WICKED!

Oh, yes! We went to “Wicked.” I must say, I have been almost dread­ing it, just going along to chap­er­one Avery and Cici as our birth­day gift to Cici. Why dread­ing it, you ask? Oh, only because for the past four or five months Avery has been insist­ing on play­ing it in the car on the way to school, on her iPod to which she sings along, mak­ing draw­ings and pup­pets and sto­ries, talk­ing about it inces­santly with her best friend Anna. Over­dose! I would chal­lenge you to enjoy any­thing to which you’ve been so com­pletely over­ex­posed as to need an antidote.

But… it was fab­u­lous! I have not been to a play or musi­cal on Broad­way, actual Broad­way, since some­thing archaic like “Miss Saigon” or “The Phan­tom of the Opera,” just because when you actu­ally live in New York, you (or at least I) are woe­fully inad­e­quate at doing any of the things that bring other peo­ple to New York. And when I say other peo­ple? Can I just say how many TOO MANY of them there were in Times Square! It was a mer­ci­fully cool and pleas­ant day, but even so, walk­ing, no wad­ing, through the masses of tourists was sim­ply over­whelm­ing. Have you been to Times Square recently? Don’t go! You will be trampled.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself. We drove down from the barn on Sat­ur­day after Avery’s rid­ing les­son, and John dropped us off at the rather unre­mark­able but accept­able Cafe Un Deux Trois for lunch, while he headed down to Tribeca for lunch with a friend. Why Cafe Un Deux Trois, I won­der? I think we have an ancient mem­ory of a nice kid-friendly din­ner there with friends years and years ago, and remem­bered that it was a nice, calm place to take chil­dren. In the end, of course, I didn’t reckon on how extremely elderly the chil­dren were that I was tak­ing with me (isn’t it shock­ing how grownup they are! and how beau­ti­ful), and we could have gone some­where really ele­gant. But in the end they quite enjoyed draw­ing on the paper table­cloth just as much as their much-younger coun­ter­parts at other tables. And the soar­ing ceil­ings and lovely old tile floors made for a nice, clas­sic atmos­phere. So do go with your lit­tle ones, if you can stom­ach the prices for very aver­age food (a for­get­table salade nicoise for me, an unman­age­able and unwieldy chicken sand­wich for Cici, and very dull ravi­oli for Avery, but com­pletely edi­ble and priced out at about $70 for the three of us, ouch).

From there we emerged into the crowds and held onto each other’s hands like chil­dren lost in a for­est. And indeed, it was a for­est of peo­ple. Every nation­al­ity known to mankind, over­whelm­ing shiny bill­boards, scalpers sell­ing tick­ets, peo­ple sell­ing water, lit­tle tiny yel­low taxi­cab toys, sun­glasses, sun­screen, and every­one in an impos­si­bly jolly mood. Hon­estly, you wouldn’t think such a place could exist on the same planet as Red Gate Farm. I often com­pare Times Square to Oxford Street in Lon­don, when peo­ple ask what it’s like. Never again! Chalk and cheese, as they say. Noth­ing in Lon­don could pos­si­bly be as tacky (and yet pecu­liarly quite mar­velous) as Times Square. Every­thing seemed about one hour old, as if it would change again in the next hour to the REALLY mod­ern ver­sion. I am such a fuddy duddy.

To the the­ater where we ensconced our­selves and waited for the big event. I con­fess to nearly falling asleep before the show started, but then… it was just amaz­ing. I tend to for­get that famed things, and places, and events, are famed for a rea­son! Of course when you can gather the absolute best at every­thing in one place, it’s going to be amaz­ing. Win­nie Holz­man’s story was really enter­tain­ing, the chore­og­ra­phy per­fect and pre­cise, and the singers really enchant­ing. And per­versely all that over­ex­po­sure from Avery meant that I could really enjoy it, hav­ing mem­o­rized every song a hun­dred times over. There is noth­ing like the obses­sive atten­tion span of a ten-year-old to make every fam­ily mem­ber fully engaged with the cur­rent topic, I’ll tell you that.

We waited out­side after­ward for auto­graphs, and they got them! All three leads. Very gra­cious and sweet. I have to say: it was very expen­sive, but it was a plea­sure. Would you believe: evening per­for­mances are sold out until February?!

So home again, in the glow of other people’s achieve­ments. And to an unex­pect­edly deli­cious din­ner at our local eatery Julio’s, which we nor­mally treat as an emer­gency “don’t have time to cook” des­ti­na­tion, not as a source of gas­tro­nomic delight. But I had a salad of arugula (it’s con­sid­ered some­thing of a del­i­cacy still, in Amer­ica, rather than the ubiq­ui­tous green of all Lon­don plates) and sauteed scal­lops. Well done, Julio’s!

Sun­day saw us host­ing Jill, Joel and Jane, along with Anne and David, for flank steak on the grill. I have to con­fess I went to the gro­cery store to get a fil­let roast, no mat­ter the cost. I really was in the mood to roll it in some herbs and freshly ground pep­per, as we did in Iowa, and grill it to per­fec­tion. Hap­pily, I was saved from this ruinously expen­sive goal by the sheer fact that there wasn’t an unsliced roast at the store, just lit­tle steaks. So I picked up a num­ber of flank steaks and fig­ured I would mar­i­nate them and they’d be fine. Well, not only were they fine, they were glo­ri­ously deli­cious! And they pro­vided divine left­overs for an absolutely splen­did Asian dish the next day. Here you go:

Grilled Flank Steak with Gin­ger and Lime
(serves 8 with lots of leftovers)

3 flank steaks weigh­ing 1 1/2 lbs each
2-inch knob gin­ger, peeled and minced
5 cloves gar­lic, peeled and minced
juice and zest of 2 limes
2 tbsps sesame oil
3 tbsps soy sauce

Mix all mari­nade ingre­di­ents and slather over the flank steaks on both sides. Grill at a medium-high heat (375 degrees on a propane-fired grill) for 7 min­utes per side for medium rare. Let rest for at least 5 min­utes before slic­ing thin; lots of juices will accu­mu­late. And here’s a hint: after you slice it, serve with the accu­mu­lated juices poured over the top.

Baby Red and Yukon Gold Potato Salad
(serves 10)

4 pounds pota­toes total (if you can’t find the tiny ones, use new potatoes)

dress­ing:
2/3 cup may­on­naise
2/3 cup sour cream
juice of 1 lemon
large hand­ful dill, chopped
6 green onions, sliced (both white and green parts)
1 red onion, minced
sea salt and fresh pepper

Steam or boil pota­toes for 30 min­utes or until pier­ca­ble with a fork. Depend­ing on the size, halve or quar­ter them. You’re after bite-sized pieces. Toss with the dress­ing and serve at room temperature-ish.

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These two dishes were per­fect together, if I do say so myself. And my dear brother in law brought his appe­tizer that I first had a week or so ago, and it deserves a sec­ond appear­ance here. We both think we’ll try adding crab­meat sometime.

Joel’s Arti­choke Dip
(serves eight)

1 cup arti­choke hearts (fresh or from a jar), chopped
1 cup may­on­naise
1 cup grated parme­san cheese

Mix well and place in a 9 x 9 bak­ing dish (non-stick sprayed to make life eas­ier), or sev­eral indi­vid­ual ramekins if you want to place them around an appe­tizer table at a party. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20–3– minute or until bub­bly and brown on top. Serve with toasted baguette rounds or crackers.

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But the true glory, I must say, was the lit­tle lun­cheon dish Avery invented today. She’s got­ten to be such a use­ful per­son to have around the kitchen. She thinks spon­ta­neously about what might be good together, throws out ideas, and then I imple­ment them! Today I said, “How about some left­over flank steak for lunch?” And she said, “Didn’t you men­tion toss­ing it with some bean sprouts and soy sauce? Well, how about adding those Asian noo­dles I like so much?” So I did. We all sim­ply gob­bled it up; I wish I had made more. And you know what? I will tomor­row. What gets me excited about a dish like this is its sheer econ­omy and total ease. I will own up to some­thing that you all have prob­a­bly noticed: I do thrive some­times on expen­sive, clever, labor-intensive recipes, and then every once in awhile it’s glo­ri­ous to make some­thing effort­less and CHEAP. Give it a try! You’ll be very pop­u­lar in your kitchen, and you can hoard the secret knowl­edge that you didn’t put much effort into it at ALL.

Stir-Fried Flank Steak with Bean Sprouts and Noo­dles
(serves four if you serve your­self fast)

a good chunk of left­over grilled flank steak: per­haps 1 pound?
1/2 half Vidalia onion, sliced in large slices
1/2 pack­age Asian noo­dles (labelled “for stir-fry”), cooked and drained well
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
3 hand­fuls bean sprouts
2 tbsps peanut oil
2 tsps sesame oil
3 tbsps soy sauce

Slice your flank steak into bite-sized strips and set aside. Heat the two oils to nearly smok­ing, then throw in every­thing at once. Toss very well; the noo­dles will tend to stick together, but the oils and soy should sep­a­rate them. Stir-fry while toss­ing with tongs for about 3 min­utes over high heat. THAT’S IT.

I’m now think­ing the obvi­ous: you can dou­ble this recipe and use up all of every ingre­di­ent: the onion, bean sprouts and noo­dles. Try it: you’ll be a star.