Dinner, Breakfast, and Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene hit last night and I wasn’t too impressed. My house back home in Pennsylvania was on the edge of what they called the, “uncertainty cone.” The result of this was a lot of wind, some heavy rain, and no water or bread left at the grocery store when we went to do some light shopping for the weekend. Seriously, it wasn’t the zombie apocalypse and while yes, a lot of people are without power, people didn’t need to buy up provisions for the end of the world or swine flu season. I was unable to go to New York City to move into my apartment with my girlfriend, Jen, and so I was stuck with the parents back home in the suburbs. Side note before continuing? The suburbs are scary. At least in New York City there are sirens every ten minutes to let you know there are other people living in this world; in the suburbs you’re lucky if you see someone’s dog trying to figure out how to get past the electric fence. Anyway, last night was my dad’s birthday and so I cooked up a nice dinner. Beef tenderloin linguine in a shallot mustard sauce with balsamic glace. And for dessert we had a store bought Ricotta-Orange pound cake from “The Ultimate Bakery.” It was pretty good, a little dense for my taste. Fair warning, I love to cook but don’t really enjoy eating. I’m convinced that I’m an average taster at best. But, I have found that I have an innate sense for cooking whether from a recipe or from “feel” - as my mother’s mother used to say.
After dessert I stayed up watching the storm for a bit and then wandered off to bed.
In this blog you will not get any information about how I prepare for bed. I will not tell you if I brush my teeth or comb my hair, talk on the phone for hours, or turn on Hulu.
This morning, I found that we had not lost power, and I could go downstairs and try my hand at pancakes from scratch.
The recipe, to be found at the bottom along with the recipe for the pasta, is a combination of my own intuition as a cook, as well as recipe found on the internet. So, for breakfast I made the family some fluffy pancakes with milk-chocolate chips sprinkled in, and a fruit salad composed of strawberries, blueberries, and peaches.
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The rest of the day will be spent reading over the play I am working on with my theater company, Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love, and doing my “actor’s homework.” It’s important to remember, especially for those of you out there who are not actors, that acting is hard work. It may look easy, but that’s because it’s our job to make it look easy just as it is the doctor’s job to make the patient feel confident that he will not end up with breast augmentation when they go in for a prostate examine.
As I said, I am currently working on Fool For Love. It is a great play rich with tension and drama as well as some unexpected moments of humor in a play fraught with guilt. I guess this is a good play for us Jews. Humor and guilt combine in a story of tension and in the end they are only at the other end of their circular path of life. A friend of my mother’s pointed out to me at dinner the other night, “If he’s always travelling in a circle, that means he is doomed to do the same thing over and over, he’ll never do anything else.” While this may seem obvious after reading the play and hearing such lines as, “You do nothing but repeat yourself,” it is a crucial point of the play and one which cannot be over stressed, the connection between Eddie and May is more than magnetic, it’s as if they are being pulled together by gravity and pushed apart as if they were the opposite poles of the Earth. Anyway, like I said, I’m off to do some actor-work
The actor’s day should always begin with a routine if at all possible. This should include a vocal warm-up, some physical activity, a healthy breakfast, and something to stimulate both the mind and imagination.
For now, I’m signing off.
