SPACE party / birds

Last night was the SPACE on Ryder Farm Season 3 Kickoff party. I am thrilled that I will be doing a residency on the farm this summer to work on my new play, The Orphans Club. I am even more thrilled that as the party was winding down someone brought out a tropical bird.

I won the liquor raffle. Ask Sheila was happened to that bottle of gin on 42nd Street.

Posing with the other raffle winner was interrupted when the bird was unveiled.

Making friends.

subway read

Summer reading season has started and Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings was a great way to kick it off. Thanks to David Archer for the Instagram recommendation.

chicken little

Below you will find my photo diary of my first attempt at grilling a chicken with a beer in its bum. Our grill is a little too small to cover completely, but the bird still turned out great. The recipe is from Homemade Summer. Enjoy!

 Brine it the night before

 This BABA black lager worked v. well purposed this way.

 We lost most of the lemons in the grill.

For a simple backyard meal, I made a snacking plate with the chicken, cucumbers, arugula and sour puss pickles. The chicken is flavorful enough on its own but I splashed some nice balsamic, salt & pepper to the veg - done!

We ate our side dish of orzo, fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil earlier in the day while the chicken was still on the grill. Good to have a snack while waiting!

ex solo ad solom

Two weekends ago I went to Baltimore for my high school reunion. As a writer of sitcoms and romcoms I felt that attending this event was my duty (even though I went to an all girls school and am happily coupled). It seems that everyone who was there (including me) had the same idea about the evening - it was necessary to get as drunk and possible. Not because it wasn't great to see all the old gals - it was amazing. It was so amazing that we all felt 18 again and drank so much bad white wine that I vomited the next day and I missed my train back to New York. Ah. Youth, youth...

 Bernice with our class banner at gym drill

 9th grade sword dance

 MM and I take a photo outside my mom's house a la prom 10 years ago

 Patrice, Nina and KT

Taken well after everyone should have gone home...

more theater / more meals!

April has been a big theater month for me -- I worked with the Slant Theater Project on a radio play as part of their On This Island series. We performed the piece at Ars Nova with my new favorite actress Susan Greenhill. You can listen to the whole evening here. On the same day there was a reading of my play NYLON, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch, as part of the Rattlestick Tongues reading series. Finally last weekend I went on retreat with Primary Stages to finish a new play for the upcoming Fresh Ink series. Lots of writing has come to mean lots of cooking too. Some favorite recipes from the month are below. If you are interested in how to make any of these let me know and I'll send you the recipe.

 kale, farro and toasted almond lunch salad

 blueberry coconut muffins 

 oven chilaquiles with lime and avocado

 heidi swanson's buttermilk asparagus salad and my own 'wing it' fennel meatballs

parsnip, leek and rosemary risotto

it's back

dinner diary

I have cut down on my babysitting so I can write more. This has been amazing except that one cannot write successfully for more than a few hours a day. To fill the rest of my time productively I've been pouring over my growing collection of cookbooks and making some mean meals for Adam and me. A few examples below...

spaghetti with fried onions and breadcrumbs

lentil, farro and sweet potato soup with a side of prosciutto and manchego

not squid...fennel!

fennel, tomato and white bean stew - great on it's own, with pasta or, as we learned with the leftovers, it's awesome on salt & vinegar kettle chips!