The Kitchen Where We Meet The World (Potluck 2011)

Dear Mouse,

"I don't mean to be a Posshole Asta", said Leon, looking over my shoulder, "But you have too much water in that pot."

Ah, out of the mouths of Lions...

Jamie Oliver's 'Chicken In Milk'.
Photo lovingly recycled from a Mouse Post Past



He meant, of course, "Pasta A**hole" (as in, someone who claims at least partly Italian background and has things to say about the way you're making dinner), but a slip of the tongue created this fabulous new job title. I told him he should start an Italian Cooking Advice Column, "Ask the Posshole Asta", and then I said to get out of my kitchen.
(He stayed though... because he was also cooking the meal.)

Yes, Mouse, it's a new year, bringing with it new vocabulary words, new humans (welcome to the world, Little Poet!! born 12/30/10), new relationships, and most importantly, new ways to approach eating things. My 2011 began with a Potluck Dinner Party.

What with Little Poet and the new year, I was inspired to do a little digging into the significance of the number 11. Like any good, new Agey friend, I printed out her astrological chart (the 'snapshot' of the planets' positions at the moment of birth). Little P had a few big planets in the 11th House, which meant approximately nothing to me. But what I learned straight off I really liked:

"The 11th is the house of friends... our first experience of tribal society, the playground where we meet the world." (astro.com)

New Year's Eve 2011 found me close to friends indeed - very close, as three of us tried to prepare four dishes simultaneously in my very tiny kitchen. How did this happen, I wondered. Firstly, my plan had been for a solo New Year's (silent meditation retreat, two days of yoga, or similar). But there I was, two days to go and no closer to a plan than "Kripalu costs what?" Then I realized that several friends, none of whom know each other, were without plans. I offered to host a potluck dinner, and it was On like the silver top hats grudgingly worn by the staff at Cafeteria this year.

Secondly, 'potluck' is not a word that often escapes my (food snob?) lips.It always sounds like "good luck with that". Oh, sure, it's fine for an office lunch or maybe a church dinner? But it's an entirely different thing in your home. You're letting someone else deck your table with their god knows what creations, and even - gasp - commandeer your stove to prepare. A dinner party is something you either host or attend. Right? Something well-planned and harmonious. A potluck is, like, every man for himself. You won't be hungry but you also probably won't be satisfied. Right?

rigatoni alla vodka, photo courtesy recipebridge.com. But ours looked like it.
(I really need to unpack/locate my camera)

THE MENU

Leon, aka Posshole Asta: homemade vodka sauce, homemade marinara type sauce w/veggies.

J-Mas (Posshole Asta #2): rigatoni and fresh raviolis from place in Jersey, homemade (vegan) chocolate chip cookies, surprisingly tasty.

A-Mac: spinach salad with dried cranberries, walnuts, and goat cheese.

The Boo: Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk, as seen above. (Really, so easy and people freak out. Make it.) Roasted Brussels Sprouts w/bacon and rosemary.

The Mayor: red wine and mulled cider, witticisms.

To drink: kir royales for some, seltzer and pomegranate juice for the teetotalers, a word that I think must have been invented as an intoxication test (ie, if you can say or spell it, you're not drunk)

Highlights: the TWO pasta courses (oh, 2010 decadence past). The digestive walk around the block before midnight. The viewing of Times Square Fireworks from my fire escape! The after-dinner 'Double Dream Hands' rehearsal. The brief loud chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Going to sleep to the sound of hooting noisemakers on 7th avenue.

There's something about learning to feed and be fed at the same time. In 2011, let us play in the 11th house of communal creativity. Let us open our kitchens and our hearts to new tastes and new lessons. Sometimes, we can let someone else boil the water and make the sauce.

May I suggest your local Posshole Asta?

Love,

The Boo

Deus Ex Meatball

"Your fate - you can't help but notice - it's the last thing you'd ever expect."- Orestes (Euripides/Anne Washburn)

Dear Mouse,

I can't even start this post by saying, "On New Year's Eve, I dropped my iPhone in a bowl of water", because that's not strictly true. Oh, it happened. And it was definitely my fault. But no 'dropping' occurred, per se. Placing, perhaps. As if deliberately, if not consciously so ... while distracted by ... these.

Spaghetti and Meatballs All'Amatriciana. Holy Balls.

Due to a number of factors, my plan to spend New Years in NYC wearing a tiny dress had turned into plans to cook meatballs in my pajamas for our Director, Stage Manager, and Composer here in DC. I was hell-bent on making the above recipe despite some strange handicaps. Specifically, the recipe called for 2lbs ground beef, and the SM (co-chef) and I had been able to locate ONE open store with meat near the house. Rehearsal had run late and people were coming over kind of soon. That store was down to a single 1lb mystery package of ground ... something. No label, no sell by date, no nothing. "Looks like beef!" I declared hopefully, and we bought it at a considerable discount. (Guy behind counter: "Is no good, you bring back to me." Right.) We bought a pound of chicken sausage to round out the mixture (skin off, chopped up), swore each other to secrecy, prayed a little, and went home to mix up the delicious spicy mixture involving chopped bacon, marjoram, and hot red pepper flakes. Big hit, nobody died, happy 2010.

So all this was in my head as I set my iPhone down upon an innocuous-looking paper towel draped over a perfectly unassuming blue bowl on the counter, while rolling the meatballs and texting The Date in NYC at the same time. It is certainly plausible to say that I was simply too distracted to notice the several inches of WATER lurking below the paper towel, in which my house mate was soaking lentils, and into which I calmly PLACED my beloved, seemingly indispensable communication device. It was a full , oh, 30 seconds, before I reached to pick up my phone and wondered "Why is my hand wet?"

Long story short: You can do a lot to an iPhone, but not this.

At the end of the play I'm working on right now *Spoiler Alert* we see an example of a device common in Classical Greek theatre when a playwright had written himself into a corner or just wanted to quit and go watch Iron Chef: Argos on the Food Network. I'm sure you remember this from Theatre History 124 (you know, between naps), but in case you don't:

Deus Ex Machina (wikipedia): a plot device where a previously intractable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved, usually with the contrived introduction of either characters, abilities, or objects not mentioned before within the storyline. It is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique because it undermines the story's internal logic.

Ha! Suck it, Euripides!

Basically, it's when the playwright has God show up and make a speech which goes something like, "Attention, everyone! The whole time it was Miss Scarlett in the Library with the Lead Pipe. Be nice to each other. Hail Zeus!" (Ok, it's slightly more complex than that, I'm just feeling peevish and have a lower backache from stomping and chanting about war).

In Orestes, it's the god Apollo who intervenes at the end. He tidies everything up and reveals some interesting tidbits of information, one of which is the mind-boggling revelation that Helen of Troy, the SuperTramp "loathed by the Gods" that everyone has been hating on this whole time, is actually, oh, a GODDESS, whose own father is Zeus himself AND who, oh, by the way, was only created in the first place to drive everyone crazy with her beauty and cause a war which would take care of some overpopulation issues.

Seriously. What a cynical mother - Where was I?

Oh, right. Meatballs. Seriously, they were SO GOOD. And very simple. And I think maybe they would be even better (?) with ground turkey. You brown them in the bacon grease before simmering them in the sauce til they're done. Mmmmmm.

The thing is, for a few months I'd been having the uneasy feeling that my beloved iPhone was maybe not such a blessing, despite its bells and whistles and 24-7 Facebook. As you may recall, it was not so long ago that I was up in Maine discovering that communal living, limited technology, artistic collaboration, and actual human conversation were quite possibly a recipe for health and happiness. And in only a few short months, I'd gone right back to being someone who regularly walked into traffic while updating my FB status or Texted my way through breakfast. I'd already begun to consider downgrading in order to regain some sense of balance. And here I was, once again, in a house full of actors, expressing my affection and gratitude by feeding them discount meat, and maybe it was my own personal God in the Machine that decided to step in and make the decision for me. Who knows.

Anyway, that's my story. Happy 2010! May this be a year in which we laugh, cook, and socialize in real time, face to face, and in which we learn to own our devices, not let them own us.

That's about it. I'm kind of having trouble wrapping this up. Not sure what to do. ....

Oh look! Flying monkeys are attacking my keyboard! Gotta run.

Love,

The Boo