As Promised

A picture of my New York kitchen. The fridge is to the right, out of frame. But that was it. For five people, 15 nights! Very tough. Tim Gunn would have been proud - I made it work!

I'm back.

So, New York: it got easier. After a grueling week of repairmen in and out of the place, things finally settled down. I was still pretty clenched though. I called my friend, who was paying for the whole thing and whose daughter was one of the quads: HOW DO YOU DO THIS? I shouted. She laughed. Now you know what it's like to be a Mom. That clenched feeling? Starts the day you come home from the hospital. You do get used to it, though.

Oy! Well, the second week, I really did end up having some fun. I saw probably one of the best plays I've ever seen, The Book of Mormon. A must-see for anyone.

Now I'm back in LA, and the best thing is: my new place finally feels like home. Don't get me wrong, gentle reader(s - I'm optimistic), I'm nowhere near done. But the boxes are unpacked and after 15 solid days in a small NYC apartment with 4 kids, I felt like I walked through my door into an airport waiting lounge - it felt huge! And it felt good.

It's Tougher Now

Tonight, for the first night since we've been here, I sense a chasm. They are all in one bedroom with the door closed, skyping someone. Who? Eh, it doesn't matter. Me? I've got my own worries. Two blisters that are just killing me. Thank God a friend recommended moleskin. How did I get to be this age and not know what moleskin is? Jeez.

So....after that first grocery store trip, I realized this: The fridge is not working. The FRIDGE is NOT WORKING. I have 400 dollars worth of food in there. Not only that, one of the kids came home the first night and broke the front door lock. How? How did she do this? Fridge guy came, eventually. Back door was broken, that guy came. Bathroom had issues, another guy came. Locksmith came. Then, management company sent THEIR locksmith over, cause it had to be their guy, not the guy listed on the front door. Wish I would have known this before I walked all the way to the East Village Hardware store to get extra keys made for the kids.

So, now, the fridge fixed. The back door fixed. The bathroom fixed. The front door lock - NOT FIXED. You can still just open it right up from the hallway. The lock guy promised to come out. For the first time, a NYC repair guy let me down. Ah, feels like home.

My dinners are being met with...well, polite reviews, not terribly glowing. But I'm doing my best. It's so small this kitchen. It's literally crazy how small it is. I promise to post a picture.

I'm dreading the fourth weekend. I have them all day and night for three days. How will I do this? I'm sort of counting the days already! More grocery shopping today. Endless work, but I knew that going in. My feet are killing me! These repairs are killing me! I just wanted it to be a little easy, not HARDER than my life is in LA, if possible. Yet, unbelievably it is.

There are bright spots - a friend took me to lunch in Chinatown today. I almost wept with gratitude. It was lovely to have someone pick me up, drive me somewhere and treat me to lunch. The little things.

Anyway, I know it'll settle down. The apartment stuff is really working my nerves. Very noisy hallway, lots of comings and goings. What do the upstairs neighbors do all day and night? Sounds like - moving furniture in stiletto heels. Just so bizarre.

I'm still glad I did it. It'll make me kiss the ground I walk on in LA!

Quads

I just gave birth to quads. That's what this feels like. Did I mention that in my old place in Los Angeles, I had what was known as the smallest kitchen in America? Yeah well this one here on the Lower East Side is half that size. HALF! FML, as the saying goes (f**k my life) and it applies here fosho! Went to two grocery stores, a hardware store and two dance stores in Times Square today. Then came home and 1. Baked cookies. 2. Made dinner. 3. Cleaned up dinner. 4. Did laundry. 5. Put everything away. 6. Pretended to fall asleep so the kids would go to bed. 7. Ate earlier cookies like a furtive NYC rat in the dark. 8. Sent an email to the parents asking for more food money. NYC= the city that eats your money!

But you know what? As stressful and financial this whole thing is, I'm happy. Even in the difficult moments, I'm thinking, hey at least you are out of LA and the hell that is unpacking and in a kickass city. The girls here! The guys! The heck with LA, the beautiful people are right outside on my stoop!

Ah, N'Yawk. My only regret is not living here sooner. Feels a little late now. LA has made me soft. The kids already know the subway system. I find myself wishing for a car and better shoes. It's really going to be a lot of work, this, but that's okay. I'm already broke from the move, so what's another coupla…hundred? Bazillion more like it. Off to bed for reals this time!

(pix to come. iphone sez no from phone posting, which this is)

New York Citayyyyy

Holy mother o' Gawd almights, am I really doing this? My boxes are not all unpacked. I have the wrong shelf paper down. There are a ton of things to do in the place. I still don't have a dryer. The ink is barely dry on the lease. Yet incredibly, I'm off to New York City for two weeks to be a chaperone to kids at American Ballet Theatre - one of the kids is the daughter of a dear pal. So off I go. Wish me luck. I'll try and post more while there about what it's like to go from having ZERO children to having suddenly FOUR, one of whom is 22 and technically I'm Not Chaperoning Her, so she can come and go as she pleases. As Lorrie Moore would say, no longer one unworried scrap of happiness. Anyway, we are hitting the ground running as they say, or toe-shoe-ing. As soon as we land tomorrow, the kids want to try and get half price student rush tickets at ABT (where they will be dancing) to see some famous ballerina's last performance of Cinderella. Don't mind me kids, I'll be sleeping during that performance, if I can even get in. Just found out at the parents meeting that one of the children (a boy) is DATING another of the children (a girl). Good Lord. Now I have to play SISTER too, it seems. Keep yer hands to yerself! Both kids, in fact, ALL the kids are lovely. They are ballet driven. Very disciplined. Wish me luck! Signed, Mama Rose, Alice in the Brady Bunch and Barbara Hershey's character in the Black Swan. PS Here's a pic of my patio. Look how the lights from inside reflect on the tree. We hung lanterns, patio lights, chandeliers. It's gonna be amazing!

New York City Part Last - and Mom

Mom came to the show - did I mention that? My dear Aunt Wez (sitting behind her) took care of her. It was an amazing experience. Mom's seen me perform 1000000000 times, but she'd never seen the Christmas show and the last time she was in NYC was 1971? Maybe? Although, she's from Jersey City and worked in NYC for years. Even lived there for a time before marrying Dad. So it was a huge thrill for her to be 'back' in her city. It was an even bigger thrill having her there!

New York City Part Four

Okay, okay. You’ve been clamoring long enough (not really, but I’m living in my own world here). Finally, here are some theatre pix. I was right on 46th Street! Right across the street from the theatre where Billy Elliott is playing. Just down the street from the Lunt-Fontanne. It was wonderful. It was a cabaret theatre in the basement of Sofia’s restaurant. The funniest part was, I had to walk from the kitchen, through the restaurant and down these stairs in costume to make my entrance from the back of the downstairs cabaret. As I am dressed as a full black-and-white nun, you would think that the patrons would be fairly surprised. However, it was New York, so really only a few of them glanced my way. The others? Meh, couldn’t have cared less. Here’s the outside and here’s the inside, before and after setup. I also included the superglam dressing room. Not. But it was clean and wonderful and NEW YORK. All those props belong to Tony & Tina’s wedding folks, who were sharing the space with us. I do have more, which will be posted next week or tomorrow. Oh, and in case you ever wondered about the glamorous life of theatre, check out what I had to walk past on my way to the stage. You know what? I loved it.

AND, I have four, count ‘em, FOUR recipes for you today.

Okay, here are my thoughts on these recipes. First, the bread. I’ve made it twice. I loved it both times, but my guests were not that crazy about it. It does taste kind of like…raw bread. But it’s not, and it’s easy, and it’s fun to try at least once. Plus, everyone online raves about it. You do need a few days, though. But the work is minimal.

No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen via Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery via Mark Bittman at New York Times

Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast (you must use rapid rise yeast for this, I find)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed (I just used flour).

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. (It will still stick to the towel, just sayin’). When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size (eh, not really) and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450°F. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic – I used a medium sized Le Creuset Dutch oven.) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.


I love this next recipe. This one tastes like a cream cheese on rye sandwich, with a little sugar. I love recipes like this – not too sweet. These would be fantastic at a brunch topped with salt instead of sugar. What I did was, I used a mixture of sugar and salt on the top and then sprinkled on powdered sugar. If you just used sugar, they would be sweeter, which is just fine as well.

Swedish Rye Cookie Recipe

adapted from 101 Cookbooks

I use whole wheat pastry flour here, but you can substitute unbleached all-purpose flour if you like. I got both flours in the health food store so I didn’t have to pay out the wazoo. I also just used regular salt and sugar for both inside and outside the cookie. Worked out just fine. Do not buy organic powdered sugar. That’s just crazy.

1 cup rye flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/2 cup cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted
large grain sugar (for sprinkling)
organic powdered sugar (for snow)

Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium-sized bowl combine the flours and salt. Set aside. In an electric mixer or by hand) beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy, add the butter and do the same, mixing until the two are well combined. Beat in the sugar and mix until well incorporated. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir only long enough to combine the two. The dough should no longer be dusty looking. Turn the dough out onto the counter, knead once or twice to bring it together, shape into a ball, flatten, wrap in plastic and chill it in a refrigerator.

Heat your oven to 350F degrees, and arrange the racks in the top and bottom thirds. When you are ready to roll out your cookies do so on a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness, and cut into shapes with the cookie cutter of your choice. Place on the prepared baking sheets an inch apart, and sprinkle each cookie with a bit of large-grain sugar. Bake for six or seven minutes, just until cookies are fragrant, and getting a bit golden at the edges - avoid over-baking or they will come out on the dry side. Allow to cool, and dust cookies with a bit of powdered sugar.


Lottie + Doof, Chicago guy – wonderful blogger. I love shortbread, and this recipe did not disappoint. But it made a TON of cookies. Still, very very tasty. Not as heavy as you might think.

Brown Sugar Walnut Shortbread (Avery Wittkamp)

From Lottie + Doof

I think this works best in two quarter sheet pans because it allows for more even cooking in home ovens. It also will work in one half sheet pan, just make sure you monitor it carefully so it doesn’t burn on the edges or bottom.

4 sticks (1 pound) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
9 ounces light brown sugar (this is 1 and 1/8 cup)
5 ounces white sugar (this is ¾ cup)
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1 pound 3 ounces organic King Arthur bread flour (I used regular flour and this is 4 cups)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

Prepare a half sheet tray, or two quarter sheet trays, by buttering and lining with parchment paper. Allow a two-inch overhang on the long sides of the pan to help release the shortbread later after they have been baked.
Cream butter and sugars in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla until combined, then mix in dry ingredients. Combine completely.

Divide dough evenly into prepared sheet trays, spreading smooth and level. Sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake at 325° until golden brown, about 35 to 45 minutes.
Let cool completely before using a sharp knife to cut into squares. These keep well at room temperature for at least a week!


Okay, so these are Dutch, not really Nordic, but I loved them anyway. I don’t like almond extract in stuff, so I used vanilla and they turned out just fine. Kind of similar in taste to the walnut shortbread, but this has the extra kick of cinnamon.

Jan Hagels

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar

1 egg, separated
1 tsp. almond extract (I used vanilla)

2 cups flour

½ chopped almonds
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Beat butter and sugar together. Add egg yolk and extract. Add flour, and stir till combined.

Put the dough into a large cookies sheet with sides (or two small ones). You might want to put down parchment paper before hand. Using your fingers, spread dough out till it’s even.

Whisk egg white till frothy. Brush over dough. Combine cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle on top.

Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool, then cut. Traditionally, they are cut into diamond shapes, but squares work fine. As with all these cookies, try to at least cut them into something before you devour the entire pan.

New York City Part Three

Okay, I lied. I found some more Central Park pix on my home computer. But I will post one recipe today, the least favorite one. Look at this park. It's just so amazing. Anyway, even though I am drooling over a newly acquired Hungarian cookies recipe (more on this later) way back in December I decided to do a search for Nordic Christmas cookies. I think the Danish, Swedish and Finnish obviously really know how to do Christmas up. I've always loved that kind of cookie, not too sweet, kind of hard. I really didn't know what to expect when I started searching, but four recipes came up and only one was a stinker. Here it is. But first, another park picture or 50.

Okay - so the problem with this recipe is, well a few problems. Too many ingredients should have been my first tip-off. Fortunately, I have a health food store just down the road which had all the spices in bulk so I paid pennies for them. And then a two (TWO!) week prep time. I only prepped for one week. But the bigger problem was the total unappetizing look of them from start to finish. You have to form three logs and refrigerate them for a week, two is better. It looks like....well, if I may be blunt, it looks like someone took three very large dumps and set them in the fridge. Then, after you slice and bake them, the baking time is very short, so they come out looking underdone but they do harden. That said, they still look pale and tan and...eh. Like aardvark tongues or something. Poop, tongues. These are not images that come to mind when making cookies, unless you're a sociopath.

And...honestly? They didn't taste all that great. I sprinkled powdered sugar on them to reduce the tongue-like appearance, but still. They were only okay, and a lot of work. And I did NOT get baking ammonia - that was used waaaaayyy back before baking soda and powder was invented. I substituted baking powder. But interestingly, baking ammonia used to be made from groundup reindeer antlers, so that's kind of a Christmas tie-in. Those Danes! Hey, maybe even Hamlet (Prince of Denmark) had one of these cookies in his imaginary life. But maybe not. Here's the recipe, I hope you have better luck than I did.

From RecipeZaar

Danish "Brun Kager" Brown Cookies

Traditional Danish Christmas cookie. They have a wonderful spicy flavor that stays with you long after you eat it - It's the taste of Christmas to me. Sometimes it is tricky to slice the cookies, especially if you did not wrap and seal them well, then they tend to crumble. Seal them well and leave them 2 weeks in the fridge and you shouldn't have any trouble. (K here - yeah right)

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking ammonia
1 teaspoon cardamom powdered
1 teaspoon clove
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ginger powdered
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds

Melt the butter, sugar and corn syrup together.
Sift dry ingredients and add to melted mixture.
Form into 2 or 3 rolls, about 2" high, wrap in plastic so the rolls are completely sealed and chill in the refrigerator for at least a week, 2 weeks is better Slice thinly and place on a buttered cookie sheet (Just over a 1/4").
Bake in moderate oven 375f for 5-7 minutes.

New York City Part Two

Remember I told you my pal lives around the corner from the Dakota? I took some snaps to show you Strawberry Fields, too. The Dakota is where John Lennon lived when he was shot. The (in)famous gates are where he actually went down. My friend told me it was called another building for a long time. It was the only apartment building on the Upper West Side. In the old days, people referred to it as The Dakota because for them, it was as far away as one of the Dakotas. Such a gorgeous building - such a gorgeous neighborhood!

More Central Park pix for you too. My pal is a runner and knows every inch of the park. I even got two snaps of the famous topiary outside Tavern On The Green, which is now defunct as of Dec 31. Tomorrow, some theatre shots. And a recipe or two. I've done all my holiday baking...in January.

I never have time to do it in December and every February I go to Palm Springs to help Dean with his work designing our friend's booth at the Palm Springs Modernism Show. And, every year, I bake cookies for all of them to eat during the long set-up. This year, I wanted to make new cookies, so I researched and found a bunch of new recipes. I'll post them on here - mostly hits, a few misses.

Anyway, all for now. Tomorrow will come soon enough!

Catching Up - New York City, December 2009

I'm catching up. For the next week or so, my posts will be about my amazing New York City experience in late December of 2009. I got to do two shows of my long-running Christmas show off-Broadway. Technically, on Broadway, but because it was in a cabaret and not a theatre, off-Broadway it is.

So what? I had a blast. Took the red eye - okay, NOT a blast. It was a week of country-wide super high winds. I have never ever ever ever experienced roller coaster landing like I did coming into JFK. It was 5:30am and we were rolling around in the sky. Not a good feeling. Anyway, sometimes hating to fly causes me to do the weirdest things. Like take a photo out the window. Why? Who knows?

Anyway, New York! I stayed with an old college buddy who lives just off of Central Park West, around the corner from the Dakota. She has lived in this place 31 years. Amazing. The next picture is a building on her street.

We went to Babbo that night. Babbo is Mario Batali's signature restaurant in New York City. I've been wanting to go there for years. It was an amazing experience. Cute Xmas tree, huh? Look at the cool bathroom mirrors. The best thing I had there was Farroto, which was a farro appetizer cooked to bright pink perfection with beets and a ton of pecorino romano cheese. Next best thing were brussel sprouts cooked with pancetta. Honestly, if I could learn those two dishes, I'd be in heaven. I had a bolongese for the main course, which was excellent, but my friend's black pasta seafood dish was better.

Next day, we walked around Central Park. Met up with another pal at Cafe Sabarsky, which was recommended to me by more than one food blogger. What a great place. Wish I would have had time to go to the museum it's in. Seriously, google it and check out the site, and the menu. Yes, the apple streudel is just as good as everyone says it is.

So here are some Central Park pix as well. It was showtime that night, so I had to be careful. It was freeezing cold and my body is not used to it anymore. I did not want to get sick before my NYC debut. But I didn't!

Dad used to say, if you ever make it to Broadway, we'll rent a bus and come see you! I thought about him a lot on this trip. More on this, and more pictures tomorrow!