I've never been to S'mac or haggled for a rug on Broadway

Today I decided I wanted to take it easy because of my neck situation. I felt capable of moving around the city today, but not up to doing anything too extreme. It's so ironic that the night before the great muscle spasm, I wrote a post about how I was going to go jogging the next morning. The universe heard me and yelled "Ha ha sucker, no you ain't!". Anyway I was able to accomplish one thing that was actually on my list (okay, accomplish is maybe stretching the meaning of that word a little when you think about this task) and I went to a place I had read about somewhere that I knew would be right up my alley; a restaurant that is all about macaroni and cheese called S'mac. And the best part is that the one I read about is somewhere downtown, but an upper west side outpost has recently opened up, so I only had to walk down to my old neighborhood in the 80's on Columbus to sample the cheesy goodness.

The place on Columbus is actually both the macaroni and cheese place combined with a pizza place, and it's on the upper west side, so it was filled with kids. The restaurant is replacing a place I used to go to all the time called Columbus Bakery, so I was a little sad when I noticed one day that Columbus Bakery had closed. My sadness was very quickly replaced by joy, however, when I learned that all different types of mac and cheese were served there, and the joy was replaced with anger when I realized that just when I moved out of that neighborhood they decided to open up a restaurant with one of my favorite foods. But anyway, when I went in there yesterday I discovered that they had all different macaroni and cheese combos - some with just cheese and some with complimentary ingredients- some italian mac and chesse, some indian, some french, etc ad infinitum. I had a very difficult time deciding because if you put any cheese and pasta together and bake it, I like it, but I ended up settling on the french version with brie, figs, rosemary, and roasted mushrooms. It was deeee-lish, and served hot out of the oven in one of those cast iron skillets topped with bubbling cheesey breadcrumbs. I will be going back there to try all the flavors, and each time I will lament the fact that this joint didn't open up until after I had moved away.

I did a little shopping afterwards, and on my way home walking up broadway, I passed this guy who was selling oriental rugs out of a very narrow little storefront and on a table on the street. I stopped because he had all these hallway runners, and in my apartment there is a very long hallway that I have been meaning to cover with a rug ever since I moved in. I just wanted to look at what he had, but he was going for the hard sale. I wasn't trying to haggle, I was just hesitating because I wasn't planning on buying a rug, but as a hesitated, he kept going lower and lower with his prices. You have to imagine this all with a persian accent:

Him:" I give it to you for $120 - that is 50% off retail, but this is sample sale!!! No, okay $100 for you only today. Okay, okay, $75 but don't tell anybody I give you this price. Is practically stealing!"

Me: "Well, the thing is I really need to measure the hallway to see what size runner I need because it's kind of.."

Him: "OKAY! You killing me - I give you for $60 but it's crazy I tell you!"

Me: Well, I just really need to measure"

Him: " Forget measure. You take the rug with you, no pay me, see if it fits - if it does, you bring me back $60."

And with that he rolled up the rug, put it into a bag, and basically shoved me down the street as I mumbled "Not pay you and just take it... okay...." I was so shocked by this guy, in new york city, just giving me this rug, and trusting that I would bring him back the money, but it also made me grin all the way home. I mean - what a tactic! This guy is an expert! He knows that if I bring the rug all the way home, that whether it fits or not, I'm going to feel obligated to pay him. And so of course, I unrolled the rug, it was a little short, but I went back and payed him anyway. And then I looked at the rest of the rugs, and somehow got him to give me a square one for my bedroom for 30 bucks even though he originally wanted $100. Obviously I'm not the one getting the bargains - this guy must have gotten all these rugs for free - like they fell of the back of a truck or something - but I was so taken by being in New York City and having somebody trust me, that I bought two rugs when I didn't intend to buy any. But you know what? They are really beautiful rugs, and I couldn't have found cheaper ones even at IKEA, so I'm just going to enjoy them and not question what the hell happened to me. Maybe we should try that tactic with operas ; "You come, don't pay anything, then only pay at the end if you liked it." Maybe we could fill every seat that way!

I've never royally effed up my neck and back like I did today

So, I've been having some - let's call them stressful feelings - about my career in recent days. These types of feelings tend to come and go, and are very easy to fixate on if one is not occupied at all hours of the day and night. Yesterday, for a variety of reasons, I was feeling particularly nervous about a large hole in my schedule (mentioned in a previous blog when I complained about all the gig offers being in the same 2 second period with 10 years of nothing before and after), and I thought about it a little too much. Then when I went to sleep, I had a stress nightmare that my agents fired me and also said I couldn't do any of the jobs I have lined up with them, leaving me poor and destitute and unemployed. In my dream, one of my agents said something really enigmatic like "when the chicken went cold, we couldn't put it back in the oven" in reference to my not having become a "hot star" or something. I was literally screaming in my sleep and woke myself up in a tizzy. I managed to fall back asleep, but when I got out of bed this morning and walked into the living room, something felt like it snapped and suddenly I couldn't turn my head and it hurt to sit, stand, or move. I spent all day putting heat on this pulled muscle or muscle cramp, and while it's not constantly painful anymore, it still hurts if I try to move my head around at all, and I'm walking around like a stiff statue. A doctor friend of mine looked at it tonight and said that it's a bad muscle cramp, and she prescribed me a muscle relaxer which I will take before bed, because I'm sure with my low tolerance to drugs, it's going to make me really high and loopy. Since I couldn't do anything much without moving, I had the day to contemplate how stress and worry can really take physical hold of you if you fixate on what you don't have happening in your life. I always think I'm getting better at this difficult part of being a self-employed artist, and it takes me having to walk down Broadway (to get my drugs) like some crazy robot with a non-working neck and getting weird stares even from homeless people and crackheads to quickly remind me that I have a long way to go.

I've never eaten at August

August is a little bistro restaurant in the Village on Bleecker street that I've always heard about, mostly as the food you eat before going to Magnolia Bakery, which is two blocks away. But seriously, I had heard it was excellent, and since it's restaurant week, I thought it would be a good time to try it out. It was delicious, and even though I ordered the prix fixe, which came with dessert (carmelized banana flan), and even though there is now a Magnolia on the upper west side, my friend Jenna and I couldn't resist the allure of the sugary bakery after dinner. The smell of that place is enough to make you weak in the knees, and we were already in the village..... I'm still recovering from the amount of Beignets I ingested in New Orleans, not to mention that last night at Marco and Marina's somebody brought some homemade cannolis from an Italian bakery in Brooklyn and I almost bit my own tongue off, so drunk I became on sweet italian cream filling. The tongue injury was serious enough that when I was trying to sing today, the double consonants in Italian were making my whole mouth hurt. Yeah, I need to slow it down on the whole eating of desserts (often multiple desserts) at every meal. That, and tomorrow I am totally going running.

I've never tried Clerico

I am incredibly lucky because some amazing friends of mine moved into my building (I might have told them about the place and steered them towards the front door) and not only do I like being around them a lot, but they are also fantastic hosts and chefs, and love having people over for dinner. My friend Marco is an Italian baritone and his wife Marina is American but speaks pretty much every language (and is a writer for the New Yorker and a pianist - awesome enough?) and now that they live only three floors below me I get invited to their dinner parties sometimes. Woo-hoo! Tonight's was particularly fun for me because it was all Italians and I got to remember how much Italian I've already forgotten, plus eat Marina's yummy cooking (calamari in cous cous with a tomato sauce with pine nuts and currants). But my new favorite thing that she made tonight was this fantastic drink called Clerico which is a kind of white wine sangria. It's made with white wine, ice, fruit (peaches, watermelon, orange) and sugar all mashed together and served in all it's cool delicious splendor. Can you imagine a more fantastic summer drink?

I've never seen La Forza del Destino

I went to Caramoor last night, the musical summer festival in Katonah, NY to see my friend Marco sing a role in La Forza del Destino, Verdi's very dramatic opera about people killing each other and themselves for no reason. Caramoor is a beautiful place, and the audiences there are very appreciative - there were shouts and bravos after every aria, and my friend Marco was fantastic as usual. I have to admit I don't go see Verdi operas that often, partly because he just didn't write a single role I can sing, but also because I guess that type of music doesn't appeal to me as much as Mozart or Rossini does. But some people just die for this stuff, and there are certainly moments that I found very beautiful and moving. I think it's also REALLY hard to present Forza as a concert as opposed to staging it because a) the libretto is really weird and b) it's hard to demonstrate someone killing someone else or themselves without having them fall on the ground. One of the most exciting things that happened other than the singing and killing was that an elderly gentleman seated directly in front of me passed gas in the loudest and most audible manner right during a silence in one of the pieces - and he was sitting in the front row! The weird thing was that nobody blinked or looked around in a shocked manner except me - I'm just not good at being subtle. I just hope it wasn't his assessment of the piece: "This is what I think of you Verdi! Sssspppppwwwfffff!!!!"

I've never been to Dylan's candy bar or Bowlmore lanes

Today made me appreciate how difficult it must be to be a parent in general, and how expensive it must be to be a parent in New York City. I officially apologize to my parents for all the times I begged them to "buy me this thing I don't really need" and pouted when they said no. And I had two little girls with me who didn't beg for anything and who were incredibly well trained and well behaved. I can't imagine having kids who constantly throw tantrums!

I thought it would be fun to take Kate and Emma to Coney Island because it seems like a place kids would like. I had only been there once before, and I was with a friend who was a summer associate at a law firm, and the law firm had given them free passes to everything there, so I had no concept of what things cost. When we got off the subway (it took about an hour to get there) our first stop was Nathan's famous hot dogs, where I fed the girls ( I ate a very healthy lunch of french fries since I'm not currently eating meat) and we went into the various amusement parks. It turns out both girls are afraid of roller coasters, so the Cyclone was out, and then I discovered that the rides cost $5-$6 per person per ride!!!! On weekdays you can buy a one priced pass for all the rides, but I didn't think they were going to want to ride that many rides. So I bought a book of 5 passes (and convinced the guy to let me on free for the second ride) and we rode the Wonder Wheel twice, once with the stationary car, and once with a car that slides back and forth. Price; $24. Even the girls, ages 11 and 15, had enough sense to say to me "Jenny - are you sure you want to do this - it's really expensive!" But I couldn't bring them all the way to Coney Island and not go on ANY rides!!! We left after only about an hour and a half.

The next stop was to be Serendipity the restaurant because Kate had been really curious to try frozen hot chocolate. We marched in there ready to assault our taste buds and discovered it was an hour and fifteen minute wait (at 3:45 on a friday afternoon). To kill the time, we wandered in to a store on the corner that I had never been in; Dylyan's candy bar. This place is like Willy Wonka on candy crack - it's seriously a dentist's nightmare and a kid's dream. There are two floors of every kind of candy, and you can buy it in any kind of bulk - the store workers helpfully hand out clear plastic bags - even to the small children - in hopes that they will fill them up with the sweet stuff. After perusing the two floors of candy, we stumbled on the cafe on the top floor, and low and behold, they also had frozen hot chocolate and we could have it right now! We ordered our drinks ( I had a milkshake - my food intake for the day so far had been french fries and a milkshake - I wasn't winning any nutrition prizes, nor was I winning any parenting awards for what I was feeding the girls) and the drinks were so outlandishly sweet, none of us could come close to finishing them. The people working behind the candy bar also seemed to be drunk on candy-crack because they forgot our order and then took longer to make the three drinks than it took us to drink them. However, Kate did get her frozen hot chocolate, and I got to see them make it, so now if anyone asks me why it's called frozen hot chocolate, I can tell them that they steam the milk like they would real hot chocolate, and then add the cocoa, and then put in in a blender with ice and more sugar - and that's why they call it frozen hot chocolate.

After I dropped the girls off at the train station exhausted and nutritionally-depleted, I actually had a date, and got to try two more new places just for grown ups. The first was the Blue Water Grill in Union Square, which is not only a restaurant but has a jazz room, where a live jazz trio plays while you eat your dinner. This is restaurant week, so they had an excellent prix-fixe menu, as well as a special cocktail with "organic" tequila (watch out for that stuff). The dinner was really good, and afterwards we went to another new place for me - an actual bowling alley in Manhattan called Bowlmore Lanes. It was fun - but talk about expensive!!! For two games for two people and two pairs of shoes, the price was $50!!!! Ugh - how does anyone live here? But I totally won both games, and the second time I bowled a 124, which is pretty good - for me. Especially after the organic tequila. Actually, maybe that might have made me a better bowler.

I've never seen (gulp) Legally Blonde

And boy, it made me want to move to Europe and take a barf bag on the plane with me.

Let me explain why I was witnessing this spectacle. I have two wonderful young ladies visiting me for today and tomorrow, ages 11 and 15. They are the daughters of a family I stayed with 5 years ago on a singing gig, and have become like family to me - I don't have any nieces or nephews, so I have basically adopted these two girls, and I adore spending time with them. I thought it would be fun for their big adventure in New York City to take them to a broadway show, and their first choice was Legally Blonde. They have been following this reality tv show that has apparently been on MTV (today was the first I had ever heard of it - I'm getting old I guess) - and it's been a show whose entire purpose was to select the new lead of Legally Blonde. They crowned a winner, and since the finale of the show aired very recently, tonight was only the winner's second performance. The fact that the star in a broadway musical was selected by a reality show is horrifying enough, and it is compounded by the show itself, which is really atrocious. I mean, I can see the appeal if you're between 10 and 16, but after that, it's hard to swallow. But the good news is that Kate and Emma loved it. Seeing them clap and cheer absolutely made it worth the fact that I kept throwing up a little in my mouth.

After the show was over, the girls wanted to wait by the stage door to see this newly crowned "star" in person (again - I can totally see the appeal - if I had the opportunity to meet the winners of project runway, I would probably wait 37 hours in the heat and kill people if I had to) and when she came out and everybody was grabbing at her and taking photos, I had several thoughts. The first thought was that there were probably only a handful of people waiting at the stage door for Patti Lupone - for this girl there were a couple hundred rabid fans. I just can't believe the way stars are made by media and not talent now. I know it's not news, but it still makes me sad. The second thing I noticed was how there seemed to be no interaction between the star and her fans - they just shoved things in her face for her to sign and snapped her photo, but no one was complimenting her on her performance or even talking to her really - she was just a famous shell for the people to say they had met. None of them seemed moved by her performance, they just all seemed to want a piece of her. Where oh where have the days gone when people were groupies because a performer really moved them and made a difference in their lives? Ugh - I should get off my soapbox, but I found the whole thing pretty shocking. I felt sad for her and for us.

But for all this complaining I'm doing, there is nothing more fun than giving an 11 and a 15 year old something that really delights them. Everything else seems inconsequential when you can make somebody you care about - especially somebody young and full of life and excitement - grin from ear to ear. That's worth more than all the body mikes and hair extensions from here to 42nd street.

I've never been to a boss's birthday party

I have to say I was kind of honored to be invited by my City Opera "boss" of eight seasons to his birthday party. Robin Thompson basically handed me my career on a silver platter (he hired me right out of Juilliard and continued to promote me through the City Opera ranks, and I worked there every single season for 8 straight years) and I owe him a debt of gratitude. I was super-psyched that after all our years working together and getting to know each other, that he now considers me enough of a friend to invite me to his milestone birthday party. I won't say his age here in case he wouldn't want me to, but he really does look fantastic even if he were 10 years younger than he actually is.

The party was held at Vivolo, a lovely italian restaurant on the east side, and he had the entire upstairs party room for his 40 guests. Other than me, the only singer present was Lauren Flanigan, and I was happy to be sitting at her table because she's a very fascinating person, and we had the chance to talk quite a bit during dinner. The party was also peppered with a ton of "movers and shakers" from the business - several important managers, higher-ups from the Met, and even some luminaries from the Art world. I was seated next to an art dealer/ manager who manages the likes of Chuck Close among others, and also at my table was the head curator from the MOMA, and the former president of the City Opera Board. I always feel small and uninteresting among people like these, but I try my best to hold my own and learn what I can from people who have obviously led pretty interesting lives.

Friendship is important - I'm just glad that all different people consider me their friend. I hope it's always that way.

I've never been to NEW ORLEANS

What a place! Unfortunately for New Orleans, nowadays, the first thing people think of when they think of the town is Katrina. But the funny thing is, I would never have known there was ever a disaster in that town if someone hadn't told me, because everything is back in full swing, and in fact, most of the more visited areas weren't really as affected by the flooding. I'm not diminishing the grand scale of the disaster, I'm just doing a little PR for the city here, and reporting that in fact it is still the same sin-filled playground it has always been.

My weekend started on Friday, when I woke up very early in the morning, arriving in NOLA at 9:30 AM. My best friend Georgia and her fiance Micah, who was born and raised in New Orleans, picked me up and brought me back to their lovely new apartment. It's about 4 times as big and as nice as my place in NYC and for the same thing I pay, so I could immediately see the allure of moving outside of New York just for the comfort of things like space and dishwashers. We dove right into Louisiana culture by picking up some crawfish, corn and potatoes, and bringing them to the Levee, where we sat on the grass and feasted. I had never eaten crawfish before, and I can only explain it as a combination of eating a shrimp, crab, and lobster - but it really has it's own distinct flavor. The Louisiana preparation is full of spices and flavor (I think there's this mix of seasonings that they boil the crawfish in), and I even got the hang of yanking off the tails to reveal the meaty deliciousness, and sucking the juice out of the heads. I was still pretty exhausted from my early morning traveling, so I got to view a lot of the cool old houses and neighborhoods from the car, and we stuck around their place for dinner.

Saturday was spent in the French Quarter. We started the morning by having the famous beignets at Cafe du Monde. I think if I lived in New Orleans, it would be very difficult for me not to eat those puppies every day. Golden chunks of fried dough drowning in powdered sugar, washed down with an iced coffee or cafe ole. I went on to eat beignets several more times during my trip - I haven't weighed myself since leaving. We wandered around and shopped for a lot of the day, and then met some friends of ours who have moved to New Orleans and now have a baby - Amanda and Aaron - for a very decadent New Oreanian dinner at a restaurant called Galatois. We walked down Bourbon street,
and even on this night in what is considered the off season,
Bourbon street was utterly filled with people carrying alarmingly large alcoholic beverages in plastic cups, and people standing on balconies waiting for some nudity which might warrant some bead throwing.Every other establishment is a strip club, although a lot of them have chic french names like cafe deaux deaux, adding to their allure. At one point we passed a man holding a large cross which eventually formed into a circle of men creating a prayer group. Good luck fellas - these dens of iniquity weren't even washed away by a life altering natural disaster - I'm not sure how much your metal cross is going to accomplish!

Sunday was quite the opposite of Saturday's debauchery feast because we spent it in nature. Micah took Georgia and I to the Jean Lafite swamp and nature preserve to see if we could spot some real live alligators up close and personal. It felt like it was 115 degrees in the shade and about 425% humidity while we walked along the swamp path, but it was worth it because we saw about 4 alligators - one so close I could have reached out and touched him. And this isn't like at a zoo where the animals are behind glass - this is a wooden footbridge over the swamp with no railings or walls - just you, nature, and the alligators, who hopefully aren't feeling hungry. We also saw these crazy huge spiders in large numbers, and dragonflies that were so incredibly colorful, I was getting ideas on what colors I wanted to paint my bedroom. But the most exciting thing was seeing this huge monster alligator (he was, thankfully, across the swamp) fully open his jaws in a kind of yawn, revealing all his teeth and just how many people he could fit in that mouth if he were so inclined.


Monday, when Micah went back to work, Georgia and I spent literally all day wedding dress shopping. It was funny - because we are opera singers and are very used to wearing gowns - even some white wedding gowns from time to time - we were very pragmatic about the selection and fit of the dresses, and there was very little squealing and no crying. But I did have a moment of disbelief that this person who I've known for almost 15 years, who I met when we were these young impressionable freshmen in college, is taking this big life step, and at one point I exclaimed, "You're trying on wedding dresses! This is so surreal." I took my maid of honor duties seriously and tried to help her decide on the best dress, but it was difficult because she looked gorgeous in everything. I may not have cried when I saw her trying to dresses on because it felt a lot like a costume fitting, but during the ceremony I'll definitely plan on waterproof mascara, that I'm sure of.

All in all I got to see this fantastic and crazy city, I got to spend some quality time with my best friend and her future husband, and I got to eat a lot of really delicious food, and get drunk in the middle of the day. Who could ask for much more from a weekend getaway?

little break

Hi everybody and thank you for following my adventures thus far. I now have to beg your indulgence while I take a one week break from my "I never" section which I plan to make up during the first week of August (I don't want to shirk on my full 30 days of responsibility to goof off). But for the next couple of days I've got to head up to my parents house for some extremely uninteresting maintenance (dentist appointment and driver's license renewal - I can't bear the DMV lines in manhattan) and then for the weekend I was able to find a cheap plane ticket to go visit my bestie Georgia in her new home; New Orleans. I'll definitely write a blog entry about my trip to Nawlins since I've never been there and it sort of fits into my July theme of new things, but I'm not counting it towards my one month challenge because it's not in NYC, and I can be a stickler for rules, even ones I made up myself. Not only do I get to see the French Quarter, but I also get to participate in wedding dress shopping as part of my maid of honor duties for Georgia's wedding. I've never wedding dress shopped before, so that will be another I never to add to my list of new July experiences. I promise not to write a blog entry about standing in line at the DMV in Poughkeepsie, and I'll try not to drunk-blog from New Orleans, but from what I hear about that place, I can't promise about that one.