In which I turn out to have had a way more eventful week than I thought I had!

I keep thinking it's going to be ok to post only twice a week or so, because who needs to post every day, and then we do tons of things and I'm suddenly way behind! So this is another biggish post – get ready ;)

On Thursday, I taught piano lessons! I agreed to teach half hour lessons to the three kids in one family. I'm pretty excited about it. These first lessons, they didn't have books yet and I was just meeting the kids and getting know where there piano skills were and what they were interested in, so each lesson was only twenty minutes, and I was in and out in an hour. I'm eager to get into lessons, to get to know the kids better, to exercise some pedagogical skills, and to be a little more in touch with the year-round Skagway locals. The other gals in the cast are getting their fingers on the local pulse at least a bit by trying out different churches every Sunday. Since I'm not interested in church, I'm hoping that teaching lessons will do that for me a little bit! There are apparently other families hoping for lessons, since the local piano teacher is out of town for the summer, so in the next couple days I'll post on the Skagway Swap facebook group to let people know that I have some limited availability to teach.

After I got back from teaching and the gals got back from dinner at Starfire, we headed out to meet up with our friends Chris, Adam, and Gabby – the ones we met at the lodge in Dyea. They'd invited us up to the RV Park where they're staying for forshpayz and wine at the picnic table outside their (rented) RV. The seven of us hung out for a while and chatted at first, munching on leftover popcorn Steph and I had grabbed from the theatre and fresh-toasted bruschetta the Oregon gang had whipped up. It was great to start getting to know them a little better! They're a bit nerdy, which I really appreciate.

After not too long, other people stopped by. Mike, the brewery owner and the Oregon gang's boss; Gregory, the manager and dance teacher at the brewery (he used to play violin in pits, and then for some years he made violins, and then he found that too lonely, quit, and has since done other work plus also in the last four years gotten way into social dancing, particularly blues); and a few other people who live in the RV park, including a mom (Jess?) and her kid Logan. We hung around for a couple hours, eating and drinking and frisbeeing and talking, until it started to get cold and buggy, and which point Mike invited us all over to his place for a campfire. So we spent the rest of the night around a crackly fire, chatting and listening to music and, well, just being in Alaska! Finally it was (mostly) dark (around midnight) and we headed home for the night.

On Friday, we were supposed to have three shows, but because one of the two cruise ships scheduled to port in town that day canceled and the other had fewer than a thousand passengers, we sold no tickets to the first two shows and therefore did not perform them. Of course, we had to be in full makeup and costume until five minutes before each show was scheduled to start, just in case we got a sudden influx and could go on! Apparently this used to happen much more frequently both early and late in the season; this year the theatre has been doing extremely well. Allison and Jon were thrilled that we had lasted this long without a cancellation.

Anyway, instead of doing those first two shows, the gals and I rested a bit at home; got ice cream at the Kone Kompany (I really do hate arbitrary Ks, by the way), where I said hi to McKenna (whose name is not Michaela) and John; and I spent my usual hour or so on my bench in the sun. (Well, there are two benches, really: The bench on the post office side of the street is my morning bench, and the bench on the Bites side of the street is my afternoon bench. I appear to be becoming a town fixture.)

The evening show was the town show. Locals can see the show for free at any time, but the town show is the specific night dedicated to them, when everyone comes. And I mean the place was packed. Every seat was full, all extra folding chairs were full, and what little standing room space exists at the gills was full. It was great! I must have been pretty excited at the top, because as soon as I started my little intro rag I realized I was top-speed-ing it! But I made it through at said top speed with no bumps, and the show got underway safe and sound. There is really nothing like performing for a completely full house of somewhat intoxicated people determined to have a great time. And everyone was super sweet on the way out, including McKenna, who gave me a hug! I think that means we're friends :p

Plus, Niles and Skipper had brought up a whole tray of homemade pastries/cake in honor of the town show, so that was great too! And Jon bought us all a drink and some snacks afterward at the Aerie – the Eagles' Lodge, which is in the same building as the theatre. I felt like I was in on something quite mysterious and fraternal, although it was really just a room with some people and a bar.

On Saturday we did two shows, got tacos at the once-every-second-Saturday craft mart (so. good. and so desperately needed. Tacoooooooos), chilled out at home for a bit, and then needed to get out of the house. Plus Sunday was our day off, so we could properly go out! We hit up the Station – the only of the three bars in town none of us had been to yet – for a quiet drink, and then moved on to Bonanza. Bonanza started out as a pretty quiet drink also, but it was dance night, so before too long it was pretty crazy in there. The gals and I had some fun dancing, seeing old (by which I mean new-ish) friends (Greg, who is always, awesomely, corralling people to dance; Mike; the redhead who works at the jewelry store next door) and meeting new ones (Trevor, who is from Phoenix and in town for the summer, and his friend Kale, who is from Oklahoma and in Juneau for the summer). Tess and I met one woman in the bathroom, when she started talking to us from the other stall about how her sister had just called her to let her know that she's seven months pregnant and got married last week! Once we burned out a little on Bonanza – I would have been happy to keep dancing, but it was just so loud – we headed to a house party down the street that we'd been invited to the day before by Nick and Jess, whom we'd met on the street! Jess is a portrait artist, although he spends most of his day working on the Fast Ferry, and actually he'd taken a photo of the cast after the town show so he can draw us! The party was pretty calm by the time we got there, but we stayed long enough to determine that Nick and Jess are pretty normal, chill guys, and that their house is awesome, so hopefully we'll hang out with them again!

On our way home, we saw a few very pale streaks in the sky – first glimpse of the Northern Lights! We're hoping to catch them for real in September, when it gets darker again.

It was almost two by the time we got home – by far the latest I'd stayed up since I left New York! We all crashed, and had a slow Sunday morning. But by the middle of the day, Tess and I were antsy, so we went morel hunting. It took us several tries to get to our actual destination, since I had been there with Michael but wasn't totally sure where it was (it turned out to be slightly outside of town; hence the confusion), but once we got there and really got hunting, we hit the jackpot!

Thirty-eight morels!!!!!

It was super awesome to find some for the first time and also awesome to get some quality time with Tess and with the Alaskan outdoors. Now we gotta look up some recipes!

And now I'd better go to bed – three shows tomorrow, and the start of a thirteen day, thirty-nine show work week! See y'all on the flip side :p

In which Friday is utterly lovely

Friday was just the loveliest day! It's been getting warmer and sunnier every day, and Friday was darn close to my ideal summer day. I could use another five degrees, of course, because I like that oven feeling, but really it was just about perfect.

First of all, we opened the show! The house was small – about 20 people – for the 10:30 show, but they were loving it. Meridith and Tess, who are currently playing the whores “Molly Phewclothes” and “Squirreltooth Alice,” get to pull an older guy up on stage every show and do a couple numbers with him. I've made myself a little game where I try to predict whom they'll pick, and so far I'm three for three! The 10:30 guy just stood there and grinned himself silly the whole time; it was super cute. The guy at the second show was a little chattier but still well-behaved and having a good time. And both of their families were psyched! Show #1 we pretty much nailed; show #2, at 2:30, was a little sloppier despite our best efforts, but the audience (30-something for that one!) still had a great time.

Second of all, in between shows, Meridith and I couldn't pass up the totally beautiful, warm sunshine, so we took a walk down to the dock after lunch and sat by the water with our books, reading a bit and chatting a bit and looking at the canal and the Carnival ship docked there. (The ferry dock is not the same as the cruise ship dock, if you're wondering how it's possible for the ships to be coming in!) So that was delightful – plus, on our walk to the dock, we stopped in the jewelry store where our flatmate Nikki works. While we were chatting with her, she called over her manager, Andre, who got to know us a little bit... and then gave us each a pair of forget-me-not earrings! We were totally shocked. I mean, I'm sure they're not a big deal in the scheme of a giant store full of $10,000 rings, and I'm sure he hopes we'll walk around town telling everyone we got these cute earrings from that store. But it was still really sweet, and now we have lovely earrings for free! With the Alaska state flower! That makes two free pairs of cute earrings in two days, actually - Allison bought us all earrings color-coordinated with our costumes, so we can wear them during the show.

Third of all, after the shows, Meridith and Tess and Stephanie and I took another walk around town. We picked up a bunch of postcards – I sent twelve, so lots of you should expect them soon! – and got ice cream cones from the Kone Kompany, which we ate in the sun on a bench in front of Bites on Broadway. We stopped in a few stores in between, getting to know assorted locals and summer-locals. They'll show up in a People of Skagway post!

Fourth of all, after we went home and ate some dinner – I made grilled cheese with a few bacon strips that Michael donated to me!, and fried it in bacon! – we went out to the BrewCo for a couple beers. At the BrewCo, we ran into our pilot, Chris! He stopped to chat with Tess and me, since he remembered us (mostly her, but a little bit me) from sitting co-pilot with him. After a few minutes, he offered to take us flying for free anytime he has an extra seat or an off-shift! He said he would take us to Juneau or around the glaciers! Tess got his number so we can get in touch. But then she looked for it this morning and she had forgotten to save it! Fortunately, he came to the show today, as he said he would, and she got it again :)

Fifth of all, after the BrewCo, we remembered that one of the women we met in the shops had mentioned that the house she and the other workers in the shop were staying in had been overfull of stuff, and they had put a bunch of it outside on the lawn for anyone to take. So we headed up to 12^th St. and found the house with a bunch of stuff on the lawn... and grabbed some of it to take home! We'd been wanting a few more pieces of furniture, since there aren't enough chairs in the kitchen for all of us, and there's no living room or anything for us to hang out in, so we were thinking about putting a couch or something in my room, which is the biggest. So Meridith and Stephanie grabbed a chair, Tess grabbed another chair, I picked up an ottoman, and Bill carried a little table/shelving unit for Meridith's room, which had no surfaces in it!

And that was the whole day! Next up - People of Skagway, restaurants I've been trying, and our very first day off!

In Which I Try a New Kind of Meat

I don't have a heckuva lot to say about yesterday, and I haven't been to the Radio Shack yet to facilitate the posting of pictures, so this will be a short one!

We had a long but productive rehearsal. The show goes up on Friday, so we have a lot to do, but everyone's working hard and rocking it out!

I realized at lunch that I had like ¾ of the ingredients for anything I might want to make – but not all of the ingredients for anything. So I box mac 'n' cheesed it, and I'll make a quick grocery run on my lunch break today.

And for dinner, none of us wanted to feed ourselves but neither did we really communicate, so Meridith and Tess ended up at the Brewery and Stephanie and I wandered around until we found the BBQ Shack, where we ate...

...caribou sandwiches! This guy (Bob – he's lived all over Alaska, including on the Aleutian islands, and used to give tours in Skagway before he settled here and opened the restaurant) has all kind of wild meat on his menu, actually – caribou, elk, salmon, buffalo – and he says that as the season gets going he starts having a wild meat buffet, which sounds tremendously exciting. Meanwhile, the caribou had been sort of pounded into these smooth rectangular patties and put on just a regular sandwich with bbq sauce and lettuce and stuff, and it was delicious! Very savory. Stephanie and I had been on the hunt for hot dogs, and weirdly enough this sort of hit the same spot, although it was tastier/less processed.

And that's about it! Hung around the house in the evening, chatted with Michael, who's been teaching himself finger picking through the winter, who used to frequent a bar in New Orleans where all the musicians came after 2 am and jammed together, who started directing the show up here in 1984 and did so for four summers before he quit to run his Mexican restaurant in Baltimore, and then who came back up here in 1998 and stayed! What a cool cat.

And now – to rehearsal!

Haha I forgot about this picture from Juneau.

ALASKA

Here I am in Juneau! I'm going to try to post properly for the next five months, since I'll (hopefully!) be going on adventures and meeting cool people and doing fun things and having interesting thoughts as I live and work in Skagway.

Here's the debrief for today:

Got up at 4:45 am! Caught at cab at 5:30 am! Got to the airport, only to find that while my ticket said Alaska Airlines from JFK, there is no Alaska Airlines at JFK, and it took 15 minutes and 4 airport workers to figure out that it was run through Delta! Also found amid all that that I had left my cell phone in the cab! A nice security guard let me borrow his phone to call Alex to get the cab company number (because I only had it programmed in my phone...) so I could call the cab company and ask them to look for my phone. Which they told me they couldn't find. So I gave them Alex's number for if they found it, and gave up and went through security, since I had only five minutes left to check in. (They put me through the expedited security lane, which was awesome, btw! Didn't have to take off shoes or jacket or accessories! Didn't have to take out my computer!) And then as soon as I called Alex (on a coworker's borrowed phone), when I got to the gate, he reported that they had found it and called him but now the cab was too far from the airport to bring it back (plus we were boarding in like five minutes), so he had to go to the cab depot, and hopefully it is now on its way to me via the mail! Augh.

So, you know, one of those mornings. But flying is lovely, and here I am in Juneau! The day is beautiful! I AM IN ALASKA WHAT

The thing about flying into Juneau is that you are for hours just flying over snowcapped mountains, and it's like, where are we going to land? We are just in the mountains? Where is Juneau? And then boom all of a sudden you have landed in Juneau. Which is tiny. But not as tiny as Skagway! Anyway, I don't know that I realized that THERE ARE NO ROADS THAT GO TO JUNEAU. I guess that's a thing that everyone knows, but I didn't. I've been joking that going to this job is like going to Siberia or something, but it's not that far from the truth in terms of how hilariously isolated and far from everything these parts of Alaska are. Weird. But cool!

BTW, flying into SEA-TAC for our brief layover was also freaking gorgeous. I don't remember ever really seeing Seattle from overhead like that - maybe it's always been overcast when I flew in, or maybe I was never on a window seat. But - wow. And the airport itself is lovely, too! Props, Seattle.

I'm wearing out a bit on telling the story of my day, since I'm exhausted (but trying to stay up until 8pm at least, though I got up at 4am Eastern and now it feels like midnight to me, since ya gotta fight the jetlag immediately yo) and have been telling various parts of it to various people. But in brief, it is beautiful and sunny (although the locals were raving about how it was an unusually nice day, which is a bit alarming, and kept telling us how windy Skagway is, which is also alarming); I got to know a couple of my coworkers and they are great; Juneau is just gearing up for the season, so many of the shops are not open but some are, and the owners are just hanging around being friendly; you can walk around the whole downtown in two hours, which is ridic to me for a state capital but neat; and we learned from some locals that yes, those giant crows were actually ravens, and also they are bringers of light in Tlingit stories.

Also, this happened...

http://www.adn.com/2014/04/24/3439788/skagway-ferry-dock-sinks.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ALASKA

So we'll not, obviously, be taking the ferry to Skagway as planned tomorrow. We will be taking a 6-person propellor plane, over glaciers and evergreens and fjords. I am freaking psyched. Updates ASAP! :) :) :)

OMG I AM IN ALASKA

AND LOOK AT IT

FREAKING LOOK AT IT

WHAT

Kitchen Reflections

I love it here, and the weather is great - lots of warm summer days (actually, I could stand a few more and a few hotter - it's no California, but it's 8 million times better than New York), interspersed with surprise mountain storms. I just went for a run in the rain! That's two days in a row of going for a run, although they're only 10-15 minute runs of probably less than a mile, because those hills are DESTROYERS OF LIFE, plus the altitude. And I just got a letter from Katie, and the shows are going great, and my coworkers are delightful, and I'm living in a nice house with a large and functional kitchen (I made sour cream coffee cake last night - new recipe - yummy!) (the 9,500 ft. baking conditions aren't even that difficult to work around, either - extra flour, an extra egg, underestimate the sugar, turn up the oven 15 degrees, and you're solid :p), and now I have a nice cup of tea to take with me into my bath in my claw foot tub! I miss my ice cream maker, though, and I miss sitting outside in the sun on my sidewalk in Queens wearing a floppy straw hat and having a homemade milkshake in a teacup. You know, miscellaneous moments and habits are what make a place home, maybe. Actually, about the only two things I miss about Irvine are driving with friends to the beach (not even the beach part as much as the driving with friends toward the beach part!) and sitting outside on the enormous sidewalk in the sun wearing my floppy straw hat and having neighbors lean down from their balconies and offer me tacos. So I guess I just like food and sun. I can get that here! Vestiges of homesickness, gone!

I still miss the ice cream maker, though.

Here's the new Millay poem I just memorized:

"The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sometimes I think Millay knows everything about me!

Actually, that poem reminds me of another one of hers that I love:

"Not in this chamber only at my birth--

When the long hours of that mysterious night

Were over, and the morning was in sight--

I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth

I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;

And never shall one room contain me quite

Who in so many rooms first saw the light,

Child of all mothers, native of the earth.

So is no warmth for me at any fire

To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;

I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,

At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,

And straighten back in weariness, and long

To gather up my little gods and go."

Home everywhere - but nowhere so much home that I'm not missing somewhere else.

And I kind of love it.

Anyway, I guess this was a pretty miscellaneous post, and after a substantial hiatus. It's not as if I haven't been doing actual things out here for the last few months - sushi in Colorado Springs, a familial visit including the tram up to Pikes Peak, karoake at the bar, the '20s-themed birthday party of a coworker, a latke-vodka party last week, the super rad farmers' market in Woodland Park, time in the sun on the porch with Hazel my wonderful stage manager and housemate, free Zumba classes 2-3x/week, picking up shifts at the coffee shop across the street (I started out as a regular - like, she knows my order and gives me discounts and I hang around - and all of a sudden today I was employed!), Impi bars with peanut butter chips, brownies, Italian chocolate-almond torte, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, coffee chocolate chip cookies, tons of great science fiction/romance/classic reading, and I just started watching Girl Code on Youtube (I'm degenerating with this list here! But seriously, one episode in, and Girl Code already rocks. I still have some Psych to get through, too!). And it's not as if there's not tons more stuff I want to do here, that I probably won't even have time for - the mine tour, more time in Manitou Springs, shopping with a couple coworkers, the museum at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, hiking....

But I'm not going to try to cover all of that.*

Instead, I'll leave you with one more poem. She's still on the travel theme here, but not too melancholy - just saucy!

"How shall I know, unless I go
  To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
  Is blest in every way?

Now it may be, the flower for me
  Is this beneath my nose;
How shall I tell, unless I smell
  The Carthaginian rose?

The fabric of my faithful love
  No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here,–but oh, my dear
  If I should ever travel!"

*Praeterition = my third favorite literary device! Partly because of its fun name, and partly because sometimes it's like winking at a person (although sometimes it's like stepping up in their face to challenge them and then stepping back passively as if you've been friends all along, which is also sort of my style, unfortunately).

Macarons, Austen Day, and Work!

Hey, y'all!

Baking right now, for Austen day tomorrow - two kinds of macarons. Sweet vanilla almond macarons with bittersweet espresso ganache and cacao nibs, and buttery almond macarons with salted mint buttercream.

The first one I found online (and here's a secret - "sweet vanilla almond" just means "regular," actually); the second I made up. Not sure how it's going to taste yet - I added a 16th teaspoon of butter flavor and an extra pinch of salt to the meringue, and added another 16th teaspoon each of butter flavor and peppermint extract, with another pinch of salt, to the buttercream. The meringue batter and the buttercream individually tasted lovely when I stuck my finger in them, so here's hoping! The cacao ones are out of the oven, pictures to come; the delicate yellow buttery ones are still in the oven. And can I just say how much I love my new insulated cookie sheets? My cookies in general are coming out so much more even - and so far the whole macaron batch has only one, count 'em, ONE cracked shell! Booyah!

Austen day, by the way, is to be approximately 12 hours of Jane Austen movie adaptation marathoning (Keira Knightly P&P, the 2007 Persuasion with that blonde guy, the 1999 Mansfield Park with the brunette holding a key, the Emma miniseries, and one or another of the Northanger Abbeys. No Sense and Sensability because I haven't read it yet and ACTUALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN IT, so no spoilers, please [yes, I'm aware it's been out for two hundred years, thank you very much], and not the for-real 5 hour P&P because it's too long, and no Clueless/Lost in Austen etc. because we don't have time - we'll just have to have Austen day part 2 at some point!), accompanied by appropriate-feeling snacks (tea sandwiches, maybe scones) (yes, I know macarons are French) and tea.

In other news, I saw Pentatonix a couple weeks ago and it was very cool - big theatre, lots of lights and pop/rock concert style effects. Not gonna say I don't prefer them in a more intimate venue where I can hear the less-amplified vocal blend and see their faces a little better, but they handled the bigger show very well, managing during most of it to continue to provide a pretty friendly, intimate feel. Plus now that they've earned doing whatever they want from their last tour, we got to see some beat-boxing/cello playing from Kevin, some (AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING) dwarf singing from Avi, and some very cute goofing off, plus of course a double handful of new arrangements and a new audience sing-a-long. It's been great watching them grow as a group!

Further news - I'm music directing Xanadu at Little Radical Theatrics in White Plains in March and April, and I'm working for Edlyn's company, StarVest, as clerical support, starting now. (No more unemployment - yay! Although of course I still have to make sure they give me the $ for the 7 weeks during which I filed... haven't seen that yet, eh....) I have also accepted summer work at Thin Air Theatre Company in Cripple Creek, Colorado, for which I am totally excited quite a lot.

Gotta run and check the macarons! Plus sandwiching them, and taking photos... ttyl!

A Chock-Full Summer's End

I have done so many fun things since I last posted in July!

Here are some of them:

Faye, Katie, Alex, and I went (at Katie's instigation) to a Jazz Age party on Governor's Island! Actually, first we accidentally went to the Jazz Age party on Governor's Island the weekend before it happened, and were confused but ended up having a lovely day in the sun, picnicking on a bench looking out at boats between Staten Island and Brooklyn, swinging in the grassy area at the end of the island, and eating chocolate cake under the trees. But then the next weekend we went to the Jazz Age party, and it was very fun also! None of us but Faye had appropriate Jazz Age attire (not having been doing promotional parties for The Diviners), but it we felt festive anyway. Alex and I ate leftover homemade mac and cheese and also macarons; Faye and Katie bought some Jazz Age food! There was live music interspersed with some amateur but very cute acts, and I made Alex dance with me on the dance floor!

I did not take this picture; 

I found it by Googling "Jazz Age party Governors Island 2012"

Also I recently had a late birthday tea party, for which I made (with lots of help!) crustless white bread chicken salad sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches, scones, and five kinds of macarons with mixed fillings!

 I made macarons in all the colors!

 Green macarons = a sink full of green

 Pre-macaronage, 

it looks like the meringue and the almond flour 

will never combine!

 Alex arranged them so beautifully.

The green ones are pecan.

The blue ones are peanut.

The pink ones are plain.

The brown ones, some are chocolate and some are espresso!

Petit fours!

Edlyn came with creme brulee doughnuts, and Katie brought a beautiful and delicious chocolate cake from the bakery around the corner!

A bunch of friends got together to give me a great, great gift - a basket of ingredients! And it's good for them, too, because now I can make them more dessert :)

So many amazing ingredients!

We all were dressed up and ate delicately while trading thinly veiled insults, and then we watched The Secret Garden, which no one else had seen. I love that movie a lot.

Also, Alex and I have been subway stopping a couple times! We're still on the 6, but we're finally up in the Bronx, which is great because now I've actually been to all five boroughs. On our last stop in Manhattan (125th St.), we wandered out as close to the water as we could get, eventually stopping at a playground next to the freeway (it might have been the intersection of FDR Drive and the Triborough Bridge), where we admired a mural about the perils of dope. Between our first and second stops in the Bronx (we got out at 3rd Ave./138th St. and then wandered a little but mostly just walked to Brook Ave.) we grabbed food at a Caribbean place (I don't remember which island), which was acceptably tasty but nothing to write home about (not like that awesome sandwich I got around 116th or 120th, the time before!), and then we boarded the subway at Brook and went home. Then about two weeks ago we continued the exploration, managing six stops in one trip. We got off at Cypress and walked as far out toward the water as we could go, through a pretty ugly industrial area, and then north along Bruckner to go back underground at E. 143rd St. Off the train again one stop later at 149th, then cut diagonally along Prospect Ave. to see a little more of the neighborhood (it mostly looked poor/working class but well cared for, although there was one block on which on one side of the street the houses were fenced off and very well cared for, and on the other side they were falling apart, totally dilapidated. That was weird, especially as they appeared to have started out similarly constructed) before heading east again to go underground at Longwood. Again one stop, to Hunts Point Ave., where we were not able to look at the neighborhood map due to a domestic dispute (and police officer) right in front of it, so it was actually somewhat fortunate that we were able to figure out our crooked way to the next stop at Whitlock (finally above ground!). That one was an especially cool walk, though, through a pretty hoppin' downtown area and a few cute residential blocks. Next up we'll cross the Bronx River, and we only have 10 stops (two trips, I would think) to finish out the 6 line and make it to Pelham Bay Park, which I have always wanted to explore! Ah, progress!

Yesterday a bunch of us grabbed conveyor belt sushi (I had never had conveyor belt sushi! It is so fun!) and then karaoke'd for two hours (ack!) before returning home to watch the 49ers crush the Lions, which was awesome. In other news from the last couple months, I had a great time at J-West in early August; I'm finally reading Melina Marchetta; I'm about to start work on Bye Bye Birdie, Footloose, and a Seussical revue; Jamie is finally back and threw a really great barbeque followed by an awesome girls' night at her new place with Alf; I already miss summer weather even though in New York it's pretty terrible; Skye is staying with us during her break from tour, which is delightful; we have a new long-term subletter beginning in November but still need someone for the month of October; I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new mattress (well, new as of Memorial Day, but I was gone for a month and didn't get to fully appreciate it), and I am having a lovely and reflective Rosh Hashanah. Also, Alex and I have been cooking up a storm, and I have been having adventures with house plants - more on that next time! Now to go post that subletter ad and get ready for work! (And the looooooooong commute....)

IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I POSTED

But now here I am again! Hooray.

Here are the brief updates:

Hannah is subletting from us and she is great! She took Carla and me to see Vintage Trouble, her friend's band, on Tuesday night, and they were totally awesome blues-funk-soul sexiness. They usually play in LA, I think, and if you live in LA or they are ever in your area, you should go see them! They have an album out next week, I believe.

Carla and Alex and I also saw Of Montreal play at Webster Hall last week. It was the second time I'd seen them and they were also totally awesome! Their new album is very dissimilar to their old albums but equally wonderful - less bouncy and whimsical, more trippy - but their show either way has the same blend nutty intensity, attractive androgyny, and performance art.

They had two openers. The second opener, a duo from Sweden (I think) was super boring. But the first opener, a guy named Kishi Bashi, was - wait for it - totally awesome. He plays violin, sings, chants, and beatboxes, and it's all fed into pedals so it can be looped. When he's live, you can watch him build these complex layers of music until it grows beyond anything you expect. We bought his (first!) album after the show!

I love this song.

Hm, what else is up? Poor Alex is sick and has been for a couple days, but (cross fingers) no one else has gotten it, and hopefully he'll be feeling better tomorrow!

Y'all probably mostly know that I'm working at a cool theatre in New Jersey called Porch Light Productions; if you don't, well, now you do!

Faye turned me on to Avatar recently, and I watched all three (COMPLETELY AMAZING) seasons in about three weeks. I highly recommend it to all. Each episode is only about 23 minutes, so it's a quick watch, and the world, politics, and character development are so great. Zuko/Katara forever! I'm also excited that Mad Men is back on, although I haven't watched any of the new episodes yet.

I'm currently reading Banner of the Damned by Sherwood Smith, which (like most of her books) is in the same world as the Inda quartet, although 400 years later (and another 400 years before A Stranger to Command and Crown Duel). If you aren't reading her, you should! If you want something fun, quick, and classic, start with Crown Duel; if you want total fantasy immersion in a completely original, pro-feminist semi-medieval world and story, go with Inda. They are all worth your time. The only equally exciting book I've read this year is Middlemarch.

And that's all for now, although expect a followup post very soon about exciting things I've been cooking! Plus, we're hosting a seder tomorrow and expecting 12-15 people; it should be really fun, and I'll keep you updated after on how it went :)

P.S. I got a Pinterest account! I haven't done that much with it yet, but what I have done is pretty nerdy and (I happen to think) very fun. Here's the link: http://pinterest.com/shoshaname/ And on that note, if you know any fantasy worlds with really cool maps, send them to me, because as you can see, I'm collecting!

my favorite excerpt*

from the maine Edge's review of Forever Plaid:

"....And work it does. This is a show about the songs. Four-part harmony is a beautiful thing, when it's done right, and these guys can make it happen. The music is toe-tappingly mesmerizing. Each number is pure and engaging. Sure, the bits between songs - the comedy and earnestness - they're important (and very well done), but all in all, the music is the thing.

"This quartet has brought Forever Plaid to life. They are as real a musical group as you'll ever see - aided in no small part by the exceptional band, with Caleb Sweet on bass, Chris Viner on drums and led by piano player Shoshana Seid-Green. The band is tight, the vocals are spot-on - it's one of the better concerts you're likely to see."

Hell, yeah!

*Here is the rest.

Lobby Reflections

Note: I was just writing this to write, and then it read like a blog post to me, and I am overdue to post here, so I copy-pasted it right on! Anyway, that is why it is so rambly. Also, I will try to post some pictures soon - maybe of the houses I passed during my walk. It is tricky to get on the internet these days, because the connection I was piggybacking on in my room disappeared, and the Chuck's internet doesn't reach up to the fourth floor, so I have to bring my computer down to the lobby, where there are no outlets. But of course that is not why I haven't been posting regularly. I am just lazy and have always had trouble being motivated to write about things that have already happened or that I have already thought about. Sentence-ending preposition! So there.

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Chuck, listening to Passing Strange, and sometimes the Yardbirds, and sometimes Cream, and sometimes Robert Johnson, sometimes Rush. It’s blues Monday, I guess. Well, it’s been blues post-Chanuka December so far. There is something transporting about the blues, and yet so totally grounded. The blues gets me out of me and into me, out of my head and into my body, out of the mundane frustrations of my body and into the deepest part where the music lives.

I always think I love musical theatre, but then I listen to the blues. Fuck musical theatre. Fuck Christmas songs. Give me a song with a pulse that roots inside me and throbs inside me and blots out everything but what it’s doing.

Which makes it sound like I’m depressed and want to escape or something, which is not the impression I want to give. I’m not depressed. I’ve been moody since I’ve been here, and especially since Alex’s visit ended. It’s boring here and it’s lonely. But it is also peaceful, and it is also beautiful, in some ways. I mean, the problem with Bangor is that it’s too developed to be immersed in nature, and too underdeveloped to be fun and engaging and interesting and busy. The problem with Bangor, of course, is that it’s trying to be a city, in Maine. Whoops. But still, nature creeps in around the edges, and it is good. I took a walk last week after the snowstorm, for an hour through a residential neighborhood off to the corner of town. The houses were so cute, and the piles of snow on them so lovely, that I took pictures of a couple dozen (it felt weird taking pictures of people’s houses when they were out front shoveling their walk as I ambled touristly along. But whatevs, I did it anyway). It was cold but perfect out.

Today I walked down rainy Main St. to the grocery store, wearing jeans and my rain boots and a yellow-and-red striped shirt that makes me think of Harry Potter, and black gloves and a long pearly beady ambery necklace Alex gave me and a ponytail – I felt fun.

I have a lot of time to read. I picked up The Art of the Sonnet today from the library – 100 sonnets, with essays about them. I may or may not read the essays – most likely I’ll skim most of them, looking for stuff that’s actually interesting or about something I don’t understand in the poem, or stuff that causes me to go back and read the poem again, more slowly, and get something more out of it. I love sonnets, though. I think sonnets are the perfect poems. That’s not anything close to an original thought, of course, but I think that’s ok J. I went through a sonnet-writing phase senior year of high school; they weren’t good, mostly, but they taught me a little poetic discipline I had previously been lacking, and a new respect for the form. I haven’t written many poems at all since high school – too busy writing essays and songs, mostly – but when I started writing a poem about Bangor in my head a week or so after I got here, it turned into a sonnet, both in spirit and in form. A good one, I think.

There have been some really really beautiful paintings on display in the lobby here for the past few weeks (the Chuck is “Maine’s first art gallery hotel,” and, I think, its only; this seems to just mean that they display some art in the lobby and the first floor corridor, which art I assume can be bought by inquiring at the desk, but I don’t really know; I guess that’s all an art gallery is, really, is a place where art is shown and can maybe be bought, no matter the context). Anyway, I really really want to take some pictures of the paintings, but I don’t know if that’s allowed or legal or whatever, and the only times I’ve had my camera with me as I pass through the lobby there has been someone at the front desk, and I don’t want to risk their wrath. I should start carrying the camera with me every time, and maybe I’ll catch the lobby at a totally empty moment. If I had money, I would buy one of these paintings in a heartbeat, but of course even the smaller ones are several hundred dollars. They are mostly somewhat surreal, but beautiful, scenes in the snow: a scene with a heart in the air, and a girl made of empty space on a swing also made of empty space, hanging from a wiggly tree; a tree whose branches form a heart, with a girl standing next to it, the sky a haze of autumn; a white-space moose on a cliff overlooking a forest view and night sky, both in shades of blue-grey. None of these descriptions do the paintings any justice, of course, and neither would a photograph, although it would come closer. It’s just, now that I’ve seen them, I can’t bear the thought of not seeing them again.

When I am rich, I will buy art.

There’s a modern sonnet by Derek Walcott, called “The morning moon”; the end of it goes thusly: “…I notice the blue plunge / of shadows down Morne Coco Mountain, / December’s sundial, / happy that the earth is still changing, / that the full moon can blind me with her forehead / this bright foreday morning, / and that fine sprigs of white are springing from my beard.” I’m listening to “Keys” from Passing Strange, and it feels like that poem, and I feel like that poem too, here, sometimes, here in Bangor. During my best hours.

Happy Chanuka!

Hello! I thought it was past time for an update!

Bangor is fine. The show opened this weekend and is going very well - they actors are exhausted, but they're starting to hit their stride. It should be really really great by next weekend.

I've been taking some little walks and looking around local stores. I can't go much of anywhere because I don't have the car, but I'm hoping to get it for a day or two this week so I can make some explorations. Or at least next week! Sometime in the next three days I will make a couple latkes - I have been lighting my menora every night and opening Judy's exciting Chanuka presents! Actually, I have it lit for the fourth night today, because I was gone from 2:00 to 1am last night (rehearsal; two shows; went out after the show with everyone to celebrate opening) and obviously did not have a chance to light it then! Also sometime in the next three days, I will go over to Ben's place (he's in the show) and bake - he invited me to make use of his kitchen! So that will be great. And I'll take some more extended walks, I think, maybe go to the gym, get some good reading in, like that.

Alex came up the week of Thanksgiving, which was delightful! We went to Bar Harbor, a little town on the coast, the day before Thanksgiving, and had a lovely - if freezing - time. We went out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, which was lovely although of course not as good as being home with everyone, and ate Chinese the day after that. On Saturday he went home :(. But it was a lovely week - he was my house-husband! It was great! He made me dinner and went grocery shopping for me and did the dishes and returned my library books and walked me to and from work and brought me snacks in the middle of the day! That is the life, man.

Anyway, I am enjoying my work here - I would love to come back and do another show here again - and I enjoy the company, and I hope to find a job somewhere for the spring (I sent my resume to a student group at Johns Hopkins who are looking for a music director for Evita, but they haven't gotten back to me), but I will be glad to go back to New York in three weeks. I miss Alex and my roommates and also the busy-ness of the city (although the fresh air out here is delicious, let me tell you!), and my own kitchen with all my supplies and ingredients.

But in the meantime, here I am, and it is good, and happy Chanuka!

Bangor Life

I thought I should give y'all some pics of my Bangor life!

So here are a few of my suite at the Charles Inn...

I have so much space!

And here is the Penobscot Theatre!

It is beautiful and large!

Rehearsals have been going really well. The music is very hard, but it sounds great when it clicks! The cast and staff are delightful, and the show is going to be really fun. I get to sit at a baby grand on a big platform upstage center, and they are going to put me in a sparkly gown!

I have been taking advantage of the theatre's deal with the ymca and working out regularly, so I feel great. The weather is brisk but not too cold; for the last few days I haven't even needed to wear my coat! It's supposed to snow after Thanksgiving, which should be exciting. Alex is coming to visit on monday, and we are invited to Thanksgiving at the house of one of the production manager, which should be lovely. So basically, it is pretty neat here!

I have also been taking advantage of the gorgeous, enormous public library!

These are just pictures of the first floor!

There are three floors,

and each floor is very large!

They have so many stacks!

And yet, the library is not my favorite building in town.

Here is my favorite building in town:

Bangor!

Hello! Here I am in Bangor, maine!

Bangor is super cute. Suuuuper cute. Scott (the artistic director at Penobscot, the theater where I'm working) said to me as he drove me on a little tour of the town, "I like to say that Bangor has one of everything - and only one of anything. But it's enough!" He seems to be right. There's a Thai place, a Chinese place, a kosher bagel place (although the bagels there are weird), an Italian place, an American place, a Pakistani place, a cafe... you get the picture. There's a gym (the Y), a library (the biggest per-capita circulating library in the US), a toy store, a window-shade store, a clothing store, a post office, the airport, and a celebrity house (Stephen King, of course!). And of course a theater.

I ate at the bagel place for lunch on monday when I arrived in town (the bagels are soft, like bread - maybe they don't boil them? that's what Debby and I think) and the Thai place for dinner (mmmmmmmmm delicious! the rice pudding for dessert - exactly perfect!); I'm staying at the hotel two blocks from the theater (of course, everything is two blocks away in downtown Bangor): The Charles Inn, maine's first art gallery hotel! Which seems to mean that they put up some local art in the lobby. It's very cute, actually, clean and pretty and recently renovated. I have a suite on the top (fourth) floor (so fancy!): my bedroom with desk and my living room/kitchenette with extra chest of drawers, large coffee table, and four-person dining room table. I'll post pictures soon! I mean, it's your generic nice-ish hotel room, but it feels homey and pleasant, and I've never had this much space to myself before! It's a little peculiar, but there are things to like about it.

Rehearsals are fun; everyone here is great. One of the actors, it turns out, lives just a block away from me in Sunnyside, which is neat. I have a lot of time this morning before rehearsal at 3, so I'm going to stop blogging now and finish up a couple letters and then venture outside into this beautiful sunny day, my first free and un-exhausted block of time in which to explore!

Stuff and Nonsense

Today Alex and I met at Chocolate By the Bald Man for a snack date after he finished his errands in the city! It was lovely and delicious; we got a hazelnut cream chocolate milkshake - the best, oh so good, mmm, vanilla bourbon ice cream, dark chocolate truffle, whipped cream - and the chicken bacon cheddar rolls on sticks with buttermilk dressing. The food there always sounds kind of mundane and unappealing to me, but I have learned not to feel that way, because the flavors are always so incredible! Oh, man, that buttermilk dressing....

Yesterday I made those delicious chocolate espresso cookies that Ruthy loves! Phew, they are so good. I keep them in the Madeleine lunchbox that Ruthy gave me! I get a lot of compliments on that lunchbox. That is because it is a great lunchbox. I also get a lot of compliments on those cookies! That is because they are great cookies.

The "m" key on my keyboard is freaking out! It is really hard to get it to make an M when I push it! But I just got my screen fixed, and I am not yet ready to deal with more computer repairs! That said, once I got to the right person with Dell last time, it was really fast and easy from there, and free because I have the extended warrantly. And now I have the direct phone number, so it actually wouldn't be that much work. Maybe I will get it fixed, then, before I go to Maine.

I started recording the Plaid Tidings score today, for the choreographer; Pro Tools - my new recording software - is certainly high quality, and capable of doing anything I need it to do, but is super finicky and does not come with adequate instructions, so it can be very frustrating to work with! Still, once I get the hang of it, and it starts to feel straightforward and automatic, I think it's going to be very useful - especially as I will be able to record vocal reels for aspiring singers, and charge good money for it!

I've started copy-pasting every "m" I need to type. I think this a sign that I should call Dell already :P

Anyway, Alex and I just bought two trash cans for our room - one for trash and the other for paper recycle. Look how great they are!:

Ok, how great one of them is. For some reason, I can't successfully download the picture of the other one! Here it is on the website. (Of course I remembered too late that we are supposed to be boycotting Target. I can't keep all the places I can't shop in my head! I do pretty well at remembering Nike, Old Navy, Whole Foods, and Nestle, but after that I lose track.)

But Target does have many exciting wastebaskets, as you can see! This one - which we did not buy - is my actual favorite.

It reminds me of something you would find on Catalog Living! Now if only I could think of a good caption....

Ok, well, in the meantime, now back to reading Like Water for Chocolate! (It turns out I do, in fact, like magical realism in some cases, just not ridiculous upsetting super depressing magical realism with, like, witches and angry pig corpses. I like magical realism with some romance to it! I like whimsical magical realism! I like it in, for example, books like the ones by Sarah Addison Allen, or, for another example, Like Water for Chocolate.)

P.S. Here is a great video! (The blog it's on is great, too.)

P.P.S. Ok, for some reason the link to Catalog Living doesn't work! The address is catalogliving.net, and if that doesn't work either, just searching for "Catalog Living" should lead you to it. It is well worth checking out!

Maine!

Is great!

Working with adults is great, too. They learn their music ahead of time! They have years of training and experience! I can give artistic notes, instead of making melodic compromises!

Don't get me wrong - I love love love working with kids - but this is a delightful break.

In other news: I get to work with adults again, soon! I got hired to music direct Plaid Tidings at the Penobscot Theatre on Bangor. Yay!

Now for updates on the past three weeks.

I live in Toad Hall, which is a sprawling, old Victorian house across the street from the theatre, which is in Cumston Hall, which also houses the library.

Toad Hall

Cumston Hall

My new library card!

Alex and I got here on the Greyhound through Boston. We had a good time!

Alex and me, having a good time

I read If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino (which is written in the second person, and which I highly recommend! It is a weird book! But neat.), and also watched episodes of Gilmore Girls. Alex read Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke.

Anyway, we got to Lewiston successfully, and were picked up by Dave, the producing director at the Theater at Monmouth, who delivered us to the supermarket, where we met Nikki, Tony, and Colleen, our delightful housemates. (Joey came later in the weekend, because he was working at the US Open.) We soon arrived at the house, where we moved into our room.

One angle of our room. There is another bed,

which is the one we actually sleep on,

hidden by the door.

Also, two more dressers.

There is more furniture in this room

than in my room in New York -

which is saying a lot!

Well, actually,

now that the black dresser is out of the bedroom,

things are looking a lot better.

But still.

Anyway, it is a perfectly lovely room, with lovely views of the backyard and of the street. It is not even cold anymore, now that we found a space heater in the laundry room/bathroom.

The house holds around 18 people in the summer, for the proper season, so it is positively roomy with only six of us - just the perfect amount of space, actually. Four bathrooms; one on each floor, and one of which is also a laundry room. The kitchen is wooden and upstairs, which is weird, but it is functional. Eight bedrooms, five of which are occupied and one of which contains about ten mattresses, all in a stack. Two living rooms and a dining room. Also, adjoining, the scene and costume shops and relevant storage, but we don't venture there often. Dave buys our groceries, so we eat delicious food, which we frequently cook together or at least for each other. It is lovely!

We also, because Monika, who is in the Pirates cast, has a semi-adopted barn cat who just had five kittens, and needed someone to foster them, have three kittens!

From top to bottom:

Kaipo;

Climbing Gus;

Pip.

I am trying to convince Jamie to try to convince Rita, our landlord, to modify her no-pets policy. But then I would have to pick only one or two to adopt! I don't know how to choose! Pip is super chill and sleeps a lot and is not afraid of anyone and also is kind of adventurous. Climbing Gus will climb onto your shoulder, and also onto other things, and is super playful but also will cuddle when tired and is the smallest and therefore the cutest. Kaipo was the scarediest to start with, and is still nervous about new situations and new people, but is actually very curious and cuddly, sort of in between the cuddliness of Pip and the activity of Gus.

So difficult to choose!

But I probably won't even have to choose, because probably we can't have cats. Alas. We will see.

Anyway, as you can see, this is a fun house, with fun people and animals! I have to go eat lunch now, and take a walk, but I will update again this week! Next up: Apple picking; AppleFest; Narnia tea party; Freeport; delicious baked goods.

In Which I Do Productive Things, Eat Delicious Things, and Tantalize You with Promises of More Excitement to Come

Hello! It has been a while! This is because I was at camp for two months, where I worked super intensely and also had limited internet and no computer. It turns out it actually would have been really useful to have my computer, and almost everyone else on the theatre staff had theirs, but too bad. Sometimes it is nice to be disconnected. But also not nice! Because I cannot update you all with my glorious adventures! At any rate, I am back, and I will bring my computer to my next job.

Here are how things have gone since I got back:

I got home at 11:30 PM two weeks ago. Alex met me at the 40th St. stop and walked me home, where he had a pan of brownies waiting for me! He is great. He had to go to work the next day, but during that time I opened the present he left me, which was a book called Strange Maps, which is exactly what it sounds like, and very exciting. And then the next day we made chicken fajitas, which had been marinating for two and a half days and were super delicious! All in all, an excellent return.

For my first week back I was very productive. I was kind of still in work mode, and I had an enormous list of things to do, including such entries as the following:

buy desk, TV table, dresser, bookshelf

sell furniture that Jen left, including awkward dressers and inconvenient desk

buy umbrella for Alex because I lost his at camp

make sourdough starter

unpack/organize - once furniture is workable!

make sure I will get copies of dvds of shows I worked on at camp

research music director work

advertise accompaniment/transcribing

paint bedroom

blog

write letters

figure out what to do for a workshop for Vancouver

and many other things which I have forgotten because I got them done and then threw out the list. But you get the idea!

Anyway, my advertising needs have been minimized for now, because I got a new job already! So that is nice. Cross that stuff off the list; add new stuff involving getting to Maine next month (where I will be working! As a music director! For Pirates of Penzance! And Alex will be starring! How great is this? More about this new job later), filling out contract, determining what to pack, and getting a subletter for September.

So probably five days out of my first seven back were involved with furniture. One afternoon Alex and I picked up the new dining room table (to replace the one Jen took) and two chairs from an old Jewish guy in Forest Hills and carried it back on the subway; one evening we spent a couple hours at IKEA picking out a bookshelf for everyone (to replace the one Jen took) and a laptop table and desk and set of drawers for me (to replace other stuff, some of which Jen took); one morning we picked up a couch from a woman down in Park Slope (Alex thought we were going to take that on the subway, but he was incorrect); one day we picked up a little dresser to put the TV on (to replace the awkward dresser on which it currently sits, which we have yet to sell) from some artists in Rego Park and carried it across town on the subway; and one day we picked up two solid wood dressers from someone down on Avenue M, which is, like, practically to Coney Island. Fortunately, we had a dolly for that trip. I say fortunately because if there is anything we learned last week, it is that transporting furniture across town on the subway makes me incredibly irritable. Good thing we're done with that. Now we just have to get rid of the extra furniture cluttering up the place, and paint the bedroom, and it will be glorious in here! Well, also it will help if the sporadic cockroach sightings go away. But that is a whole different issue, and one that is thoroughly upsetting, not to mention somewhat embarrassing to me, as it involves standing on toilets, so we will not discuss it.

Anyway, besides finishing stuff on my list, here is what I have been doing since I got back:

1. Making ice cream, and

2. Making sourdough bread.

Much more fun to talk about than all the random crap I have typed so far in this post!

The first ice cream I've made since being back was maple pecan. It could have been sweeter and maple-r and creamier (the lack of sweetness and maple taste were the fault of the recipe; the lack of creaminess was my fault, as I ran out of cream and had to substitute milk for half of it, in addition to the milk that was already called for), but it was actually delicious anyway. I would make it again, with a few changes.

Then Jamie got back from China, and presented to me not only a pearl bracelet but a book of Ben and Jerry's recipes! This is great, because now I can cut out my final holdout Nestle purchases (how upsetting is it that B&J's ended up in Nestle hands, btdubs?) and make delicious frozen goodness on my own! As we have discovered in the last week, homemade Ben and Jerry's recipes have the best of both worlds - absolutely tippity top notch recipes - it can be hard to discriminate appropriately when looking up ice cream recipes online - and perfect fresh creamy homemade texture. So far I've made chocolate peanut butter - which Jamie, Alex, and Jillian all said was the best ice cream they had ever had in their lives - and chocolate mint, and, today, mocha chip. Who knows what will come next? I went on a grocery trip they other day specifically for all the non-perishable ice cream ingredients I might ever want, and I came away with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, Andes mints, Reese's peanut butter cups, malt balls, peppermint extract, walnuts, pecans, ground coffee, and an order into Foodtown for heath bars. Now all I want are carob chips, coconut cream, Kahlua, chocolate-covered almonds, and about half a dozen other deliciously obscure ingredients that probably necessitate a TJ's trip (I would head to Whole Foods too, since it is right across Union Square from TJ's, but I think it still has bad labor policies. Stupid unethical companies, keeping me from shopping at you.). Anyway, maybe I'll go for something non-chocolate next: peanut butter, or vanilla after-dinner mint. We will have to wait and see!

So that's it on the ice cream front. Now for the sourdough front! I've been desperately missing good San Francisco sourdough since I moved to New York, and I've been intending to make sourdough starter for about six months, but I had to wait for the warm weather, as it needs to sit between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit while it develops (after that, you can keep it in the fridge when you're not using it). I finally got to it this week! It's mostly been under 85 here this week, at least, which is a big change from before (still unpleasantly humid, but that's another story - and it cooled down a lot and rained today, which was exciting!).

Sourdough starter pretty much just consists of flour and warm water, mixed together and set out for several days to catch and grow wild yeasts from the air. If you cheat, like I do, you also add store-bought yeast at the beginning, to facilitate initial growth. I used these instructions, although I made only a half batch at first, because I wasn't sure my glass container was big enough (I am using my one-quart batter bowl, as I could not find a larger glass container at Foodtown [or, for that matter, any glass containers], and it has, in fact, turned out to be big enough, but it does mean that I no longer have the use of my batter bowl. Oh well; it has been sacrificed to a great cause!). Once it's bubbly (although I have found that mine is frothy very inconsistently, and frequently - almost every day, when I go to check on it and feed it - has formed not only hooch on top, but a pretty solid skin atop the hooch, which I also have to stir back in. This worried me initially, but as it is still alive and delicious, I am no longer worrying about it) and has a "pleasant sour smell," it is ready to be fed every day. This means that you remove one unit of starter, and either throw it out or use it in something, and replace it with one unit of flour and one of warm water. Super easy! You can also take out arbitrary amounts of starter when you want to cook something, as long as you replace with more flour and water; it doesn't seem to hurt if you feed it more often than once a day, although I think if you do it too much, you have to give it a little while for the yeasts to catch up. Plus, if you keep it in the fridge, you only have to feed it once a week (although you do have to plan a day ahead if you're going to make bread, and take it out early to warm up), and you can even keep it in the freezer!

Anyway, I have been using it to make sourdough! I made the first loaf when the starter was only 3 days old, so it had only the barest hint of sourdough flavor. Also, it was small, because I only made a half recipe (found here), because I didn't have enough starter for a whole one (I have been gradually increasing my amount of starter since then). I did as the author suggests, and did the second rise overnight in the refrigerator, which I assume strengthed the flavor, but which did not get it to twice its size. Oh, well. It was still good, and got eaten in a day.

The second loaf I made was the next day; same size, same recipe, slightly older starter; stronger flavor. Did the refrigerate rise first this time, according to Debby's suggestion. This time it didn't rise at all in the fridge! I rose it in a warm oven the next morning, and - maybe because it was on a pan instead of in a bowl? - it rose more out than up, although it did go up some, and then when I slashed it across the top per instructions, all the air went out and it deflated like a quiche. I stuck it in the oven anyway, and though it was denser than the first loaf (which was a fraction too dense to begin with), it was still delicious. We ate half of it and saved the other half for French toast this morning.

And I made another loaf yesterday/this morning! This time I used this recipe, and I think I like it better. It had a much stronger sourdough flavor - possibly just because my starter was another day older, but I think also because of the larger and more equal amount of flour and warm water added to the starter at the beginning of making the dough - and also made a lot more bread. It was actually supposed to be two loaves, but when I rose them on a cookie sheet in the oven (not turned on; just trying to keep open food out of the kitchen due to a problem mentioned previously in this post) overnight, they rose completely out instead of up, and ended up smushed together into one big loaf. Next time I'll rise them in a bowl. But I stuck it in the oven anyway, took it out when it was done, let it cool around 20 minutes, spent another 10 minutes prying it off the cookie sheet with my spatula (guess I didn't use enough cornmeal...), and then cut it, ate it plain, and made delicious delicious French toast out of it! The smell of the loaf made me feel like I was sitting on the wharf, which I think is a good sign that I've made some good bread! I will definitely be using this recipe again - although I have also, with just a cursory web search, found about 20 other sourdough - and chocolate sourdough and cheddar sourdough and sourdough pancake - recipes that I'd like to try.

In other news, Edlyn came over last night! Yay yay yay yay yay! And she thinks (cross fingers) that she'll have more free time as a second-year intern, and we might hang out more often than every four or five months! That would be great. She and Alex and I talked and reminisced and traded stories for several hours, and ordered super delicious Indian food in (it was pooooooouring out, and there is this really cool site called Seamless Web where you can order takeout without ever picking up the phone!), and in general had an excellent time. Also, she liked the sourdough.

In other other news, I finally watched one of those movies about the food industry, which movies and books I have been avoiding for the last couple years, because I knew they would basically keep me from ever eating again. But Jamie's mom had sent her Food, Inc. and she really wanted to watch it, and I do have some modical sense of social responsibility, so she and Alex and I sat down with it.

Oy. I can never eat again.

Actually, that's a lie. I will just have to start spending more on food, which is frustrating because I am a pauper, but what can you do. Jamie and Alex and I want to join a CSA (I've wanted to for a while, but they are prohibitively expensive); now it just comes down to finding a winter CSA (the summer/fall ones are already more than halfway through their season) that is affordable split among the three of us (i.e. probably $300 or less, total; $100 or less each). I've found one or two, but their registrations forms aren't up online yet, which makes sense because it is August. So in the meantime, it is the farmers' markets for us! I also kind of want to join the CSA for the Piggery, not because I am normally particularly enamoured of pork, but because I know all about them from some transcription work I've done! They are super great and ethical and, apparently, produce delicious (and healthy) meat, and I want to give them a go! Maybe I will have to find the NYC farmers' market they attend, and try out their stuff. Did you know that healthy pastured pork fat is equivalent to a mixture of half butter and half olive oil? I love my job.

Anyway, I think that's all for now! I sold the inconvenient desk today (yay!), and Alex and I bought our Greyhound tickets to Lewiston. Watched three episodes of The Daily Show (which reputedly has woman-hiring problems I don't want to know more about because I love this show so much and I can't have yet another progressive facade come crashing down on me right now, plus Kristen Schaal was on it the other day and I love her so much too), ate some mocha chip ice cream, time for bed! This was an enormous post, because it was so catch-up-y, but I am hoping to post more regularly through the next few months, and they won't have to be this epic! For the next post, you may look forward to the story of getting hired with Monmouth, pictures of my new furniture, and possibly, if you are lucky, the lyrics to a song titled "I Only Love You For Your Warts." In the meantime, you may enjoy these pictures:

This was supposed to be two sourdough boule loaves...

...uh...

...but I guess they are a hilariously large,

hilariously flat,

hilariously tough-crusted-on-the-bottom loaf

instead.

Fortunately, they are still incredibly delicious

and remind me of home.