tonight, we dine in Venice

It's that week. The one where I have no - and I do mean no - money, but there's two cans of sardines, a can of tomatoes, and some finely-ground cornmeal for polenta in the pantry, some dying basil near the window, a half dried-up nub of garlic on top of the microwave, and the remnants of some parm-reg in the fridge. 

A proper Italian will rage that I topped it with cheese, but the fish came out of a can, and they can get over it.  I'm Sicilian (among other things), and I do what I want. But mostly I give thanks every damned day that I was raised on the kitchen counter by good cooks, and that I know how to feed myself. 

Tonight, we dine in Venice.

Flora & Fauna Report: Spring 2015

Central Park, yesterday afternoon

The vernal equinox has finally hit New York, and not a moment too soon. It was a rough winter. Spring is fresh; it is new. As the pile of snow on the corner subsides, it reminds you to look at the steep pile of clothes that has taken up residence in the corner and address it. Well, maybe it doesn’t do that to you, but it does that to me. There are dusty things in my life that are just taking up space at this point, and all of it needs to go.

Everyone's favorite question these days seems to be, "So, what are you working on right now?" I'll get to the good stuff in a minute, but what I've really been up to is a lot of mental and physical housekeeping. I've been working with a health coach for the last couple of months (one of the perks of my day job), and said health coach has been putting me through my paces in terms of getting my mind-body initiative back on track.

In the last week alone, I’ve been to kickboxing, a Bollywood dance class, a trampoline tabata class, spinning, vinyasa yoga, and Bikram. If you, like me, need a class to get your rear in gear and prefer studios to the gym, I cannot recommend Classpass enough. It has even brought dance back into my day-to-day life, and that alone makes me so damned happy, I hardly have the words to express it.

Trampolines & dance barres! I am five years old.

I’m also on something (not at all) fun called the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) for four weeks. I hesitate to call it a cleanse, because cleanses are trendy. My Celiac diagnosis - an autoimmune disease, for those keeping score at home - was not something I'd equate to dancing after midnight with bottle service in the Meatpacking District. That said, I’ve been experiencing some ongoing health issues, and the AIP is a paleo-heavy elimination diet which serves as a kind of divining rod in terms of determining what foods might be triggering certain adverse body responses (the details of which I will spare you).

At the end of four weeks, we will begin the process of slowly reintroducing certain food groups back into my diet, one at a time, to see how my body responds. In the meantime, I’m off coffee, sugar, alcohol, dairy, nightshades, seeds, nuts, grains, legumes, and gluten (obviously). I’m drinking bone broth and juicing for breakfast, eating sauerkraut voluntarily, and brewing my own kombucha.

This is the closest I'm getting to Seamless.

This would probably not be the month to ask me to dinner. But in four weeks, you may buy me either a coffee or a G&T.

In other (arts-related) news:

• I just wrapped up a three-week on-camera class with casting director James Calleri. Highly recommended.
• I just completed a three-week screenwriting intensive with writer/director Imelda O’Reilly. Also highly recommended.
• I recently started working with renowned dialect and accent coach Amy Stoller, and she is fantastic.
• I'm back in rehearsals with director John Hurley for the stage reprisal of Boomerang Theatre Company’s production of Johnna Adams’ verse play LICKSPITTLES, BUTTONHOLERS, AND DAMNED PERNICIOUS GO-BETWEENS. The first production resulted in my being inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame in 2013. This will be a limited run, so mark your calendars now for May 1-17, 2015.

filling the well, or the sweet side of introversion

French Toast English Muffins with Cinnamon
Marmalade Ricotta

There was an article that popped up on Huffington Post not too long ago on 10 Ways Introverts Interact Differently with the World, and in reading it, I felt very much as if someone had been watching me as a test subject. I realize that handing out hard copies of the article before social functions might not be a great idea, so check out the link above. In any regard, it's a good primer.

The biggest take away from it for me - aside from the fact that, yes, I hate the phone, do well in a performance capacity but not so great at the after party, am generally rotten at small talk, and need to run like hell from full rooms of people after a certain amount of time - no matter how much I may love those people in that room -  is exactly how much downtime I require between periods of prolonged creativity to refill the proverbial well.

You know the question: What are you working on right now?  I told a good friend of mine earlier this week, I'm washing my socks and organizing my spice rack, and that's about as far as I can think as my creative stores replete themselves. Projects are going to start taking off in March, and I'll get into that soon. In the meantime, I'm generally nesting in my apartment as much as I am able, before I get too busy and it gets too hot to even bear turning on the oven.

I've been trying to make sure that I have (as close to) one full day at home a week to recharge. Sweats get pulled on, candles get lit, music gets played, the bathroom gets cleaned, soup gets made, tea gets brewed. And in the case of this morning, there is Sunday breakfast. And I say that with no regrets, because I've been kicking my ass at the gym four times a week (I'll tell you about that later). I may be working on getting back into fighting shape, but a girl still has to eat.

French Toast English Muffins with Cinnamon Marmalade Ricotta 

one serving - double as necessary

1 English muffin, split in half (gluten-free, as necessary)

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp vanilla

pinch cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

1 tbsp orange marmalade (extra points if it has fresh ginger)
another pinch cinnamon

maple syrup (the real deal)

Take your English muffin halves and prick both sides in several places with the tines of a fork, so that liquid will be able to soak into the bread a bit easier. Combine egg, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in a shallow dish that will also fit both halves of your English muffin, cut side down, and nestle your muffin halves down into the liquid. After about a minute, turn your muffin halves over in the egg mixture. You want as much of that liquid to be absorbed into the English muffin halves as possible without them totally disintegrating.

In a separate bowl, combine ricotta cheese with marmalade and cinnamon, and stir well. Set aside.

In a griddle or large, flat-bottomed skillet, heat about 1 tbsp of butter over medium heat till it melts and starts to bubble, coating the bottom of the pan, and add your two English muffin halves to the pan to brown to golden. After a couple of minutes, flip the muffin halves over with a spatula and brown the other sides. Transfer to a plate.  Serve with cinnamon marmalade ricotta and real maple syrup. 

A New Year, and Italian Sausage with Lentils

Italian Sausage with Lentils

So we're well into 2015 at this point, and this post is late. I made a promise to myself to try to post at least once a week this year. I've been trying to bend time to my will and the damned stuff just keeps seeping from between my fingers. Better late than never, I guess.

I'm going to kick things off with a recipe as I've been cooking a lot lately, and I'm starting with sausage and lentils because I'm jonesing for the south of France. Someone please cast me in something that's going to give me a good excuse to go to Cannes. Mama needs a working Mediterranean vacation. 

Until then, I'm living vicariously with a bowl of comfort food that doubles as protein fitness fuel. Sausage and lentils is also a popular dish around the dawning of the new year, as lentils are said to symbolize coins (i.e., wealth). Since everyone wants a little more abundance in our lives, where better to begin that pipeline than the digestive tract? When it tastes as good as this does, you may as well bow to tradition and make some. 

No, really, just make some.

Italian Sausage with Lentils

1 1/2 cups dried French lentils
     (not to be confused with brown lentils, another beast entirely - get the French)

1 cup diced carrot

1 cup diced onion

1 clove minced garlic

2 1/2 cups diced fennel bulbs

6 Italian sausage (mild or spicy, your choice)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup white wine (if not using wine, use 1/4 cup additional water or broth)

1/8 cup chopped fennel fronds

1/4 cup chopped parsley

olive oil

salt 

pepper

Sort through the lentils quickly (nobody likes rocks in their lentils), and give them a quick rinse under the faucet before adding them to a saucepan. Cover generously with cold water (about 5 cups should do it) and add about 1/2 tsp salt to the pan before bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, partially cover the pot, and cook the lentils until they are al dente. Drain lentils and set aside.

In a large skillet or dutch oven, add your sausage links to about 1 tbsp of olive oil and brown on all sides. Remove once brown - it does not have to be cooked all the way through. Cut the sausages into coins and set aside. 

In the same pan you just used, saute your onion, carrots, chopped fennel bulbs and garlic in an additional 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of cracked black pepper, your wine to deglaze the pan, and your 1/2 cup of water. 

Add your sausage coins back into the vegetables, and turn the heat up to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Once the sausage looks like it has cooked all the way through, remove the lid, add the lentils to the pan, and stir to combine. 

Allow the flavors to come together at a low simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add parsley, fennel fronds, additional salt, pepper, and olive oil (if desired) to taste, and give it another stir before serving.

on small, soft-poached victories

There are things I can do in the kitchen. Butterflying and tying a pork loin? Baking gluten-free bread from scratch? Cleaning shrimp? Done, done, and done. But there are some basic things that - in some odd (okay, even) years on this planet - I haven't managed to do.

Like poaching an egg.

I attempted to poach eggs several years ago to disastrous effect. One tiny little egg ballooned into a giant spider's web of egg white and completely took over my skillet. It happened again and again. There was no corralling that mess. I felt like a total kitchen failure, and resigned myself to ordering two eggs, soft-poached in a cup at diners across the country for the rest of my life.

Until this morning. I poached this egg. My first one out of the box. I credit this fine youtube tutorial, and the addition of vinegar to the water. Now you can do it, too.

of zombies and urban homesteading

As part of my resolutions made for 2013 (yes, I did make some), I took a long, hard look at my finances over the holidays. This, in turn, required that I examine my spending habits. I had to admit to myself that I have been bleeding money with a several-times-weekly restaurant habit. I have also been stockpiling groceries at home like I’m preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

 Wait, zombies are coming? Dinner’s at six.

The obvious solution to getting my finances back in balance: Start cooking at home again. And so that is what I have been doing for the last month. What cooking lacks in convenience, it makes up for in terms of money saved and knowing what's going into my food. I try to do the bulk of my weekly cooking on Sundays, and supplement with simpler meals here and there, time permitting.

Today's exercise in urban homesteading:

• gluten-free banana pancakes with coconut
• chicken and artichoke stew with puttanesca sauce
• a vegetable stir-fry with brown rice
• a gluten-free jalapeno popper and buffalo chicken pizza (Superbowl requirement)
• a batch of kombucha tea
• a loaf of gluten-free pumpernickel bread
• trail mix

The kitchen now relatively clean, I still have miles to go on other projects before I sleep tonight. But I take comfort in being a little better prepared for tomorrow – and the day after that. I have options for breakfast. My lunch is already packed. I even have snacks ready, so I can power through Bikram class.

If only they made Garanimals for adults, I’d be all set.