Speech & Debate

On a recommendation from Kendra, I went to see Speech & Debate at the Lyric Stage Company

on Thursday night.

Kendra was right – Speech & Debate is an excellent play. I’m not sure it really says anything new, but it says what it has to say well, and it’s incredibily funny (I suspect it would be even funnier you’d been involved in Speech and Debate in high school via the National Forensic League, but I found it funny regardless).

The play tells the story of three high school misfits. It has a small cast – just the three misfits and their teacher (who doubles as a reporter) – and it reminds you of all the angst involved with being a teenager in a serious, but humorous, way. An added bonus: my ticket (thank you student rush!) was excellent and just $10.

Recent forays in the kitchen

Sticky Date Pudding: Mum sent me this recipe, which she found in The Australian. I made it a few years ago, and it had languished since then. By the time I dug it out again, the fax paper it was copied onto had deteriorated to the point that it was difficult to read. This version of the recipe (made with the incomparable dates from Whole Foods) wasn’t nearly as dark as I remember the last attempt, but it was still delicious, I suspect largely because of the sauce that’s poured over at the end of baking, and again before serving. Sadly, we fed some of it to a guest who really didn’t like it that much – he told us he didn’t really like sweet things. I’m not sure we’ll be feeding him again! Everyone else seemed to like it just fine, though.

Kheer: I’ve used this recipe from Jo I-don’t-know-how-many-times, always with delicious success – I love the cardamom – but when I last tried it I ended up with something more liquid than I’ve had in the past, even after I threw in a little cornstarch. The only thing I did differently was to use non-fat rather than full-fat milk – could such a small thing make such a big difference? I noticed a similar effect when I made tapioca pudding a few months ago. Can I test this hypothesis by adding heavy cream to the next batch of kheer I make? Maybe I need to try a different recipe? Perhaps something that incorporates an egg?

Classic Buttermilk Waffles: From The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. Rachel and I were both pleasantly surprised at just how good these waffles are. We didn’t have “real” buttermilk on hand, so I used the dried kind for the first time. I’m never going back! No more half full container of buttermilk in the fridge that I’m trying to find a use for, and no more running out in the middle of making something to buy a carton of buttermilk. Of course, I have no idea if the waffles would have been even better had I used the non-dehydrated variety, but I’m perfectly happy with them as they were.

Pappardelle with Mushrooms and Spring Vegetable Sauce: Another recipe from an aunt (albiet a different aunt), this is quick and easy, tastes delicious, and is vegetarian. It’s good week-night fare.

Coconut Quinoa Porridge: Mum made this for Christmas brunch and it was really delicious, although certainly not low-fat! Rachel and I made it when we got back to Boston. We may have made it slightly lower-fat by using light coconut milk, but I think it really is a loosing battle. Rachel and I also didn’t bother making the syrup – we just used maple syrup that we had on hand. It’s not nearly as heavy as you might think it would be – the quinoa keeps it light, I think – but it’s certainly filling, and keeps you going for a good portion of the day.

Completely unrelated to the kitchen:

• Seeing the Invisible: A New York times article on schlieren photography, with some very cool pictures. My favorite? The firing of an AK-47 (I’m not sure what this says about me).
• A poster for your favorite physicist.
• I went to see The Corn is Green last night, which is playing at the Huntington Theater. Not quite my favorite Huntington play of the season (I really liked Rock ‘n’ Roll) but still very good. I turned out that we were there on the night that they had sign-interpreters (which was not nearly as distracting as I thought it might be – much more distracting was the huge head in front of me), and I think that all of deaf Boston must have been at the play. At the end, when the actors acknowledged the interpreters, a huge portion of the audience raised and shook their hands to thank them. I have to admit to finding the last bit of the play to be a little over-the-top and contrived, but that’s not the fault of the Huntington Theater Company.
• I’ve been enjoying this week’s New Yorker. In memory of John Updike, there’s a huge section of excerpts of his work (including my favorite: Happiest I’ve Been), as well as some really lovely photos.

Home-Cooked Food

After a generally lethargic day, I decided that decent food was in order. Since returning from Australia and California I’ve eaten at home very little, and I think it was beginning to take it’s toll. The meal I made was simple: chicken sausages from Trader Joe’s, with sautéed apple, chard/silverbeet, and beet(root) greens (the chard and beet greens were both from the Union Square farmers’ market) but it was just what I needed. Afterwards I taught Rachel about the magic of chocolate self-saucing pudding. Yum! I actually think I’d put it on my list of favorite comfort foods. The added benefit of all this cooking is the left-overs: my lunches may be a little more nutritious. Since then, I’ve made my first roast chicken without parental supervision (courtesy of bills food – I can’t tell you how much the missing apostrophe bothers me) and a berry and peach crumble (the key here is frozen fruit: no coring, no peeling, no washing – hooray!). Home-cooked food is definitely worth the effort.

For some time now I’ve wanted to be able to synchronize my iCal calendar at home with my Sunbird calendar at work. To make matters more complicated, I wanted to be able to edit entries, regardless of which computer they were created on, I wanted to synchronize my to-do list as well as my calendar, and I wanted to do it for free. For some time now, I’ve synchronized my two address books using Plaxo, but Plaxo’s calendar synchronization isn’t set up for Mozilla. After a late night of searching, I can report that there is a free solution that works reasonably well: The Chandler Project. So far as I can tell there’s just one bug: if you include a list of attendees for an event it becomes impossible to edit that even in iCal. This, however, is a bug I’m willing to live with.

Rachel convinced me to buy a student season subscription to the Huntington Theater Company (this turns out to be very reasonably priced. To be honest, Rachel didn’t have to do much convincing), and our first play for the season, How Shakespeare Won the West, was this past Saturday. Sadly, I wasn’t particular impressed. The acting was fine, it was the play itself that disappointed me. Despite being just an hour and a half long, it dragged several times, and felt directionless. There were some very funny parts (and it is supposed to be a comedy), and I thought the staging and costuming was excellent, but that wasn’t enough for me to really enjoy the performance. I’m a little concerned about what I’ve got myself into. Corry, Josh, and Rachel all assure me that the plays were generally much better last year (when they also subscribed), so I’m feeling optimistic. In other subscription news, I recently bought a BSO College Card – an amazing $25 for up to 25 performances! I’m looking forward to the start of the BSO season.

I watched Once recently, with a mixed reaction. Basic background: Set it Dublin. Street busker (guy) meets Czech immigrant (girl) who happens to play the piano. They hit it off – she supplements his songs with keyboard and vocals, completes lyrics to pieces he’s written, etc., etc. The inevitable happens (ie. they are attracted to each other). The movie is full of cliché (although not at the end), and if the busker guy had said “Cool” one more time in the movie, I might have attacked the screen in an effort to strangle him, but I enjoyed it anyway, I think because I liked the movie (sort of soft pop, but that’s OK), which really was central to the film. No big name stars, no flashy effects. Also in Once‘s favor: unusual enough to keep it interesting. I don’t think it breaks any barriers or sets any new standards, but it’s a fun film.

Learning About Her Professional History

Last night Kendra, David, Eduardo, and Ben went to see Copenhagen at the American Repertory Theatre.

Aside: The ART sells student tickets at an excellent rate: $12 each if you buy a 5 ticket student pass, $15 for day-of rush tickets. It’s only marginally more expensive than going to a movie.

Copenhagen is a play I’ve meant to see for some time – after all, it’s a physics play. It revolves around Heisenberg‘s visit to Bohr in 1941, and raises questions about Heisenberg’s involvement and intentions in the German attempt to build an atomic bomb. All of this wasn’t exactly new to me – I was once a teaching assistant in a history-of-science type class whose reading list included exerpt from the play (I can’t remember if we read sections of the play aloud in class).

The American Repertory Theatre staged the play with a very sparse set and a fantastic model of the atom above the set (which switched between a classical and quantum mechanical mode – very satisfying for the physics geeks). As is always the case at the ART, the acting and staging was superb, but the play was long (two and a half hours, plus a single intermission). I have to confess to falling asleep during the second half. I don’t think this was really the actors’ fault – I was just tired, and it was getting late.