Play Reading - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Recently my friends and I took on Edward Albee's dastardly play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? We delighted in the vitriolic exercise, taking a break in between acts to actually eat, as the four characters  never do, choosing liquor instead for their grueling sustenance. Baby and I splayed a bunch of bottles on the table, and we encouraged our guests to go forth during the proceedings and help themselves to it as we plunged headlong into the play, which takes place in a single, devastating, booze-fueled evening.

 

I drew the sketch above, and made copies for our guests. We've got Martha in the aggressive foreground with George's eyeglasses nestled in her bosom; "slim hipped" Honey is in the upper left poised over a large glass of brandy with frigid cubes of ice in her belly; and Nick, "the stud", her husband, shirtless, but still wearing a collegiate tie.  

Tonight's Retro Menu
Pigs in Blankets
Caesar Salad
Rotisserie Chicken
Powdered Sugar Orange Banana Pudding Cake

Next Magazine - Flaming Saddles' Frito Pie

Partner up with Jacqui Squatriglia’s little bit of down-home Texan cookin’, now served up at her gay cowboy bar in Hell's Kitchen, Flaming Saddles.

Frito Pie
Ingredients:

1 bag Frito Scoops
German brown mustard
1 cup Jacqui’s Flaming Saddles chili (see below)
1 cup Velveeta cheese, melted
¼ cup sour cream
1 jalapeño pepper, sliced raw
1 fried egg

For Jacqui’s Flaming Saddles Chili:
2 lbs of coarsely ground Angus 80% lean beef
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 15 oz. can of beef broth
1 Tbsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp paprika
5 Tbsp mixed chili powders (mild and hot)
2 tsp garlic salt
Fistful of bread crumbs
½ tsp cayenne
¼ tsp black pepper

Instructions:

Chili:

1. Gray the meat in a frying pan and drain grease.
2. Slow boil meat in beef broth for 45 minutes with one can of distilled water.
3. Mix in spices and tomato sauce and medium boil for 45 minutes.
4. Toss in bread crumbs.

Frito Pie:

5. Fill a deep plate or pie plate with Frito Scoops, covering evenly, about 2–3 cups and drizzle with mustard.
6. Ladle chili over chips, covering.
7. Pour Velveeta on. Follow with a dollop of sour cream.
8. Place a fried egg on top, and add salt and pepper to the egg to taste. Top with jalapeños.

For presentation: Serve with a smile!

Flaming Saddles is located at 793 9th Ave, New York, NY, 212-713-0481. Go to flamingsaddles.com for more info.

First published in part in Next magazine. 
Photo credit: Gustavo Monroy

FreshDirect House Party

Alright, I'll admit it. I'm fairly obsessed with FreshDirect. I've spoken of my love previously here on Evenings With Peter so I won't belabor the point. Suffice to say, I won a House Party promotion from them and threw the event. Besides a $100 e-gift certificate to use for the food I ordered, I received a Party Pack that included reusable shopping bags, special offer brochures, notepads, aprons and a host of recipes that all our guests took home. We also giddily raffled off a FreshDirect oven mitt!

FreshDirect asked us to choose a theme, so Baby and I went retro with Pot Luck and things that people used to bring to actual house parties ever so long ago.

Tonight's Menu
Pigs in a Blanket
Mac n' Cheese
Green Bean Casserole
Meatloaf
Vanilla Ice Cream

Although the basic set up for our menu was simple enough, everything we made was slightly different and there were no chafing dishes involved.

Produce played its part on the table and I put herbs such as rosemary, dill, and parsley in a pitcher instead of flowers.

Hebrew National franks filled Pillsbury crescent crusts and our Mac outfitted with Campbell's cheese soup was scooped out in individual spoons.

The green bean casserole however did not involve Campbell's mushroom soup; it was a riff, made instead with creamy bechamel sauce and we sauteed our own wild bunch of mushrooms in butter and olive oil. Refined haricot verts subbed for everyday green beans and I frizzled fresh shallots instead of using Durkee's onions from the can. The bechamel in preparation...

 The finished dish!

The meatloaf was pulled from an old Martha Stewart recipe that I love, with homemade tomato jam for slathering. Cut to the chase and use a judicious amount (a scant tablespoon) of Chinese Five-Spice Powder instead of dealing with the cinnamon sticks, ginger, cloves and star anise. I used homemade bread crumbs I already had on hand, mixed with panko breadcrumbs as well. Also, I subbed celery salt for celery and didn't use additional salt at all, as the recipe suggests. Here's the meatloaf, about to go in the oven.

Of course, I had to light something on fire. Ben & Jerry's gorgeous vanilla ice cream came out with ripe blackberries and burnt walnuts in a flaming buerre noisette sauce with brandy. It was so much fun.

Baby looked rather sporting in his apron.

A hundred dollars fed ten people (actually it was $99.66, like on The Price Is Right--the items I ordered didn't go over). And it was fabulous. Fresh Direct. Get to it.

Fresh Soundtrack: Herb Alpert, Whipped Cream and Other Delights; Mongo Santamaria, Watermelon Man; Lettuce, Rage; Parliament, Greatest Hits; Prince, Lovesexy.

Play Reading - Little Shop of Horrors

For the first time in the years of my play reading dinners, a gung-ho band of friends and I took on a musical this month, Little Shop of Horrors. I burned the cd and downloaded and emailed copies of the script in preparation. It was all quite hilarious--besides playing my role of Seymour, the hapless nerdy hero, I also had the remote for the cd player (yes, I still have one of those) close at hand to play and pause as we sang over the recording. We had only two scripts and there were just four of us taking over the parts when we probably needed at least three more, but we marched on just the same.

If you are unfamiliar with the 50's pastiche musical that opened in the early 80's Off-Broadway, the movie version with Rick Moranis or the black-and-white Roger Corman film with Jack Nicholson in his first movie role, here's the basic plot--down-on-his-luck Seymour works in Mushnik's flower shop on Skid Row and fortune intervenes when he discovers a remarkable Venus Fly Trap-type plant which brings him fame and fortune. Things start to go horribly awry when Seymour discovers the murderous plant thrives on blood and eventually begins talking to him, while growing to epic proportions.

I created a creepy plant of my own as the setting for the dinner table, using a large cabbage and wilted red lettuce leaves situated on a footed cake stand. I also created extending "vines" by weaving watercress along the table. Sheet music from the show created a runner upon which everything sat.

Fiddlehead fern napkins were a fine touch.

Taking a cue from the botanical bent of the show, I served dolmas, rice-filled grape leaves as an appetizer and an appropriately green, chilled soup with peas and asparagus in an old cabbage-shaped tureen with withered sorrel wrapped around the base. Everybody went wild for my soup!

Baby (who played Mr. Mushnik to great effect) made stuffed vegetarian cabbage with zucchini bread for a surprising, delicious entree during intermission. We nibbled on some Green & Black's dark chocolate bars infused with peppermint oil for a dessert snack afterwards.

I drew the montage picture above!

Tonight's Menu
Dolmas (stuffed cabbage leaves from Fresh Direct)
Light Spring Soup with Peas and Asparagus -- I did not use rice as suggested, and served it chilled instead
Stuffed Cabbage (see Baby's recipe below)
Green & Black's Organic Dark Chocolate and Peppermint Bars

Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients
Filling:
1 large of cabbage
1 lb ground veal
1 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 loaf zucchini bread, crumbled
3 carrots, grated
1 small onion, grated
1/2 teaspoon Chinese Five-Spice Powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed black pepper
Sauce:
2 28-oz cans crushed tomatoes
2 TB olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 loaf zucchini bread, crumbled
Juice of 2 lemons
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp Chinese Five-Spice Powder
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method
Remove outer leaves and core the cabbage. Put in boiling water for 45 minutes, until leaves are easily removed.
While cabbage is boiling, make the sauce: saute onion until translucent, add garlic and stir for 1 minute. Cook down tomatoes with two cups of water, simmering for about 15 minutes. Add salt, pepper, Chinese Five-Spice Powder. Add zucchini bread and stir into sauce until mixed, add honey and lemon juice and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.
Take cabbage out of water and let cool for 20 minutes.
While cabbage is cooling, heat oven to 350 degrees and make the filling by mixing all the other ingredients together with hands. Put about two tablespoons of filling at the base of each leaf when ready. Roll tightly, bringing in sides as you go. Repeat, placing each little bundle tightly in a Pyrex baking dish. Top with sauce, cover and put in oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Soundtrack: The Shangri-Las, Greatest Hits; The Supremes, Greatest Hits; and of course, our glorious voices united in an evening of song!

Next Magazine Review - Lugo Caffe

Lugo Caffe
1 Penn Plaza (btwn Seventh/Eighth Aves)
212-760-2700
www.lugocaffe.com

Who’da thunk it? Right in the heart of Penn Plaza, what my dining companion has dubbed as “Ugly Town,” is a delicious plunge amidst the raucous, hurried bunch primed to hop on their respective commuter trains. One might not expect well-executed food a stone’s throw away from a TGI Fridays or a Payless Shoes—but how delicious to be surrounded by a diorama of iconic shots from Fellini’s masterpiece, La Dolce Vita, in tribute to the restaurant‘s home-style Italian cuisine.

At first, while considering wines, I wondered if the roaming map was a warning of things to come. The Vernaccia white from Siena stalled a little but eventually succumbed to the evening as it opened up. My next glass turned toward a cleaner Gavi from the Piemonte region, resonating with a bright melon body. Reds involved an easy drinking Sangiovese with a soft start and luxuriated into a sharper, leathery finish. The Sicilian Nero d’Avola was a robust match for the meal.

The housemade, amazing mozzarella was the marquee-worthy star of the platter we were presented with in a vibrant display.  The dish featured a field of yellow and red vine-fresh tomatoes in quite a collaborative effort, with extra virgin olive oil showered over scorched peppers, purple olives, tongue-y folds of sopressata and invigorating, aromatic basil fronds—it would be disrespectful to suggest that these huge leaves were a mere garnish.

We passed on pizza that appeared on neighboring tables and seemed to be rather pedestrian, venturing instead toward a pasta course that commenced with crescents of semolina gnocchi that were really more like a subtle pyramid of polenta soaking in a buttery truffle fonduta with wild mushrooms and little frills of shredded Parmesan. Cavatelli “malloreddus” represented tradition and arrived perfectly al dente with gentle, homemade sausage, porcini mushrooms and ricotta cheese that further ridiculed us, daring us to devour. Crispy artichokes found a wonderful balance with a pert lemon aioli. Enormously engorged, moist meatballs in tangy pomodoro sauce stunned us, incorporating caramelized onions for sweetness.

Elegantly slinking past dessert cocktails that utilized a lot of gruesome, throat-thickening components such as vanilla vodka, Kahlúa, milk and amaretto, we settled down with a glass of grappa and a cup of mint tea served in an organza purse suitably attired for steeping. Desserts seemed boring in comparison, although we might have sampled the raspberried chocolate truffle mousse. Instead we dabbled with a pleasantly light lemon custard with almonds and wine-poached pears as well as a ricotta cheesecake with a musky balsamic reduction. Had we been merely awaiting a train to take us home, we surely would have stayed and boarded a conveyance later.

Prices: Appetizers: $5-15; Entrées: $18-$40; Alcohol:  wine, full bar, dessert cocktails.
SHORT ORDER: Lugo Caffe is an unexpected experience in the heart of Penn Plaza, offering up well-executed, home-style Italian fare in a cavernous setting.
PETER’S PICKS: Huge, thought-provoking meatballs; mozzarella bar platter; cavatelli “malloreddus”
PETER’S PANS: Penn Plaza and its attendant horrors

First published in part in Next magazine. 

Next Magazine - Gravy's Mint Julep

With the Kentucky Derby just around the corner, why not get a leg ahead with sipping Gravy’s refreshing take on a classic? I know I'm starting already! Doesn't it look delicious?

Mint Julep

Ingredients:

2.5 oz Jim Beam Devil’s Cut bourbon
splash of simple syrup
4 leaves fresh mint
1 hard dash Angostura bitters
club soda

Directions: 

Combine the first four ingredients in a large cocktail shaker. Fill with ice. Shake violently to partially pulverize ice and mint. Top with a splash of club soda. Strain mixture into a lowball glass packed with ice. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

Gravy is located at 32 E 21st St (btwn Broadway/Park Ave S). Visit www.GravyNY.com for more info.

 First published in part in Next magazine.

Red Hot Peppers!

 

My former cousin-in-law is a loose cannon to be sure so it's not surprising that her deliciously naughty pepper jelly packs a considerable punch. Just like she does, play it fast and loose with the peppers you choose--and of course, pour it over room-temperature cream cheese and serve with crackers for a great snack around cocktail hour.

Pepper Jelly 
Ingredients
2 red peppers
6 hot peppers
2 cups cider vinegar
8 cups sugar
1 package Certo pectin

Method
In a small food processor, puree peppers. Combine all ingredients (except pectin) in a large sauce pan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add liquid pectin. Bring to a boil again for 1 minute.

For the bath: Boil jars and lids, pack jelly in jars. Wipe lids with damp cloth. Bathe for five minutes underwater. Let cool.

Thanks to eatinggreat.net for the image!