!

I'll Have What She's Having

Today is a bit of a detour from food.  The swiss chard cakes I meant to post will wait until early next week.

Today I write an appreciation.

When I moved to Alaska, I clerked for an appellate judge for a year.  He is one of the smartest men I've ever met, but kind of shy, and a champion fiddle player to boot.  His work ethic is unparalleled.  I admire him greatly.

In addition to all of his other admirable qualities, he was happily married, with three accomplished daughters.  Earlier this summer, I learned that his wife was terminally ill.  They took a final trip together, and she died last week. 

They were married almost forty years.  His late wife was an artist and an active volunteer, in addition to working and having a happy marriage and accomplished children. 

I didn't know her, really.  I think I met her a few times when I was clerking for her husband, and then saw them during the high holy days at synagogue. 

There's a saying that you should live your life as if you knew you were dying.  But it's more than having an adventurous life:  what a satisfying thing to know that you have lived your life by doing well for others.

David and I married relatively late, in our mid-thirties.  I can only hope we will have the kind of long and happy marriage that this couple did.  I can only hope I will do as much good for others.

It's worth a try.

Happy Anniversary To Me

A year ago, I started this blog.  When I looked back at those initial entries not too long ago, I realized that they sounded stilted--the tone was just off.  I'm still finding my way, but I wanted to say "thanks!" to all those who have read and commented on this blog over the last year.

And as a token of my thanks, I will be giving away this:

Photo courtesy of the Williams-Sonoma website.



This started as an Italian food blog and still has that bent, so it seems only right to give away a gorgeous bottle of extra-virgin olive oil from Williams-Sonoma.  On a separate note, thank goodness I do not live anywhere near a Williams-Sonoma, because I would be in there every week.

To enter, please sign up to follow this blog with Google Friend Connect if you don't already, and leave a comment letting me know that you have.  If you're already following me, you can let me know that too.

Since my blog lives in a cave and doesn't have a Twitter feed or Facebook page, if you can't sign up to follow let me know what Italian recipe you'd like to see me tackle next.

I will select a comment at random this Sunday at 6 p.m. Alaska Standard Time, and this gorgeous bottle of oil will be shipped to you!

Thank you again for a great year.  Back tomorrow with a recipe for Alaskan king crab dip perfect for your summer parties.

King of All He Surveys

Today I actually uttered the phrase "hold the phone." 

I love my adopted home state of Alaska, but sometimes its little oddities still surprise me.  Like the fact that the mayor of Talkeetna is a cat.

Yes, you read that right.  A cat.  His name is Mr. Stubbs, he's an orange tabby with a stub of a tail (hence the name) and he rules over Talkeetna, population 860.



Photo from Nagley's General Store, http://nagleysstore.com/Storecats.html

If you're not familiar with the odd but wonderful town of Talkeetna, it is the usual jumping-off point to climb Denali, a/k/a Mt. McKinley--though if you call it McKinley, Alaskans will know you're not from here.

Personally, I think he's got a lot of gravitas.  I've seen less likable politicians.

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You

Some of you know that I had a small part in a Drew Barrymore movie that was filmed in Alaska in fall 2010.  Over the past few months, it's been a total kick to see the trailer, and then the commercial.  If you don't blink, I appear in both of them--look for the kids sitting in front of the television set and I'm the mother sitting behind them.  I literally shrieked when I saw the trailer for the first time, something along the lines of "OHMYGODTHEREIAM!"

This Friday, the movie comes out.  I'm a little scared to see it--I hate how I look in photos, much less larger than life on a movie screen.  If you see me, just remember that the camera adds ten pounds, and the mom jeans don't help either.

The studio was nice enough to do a screening this past Sunday for the Alaska-based cast and crew.  I had a matinee of Love, Loss and missed the screening, but it's a good, family-friendly film with an obvious animal rights message. 

My proud parents (I swear, they haven't been this excited since I graduated from law school) tell me they're heading to a movie theatre in St. Louis this weekend, but it's going to be a week or so before I go see it.

If you see it, let me know what you think!

(Not Quite) Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

I hope the old adage about bad dress rehearsals making for good openings is right.  Eesh.  The problem with rehearsing a show, even a reading, in pieces is that it tends to fall apart a bit when you put it back together again.  Such was the case with Love, Loss and What I Wore last night.  It probably doesn't help that Tuesday's rehearsal was cancelled due to an incipient snowstorm, which finally arrived yesterday.

There is a phrase we all utter when things don't look the best right before opening:  "Magic of theatre."  It's kind of a talisman, an indication that it can all turn around when it really needs to do so.

Considering the talent of my fellow actors and our director, it will come together.  I actually believe it will be a lovely, very funny show. 

However, the craziness of this week has left me craving a bit of sugar rather than my usual salads.  Has that happened to anyone else in the last couple of weeks?  I think the solution is to have a slice of cake and then get back to the healthy routine.  If that's your solution, too, let me introduce you to the butter rum cake:

It's every bit as delicious as it looks, and maybe more so.  It has the virtue of being easy to make as well.  I say have a slice of cake, then remove the cake to your office/book group/whatever to share the wealth and calories.

I have no control over whether the "magic of theatre" will grace our show tonight, other than making sure I'm fully prepared.  But this cake?  Well, it is a little magical.

Ciambellone al Rum (Italian Butter Rum Cake)

Adapted from Lidia's Italy in America by Lidia Bastianich

For the cake:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3/4 sliced almonds, ground in mini-prep processor

1/4 sliced almonds, toasted

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

6 large egg yolks

Zest of one large orange

1/3 cup 2% milk

For the glaze:

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup light rum

Juice from the orange zested for the cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a bundt cake pan, or spray it with nonstick spray with flour.  Sprinkle the toasted almonds evenly around the pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt.

Using a stand mixer, cream the butter with the sugar on medium speed until the mixture is pale yellow and fluffy.  Alternate adding the yolks and the eggs, adding one egg and then two yolks until all the eggs are incorporated.  Beat the mixture on high speed for a minute after all the eggs have been added, just to make sure it is fully blended.

Turn the mixer to low speed and add half the flour mixture, and then the milk.  Mix to combine and then add the remaining flour mixture and the orange zest until it is just blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan.  Tap the pan once lightly on the counter to reduce the number of air holes and then bake until a skewer or knife inserted into the cake comes out clean, about an hour.  Cool the cake completely on a baking rack and run a knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cake before inverting it onto a plate or serving tray.

While the cake is cooling, make the glaze.  Put all the ingredients for the syrup, plus two cups of water, into a medium saucepan.  Bring the mixture to a boil and cook down until it becomes a thin syrup.

The cake should be glazed while still warm.  Using a pastry brush, brush the syrup all over the cake, repeating until all the glaze is absorbed. 

I'm warning you:  this takes a little while.  Tedious but totally worth it.

Serves twelve to sixteen, depending on how bad your sugar cravings are.

Slaying the Food Dragon

Everyone has a food goal.  A quest.  A grail, if you will.  That thing that you want to make that you feel that you don't have the skills to do.  David calls it "slaying the food dragon."

For lovers of Italian food (me) and movies (me again), that food dragon is the timpano, the dome-shaped pasta baked in a ceramic basin and filled with layers of pasta, ragu, meatballs, chunks of cheese and salami and hard-boiled eggs that features in the long dinner party scene at the center of the terrific movie Big Night.  If you love food--and if you're reading this I have to assume that you do--then you owe it to yourself to see this movie about two Italian brothers trying and failing to run a restaurant serving traditional food in 1950s New Jersey.

Ever since I first saw this movie in 1997, I have wanted to make the legendary timpano.  For my birthday this year, David bought me a pan that he asserted was for us to finally make it.  Six weeks passed, and this past weekend we were planning a big cast and crew dinner for Inspecting Carol on Sunday night.  During the week I said, "why don't we make the timpano?"

We hemmed and hawed and looked at recipes.  There's no doubt that it is a lot of work.  You make a pasta dough for the shell, the ragu and meatballs for the filling.  Lots of cutting and slicing and precision work.  But in the end, we just went for it.



These were adapted from a recipe by Lidia Bastianich, and they were the bomb.  More on them to come.



Revelation:  it's not that hard.

Yes, it's a lot of work, and I will keep tweaking the recipe before I blog about making this.  The ragu wasn't quite right, and the dough for the shell needed to be thinner.  For those who are curious about what it entails, I found this one on the internet.  The one we used is a little different, and more closely approximates the one in the movie, which is an adaptation of actor Stanley Tucci's family recipe. 

http://www.food.com/recipe/timpano-di-maccheroni-the-mythic-pasta-dome-85372

I did love the meatball recipe I used and adapted, which I will blog about separately this week.  In the interim, what I'd love to know is this:  what is your food grail?  I look forward to hearing!

Cold Comfort

It's been a long week over here in Cucina49-land.  Not because of work, which is fine, or even the fact that I'm hardly home between work and rehearsal--I expect that. 

We were always meant to be at an awkward phase with the play, which opens two weeks from tonight.  The actors put down their scripts at the beginning of the week, which always leads to trainwrecks and uncertain acting.  We're going through that ugly duckling phase, which is worrisome but usually works itself out.

It's not even that I lost another actor last night, which I did.  It was the manner in which the actor exited, refusing to take direction or give his fellow actors his best work.  It was the actor yelling at me that this was not an enjoyable experience, leaving several of the actors and my inimitable stage manager wondering what they had done or if it was their fault.  It was the yelling at me that their emotional instability was being caused by the show.  It was the fact that this actor was a good friend and managed to make me feel a combustible combination of angry, deeply sad and worried, questioning my own abilities.

The fact that it wasn't either true or fair isn't much of a comfort. 

There are times that you have to be professional when you really want to be a mess.  A few weeks ago, before I started rehearsals, when I said that I didn't always want to be a leader--well, this is why.  Staying calm and reassuring the cast when I don't feel assured costs something.  Even with a good cast and a supportive husband and a fabulous stage manager, it's lonely to be in this position.

So, on this cold and snowy night, when I go to rehearsal to talk to the cast and crew and encourage us to move on, I am taking a big box of cupcakes from a place called Cake Studio.  It won't make everything better, but it's a start.

The Last Supper

I know, I know, that title sounds totally irreverent.  Or maybe ominous.  Take your pick.

On Sunday mornings, David and I always listen to Weekend Edition Sunday on NPR.  I shout out the answers to the weekend puzzle quiz, and David tries to have deep conversations about foreign affairs while we eat breakfast. 

Sunday's topic:  what would you eat for your last meal, if you could plan it?

The conversation was sparked by a conversation the new host, Audie Cornish, had with a writer named Melanie Dunea, who wrote a book called My Last Supper:  the Next Course.  Dunea had the enviable task of interviewing fifty chefs and asking them what they would eat for their last meal.  It was a great interview, capped by the conclusion that an absurd number of chefs would choose foie gras, truffles and caviar for inclusion in the meal.



Photo from Amazon.com.  This is the second book on this topic that Dunea has written,
with different chefs featured in each one.

It's a wonderful interview, funny and incisive in terms of how we would want that meal to be spent, and what foods mean the most to us.  I would love to hear what others think of it, and the link is here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/10/30/141801522/food-for-thought-chefs-pick-their-last-meal-on-earth

This sparked a long conversation about what David and I would choose.  For him, it had more to do with where the meal took place and who would attend--fair things to consider, since good company makes any meal better.  For me, it was about the flavors and textures that I would want to savor for one last time.  Neither of us even considered having a luxury product like caviar or foie gras as part of the meal.

Here's the rough outline of the menu and beverage pairings I would choose:

Trofie pasta with pesto and shaved pecorino

Beverage pairing:  French Rose or Italian Arneis

Steak frites

Beverage pairing:  Washington State Cabernet blend or California Merlot

Arugula salad with sea salt and shallot-lemon vinaigrette

Beverage pairing:  Sparkling wine from Soter Vineyard (Oregon) or Iron Horse (California)

Cheese course

Beverage pairing:  French Chablis

Assorted petit fours and macarons

Beverage pairing:  Coffee and Mint Tea

Nothing fancy there, just classics prepared perfectly.  The dessert choice was a cop out, I'll admit--I adore cake and small desserts, but didn't feel strongly enough to select a single dessert.  Plus I'd be so stuffed by that point that I wouldn't want much sweet.

I'd be fascinated to hear what others would choose--I'm also thinking it would make a great table topic the next time I have a dinner party.

What would you choose?