a week of pirates begins...

Saturday morning I was up early for an audition for a theatre company that my church (Redeemer) started called "Threads." I did my Popo Martin, schizo-cheerleader monologue for laughs and then flailed miserably in my reading of their "Phantom Tollbooth" script. The character was a swindling salesman and I went to a really bad place vocally and ended up doing lots of shouting that didn't feel great. Alas.
I met up with Adrienne in Union Square where we enjoyed the most beautiful day yet in NYC....50s and sunny, I was able to shed my top layer and go sleeveless!!!! Amazing. We gobbled up apple samples in the farmers market and looked around at all the cheeses and pricey pickles before meeting Eric and Sara for lunch. We went to Rosa Mexicana, a pretty fancy place, actually that had amazing service and food! They have the home-made guacomole trick at your table that we couldn't pass up and I loved my breakfast tacos with poblano peppers.
After lunch, Adrienne and I initiated Eric and Sara into the Trader Joes craziness...and crazy it is on a Saturday afternoon. Not really pleasant, at all. But, gotta have that medley of giant raisins and fiber bread. Adrienne and I took the 3rd Ave bus home which actually took an hour and I at one point fell asleep on her shoulder!
I had gotten us tickets for New York City Opera's "Pirates of Penzance" and we had the very nose-bled of seats (the 4th balcony...but only $13!)...but we managed to sneak into some better ones for Act 2 and all the while put our binoculars to great use. The Mabel was fantastic and so were most of the men. The mezzo playing Ruth was the only major disappointment. I loved the staging concept...campy and making fun of itself with the overture fully staged as a melodrama. Mabel was fierce and a total drama queen with her "Poor Wandering One" punctuated with the Lucia cadenzas...so great.

Sunday was another glorious morning to walk across the park to church. I ran into my new "friend" Julia as I was being seated and enjoyed sitting with her and catching up on her life as a Columbia student. Louise and Tom from my small group were part of a spectacular and very special Beethoven piano trio that lined the morning worship. A-mazing!
After church I was a laundry and cleaning machine...needing to get the apartment ready for Seri's visit the next day. Having people over is the best motivation for organizing and cleaning...whew, I really sorted through some serious piles. I made Sunday pizza, a new tradition for 7F and we settled in for some Grease watching....you're the one that I want! I also created a new recipe for peanut butter-chocolate popcorn....Dr. Oz approved, even. Ha!

Monday morning started super early....Kat and I partnered up and weathered the non-equity sign up sheets at different locations on behalf of eachother. I took Chelsea and she took Nola and we reunited at Nola where we were auditioning for a dinner theatre in IN called "Beef 'n Boards." Hmmmm...I don't know about that one. It was a total nightmare with the building people kicking girls out before 8:30 and then the monitor for the company honoring the unofficial list as soon as he got off the elevator, reading names before girls had a chance to get upstairs to respond and then making them go to the end of the line. Kat and I got lucky and got out of there by 10 am. We both felt we sang our 16 bars well but got nothing more than a "great" and a really tempermental pianist. We then headed to Chelsea for the chorus call for Starlight Theatre's "Wizard of Oz." This proved even more frustrating...the director was nice enough to hear all of us non-equity girls and he typed us by having us sing the first line from "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in either a low, medium or high key. When I say high I mean high B-flat, just below high C. That song is not meant to be up there...anyhoo...we each had to sing it, one by one, in front of eachother and yours truly had the honor of being dead last. I sang the high one, of course, to which he showed no interest. It was discouraging, though, to hear the few girls he did keep and wonder why we'd been passed over. I guess these are things we just can't overthink.
I was glad to clear my head of all that nonsense and meet up with Seri and her sister-in-law Carolyn who is another recent transplant to NYC. Carolyn is a stage director and lives in Tribeca. We met up in Soho, a fancy land I had never explored. So fun! I love the cobblestone streets and the much too cool for school storefronts that are minimalist yet edgy. We went to a really fun lunch spot called "Bar 89" on Mercer Street. As we were stepping inside, Juliana Marguilies walked past me...and I smiled at her...she is really beautiful yet tiny! The girls were miffed they didn't see her but we loved our yummy food and loved even more the funky bathrooms with transparent doors that turn opaque when you step inside. There's even a slide that flashes "occupied" on the wall behind. So swanky! We walked around a bit and then picked up Seri's luggage from her friend Stacy's apartment in the Village...whoa...Stacy is subletting this 1-bedroom/studio/I don't know what you'd call it but it's crazy and she has a small claw-foot-tub in the middle of the first room and that is her only shower! There are not enough words to describe the clutter and color that place contained...whew. Seri and I hopped on a train to my place and we chatted a bit before I got ready for dinner with my old bosses. Lara and Michael from La Bodeguita were in town for a restaurant convention of sorts and had me meet them at their hotel, the Regency, another super swanky spot on Park Ave. We took a cab to Lupa, one of Mario Batali's ventures, a Roman-style tavern. It was such a fun evening! We had lots of fun meats to start including prosciutto, sausage, lingua (yes, that's tongue in italiano) and headcheese! I tried them all! I liked better the roasted beets and shaved brussel sprouts with pecorino but I also braved some sardines to be a team player. I had a wonderful Bellini as a cocktail and then we had a great medium Italian red wine together. For an entree I had my first ever Saltimbocca which was absolutely delicious despite a slightly unappetizing presentation. Lara had a super-tender pork shoulder and Michael had sea bass and an extra round of prosciutto for good measure.
Dessert was my favorite, of course, and I had chosen for us the Tartuffo which was a scoop of ice cream with biscotti and dried cherries imbedded and then covered in a hard shell of chocolate and chopped hazelnuts. Buon gusto! They also ordered us a plate of three cheeses with a ricotta and honey, an amazing semi-soft cheese made from sheep, goat and cow's milk and another really rich hard cheese accompanied with bread, kumquat jelly and almond-stuffed dates. We loved our meal there and our waitress was super-knowledgeable and gave us just the right amount of attention. Stuffed to our gils we walked to a restaurant we had seen on our way in called, "Cuba." I thought we were just going in to see the menu but they insisted we get a drink so I continued the search for the best sangria in NYC. Pretty good, yes, the best, I'm not sure.
Wow...I really get carried away with all that food talk! It was so nice to be with Michael and Lara...they have such an ease about them and between them and you can't help but enjoy being in their company. I was excited to find out more about their stories and how they got to Bodeguita.
I was a little tipsy by the time I got home and excited to tell Adrienne and Jon all about my culinary (and wine!!) adventure. Seri came in pretty late that evening and I got her settled into Hotel 7F before falling dead asleep.