O, Juicer, Juicer, Juicer (or, why i dont want to go to organic avenue anymore)

Dear Mouse,

Namaste, from Kentucky.

A bit of local news. 

"You have to be reductive to talk about your life. Otherwise you would have to explain every single detail of your history just to try and make a tiny point." - Lila, 'O Guru, Guru, Guru' by Mallery Avidon
                           (my current project and return to THIS wonderful theatre festival!! Opening 3/22)

Just a community of like-minded individuals.

Oh my god it has taken me forever to post. It is embarrassing, and so I'm going to confess it up front: I have been slacking for none of the reasons you might think. I mean, yes I am in rehearsal for a project that is proving emotionally and mentally rigorous in the greatest of ways. It is true that at the end of the day I am left with only enough brain space to evaluate "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and a strong desire to go to bed at like nine thirty. It is true that I've been floating in a strangely cloistered world with ten other women engaged in beautifully intense and particular discourse about the nature of happiness, god, family,  the search for meaning in one's life, and the correct way to wrap a sari. I could easily claim I'm just way too distracted/ drained to talk about food. (As if that could ever be true.)  But really, I've had enough down time to post what I want, which is just a simple food-related discovery and isn't going to be hard to explain. AND honestly, the reason I haven't yet is that I've been SO  hung up, somehow,  on how it has to be THE PERFECT BLOG POST (funny! educational! insightful!) (Really- this from the woman who posted the marmot video), that I have for the first time given myself blogger's block - !! -  ie, have become too paralyzed to write anything at all.  WTF.

Pause to note that, once again, I may have let my character start bossing me around.

So, deep breath.

All I really want to do is just say

That I bought this ...

... and it has literally changed my life.

Accidentally deleted original photo, had to take a screen shot of instagram version,

 it's too boring to explain, it will never happen again.

Now you know - as does everyone else who has talked to me for longer than ten seconds recently -- that I have gotten really "into juicing" of late. This past Yom Kippur  I decided, mostly because you were doing it, that I would give fasting a go. But because I'm me, "fasting" was not going to mean anything so crazy as Not Ingesting Anything, oh no. I settled on a "juice cleanse" as a way of making it through the daylight hours, took myself straight to Organic Avenue and dropped let's say $27 on 3 (delicious) 16-oz juices (yep). It was so much easier than I expected that I thought, why not keep this going for five days. After I emerged from the experience energized, clear-headed, and a few pounds lighter, I was hooked, and decided I wanted to make liquid fruits and vegetables a permanent part of my diet.

I'm sure you're way ahead of me at this point, but there's at least one problem with this plan for a working actor living in NYC.  (Multiply the cost of those three juices by five....)

They say that when the mind is ready, a teacher appears.  

Just stay with me. 

About a month ago, I found myself on a Suburban Transit Bus, traveling back to the city from New Jersey. I had been to see my Fairy Godmother in a play there (a production now running in Seattle FYI), and I'd decided to take the bus back with some of the cast members. I was chatting to one of the actresses when she pulled a neat little plastic mug with a fetching handle and a gray screw-on lid out of her knapsack . It was full of an enticing and familiarly green frothy mixture.  I eyed it enviously and asked her where she got her green juice, already wondering if I could manage to justify the $9 for an OA smoothie in the AM.  Which was when she said the four words I most needed to hear: 

"I Have The Nutribullet."

I hear there is an infomercial for this product that's been in circulation for a while now, but I'd never seen it. Uninfluenced by advertising, following only her recommendation and my own intuition,  I went home that night and ordered it from Amazon, shipping it to Louisville ahead of me. When I arrived, it was waiting at my door, and it's pretty much been Love at First Blend. This user-friendly, no-mess,  petite-but-powerful blender/extractor/whatever has already paid for itself probably three times over and I am not looking back. I'm not juice-cleansing or fasting, just starting my day with one of these for breakfast. (I should note here that it's not a juicer - it's pulverizing whole fruits and vegetables, not pressing juice from them, etc.) The basic proportions are: 50% leafy greens, 50% fruits, throw in some seeds or nuts of your choice (or don't),  add water to the 'max' line, and let 'er rip. As I type, I am preparing myself for rehearsal with a delicious concoction of chopped kale, frozen mango chunks, and fresh ginger, with a little bit of cinnamon and agave syrup. It is really good. 

(If anyone has the 'Bullet, another favorite Boo recipe is: 50% baby spinach leaves, then: one small apple, 1/4 avocado, squeeze lemon, cinnamon, some walnuts, 1/4 coconut water, then regular water, blend.) 

I'm very excited about this. And I'm aware that I might sound like I've joined a cult or something. But is it really that? Or just a community of like-minded individuals who may have stumbled on some useful knowledge that they wish to pass on to others, and if so, is there anything inherently wrong with that?

Ok, back to work.

Can't wait for your visit! 

Love,

The Boo

Dear Mouse,

Do you think I can post a recipe if I ate it before I could take a picture because I did not foresee it as being blogworthy in any way?

Well, here we are.

(I can't believe I'm even posting this, both because of the number of other things I should be doing right now (though that is also the exact reason to post it!) and because it's -- well, really not at all an actual "recipe". It involves no cooking.  It might not even be Food, if we're going by the Pollan definition.

But for this hungry, hopped up and (suddenly) busy bee, it'll do. And I thought maybe others with limited energy and time (like yourself, the busiest Bee   - er, Mouse - I know) might appreciate.)

The Boo's May I Suggest Incredibly Fast Post-Rehearsal, Pre-Audition, Pre-Other Rehearsal, and 
Weeknight-in-Cold-Season Chicken "Stew" For One

"Ingredients"
1 can Chicken-and-Rice Soup (I used Healthy Choice)
1 large handful torn raw kale leaves (or other dark green)
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp? chopped parsley (and/or whatever other herbs you have lying around)
1 squirt of Sriracha hot sauce
1 squirt lemon
Salt/pepper

Bring soup to a simmer in pot on stove. 
Add everything else. 
Taste for seasonings. Stir a few times. 
When kale is wilted/cooked, it's done. Yummy.

If you have any fresh ginger that would be great in there too. You're welcome! Take your vitamins, get your beauty sleep, and buy tickets for this foot-stompin', roof-raising, beautiful show, running November 1 - 18 at the Beckett on Theatre Row. It's good for what ails ya.

Love,

The Boo

Om Shanti, KC

Dear Mouse,

It's that time again.

a play and media project about our environmental challenges

Runs Feb 17 - March 19 at Kansas City Rep

Hello hello from Kansas City MO, where I'll be living and blogging for the next two months. I still can't quite believe that this is the fourth year in a row I'm working out of town Jan-March; I'm starting to think of it as my annual pilgrimage to... America. You know I've had a love affair with Going Away in general ever since my sandal-wearing, patchouly-scented, guitar-strumming Summer Camp days. But I especially dig the, say, liminal nature of the first night in town, before rehearsals start, when you have no idea what lies ahead. You land in a strange new world, navigate a new grocery store, unpack your clothes, listen to the SILENCE around you, breathe maybe a little differently, and ponder upcoming challenges. And when I speak of challenges, I mean figuring out how I am going to approach playing twin sisters (!!!), and also I mean things like this:

Hi, my name's Steve, I'll be your Fork for the next two months. Not kidding.

Yes, the lay of the land here in Kitchen Stadium is interesting.

No oven. Like the song says, I got two electric burners and a microwave...

Stay tuned. I think it'll be like camping. (Really, really nice camping). It'll bring me back to that herb-scented, celestially-seasoned self of yesteryear. Which already seems kind of appropriate. Because I've never been here before and really know nothing about this town, but if my first five hours are anything to go by...

... Kansas City is full of hippies!!

(Shh, don't scare them off.)

Evidence collected thus far:

* company manager picks Boo up at airport, beaming in the 65-degree sunshine (speaking of environmental challenges) and sporting a pair of sunglasses that say "love" on both sides

* Nature's Own, the organic grocery store two blocks away!! where I foraged this afternoon. The checkout girl told me she liked my hair. As I floated home with my arms full of turkish apricots, self-churned peanut butter, and Amy's organic frozen dinners, I stopped to gawk atPhoenix Herb, the homeopathic place next door with its rows and rows of mysterious leaves in glass jars.

* welcome packet at the hotel is definitely the best of its kind I have ever seen and includes the following:

-a bag of Zum products (all-natural frankincense/lavender/lemon bar soap, hand sanitizer, and aromatherapy spray, as well as eucalytpus-scented "laundry soap")

-'seventh-generation' natural dish soap

-reusable grocery shopping bag

-plastic baggies of raw cashews and almonds

-and this

Relax, relax, they're tea bags, they're tea bags.

But it took me a second too.

I went 'home', rolled out my yoga mat, sprayed my pillows with lavender/lemon, and fired up some quinoa and raw kale for dinner. I kid you not. And if last week I was wondering why this highly anticipated new show about climate change, planetary stewardship, and environmental responsibility was premiering so far 'out of town'... it is starting to make sense. Om shanti, KC, I think I'm gonna like it here.

Love,

The Boo

PS. Lest I give a totally skewed perspective, rest assured that this glossary of "BBQ Terms" was part of our welcome packet too.

Rehearsal Soup

Dear Mouse,

Remember this mug?

"Stress: the confusion created when one's mind must override the body's basic desire to choke the living s*T out of some a***hole who desperately deserves it."

Inexplicably popular in, I'm going to say, the mid-'80s, when, despite its complete lack of actual wit, it became
a 'humorous' staple on various desks around the country? Akin to the "Hang In There, Baby" cat posters?

As you know, I'm deep into rehearsal for my first-ever-oh-the-terror-and-the-glory-why-did-I-ever-think-I-could-
do-this-oh-look-its-happening-anyway .... original play. Sorry, MUSICAL. Or, 'play-with-music'.
Whatever. I wrote it, with my childhood friend Leon, it got into this festival before there was a script, we
assembled a cast and director, and now it happens IN A WEEK. Lightning and neuroscience and
rock music and Shakespeare and a guy in a Lion Suit. Good good times. It's all very exciting.

And it's also happening in a WEEK. So.. when I found myself,at the end of last rehearsal in our borrowed attic
space, wearing an antlered mask while taking notes and muttering "No, no, the lateral sulcus needs to be
stage left", it really only made sense that the mug I wasclutching happened to be the one pictured above.
(Not that I want to choke anyone... just the stress. You get it.)



Tonight is our rainy night off, and I'm thinking of making a big pot of this:


REHEARSAL SOUP
courtesy of my co writer Bob, aka Leon the Lightning Safety Lion. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Leon
happens to cook
a lot and has fed me and the rest of the company on several occasions when we seemed in danger of an Excitotoxic
Seizure (see the play). I have contributed by making, um, nothing. I truly believe that this spicy, nourishing soup,
packed with protein and enriched with dark greens, ginger, and garlic, has prevented colds, exhaustion, tears,
pessimism, and maybe even bad acting. Do not skip the peanut butter.

Ingredients:
1/4 to 1/2 cup of peanut butter (creamy)
3/4 cup of peanuts
1 medium onion (diced)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp ginger (diced)
2 tbsp garlic (diced
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 pound chicken breast, cut into chunks
6 cups chicken stock
2 sweet potatoes, sliced into rounds (non-sweet will work too)
8 plum tomatoes or 1 large can
1/2 ib collard greens (or kale) cut into strips
Red Wine Vinegar
Hot Sauce
Olive Oil
Cilantro
Salt, Pepper to taste

1. Marinate the chicken in hot sauce before cooking. 20 - 25 minutes is fine

2. In a skillet w/a thin layer of olive oil, on medium heat, sweat the
onions for 3-5 mins and then add the ginger & the garlic for the final 2
mins or until golden brown. (Times may vary based on your stove/frying
pans/etc. Basically, you want the Onions to sweat and the ginger and garlic
to brown w/o burning)

3. Add the chicken and lightly brown until no more pink is visible, do not
cook all the way thru. Crush the peanuts and let them slightly roast in the
pan. Lightly douse the pan w/the vinegar to de-glaze the pan. Take it off
the heat

4. To a medium dutch oven or other soup-cooking vessel, add the stock and
diced tomatoes and the potatoes. on high heat, bring the contents to a boil. When it' starts
bubbling (don't let it come to a boil), turn the stove down to low.

5. Transfer the onions, garlic, and chickent to the cauldron. Add the kale,
and the peanut butter and the cayenne pepper. Simmer on low heat. It should take about 15 mins til it's ready to
serve, but w/many soups, you can really let it continue to simmer and it
only makes it mo' better. W/this one, you can let it go on super-low heat
for up to an hour.

6. Salt, pepper to taste. Cilantro as a garnish.

Eat n' rehearse.

Yumm-o!

Don't be a Part of the Charge.

Love, The Boo.
PS. Tickets on sale HERE.

Failed Kale (What a Difference a Minute Makes)

photo courtesy of worldcommunitycookbook.com

Dear Mouse,


I learned something. I couldn't decide how to sum it up, so here's 5 versions:

It's the little things. In cooking just as much if not more as anything else.

It is possible to ruin kale.

It is possible to ruin a tested, well-received, simple!! recipe by missing one tiny important step.

God is in the details.

The harder you try to be impressive with your dinner the more likely it is you will fall on your face.

But now wait a minute, actually, in my defense: This was NOT a trying-hard dinner. I know better than that! I wasn't going to bone a duck or make tapenade. The Date was coming over, and I was going for graceful, effortless, 'so-what-if-my-kitchen-must-be-viewed-through-a-microscope' sexiness. No stress. I chose a very very easy and tasty menu: Pasta Puttanesca (as endorsed in your Valentines post), and the Kale with Bacon and Vinegar that everybody loved at Fall Equinox. (Duh - it has BACON and VINEGAR). Fast, simple, AND impressive, right? FYI I based my version of 'Whore's Pasta' on the Amateur Gourmet's version ... though I just couldn't do the 8 cloves of garlic!!! (Sorry Adam!) and stopped at 5, as The Date's eyes were already bugging out at the pile on the cutting board.

The Kale is a breeze - into the boiling water for 5, into the pan with the fried-up bacon for 10, into a bowl, splash with vinegar, serve. I was way more focused on the Pasta of Ill Repute, having never made it before. And while flitting around trying to appear gorgeous and not sweaty, I blithely splashed the vinegar into the saute pan during phase 2. As in, I cooked with it, instead of finishing with it. But so what, big deal.

The Puttanesca - salty, savory, garlicky, sour - was a big hit. "This is great", the Date (who had claimed to hate anchovies) enthused, piling on the grated parmesan White American Man-style.

The kale, however, got this response:

"Tastes kinda weird."

And, Mouse, it did. Oh, my bruised FoodBlogger Ego. It was, like, musty, or kind of fruit-gone-bad. No denying it. And I was all, "but it has BACON and VINEGAR..." I couldn't figure it out. I'd made it before!

There was but one thing to do. Go upstairs, visit The Neighbors, and eat most of their cake. And, while there, learn a few things. Firstly, that Puttanesca was the first thing that Mrs. Neighbor had ever cooked for Mr. Neighbor, and secondly, that she had also screwed up a perfectly good vegetable recipe by doing guess what: putting the vinegar into the pan while cooking instead of using it to finish the dish. She likened the taste to a bottle of wine that had turned. Yep.

I tested out this theory a couple of days later with a whole new bunch of kale and I have to say it holds up. Delicious once again, bacon and all. photo courtesy myrecipes.com and Boo's laziness

So, while most of my posts are of the "Just get in there! Make it up!" variety, the moral of this one is: Attention Must Be Paid. Stick to the G-D recipe and stop worrying about your waterproof mascara.

Love,

The Boo

Sounds Bad... Tastes Great... Leftovers!

Dear Mouse,

Is that not the WORST title for any food-related post? It's like saying "Eewwwwwwwwwwwwwwthis food."

Remember in high school a group of valiant parents banded together around an idea to raise money for the school theatre (excuse me, "performing arts program") and came up with the "Angels Cookbook"?

It was a cute little blue-and-yellow spiral-bound book full of recipes solicited from the kitchens of willing parents & faculty. I used to cook from the recipes with titles like "Aunt Ruthie's Ohio-Baked Brownies" and "Pretty Pound Cake". And this one mom, bless her, submitted a recipe titled

"Sounds Bad-Tastes Great-Chicken!"

Um, it starts with the word "bad". Why would anyone read any farther? "Sure", I remember thinking, "sure it tastes great." I think it involved rice krispies... ? that's all I remember.

"Lady", I thought, "if it sounds bad it probably is. No dice. I'm gonna make me some Snickerdoodles."

What an irony then, that in preparing to post the recipe I created this week, I found myself thinking, "well I can tell them that it might sound bad... but it tastes great!"

Even worse, it showcases a certain tiny furled green vegetable, and I can't think of anything worse than "Sounds Bad-Tastes Great-Brussels Sprouts!" Let's go with "Odds and Ends Salad", maybe. Or "Warm & Cold Brussels Sprouts Melange". Or "Things He Left In the Kitchen".

The GC just left town for a month-long gig, leaving me with only a frozen calzone for company. (He made a bunch of them last week and this one is supposed to compensate for distance. If I get lonely, I am allowed to defrost and eat it. That's romance, friends.)

The spectacular calzones (mozzarella/parmesan/turkeysausage/pepperoni) had been made for a dinner with friends (roasted broccoli and Ina Garten lemon cake by Boo) earlier this week.

This was the last in a pre-departure parade of Serious Carb Showstoppers ( homemade challah for a dinner in Williamsburg , homemade pizza for Election Night). I came home today from the Farmer's Market with a $3 box of brussels sprouts, determined to eat a vegetable and too tired to do an actual grocery shop. I cast about in the fridge and came up with:

The Sprouts He Left Behind, by Boo

In serving bowl:

Chopped up end of stick of hard salami or pepperoni (salami is better-the cracked pepper kind)

handful or two of leftover shredded mozzarella (or leftover grated parm)

Chopped apple (ideally granny smith) in large chunks

In a roasting pan:

brussels sprouts, halved, ends sliced off

leftover red sweet pepper, in chunks

small onion in chunks

a garlic clove, peeled

chopped fresh rosemary (or sage or really whatever herb lying around. keep it simple though.)

Pour olive oil over the items in the pan; toss to combine. Salt & pepper and toss again.

Roast in oven on 425, flipping/stirring veggies occasionally, til sprouts begin to blacken/get brown. I'd say 10 min. Mix hot ingredients with cold in bowl and vigorously toss. Cheese will melt and get all over. A good squeeze of lemon (apple cider vinegar would work too) over and toss more. Handful of breadcrumbs. Maybe some more salt & pepper. Taste.

Eat.

Long live leftovers and the Angels cookbook.

Love,

The Boo

P.S. The Mouse did something very similar this week, taking one item from the farmers market, and adding it to a slew of pantry ingredients to create a new and tasty (and questionable sounding) dish. The Boo thought twice about coming over when I described it as "some type of a bean and kale concoction." Note from Boo: Sounded bad, tasted GREAT.

Bean and Kale Pantry Concoction, by Mouse

Sautee one chopped medium onion and two garlic cloves with some olive or vegetable oil in the bottom of a nice sized pot.
Add one minced serrano pepper (or jalapeno) with or without seeds, and one chopped red bell pepper.
Sautee a few minutes over medium heat.
Add 28-oz can of whole tomatoes and their juice, breaking up the tomatoes (sometimes i just fish them out and squeeze them in a fist until they're crushed. Good for anger management.)
Add 1 large can of kidney beans (or whatever beans you have on hand), with a bit of their juice.
Season with salt and pepper, chili powder, and perhaps a bit of blackening seasoning or some of a leftover packet of chili seasoning or something else like that if you have it lying around and feel like a shortcut.
Chop one large bunch of curly kale and add to pot. Stir a bit, salt and pepper, and put lid on pot until wilted a bit and more manageable. Add 1/2 Cup of chicken broth if you have it and a little bit of water.
Simmer uncovered until kale is cooked and liquid reduced a bit.
At this point I decided it needed a bit of a starch to round it out though you could serve it as is as a light chili/soup. I added 3/4 Cup of white rice to the pot, stirred, and covered. Let simmer for 20 minutes over low heat until rice is cooked and some liquid has been absorbed.
Serve with chopped scallions as garnish and a dollop of sour cream.

If you have any leftover meat, you could throw that in too--shredded chicken would make it a poor man's arroz con pollo, shrimp: a poor man's paella, sausage like a chili or gumbo. I think this dish would make a good catch-all for whatever veggies or meat you have lying around. And the nice thing is, unlike boiling or steaming kale, you don't lose any of the vitamins in the discarded liquid. Very healthy. And cheap.