bergerka

Now, folks, *folding arms and looking around severely* I haven't had ONE brave soul volunteer to step up and bare his or her food habits to the world. c'mon...SOMEONE has to do this. We have to keep the streak going so we have an excuse for the great foodblog one-year-anniversary bash! K

Nope--nothing on that menu was spicy at all. K

Lunch! I had to go at noon today, which is too early for lunch for me, but Ben, SarahD and Sam joined me for one of our favorites...INDIAN BUFFET! We go to Bombay Grill, a little teeny place that has been through several managements in the last six months, right on Lexington between 39th and 40th Streets. Their lunch buffet is $9.95 and delicious. Here's a look at the menu. Special props to Ben, here...I'm an ass and forgot the damn camera, so he used his phone cam again. He was going to try to get a picture or two of the buffet, but the head honcho guy kept looking at him funny, so we gave up on that. I had: some of what I refer to as "Indian pico de gallo," fresh cucumber, hot peppers, red peppers, and a couple of other veggies, chopped up and marinated in some kind of a vinaigrette, with lots of cilantro, and a little cold salad of potato chunks, marinated, with veggies; Onion bhajia: deep-fried onion with spices, dude. chicken tikka masala: this is one of the richest versions of this dish I've had, very creamy and the chicken is tender and juicy. I can only eat one helping of it, though...it's just too creamy and rich and filling; Lamb roganjosh: I absolutely love this, marinated, braised lamb in a brown sauce cooked until absolutely tender, with little strips of potato cooked in; Aloo gothi: I think this was the cauliflower, potatoes and peas cooked in masala sauce; Matar paneer: pieces of what they called "cottage cheese," which was a mild white cheese, cooked with tomatoes, onions and green peppers Here's a picture of my plate. It doesn't look like much, but this was my SECOND helping. We all had water to drink, and Sarah had a lassi as well. I am now so full I think I might keel over and die. Do you suppose I could be fired for falling asleep at the desk? K

Unfortunately, we're out of beans for the Rancilio...and since Sam roasts his own, he's in charge of re-ordering, which I don't think he's gotten around to doing. K

Morning, all! Sam and I are both Fresca drinkers. We like Fresca, Diet Barq's root beer (increasingly difficult to find in NYC, for some reason) and caffeine-free Diet Coke. HE likes vanilla diet pepsi, I think it's nasty beyond belief. We rarely eat dessert in the winter, unless I remember to buy ice cream or make cookies. In the summer we tend to have a LOT more ice cream around the house, and have dessert more frequently. I also eat ice cream for lunch in the summer sometimes. I REALLY like ice cream. To be honest - I've only watched about 2 episodes total of American Idol. I don't find it all that interesting, although I'd love to have Simon critique MY auditions. Every singer needs someone that honest and willing to cut through the bullshit on his or her team. Alacarte, total bummer about the tortilla at the St. Mark's Place Chipotle! I haven't noticed that problem at the one on East 44th Street. Breakfast! All I had time for at home today was coffee (for some reason, all three of us needed to be in the bathroom at EXACTLY the same time. I would kill for two bathrooms, absolutely kill), so I bought a vanilla Dannon yogurt downstairs and am eating that for breakfast. Need to have a small one, because my lunch hour is early today (12:00, what a stupid time to have lunch). K

Dinner time. Lord, this was an exhausting day. I spent the morning alternately panicking and tracking down Eric "no cell phone" Malson in Madrid, then working my ass off for this attorney all afternoon (at least it was interesting work). I'm very happy to report that a day of resting the thigh seems to have taken care of the problem...so I was back to 1/2 hour of Pilates and 20 minutes on Mr. Stairmaster today. First, we had vodka gimlets. mmmm...vodka gimlets. We were GOING to have a frittata of leftover kale with potatoes & stuff, but upon discovering that we only had two eggs, Sam improvised. We had, instead, spaghetti with spanish chorizo and fresh thyme, steeped in extra virgin olive oil. Yummmmmmm. Here it is! Doesn't that look yummy? Sam's now going to grind up chickens for the ferrets and then I'm going to go take pictures of us playing with them. In the meantime, I'm watching "Catch me if you can," which with "What's eating Gilbert Grape" marks only the second time I've ever enjoyed Leonardo diCaprio in ANYTHING. He's really at his best playing a teenager, don't you think? K

Hey, JPW. 1. Unfortunately, missing a workout doesn't affect how I eat at all. I exercise out of pure necessity...if I do it, I don't gain weight, if I don't do it, I DO gain weight - and I'm unwilling to give up the foods I like to keep the pounds off. Combine that with my inner control freak, and exercise is the lesser of two evils. 2. Missing one workout has no effect on my singing at all... but I got lazy this fall and winter and didn't do it for several months. THAT had a PRONOUNCED effect on my breath control and on the difficulty I felt in expending the physical effort it takes to sing operatically, particularly in the muscles of the stomach and abdomen. Because 1/2 of my workout is Pilates, that's where my main focus is, because the more toned those muscles are, the easier it is to activate them for singing. Lunch! Ben, Sam and I went for slices of pizza today. We have an ok place right across the street from the office...it's certainly nowhere near the quality of Patsy's, Grimaldi's or any of the REALLY GOOD pizza places, but for cheap, fast 'za it's not too terrible. Sam likes the bacon pizza (it's good, but the one time I ate it it made me sick!). I had one bigass slice of white pizza (cheese & ricotta. I love ricotta) and one bigass slice of pepperoni that had WAY too much cheese on it. I peeled most of it off. And a Fresca. Here's the 'za. I should add that this picture is courtesy of Ben and his amazingly cool cell phone, which takes pictures, since I was a dumbass and forgot the camera today. I'll definitely bring it tomorrow, and I'll see if I can't get Ben to pose, too, so you'll have a face to put with the name if you care to. On the way back, we stopped at a little deli, Sam bought a Vanilla diet Pepsi (YAK) and I bought a seltzer and a little package of Chips Ahoy cookies to soothe the chocolate monster. You know, it occurs to me--we need to start thinking about who to tag next! C'mon, if I can do one, anyone can. If you're interested in being the next fabulous blogger, PM me and let me know! K

Good morning, everyone! The sunshine and last night's fabulous dinner have improved my mood considerably (I was TOTALLY bummed about not being able to stairmaster yesterday, how stupid is that?). Breakfast was two cups of coffee, quickly gulped (ran a tad late this morn. Are you sensing a pattern here?), and one piece of leftover fig and pepper bread with honey. I'm thinking a snack might be in order before lunch, though. And JennyUptown...so come to NYC for dinner, already! We'd love to have ya! K

Whew, what a day of blogging! Hwilson41...I am (honestly) extremely relieved to know that I'm not absolutely boring people to tears and making them think "get to the food already, motormouth!" (motorfingers??? don't go there). Unfortunately, upon my return home, I discovered that whatever it is I did that made my left thigh hurt like hell every time I walked today is also going to prevent me from stairmastering until it resolves itself. I did get my 1/2 hour of Pilates in, though, which is better than nothing. Dinner! Sam, once again demonstrating why he is the unquestioned champion in the "Best Boyfriend in the World" Competition, made dinner. We had: Salad. Belgian endive, Shropshire blue cheese, granny smith apple cut into matchsticks, olive oil, integrated lemon olive oil, a little champagne wine vinegar, a little salt, a little dijon mustard. Chicken browned and braised with small black olives (picholines?), a few whole cloves of garlic, a bundle of fresh thyme. Sam braised it on high heat with about an inch of liquid in the bottom, boiling furiously. He covered it, let the liquid boiled down, and repeated the process till the chicken was tender. Kale. I plucked off the kale leaves and washed them, then Sam steamed them, rinsed them in cold water, then squeezed the moisture out and chopped them up finely. Then he cubed some Yukon gold potatoes (which I had previously peeled), browned them in EVOO with a little salt, added some finely diced spanish chorizo, stirred in the kale and put it in a warming oven until everything else was ready. Artichokes, braised in evoo with a little lemon zest on top. Charlie ate with us tonight, and contributed some Yellowtail chardonnay to the cause. I'm not generally a fan of chardonnay, too oaky, but it worked perfectly well with everything but the artichokes (NOTHING quite like forgetting what artichokes do to white wine and taking a big ol' gulp after a bite. METALLIC MOUTH). It was absolutely delicious and I think there might be enough of the kale left for a frittata tomorrow, which would be sublime. Any minute now I'm going to tear myself away from this totally bizarre production of The Barber of Seville on the Ovation channel, and do the dishes so I can go play with the ferrets for awhile. ...I wonder if there's any ice cream in the freezer, and if I could convince Charlie to also donate a bit of that to the cause...it's all for the blog, after all... K

Oh dear. Short answer: it takes talent, brains, contacts, hard work and a shitload of dumb luck. Long answer - this is a REALLY LONG answer, I hope it isn't too OT to stay on the blog. If it is, let me know and I'll delete and PM you with it. Like being an actor, a musical theater performer, or basically any kind of freelance performing career, I think, there are certain things you (generic you, not "you" per se) have to have in order to be an opera singer...but none of those things guarantee you a full-time (or even part-time) living at it. You absolutely MUST HAVE: 1. The burning desire to do it. This happens first. You had better REALLY WANT THIS CAREER, because otherwise the first big stumbling block will knock you on your ass and you'll have wasted time, money and opportunity to do something else. This career costs more and takes longer than becoming a brain surgeon, and the chances of making a living - EVER - are much lower than your average neurosurgeon's, too. We are frequently told that if there is anything we can see ourselves being happy doing that ISN'T being an opera singer, we'd better do it. Along with this, it ought to go without saying, should come a real love for classical music and particularly opera (you would be shocked if I told you how many singers I know don't even LIKE opera. WHYYYY would you put yourself through this if you didn't LIKE THE ART FORM??? ). You know the scary part? I'm not even being overdramatic here. 2. The instrument and the technical ability. I put these two together because whether or not you HAVE an operatic voice is frequently determined as you develop singing technique with a teacher. Singing technique is basically the development of the quality of the instrument, the vocal range, the stamina (it's a muscle, yanno), the breath control...all the physical things that go into making a controlled "operatic" sound that carries to the back of a large auditorium without a microphone and that you can sustain for periods of several hours at a time without becoming overly tired or hurting yourself (if you ever want to see what a damaged vocal fold looks like, google "vocal nodes" sometime. Yick). 3. Acting training/good dramatic instincts. You can get away with one or the other, although both are preferable. I know plenty of stage animals who have never taken an acting class, and plenty of singers with lousy instincts who have good training and can take direction extremely well. 4. Good ability with languages, both sung and spoken. Italian, at a minimum. French. German. 5. A professional "team." This is your teacher, your coach(es, I have two/three at any given time. By the way...teachers teach you HOW, physically, to sing. Coaches work with you on how to incorporate the technique into your repertoire), and eventually your agent. These are the people you can trust to tell you both when you're good...and, more importantly, when you suck and how to fix it. These are also people who work on your behalf, ideally, to recommend you to people with influence (or, in the case of your agent, set up auditions and book you when you are offered contracts) who can help you get hired. So you take all of these basic things and develop a "core" repertoire, which is to say that you figure out which operatic roles suit your voice (can you be heard over the orchestra, are other singers with similar voices being cast in those roles, can you sing every single note in tune and connected to every single other note, every single time, that kind of thing) and your "type" (yes, type counts. Not nearly as much as in straight theater or musical theater, where one can be - and I have been - "typed out" and released from an audition for being too tall, or whatever, but it is increasingly important in the standard repertoire to look as though you could be the character you are portraying), and you learn the important pieces from those roles for auditions (if you're obsessed, like me, you learn the whole damn role even when you're not contracted to sing it), you put out beaucoup bucks for photos (I've considered using my new headshot as an avatar...I own the negatives, would that be a copyright violation?), you design a resume and bio to mail out to companies, you move to a major city (NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A. but not so much), and you throw yourself into this like a fish, swimming upstream. The first thing you find out is the thing no one tells you: Opera in the US and most of Europe (excluding Germany, different system altogether, I won't go into that here because I'm not going to Germany) is a PURELY FREELANCE BUSINESS. There is NO retirement plan, there is NO health insurance (I still don't have health insurance, because it's not affordable individually either!), there is a union, but it really kind of sucks unless you're a professional chorister (which, interestingly enough, does tend to be with one particular house, and is a "regular" job). Not only that, unless you are one of the 1% of the 1% who happens to be ready for prime-time at a very young age AND happens to get noticed by the "right" people (this happened to my friend Laura, who now sings at basically every big house in the world), you may not be making a full - or even part - time living at this by the time you're 30. Or 35. I know of one singer who was still temping off and on into his early 40's. I'm glad for him that he didn't give it up, though, because finally he caught a break and got enough high-paying gigs to make it his full-time living. Eventually, depending on the contacts you make, the direction your voice and repertoire go, and your luck, you will either have enough jobs to sing full-time for a living or you will not. All smart singers, whether they admit it or not, set a "target date" by which they want to be able to look down the road and say "by two years from now, I will have enough gigs to make my living at this," and if they can't do that, they quit and do something else. The above two paragraphs sum up what is SO hard for people to understand about this career - although with the number of freelance writer types we have here, I'd be surprised if egulleteers didn't understand. Frankly, real prime-time for a singer is age 35-50, and most full-time singers are somewhere in that age group, with full-time singers in their twenties much more rare. Although I work at a day job most of the time, I am still a professional opera singer. I have more gigs this year than I had last year, I am making more money at this and I am being noticed by more people, and I'm actively looking for an agent now (you need an agent to have a career, but you need a career to attract an agent!). As long as I continue to actively pursue a full-time career in this, I will be a professonal opera singer. And when I stop actively pursuing it, I will become an agent and make singers' lives hell by telling them all the things they don't want - but do need - to hear. I do hope this makes sense, I've been alternately typing it and working like crazy for this very sweet but VERY busy lawyer. On preview: this and everything else that everyone else said about it. K

Yes, I think you're right. I probably mostly cringed because it was the type of comment that struck me as just adding to the idea perpetrated in part by the spokesman for Covent Garden (the one where he said that singers tell him they HAVE to eat a lot to sing), that singers are utterly self-involved, self-indulgent, self-important spoiled babies. Granted, some of us ARE. I mean...what the hell were you people thinking, giving me a forum to talk about MYSELF FOR A WEEK??? I'm a SOPRANO, here. K P.S. Soba, if you want to go to Salome, pm me and let's all go together. It'll be fun!

What to do is come to the opera with Sam and me sometime. It's fun. And we eat before (and sometimes go to Cafe la Fortuna after). What to do if you want to go on your OWN is to see one of the following (my very favorite "first" opera experiences): Carmen (great music that you will know! Sex! Violence! Bad breakups! Stalkers! Bullfighting!) La Boheme (you know, it was just on Broadway. Romance! Bad breakups! Great music! Death from tuberculosis!) The Barber of Seville (comedy! Great tunes! romance!) La Traviata (bad girls going good! then going bad again after a bad breakup! Then dying of tuberculosis! Great music! Great party scenes!) Rigoletto (Naughty men seducing good girls! Fathers trying to get revenge! Sex! Dishonor! Tragedy! Great music!) And go see them at the Met, if you can. It can be incredibly frustrating if you go a lot because casting can be uneven, but for first experiences with standard repertory shows like the ones I mentioned above they do a bang-up job. And they have supertitles - in fact, the titles are at every seat so you can see what's going on for yourself! K

This description really made me laugh. Is it common opera-speak? HEE! Well. It's common ME speak. I've also been known to say "she sang that so well I need a CIGARETTE now." If you know what I mean. OH...re the wine with Italian food thing...yeah, normally I do like to drink wine food like that, but neither of us thought of it (I'm not sure we had any that would have gone that well with it, actually). Long day. Guanciale is cured hog jowl. It's like bacon that is just so BACON flavored, so very PORKY, that you just want to eat it and eat it and eat it and and and... Raw olive oil = extra virgin, added at the end instead of cooked in the dish. I think. I'll check with his geniusness. I will get some pix of the baby boys tonight, I promise...you have just GOT to see how much bigger they've grown than in those original pix. Asher, especially...he weighs more than 5 pounds, and Issachar, the little golden boy, is now GIGANTIC and pudgy. We like to poke his little tummy. It annoys him. Lunch! The things I do for my blog. I COULD have gone out and gotten a salad and been healthy and felt virtuous, but I PROMISED you guys I was going to introduce you to the places we eat around here, so instead I gathered up Sam, SarahD and Ben and we went to Chipotle at 44th Street between Lexington and Third. Sarah noticed, which I never had before, that it seems to be a "man" place to eat, which is to say that the men in the (long, as in out the door, but moving quickly) line outnumbered the women by at least 10:1. Are burritos a guy thing? I had the barbacoa burrito (if you don't know Chipotle, that's braised shredded beef, slightly spicy. YUM), NO RICE (I don't LIKE rice in my burritos!), pinto beans, lettuce, corn salsa, pico de gallo, and a little bit of cheese & sour cream, and a Diet Coke. I'm REALLY REALLY full now, and it is ALL YOUR FAULT. K

I did read this and was shocked. First of all, I'm a HUGE fan of Deborah Voigt, and I find her Ariadne to be the best currently out there. It's fantastic. She's funny as hell and she sings the living shit out of the piece, and I think it's INEXCUSABLE to buy her out of her contract because of her weight (especially considering they contracted her for this FIVE YEARS AGO, before they HIRED the director). In fact, I ran it by one of my favorite directors, and his response was that because directors usually have little to no influence over casting, they absolutely MUST be flexible in their "concepts" so that they can work with what they have...end of story. Covent Garden, IMHO, sacrificed the art form to "Hollywooditis" here. It's a sure thing that Voigt will turn them down next time they offer her a role (and, solidarity in the upper echelons of the biz being what it can be, other singers may turn down contracts there as well)...and their audience will be deprived of one of the best Straussians currently out there. Shame on them! At the very least, they owe her a public and profuse apology. If they had any class, they'd fire that director and honor her contract. Unfortunately, the following quote from La Voigt made me cringe and think she needs to get out in the fresh air more: >When asked about this last year by Andante's online classical music magazine, Ms. Voigt said: "I'm determined to lose more with my personal trainer, with a combination of nutrition and workouts. I'm actually lifting weights." She added: "You know, I believe this attitude toward heavy people is the last bastion of open discrimination in our society."< Um. EXCUSE ME? No one, for example, is saying that Ms. Voigt, oh, can't get married because she is overweight. To take an extreme example, no one ever crucified someone on a barbed-wire fence (Matthew Shepard) or dragged someone to death behind a truck (the racial incident in Texas) because of their weight. I understand her outrage, truly, especially when she has absolutely busted her ass to try to keep her weight down (and she has, she has). But let's get a little perspective here. Rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled blog. K

Morning, all! JennyUptown: aw, crap. I'm sorry. It sounds like you need a martini. Pan: sometimes we do let them fight it out. One of the problems is that the middle boy likes to surprise the big boy by waking him up with a CHOMP and hold on the neck. The big guy, although easily twice the size of the other ferrets, is a bit of a wussy and he would rather scream--LOUDLY (you would NOT believe how loudly a ferret can screech...I can hear it at the other end of the apartment )--than fight back. That's when I break it up. I am happy to announce that the babies slept ALL NIGHT last night except for one minor turf disagreement around 3 am, and this morning they played together happily. NO big fights or screeching, just wrestling and chasing that is all part of ferret fun and games. Katie: The ferrets have a three-story penthouse cage that Sam built in our room. During the day, they conk out in the various hammocks, fuzzy cubbies, enclosed cubes and boxes with blankies in there. As soon as we get home, we let them out (RELEASE THE FERTS! We do, of course, leave the cage door open so they can eat & drink!) and they basically play the rest of the evening. Recently, we've been leaving them out all night, which is kind of nice...they alternately roam around and sleep (sometimes the baby licks my feet at 3 am...I mean, can you imagine waking up to that???). They're pretty darned good about the litter box, too, only occasionally do we have an accident (or an "I'm mad at you, mom, so I'm going to poop RIGHT HERE ON THE FLOOR, so there" moment). That also tends to mean that when we go to work they're tired and ready for bed. Oh and I have to take back, partially, my poking fun at Charlie last night. That salad turned out to be a recipe from epicurious...leaf lettuce, endive, some other stuff, grapefruit, champagne vinegar. It looked good! Breakfast! I decided I liked this idea of working out in the evening, so I slept in a little today too, or at least I tried. Zebulun had other ideas. He walked up me at 6:30 am and stared me in the face until I woke up. Breakfast was two cups of coffee and three slices of the fig and pepper baguette that Charlie bought last night, spread with honey (regular clover honey, although I think this weekend I'm going to go buy another one of those baguettes and some of the thyme honey they sell at the West Side Market). Yum. I'm already thinking about lunch. Does anyone else find that breakfast makes you hungrier? Also, can anyone explain why, although I haven't lost any weight at all, the pants that were too tight a week ago are suddenly comfortable again???? *cue Bridget Jones-esque obsessing* K

Dinner! Got home, let the ferrets out to play (aka "bite each other and roll around on the floor like crazy boys"), did 1/2 hour of Pilates mat work to the accompaniment of the tv (TNT has this lovely habit of showing reruns of "Charmed," "ER," and "Law & Order" just when I like to work out in the afternoon) and 1/2 hour on the Stairmaster (I'm only recently back on the exercise wagon, and am trying to work up to doing 1/2 hour on that thing every time I exercise. It burns significantly more calories...but I also find it significantly more difficult. anyone else?), then showered. Sam cooked, yay! He made spaghetti all'amatriciana. Here you can see the pan containing guanciale, onion, whole garlic cloves and hand-squinched San Marzano tomatoes. Once off the heat, he added peperoncino, whole parsley leaves and a little raw olive oil. Here's the finished dish, all ready to eat, in one of the beautiful bowls Sam's mother brought back for us from her last trip to Israel. It was delicious. We drank caffeine-free Diet Coke with it. I'm now contemplating an after-dinner drink and perhaps a chase up and down the hall with the ferrets. It is now time for one of my incredulous comments about our roommate's eating habits. Sam and I had been joking while he was in the shower about the fact that the only things he ever makes seem to be salads of various kinds and occasionally random sauteed greens with scrambled eggs mixed in (not, like, with salt or pepper or any other spices or any...like...olive oil or anything, either, which would be delicious), when he came out and announced that he would be "cooking dinner" for his girlfriend later tonight when she finished rehearsal. He'd bought a nice bottle of white wine, a baguette from the Silver Moon Bakery...kinda romantic-like. Me: What are you cooking?? Charlie: oh, you know...salad. He wasn't kidding, either. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It was just SUCH a Charlie thing to say. K P.S. Ruthcooks--I was absolutely floored the first time I read about the South Beach diet. I felt like saying "Charlie, if you're that desperate to lose, what, five pounds? Eat less and exercise more!

Ohhhhh my. Snack time. Melton came back with the cake. It's a white cake, with passionfruit filling, and white ganache frosting. Now...I don't even LIKE white chocolate, and this is just fucking awesome. I think I'm in love. K

OK, bergerka, what's the story? Love your description of your mom advising you on cooking over the phone. If you've ever tried it the other way round (someone asking YOU for advice over the phone), it's even funnier..."it's doing WHAT?...you need an immersion blender...no, that's not an immersion blender, that sounds like a spoon...it smells like WHAT??...I think it's time you found the takeout menus." Oh dear. Of course, having said that I'd tell the story, I'm now suddenly thinking it is probably one of those things that was only funny at the time and to those involved... but here goes. My sisters, like me, are big goofballs. On holidays like Christmas, we all gather in my mom's kitchen (mom is also a goofball), start on the wine and cook and talk and get very silly. I don't remember the occasion, but we were about three glasses in. Mom had set a can of peeled tomatoes on the counter, and my oldest sister decided that Pomodori Pelati was a fantastic name for an opera singer, and she was going to call me that from now on. Of course, we started riffing on "if I'm Pomodori Pelati, then who are YOU?" and here's what we came up with: Barbara, the oldest, who describes herself as "the short one" (because she's in a wheelchair. She also frequently threatens to run over my toes), decided that she is purely decorative, not useful at all, therefore she should be...Decorati Pelati. Carol, the middle, blond, zaftig, big chest, decided that her general appearance should be reflected in her name...and she became Fluffy Pelati. We then tracked down our baby brother, who is 6'5" and EXTREMELY skinny, and because at the time he was doing ballet leaps around the living room to amuse a niece or nephew (you have to imagine how this looked, he has REALLY LONG arms and legs) and trying to look very dignified, we named him Snotty Pelati. Yes. I think this was probably one of those things for which you had to be there. But it still makes ME laugh.

Kathleen and I actually met on the job... on the real job that is. Which is to say, on a gig. Yes, it's true, Sam and I actually met at a summer opera festival. It was all romantic & stuff (no, really, it was. He introduced me to Booker's bourbon that summer, too). I'm currently waiting for our friend Melton to get back from lunch...he's going home to get a cake he made, because he wants us to taste it. Gosh, I hate tasting cake. Don't you? K

Indeed they do. I wasn't sure at first how it would be having the same day job as my sweetie pie...but it's worked out well. Basically, I got this job through my friends Dave and Melton, other singing floaters here. I then brought Ben and Sarah on board, and when Sam's last day job disappeared (the entire department was eliminated), recommended him as well. I LIKE to work with my friends! And the firm is happy, because we're very good at this stuff. AND they don't mind if we leave for gigs, because we're floaters, not permanent secretaries. If we have gigs in town, some of the lawyers show up. Ben actually lives in Jersey City with his wife and baby. He and I originally met on a singer discussion board (don't ask), but he recently decided he likes parenting better than he likes singing, so is looking for a more steady career that allows him to spend more time at home. Nice to have a built-in group to eat lunch with, though. K

Lunch! Since it's nasty and cold, Sam and I decided not to go very far. We got sandwiches at a deli right across the street from where we work and brought them back to the lunchroom at the firm. The lunchroom is kind small, and unfortunately someone ALWAYS comes in about 1:20 and microwaves some kind of really nasty-smelling fish dish (I mean...we're talking four-day-old salmon nasty here), which makes the entire room (and most of the surrounding floor) reek. Fortunately, today we got out before Fishula showed up to make life hell. I had: egg salad (just eggs & mayo, as far as I can tell, but REALLY tasty) with lettuce, salt and pepper and raw onions on seedless rye, a little bag of crunchy Cheetos (cheesy good!) and a diet A&W root beer. Sometimes I get bacon on my egg salad, but today I decided against pork products. Sam had lowfat chicken salad on a hero with lettuce, onions, tomatoes and sprouts, Cheetos and um...what did he have to drink? Diet Coke, I think. ...I'm VERY full. K

Breakfast! I overslept , and ALL THE FERRETS DID THIS MORNING WAS FIGHT, which meant I didn't get my workout in, and also meant that breakfast basically consisted of two big cups of coffee (coffeeeee...hot...strong...dark...coffeeeee) and a chocolate chip cookie. So now I'm considering what to have for lunch. K

Dinner! I'm very proud to announce that my first actual cooking effort in...well, several years was a success. I'm very chagrined to announce that because Sam had an event tonight and needed the camera, I have NO PICTURES of it. But SarahD and our roommate Charlie liked it, and that's good enough for me! This was what I like to call "déja vu dinner," because it sparked unbelievably vivid memories of mom cooking while I was growing up and a conversation about the kinds of things we all ate as kids. Please understand...this may sound very simple to prepare, but I DO NOT COOK. Period. That I got through this intact is testament to the hilarious conversation I had on the phone with my mom ("Mom? It's not boiling. You said it was supposed to boil before it thickened, but it's thickening and it's never boiled. Did I DO IT WRONG?" "No, Kathleen. Stop stirring it. What does it do?" "Um...it's kinda blorting up in bubbles." "That's all the boiling it needs to do."). *sigh* and I'm thirty-WHAT years old? I made: Vodka gimlets for Sarah and me (Charlie wasn't home yet). I can make a gimlet! thank you, Joy of Cooking, for proportions! (Sam is also the designated cocktail god in our place) My mom's macaroni and cheese. This is lots of very sharp cheddar melted into a white sauce (I MADE A WHITE SAUCE! AND I DIDN'T BURN IT!) with salt and pepper to taste, then layered in a casserole dish with your choice of pasta (I used little noodles that looked like ridged macaroni - the pasta is undercooked so that it's not crunchy, but VERY firm to the tooth) and a little more cheese grated over the top, then baked at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes until it's bubbling throughout, the macaroni has softened a bit (not mushy!) and there's a nice crispy brown cheesy crust on top; My mom's "stewed" tomatoes: one can pomodori pelati (remind me to tell you the story about the Pelati sisters one time. To this day, all I have to do is call either of my two sisters and say "Pomodori Pelati" and she cracks up laughing), roughly chopped, 1/2 onion and three cloves garlic, roughly chopped and sauteed till translucent but still firm, a couple of thick slices buttered bread (I used challah rolls), cut into large cubes. Mix the tomatoes with the garlic and onion and salt and pepper to taste in a baking dish, cover the top with the big cubes of buttered bread, and put in the oven with the macaroni for 20-30 minutes. The bread toasts and gets brown and crunchy. It's really good and a pretty color next to the macaroni. Green salad: boston lettuce with sliced radishes and carrots, olive oil and vermouth vinegar dressing. Ok, in fairness, Charlie came home, saw me in mid-cook and put this together. Yay Charlie! But it was my idea. SarahD brought over a bottle of Rémy Pannier Vouvray, which went quite well with the food (and I love Vouvray in any case). The results: Only a little leftover tomatoes, Sarah and I had two helpings each of mac & cheese and Charlie had three (!), no leftover salad or wine. Oh...and a couple of cookies for dessert. Of course. I'm now going to call my mom while I clean the kitchen and inform her that I've successfully cooked. She'll be thrilled, after she stops laughing at me. Then I'm going to feed the ferrets some chicken (they are very cranky again tonight...I'm sensing that it's almost snip snip time) and go to bed. K

We appreciate you paralegals, Soba...you do your own daysheets, for the most part! Pan--yes, we work about a block from Grand Central. OOOOOH Ben just let me know there was chocolate down by him, so I went to get a snack. I now have what appears to be a sandwich cookie--chocolate ganache between two chocolate macaroons--and a little chocolate chocolate chip brownie. I'm a happy camper. K

Lunch! Sam, our friend Ben and I decided to go to Spade's Noodles & More, on the southeast corner of 37th Street and 3rd Avenue, which we like to call "Rude Chinese Restaurant." Why Rude, say you? Because the staff there seems to consider a number of things unnecessary in the ordinary course of business. You know. Little things. Like acknowledging one's existence, getting the order right, getting the appetizer out before the main dish, getting the main dishes out together (we've been known to order at 12:40 and have all dishes but one arrive - and the last one arrives at 1:25, just as we're leaving. It seems to be totally random as to which dish, too), getting the bill correct...little things. Not to mention the one time we had the TOTAL asshole waiter who didn't get anything right and tried to blame it on US, we tipped him not terribly well (um, he's supposed to do a good job for a good tip, right? At least that's how it was when I was waiting tables) and he YELLED AT ME about it! And it WASN'T EVEN MY IDEA! We haven't had him again, for some reason. But...but...(say the incredulous egulleteers) WHY ON EARTH do you go? Three reasons: cheap ($5-8 apiece for lunch, including tip), good and amusing as hell. We rate the service...some days it's just a LITTLE rude, some days it's world-class rude (and then there was that week where we went twice and they weren't rude at all. We thought we'd stepped into the twilight zone). Today's waiter fell squarely into the "not so rude, but utterly incompetent" category. First he tried to serve me someone else's soup. Then, he put down our cold sesame noodles...just the bowl, and ran off without giving us plates (or chopsticks, or a serving utensil). Then, when he DID serve me my soup, he sloshed it all over the plate underneath . We shared a bowl of cold sesame noodles. These are some tasty noodles...on the sweet side, rather than spicy. I think they cost about $4.00 for a big bowl. I ordered a large wonton soup, which has a slightly salty chicken broth (I think it's chicken), several wontons with delicate skins filled with ground pork, greens of some kind and spices, and little bits of pork and chives floating here and there in the broth. And a Diet Coke. The Diet Coke was $1, the soup $2.40. Here's my lunch. Yikes! I spilled some sesame noodles! but you can see my soup all over the plate. Sam had wonton soup with roast pork and udon noodles (if I'd been hungrier, I'd have had this), which is a BIG bowl of the aforementioned soup with udon noodles, some crunchy bean sprouts, some greens (I think arugula is what they usually use) and thick pieces of red roast pork on top (he shared some of his pork with me. See why he's the best boyfriend in the world? ). And a Diet Coke. His cost: $6.25 ($5.25 for the soup, $1 for the coke). Ben had the $5.25 chicken with cashews lunch special - big chunks of chicken and cashew nuts with some green peppers, carrots and a couple other vegetables, cooked in a super-flavorful brown sauce, with fried rice and a regular Coke (either soup or a soft drink is included in the price). YUM. Perfect for a cold, gray, rainy, icky day. I'm now back at work wondering how this woman sitting next to me can talk SO loud, nonstop, for 8 hours. K Edited to add picture of my lunch.