Pumpkin, Mother, and Zipperz

This weekend, in reverse chronological order.

I made dinner last night for my mom’s birthday and improvised two dishes that turned out to be the best of the lot. In Ruth Reichl’s book Comfort Me With Apples, she includes a recipe for Swiss Pumpkin—a pumpkin that is stuffed with bread and cheese, topped with cream, then baked into a savory bread pudding suspended within the squash.

It was easy to make, looked unbelievably impressive—especially when one considers the effort involved—and tasted like autumn. I will be posting the recipe on my food blog, and encourage adding it to an upcoming holiday menu should you want something unusual; it would look fantastic on a buffet table.

Dessert turned out to be a real winner as well, and it started with a disaster. I was planning on making a fairly elaborate apple tart that begins by poaching apple halves in sugar syrup. As always, I was doing three things at once, and I thought the timer buzzing at me (to which I replied “Go on and buzz all you want”) was telling me it was time to preheat the oven; it was in fact telling me to check the apples.

A few minutes later, as I stared into a pot of almost-applesauce, I wondered what to make for dessert instead. I recalled an apple tart that was simply a pie shell filled with thick applesauce, topped with apple slices, and baked. Rather than figuring out which book it was in (Baking with Julia, as it turns out), I winged it, and it was excellent. This recipe will also be going on the food blog, along with my suggestion that you begin with jarred applesauce and save yourself some time.

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Saturday I spent the day at Mom’s helping her rearrange the furniture in the living room and breakfast room in preparation for the holidays. She is hosting at least one dinner this season and knew she was going to have to add a table, so we decided to figure out where things were going now, so all she would have to do later is bring in the table and put it where we already know it is going.

We rearranged the room three times and the sofa is exactly where it was when we started—I told her the antique settee wouldn’t fill up the big wall, but she said “I’ve never tried it on that wall before.” You should know that my mother moves furniture like some people change underwear.

When I was kid, my father never knew when he came home, if the living room would still be the living room or if it might have transformed into a dining room. I think that might be why he bought the pool table; even Mom would not have tried to move that thing on her own.

Anyway, she has tons of furniture, much of it family pieces that she cannot part with despite the lack of usefulness of some of them. So they get moved often (there is no room in the house some pieces haven’t landed in at some point, and that includes the bathroom) in an optimistic attempt to finally find the right spot.

There is no right spot for all of it, and that’s what comes of having a variety of pieces and styles, an artistic mind, and a house that was not designed around the furniture. I have the same problem, but I got tired of bruising myself carrying the grandfather clock up and down the stairs so I gave up on it (I only ever dropped the clock once and my body stopped it from falling down the stairs).

I spent most of the day there and we got quite a lot done, and I was only disrespectful once that I recall. I told her that I didn’t mind her “being” Grandma Gwen, but I’d prefer if she’d only emulate one of Grandma’s eccentricities at a time. She just gave me a look. A knowing look that suggested in twenty-five years I will be exactly like her.

Duh.

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Friday night was a treat. I finished up my day early and was in Oakland by five, more or less, giving me a couple hours to waste. I had a feeling that many of the shops on College Avenue would close early since most of the people there after six were there for food and liquor.

There are restaurants and watering holes galore on this two mile stretch of College. And you can pretty much find it all, from Barney’s Burgers (excellent, basic burgers) to Citron (Mediterranean, chic, and pricey) to a chocolate café, to the bars—seedy, semi-seedy, and not-at-all-seedy.

I headed down the block towards the couple of shops I most wanted to check out and was lucky in that several of them were still open. One of my favorites, Bella Vita, has a small selection of vintage tablecloths, jewelry, and children books and bedding. (I saw a Roy Rogers bedspread my uncle had in the forties selling for a cool hundred.)

I found a pair of earrings in the shape of red roses; I’m not sure if they are vintage or not. They look like Bakelite but the posts are new, so they could be old buttons (or something) that were made into earrings, or they could be brand new and just made to look old. Either way, they were a reasonable price, and Mom is getting them for Christmas.

At Rockridge Home, I got an even better deal in the form of long gardening gloves that were fifty percent off. They are (I am hoping) perfect for wearing while pruning roses, a chore that Mom (and I) will be taking care of in the near future. I don’t know if they are tough enough to fend off thorns, but she liked them, and they fit, so I am pleased.

I wasn’t really in the mood to dine; I simply wanted to eat. I went into the Market Hall and bought a couple of things from the different shops and made a very odd picnic to eat at a sidewalk table. The chicken pizza was really very good but I was less impressed with the Vegan Ollallieberry turnover.

I knew Vegan was going to mean no butter in the crust, but I had not anticipated no sugar on the berries—how do you cook a berry with no sugar? Being healthy is well and good . . . I washed it down with Chamomile tea (I told you this was an odd picnic) and ate a few fresh figs with a piece of chocolate.

After the feasting, I got back on the train and headed to the Paramount Theater. When you exit the 19th Street BART station, you immediately see the green neon sign of the Paramount, and you immediately want to go in.

It’s an Art Deco gem, but for some reason fell into neglect only a few decades after it was originally built; in the 1970s it was restored and had been the home to the Oakland Symphony, classic movie nights, as well as benefits and corporate events.

The lobby is wide and opulent as one would expect of a theater from the 1930s, but as you pass through to the auditorium, there is a long, narrow (by comparison) lounge that is dimly lit, with built-in mohair sofas lining the wall, zebra wood tables, and chrome lamps. 

I arrived with time to spare so I ensconced myself in nicely-worn finery and watched the rest of the crowd make their arrival.  Being the Oakland Symphony, there is a larger proportion of African Americans to be found than at most of the theater events I attend; I like to see people still get dressed-up to go out, and as a whole, they are.

After people watching in the lounge, I found my seat, which turned out to be very close to the stage, and did some more people watching.  Behind me was a group that kept growing and dwindling—they all knew each other, but were seated in different parts of the theater and kept changing places (before the performance began).  A couple of them slipped through the side curtains and went backstage, so I assumed they knew someone involved in the production.

To my left was a very enthusiastic man who was wearing a tie that looked odd from my vantage point; when he got closer, I saw it wasn’t a tie at all, but a large, shiny zipper attached to the placket of his shirt.  Seeing as the main event was an opera called Zipperz, I assumed he too must somehow be involved. 

The concert, under the direction of Michael Morgan, began with George Antheil’s Jazz Symphony, a lively piece that made use of about fifty percent of the orchestra.  After additional musicians set up on the stage, and the First Chair violin led everyone in a tuning note (what is the professional term for that, Martha, Jenny, anyone), Mr. Morgan reentered with vocalists Manoel Felciano and Eisa Davis.

The opera Zipperz is the brainchild of poet Dan Harder (one of the people who kept switching seats) and composer Nathaniel Stookey (the guy with the zipper tie).  The title Zipperz comes from the way Harder’s poetry looks in written form—the spoken lines of two people overlapping one another.  This is common in opera and musical theater, so what was unorthodox in written form makes perfect sense when set to music.

Zipperz began with each of the actors recounting their meeting: Their initial impressions of the other, whether or not they had a chance, should they cross the room and actually speak.  It moved to that first conversation, the one where she lies about how many men she has slept with (she increased the number and then wonders why), his telling her that he is just out of a long-term relationship (and rethinks that), and slowly moves forward to their first date.

The first date, in which each questions the chosen restaurant—is it too French?  Not French enough?  Is it really a first date place?  And she knows she has made a mistake when he says the most pretentious thing during dinner, “I just think saffron should not be tasted, as much as suspected.”  Someone who shall remain nameless laughed so loud at that line, a good fifty people turned in their seats to see who the knee-slapping baffoon was.

Then it moves on to their first sexual encounter, her unbuttoning him, his slowly unzipping her, and finally a kiss . . . which ended the first act.  During the intermission, I photographed my feet, as seen below.

The second act finds our couple wondering what they have done, and if they want to pursue the relationship, and it quickly transitions into a relationship—a relationship that still leaves them wondering.  It ends with them thinking it might be worth the effort after all, but it doesn’t fall into a happily-ever-after pit, we are left wondering if they will make it work.

It was beautifully sung by Davis and Felciano who made use of the “pop” side of their voices when the orchestrations were kept simple with just a few plucks of a bass or violin, or a few notes from the piano, but they also have the range and strength to hold their own against a full orchestra as the music became big and lush.  

The evening ended with selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, which was a good choice in terms of the love story theme for the evening, but it was a bad technical choice.  I say this because several of the suites were very simple, very soft, and very soothing; the kind of soothing where you might actually nod off.  I pressed the keys in my pocket into my thigh more than once to stay awake, and I saw a few other people whose heads were taking on that “dozing posture.”

They ended it with a big, flashy piece, and plenty of horns, so all the nappers were awake and clapping when they should have been.   It was a gorgeous night as we exited the theater, finally cool after a hot day, with a bit of a breeze, and a couple of vendors outside the theater hawking souvenirs and hot-dogs. 

♦