Lamb from Slaughter

Recipe Me This Dept.: Although I need no excuse to tuck into a dish made from lamb, Easter offers a chance to make it the centerpiece of a family meal. In other words, a chance for the chef to show off.

As I discussed with my butcher the purchase of a leg of the beast, he mentioned that another customer cubed the meat and made a stew. This sounded at once appealing and distressing – distressing because I had my mouth set rolling the meat around a feta-and-spinach stuffing, appealing because a stew would force me in a different direction.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

With the help of my daughter, Lily, I came up with a recipe that proved very successful, if a touch complicated. I encourage you to try it, or bring me another leg of lamb and promise to murmur blandishments and I’ll make it for you.

Lamb Lamb Olla

The meat is prepared two ways, so that part of the name is no accident. We were planning to cook it in clay, which I’d recommend, but the quantity exceeded our olla’s capacity, so it ended up in a traditional roasting pan.

We were inspired by a Moroccan tagine preparation, hence the apricots and a seasoning called ras-el-hanout that you should be able to find in a specialty store or online – or make your own. I use a meat grinder attached to my stand mixer, which becomes a sausage extruder when I put a phallic attachment on its end.

Rustles of Spring

30 March 2013 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Great White Way Dept.: I don’t often get the chance to take a critical whack at a Broadway show, but I saw one recently and decided, for your enlightenment and mine, to weigh in.

                                                                                       

PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER DURANG and his old friend Sigourney Weaver return to Broadway for the first time since 1996's short-lived, much-disliked “Sex and Longing,” in a play that – because it’s by Durang – is unsurprisingly funny but with a surprisingly tender side.

"Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" offers a delightful exploration of the price of fame, ruined lives, late-in-life love and, of course, explosive family dynamics

Domestic tranquility: Kristine Nielsen,
David Hyde Pierce, and Sigourney Weaver

Make no mistake: the show’s determination to drag laughs out of you has the fervor of a manic circus act, and it does so with every tool in the typical Broadway arsenal. Which means we see mugging, outright overacting, improbable physicality, and random pop-culture references (Snow White! Sunset Boulevard!), all carried out within a snob-appeal framework of the world of Chekhov.

There’s even a little voodoo thrown in.

It’s vintage Durang, insofar as it throws together characters with enough inner and inter-character conflict to keep things snapping, but it builds a pleasing backbone as an ensemble of well-developed characters is revealed, shimmering in and out of Chekhov-land as they examine the lives they’ve achieved at the onset of late middle age.

The Once and Future Jack’s

From the Kitchen Dept.: Today’s Metroland features my profile of Jack’s Oyster House, an Albany mainstay celebrating its centenary. I’ve written about the restaurant several times over the past quarter-century, beginning with my first unannounced-visit review in 1986, which you can find here. Below are my appraisals of three subsequent visits.

                                                                                                   

JACK ROSENTSTEIN OPENED his restaurant in 1913, when he was 20. It wasn’t very far from where the present Jack’s stands, and the sense you get walking into Jack’s is that it isn’t very far, sentimentally, from the old days of eighty years ago. Of course, Albany is a different place – much different – characterized by legislative-induced torpor instead of colorful rum-runners. But a tradition of hospitality endures at Jack’s, a formula so simple, so effortless to maintain that it’s astonishing how rarely you encounter it in eateries these days.

Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Jack’s defies business custom in another way: management has passed twice from father to son, with no dramatic changes. Brad Rosenstein, young and dapper, carries on his grandfather’s tradition. He stands at the counter by the door and greets us as if we’re old friends, tells us that our table is ready with so much pleasure in his voice that I wondered if he’d built the table himself.

The instant we were seated bread and butter appeared – a basket of Parker House rolls, in fact. The menu is prefaced with a page of specials, some drawn from inside the menu. Which, when you plunge inside, sports several pages appetizer and entrée choices, most of them seafood-oriented. Plus a large map of the Albany area with Jack’s at the center. And an essay by William Kennedy that takes up the back page, an Esquire piece from ten years ago that reminds us not only of the vanishing flavor of old Albany, but also the vanishing flavor of superior journalism.

You sit in a large room with a high ceiling, a row of chandeliers reinforcing the old-fashioned feel of the place. Share no secrets: you will be very close to the people at the next table. There are many dining rooms in Manhattan like this, especially at the old hotels that haven’t been pushed into refurbishment. But in this region it’s an exception.

Tough Times for Critics

Guest Blogger: P. G. Wodehouse. He was the drama critic, among other writing duties, for the U.S. version of Vanity Fair during the century-ago ’teens (he wrote for the U.K. version a decade before that), just as he was gaining Broadway success as lyricist for shows written with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. This Wodehouse essay is subtitled “They Want to Be Blithe and Gay, But Their Life Is Just One Derned Play After Another.”

                                                                                       

BEFORE I REACH for my hammer and endeavor to work off the cold fury engendered in me by the early productions of the spring theatrical season, let me first say a word on behalf of dramatic critics. A dramatic critic is a misunderstood man. There is a general impression that he loves to knock. Such is not the case. He starts out at the beginning of his career, full of joy and optimism, glowing with happiness at the thought that, while other men are digging down into their gents’ trouserings for the price of admission, he, because he is a critic, can slide into theaters free.

P. G. Wodehouse

So buoyant does this reflection make him that at first he thinks he is going to like everything be sees. But gradually the modern dramatist sours him. The catch in being a critic is that you cannot pick and choose; you have to take the rough with the smooth, the good with the bad; and there is so much more bad than good. If life were all “Fair and Warmers” and “Cohan Revues” and “Hit-the-Trail Hollidays,” I should be the sunniest little creature on earth—a sort of Josephus Daniels. Instead of which, I go about the place with a black scowl on my face. My dog cringes when he sees me. Children scream and have fits if they encounter me unexpectedly in the street. And all because I have had to see “Pay-Day,” “The Blue Envelope,” “A King of Nowhere,” and “The Heart of Wetona” on successive nights.

“PAY-DAY” IS IN A class of its own. It is not really a play at all. It is a galvanized corpse like that one of which the late Edgar Allan Poe wrote so breezily and with such arresting attention to detail. It started out by being a good, honest, decent failure, such as we all have written in our time. It really died on the opening night, but was artificially stimulated into a grisly parody of life by an enterprising management.

A Glorious Feeling

From the Vault Dept.: Schenectady’s Proctors Theatre recently announced its 2013-14 Broadway season, and as a reminder that they’re old hands at bringing in what’s recently been sprung from the Manhattan stage, here’s my review of one such show that arrived a quarter-century ago.

                                                                                     

THE SUCCESS THIS MUSICAL has had on stage is a tribute to the ghosts it must overcome. Written as it was for the screen, and showcasing the dancing talents of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, it was a big hit for MGM in 1952, a peak of collaboration among Kelly, co-director Stanley Donen, and scriptwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

A far more recent production.

They had a built-in success factor with the songs, by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, and an irreverent, self-referential story that poked fun at the emergence in the late '20s of talking pictures.

Perhaps the wisest act of the producers who placed the show onstage was to stay very close to the original. Choreographer Kathryn Kendall has stayed close to the original Kelly-Donen routines, too, so in many ways it's like revisiting the motion picture – the same formula that works for the stage version of The Wizard of Oz.

Juggling Careers

Balls in the Air Dept.: As was the case with violinist Julia Fischer, I’ve reviewed the Flying Karamazov Brothers more than once – more than four times, in fact, but how the hell much can you bear? Here are some samples, illustrating how much has changed – and how much hasn’t – over the years.

                                                                                   

The Flying Karamazov Brothers
Proctor’s Theatre, Oct. 8, 1994

When you’ve mastered juggling and don’t have an Ed Sullivan Show as an outlet, your choice of performance style tells a lot about you. The Flying Karamazov Brothers have the kind of talent easily swallowed by the juggernaut of glitzy Las Vegas-style show-making, but they have an anarchic sensibility that keeps them fresh.

“Club Sandwich” is their newest show, and the most scripted yet (except, perhaps, for the Shakespeare they’ve done). Woven from bits of film noir and vaudeville tradition, livened with ad libs and shameless puns, it’s a fast-moving two-act tale of mystery and suspense, not the least of the latter being the group’s classic challenge to the audience to provide unusual juggling fodder.

This moment came at the end of the first half, letting us see how adept the Karamazovs are at playing off of an audience. They wove bits of business around the items – which included such strange offerings as a couple of shoes, a small cactus, a large Slinky and a stick of butter – before settling on a small stool, a greased cylinder made wobbly by a couple of heavy balls inside, and a half-gallon of ice cream. Minus its container.

The Fischer Queen

From the Classical Vault Dept.: We in New York’s Capital Region were lucky to have a few visits from violinist Julia Fischer as her career was beginning to skyrocket. Here are my accounts of two of those appearances. I make no apology for my unabashed fandom.

                                                                              

Julia Fischer, violinist, and Milana Chernyavska, pianist
Union College Memorial Chapel
Oct. 28, 2005

Julia Fischer

I HEARD HER PLAY; now I’m a believer. The 22-year-old violinist Julia Fischer has been charting a meteoric rise throughout the world, with significant performances this year throughout the U.S. That we got her here in Schenectady, on the heels of triumphant performances of the fiendish Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony, is a tribute both to series organizer Daniel Berkenblit’s foresight in choosing talent and to Fischer’s own love for playing chamber music.

And thanks to our dedicated Homeland Security forces, what should have been a trio was reduced to two when cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, no doubt packing plastique in his Stradivarius, was denied a visa. Fischer and pianist Milana Chernyavska came up with a program just as compelling as what had been planned, with an added bonus: We got to hear Fischer make her way through the pinnacle of the violin repertory, Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor.

What’s to follow will be a shameless paean to Fischer’s performance, so I want to make sure to emphasize that in her partnership with Chernyavska – they played sonatas by Schumann and Franck – the two of them worked together as one. In a trio, the pianist is understood to have an equal footing. As a duo with violin, there’s a too-long tradition of being a back-seat player.

Skyscape

23 March 2013 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Thoughts on Writing Criticism

From the Classroom Dept.: Several years ago I was invited into an area high school as an artist-in-residence, charged with preparing a group of seniors to see Shakespeare & Co.’s traveling production of “Hamlet.” I wrote the essay below to help inspire them when it came time to write the required post-performance essay. It was a lost cause. Granted, I may not be the most riveting instructor, but even as I entered the classroom miasma of hostility hung in the air. And the resultant essays only confirmed the appalling state of semi-literacy of diploma-clutchers today.

                                                                                          

A CREATIVE PRESENTATION, whether it be of drama, music, dance, art, film, or that never-never land termed “performance art,” offers the interpretation – rendered by one or many artists – of the human condition and environment. We of the audience hope to be moved in some manner: delighted, perhaps, by a knockabout comedy; enraged into action by an agit-prop drama; saddened yet energized by a Sibelius symphony.

We react; we bring home a memory of that reaction. We share our thoughts with friends. We’re all critics. Putting those thoughts to paper, however, allows you to become part of the artistic team. Performers perform and creators create for an audience, and the critic becomes the for-the-record voice of that audience. Although it’s often dismissed as the bastard runt of the creative arts, criticism invites us to take a creative spin around the presentation, offering encouragement, constructive commentary, and informed opinion.

As you contemplate your essay about the production of Hamlet you’re about to see, consider the following:

The Fat Man's Diet (Part Two)

Lost Masterpieces Dept.: Many years ago, I wrote a few sample chapters of a tome titled The Fat Man's Diet, which included essays on the joys of being fat, a selection of rich recipes, and mini-biographies of the fat and famous. I sent it to publishers and agents, most of whom ignored it, although I was told by a couple that the book was too confusing. Is it a cookbook? A humor book? What? These are the concerns of the excessively skinny, of course. Here's the second section. (You’ll find the first chapter here.)

                                                                            

II. APPETIZER

The oil in the pan is about to smoke: just right. The Fat Man takes the pan in one hand and, with the other, ladles a measure of batter into it, swirling the pan to cover the bottom with a nearly translucent layer.

It’s a rhythmic process, one the Fat Man performs with the pride of an acrobat. He is cooking crepes, the thin French pastries that will then be filled with meat or fish, fruit or ice cream, or possibly swirled in a flaming bath of orange liqueur.

His guests regard him with awe. He waited until they arrived before beginning this process, for he knows how impressive he looks upon this, his most comfortable turf: the kitchen.

Cooking at Home

Nero Wolfe

Stove, refrigerator, countertop, sink. A contemporary work ethic demands that success be measured by time away from home, time spent workaholically locked in an office. That’s why contemporary apartments cram the kitchen into a space even a small cat would find uncomfortable.

The Fat Man has no tolerance for this attitude. His kitchen is a workplace, and artist’s studio. Ideally, he will have a six-burner, two-oven stove, one of the big black units by Garland or Vulcan that restaurants use. In fact, with so many restaurants going south these days (the price they pay for catering to the thin), such stoves are always available second-hand.

A two-barrel sink is preferred, as is an oversized refrigerator and stand-alone freezer. Plenty of counter space is essential, because the Fat Man loves his cookery toys almost as much as the food itself.

Foods of Spring

From the Vault Dept.: Just to emphasize the disconnect between the snow on the ground and the start of spring, here’s a piece I wrote a couple of years ago about the food of love, such as there is.

                                                                                          

OGDEN NASH, IN “Reflections on Ice-Breaking,” epitomized it thus: “Candy / Is dandy / But liquor / Is quicker.” Chocolate and booze are distinguished staples of courtship, but sometimes you just want to hit the sack. Is there any grub that will help?

We are an admirably goofy species. We name a favored destination “pudendum,” from a Latin word (phrase, actually) meaning “something of which to be ashamed,” and go on to obsess about it. We note that nature has scattered phallic and pudendal whatnots hither and yon, and decide that if it’s in the least bit edible, it will send magical powers to the thus-aped place. From the travesty of killing rhinos for their horns to the silliness of wolfing down forests of asparagus, we’ve ingested plenty in pursuit of a reliably randy-making nostrum.
   
Recently I presented a class on this theme, where we looked at a list of putatively aphrodisiac foods and cooked and sampled some of them. Although I can’t vouch for any farther-reaching effects, I can tell you that nobody’s morals were challenged during our time together. Herewith, a few recipes. Try them as part of your own Valentine’s Day tête à tête, but keep in mind that the most effectively phallic items on your table are the candles with which you illuminate the meal.

The Wine Maven

From the Wine Cellar Dept.: Sure, we’ve got wine stores a-plenty throughout the Capital Region. But this was nowhere near the case 25 years ago, when Mortie Schwartz toiled tirelessly and cheerfully in his small shop on Albany’s New Scotland Avenue, sharing his incredible knowledge and endless inventory. When I wrote the article below, for Capital Region magazine, he was 85. He died six years later, but it’s a tribute to his legacy that the store endures.

                                                                                    

DECEMBER 5, 1933: With the kindly insight that Americans shouldn’t be forced to be both poor and sober, the government has repealed the Volstead Act. Liquor sales are about to begin again. Legally, that is.

Mortie Schwartz;
photo by Russell Ley

Standing in front of a shop on Albany’s State Street that day were young Mortie Schwartz, his brother and a friend. “We hired a truck and driver,” Mortie recalled recently, “and as soon as we got word that Prohibition was over, we drove to Troy, to a wholesale druggist who had a liquor license. He gave us 14 or 15 cases of liquor – that’s all he would let us have – and we got back to State Street to find a crowd waiting in front of our store. They helped us carry the cases in and rip the tops off, and in 40 minutes we were sold out.”

This was how he began in the business of selling strong waters, and he has continued to do so ever since with ever-increasing acclaim. Today, Mortie Schwartz is recognized as one of the world’s most knowledgeable wine merchants, and in this age of hyperbole, that’s a literal fact.

Like the product he favors, he has aged well. Dry and mellow, with a good nose and sturdy legs. His hearing isn’t what it used to be, but he aids it with electronics. At his age – a fact he’d just as soon keep to himself – few can lay claim to the survival of most of the senses; Schwartz has sacrificed the one sense that isn’t important to a wine connoisseur.

Dear Mr. Dixon

“I ENJOY YOUR BOOKS very much,” the letter probably began. I never kept a copy of it. I was eight or nine when I wrote it. It was my first piece of fan mail, written to the man whose impressive body of work fueled my reading enthusiasm during those early, crucial years.

Stories of any kind fascinated me, and I couldn’t wait to be able to read them to myself. My mother obliged with long sessions during my pre-school years in which she’d read to me and insist I read right back to her, “with expression,” she’d say. “Make believe you’re the character who’s speaking.”

Which meant that I brought to The Poky Little Puppy a dramatic intensity that might well have set author Janette Sebring Lowrey into a swoon. I could read it to myself when I was four; by the time I entered kindergarten, any kid’s book was fair game, and I was given the task of reading aloud to my fellow students at the end of the day as the teacher straightened up the classroom.

My family had just moved to Glen Rock, New Jersey, where they bought a large stucco-sided Craftsman bungalow. It seemed a place of endless warrens, and I found great play places in attic and basement. But best of all was the discovery of a box of books: a couple of dozen Hardy Boys mysteries. Once again, I needed parental assistance in getting the words off the page, and I was terrifically frustrated when I had to wait for that help.

Hear My Song

Critical Blarney Dept.: Seems to me that the Capital Region was a lot more Hibernian in its mid-March entertainment in years past, before we devolved into celebrating merely by coloring our beer and our bagels green. Here’s one such account of mine from 1988.

                                                                                          

WEARING CABLE-KNIT SWEATERS and ale-freshened grins, the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O’Connell gave a St. Patrick’s Eve performance at Proctor’s Theatre with the practice of entertainers who’ve been touring for a good long time and the enthusiasm of those who don’t seem to tire of touring.

The Clancy Brothers

They had friends aplenty in the crowded house, friends who joined in with gusto when such old favorites as “Wild Rover” and “Tom Finnegan’s Wake.”

“You just go ahead and sing along,” Tom Clancy invited, “and if the fellow next to you looks at you funny, just belt ‘im!”

All such rowdiness took place within the songs, however, that told of drinking and battling and drinking and working and drinking and ... you get the picture.

Each of the brothers – and nephew O’Connell – has a style and personality that gives the family feeling of the performance a variety as well.

Your Number's Up

Love One Another or Die

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Neither the piece below nor the pieces described come from too many years back, at least by clssical music’s calendar. But the publication – andante.com – is dead and the push for new music is hampered by a superannuated audience that seems to want only to hear those damn (last three) Tchaikovsky symphonies again and again.

                                                                                         

SIX CONCERTS IN THIS YEAR’S Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood were devoted to “American Music of the Past Fifteen Years.” The first of those six was an entertaining and occasionally maddening mix of orchestral and chamber works, with a set of hauntingly gorgeous song settings by William Bolcom at the center.

Frank Zappa

Toward the end of his life, Frank Zappa wrote extensively for the Synclavier, a computer-assisted keyboard that allowed him to fashion works that otherwise would be unplayable – picking up from the work of player-piano wizard Conlon Nancarrow. “G-Spot Tornado,” a fury of delicious riffs and bumptious rhythm, appeared on his Wal-Mart-forbidden instrumental album “Jazz from Hell.” Undaunted, the Berlin-based Ensemble Modern worked with Zappa to make an instrumental transcription of the piece (not surprisingly, they’ve effectively done the same with Nancarrow etudes) and it opened the Tanglewood concert with a virtuoso flourish.

The players, a mix of students and faculty at the summer-long Music Center program, certainly had the chops to get through the work, and conductor Laura Jackson kept the difficult rhythms intact. The only problem was instrumental balance – the string ensemble in front of the group was completely obscured by the rest.

Laura

Guest Blogger: Saki. It was the Farsi pen name of Burma-born, Scottish writer H.H. Munro, who was born in 1870 and whose mother died two years later as the result of an accident with a cow. Like P.G. Wodehouse, Saki was raised by aunts. He began his writing career as a journalist, but soon was publishing his macabre, amusing short stories. Although officially too old to serve in World War I, he joined a battalion of Royal Fusiliers and was killed by a German sniper in 1916. The story below comes from his 1914 short-story collection, Beasts and Super-Beasts.

                                                                            

H. H. Munro (Saki)
Photo by E.O. Hoppé

“YOU ARE NOT really dying, are you?” asked Amanda.

“I have the doctor’s permission to live till Tuesday,” said Laura.

“But to-day is Saturday; this is serious!” gasped Amanda.

“I don’t know about it being serious; it is certainly Saturday,” said Laura.

“Death is always serious,” said Amanda.

“I never said I was going to die.  I am presumably going to leave off being Laura, but I shall go on being something.  An animal of some kind, I suppose.  You see, when one hasn’t been very good in the life one has just lived, one reincarnates in some lower organism.  And I haven’t been very good, when one comes to think of it.  I’ve been petty and mean and vindictive and all that sort of thing when circumstances have seemed to warrant it.”

Fraud at the Cybertrough

From the Computer Vault Dept.: Although this piece dates back thirteen years, most of its advice still holds true (and the credit bureau phone numbers are still good). Having just been the victim of a counterfeited credit card, I know the pain of some of the nastiness described below.

                                                                                                    

THE INTERNET IS a terrific source of information, but some of it may be hitting too close to home. You’ve no doubt seen the e-mails offering tips on how to “find out anything about anyone” – what if that anyone is you? Are your credit card numbers out there, waiting to be swiped? Is somebody out there grabbing hold of your whole financial identity?

Identity theft is one of three particularly nasty scams awaiting the unsuspecting Internet user; we’ll introduce them and offer some tips to avoid becoming a victim. Of the three, theft of identity is the worst, with the potential of damage that can take years to correct.

If you’re looking for bargains on the Internet, beware the proliferation of counterfeit goods. Big-ticket items peddled on the net aren’t always what they’re supposed to be – you’re taking the same chance you take buying that Rolex off a street vendor.

And just as rogue e-mail can cripple your system, clever hackers can worm their way into your computer, steal passwords, and ultimately cripple your machine. Just being online makes you vulnerable, but we’ll show you some software programs that add a firm layer of protection.

Fraud on the Loose

MY WATERSHED MOMENT came a couple of Sundays ago, as pianist Vladimir Feltsman returned to the stage of Union College’s Memorial Chapel and played the last of the Chopin nocturnes. It was an encore to a concert that had finished with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” about as grand a display of virtuosity as you can get this side of Alkan.

Vladimir Feltsman

And then he played the Chopin piece which, in that context, was more compelling than any Chopin performance I’ve heard before. That’s when I realized that, as a critic, I’m a fraud. I try to render judgment in terms of absolutes. It makes me sound smart. When I force myself to confront myself, I see that I’m making it up as I go along.

How could I judge this piece? This concert? The experience was riddled with paradox. For one thing, I didn’t particularly care for the way Feltsman played the nocturne. It was too loose-limbed, its opening notes too melodramatic. But after the thunderous close of “The Great Gate of Kiev,” the last of the preceding pictures, the churn of emotion in the hall was so high that the touch of melodrama – which soon disappeared – made a perfect transition, easing down on the brakes.

I have this belief that perfection in Chopin’s nocturnes was achieved in the recordings of Arthur Rubinstein and few others. Which reveals another facet of my fraudulent thinking. I’ve let myself be a victim of the dance-with-the-girl-you-came-in-with phenomenon, believing that the first recording I got to know of a particular piece was the true and only one. I try not to admit that, especially to myself. It didn’t hurt that I was listening to Rubinstein and Toscanini and Heifetz. I learned some great interpretations. Or maybe it did hurt: I became obsessed with precision.