One of Those Blogs Where I Talk About Spending Money I Don’t Have and Eating Things I Shouldn’t

I saw Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo Wednesday.  I don’t review plays because I tired that once and it sounded like a book report I wrote in grammar school.  Something along the lines of “Edward Albee is very good playwrite and Mano Felciano (Jerry) is a very good actor.  The Geary Theater has pretty plasterwork.  The light fixtures are alabaster.  The end.”

In a nutshell, the second act (which was originally a one act called The Zoo Story) shocked the hell out of people when it was written fifty years ago.  We’re harder to shock today, but it’s still an incredibly funny play that turns dark at the end.  The first act, which was added fairly recently, is a riot (and dark, too) and Anthony Fusco and Rene Augusen as Peter and Ann are a real treat. 

If you like to laugh your ass off and be saddened within minutes of one another, you might want to see it if it shows up in your neighborhood.

Before the show I flipped through racks at a thrift store finding a few things I liked, but none of them my size—I am at that awkward weight where I am too fat to be thin, but too thin to be fat. 

Having had no success in buying my summer wardrobe, after the play I went to an Irish shop up the street and bought tea, bangers, white pudding, and Cadbury Flake—a milk chocolate bar that is meant to crumble over something else, like ice cream.  It’s much sweeter than I like my chocolate, but reminds me of summer parties with Irish friends so it’s nice to have a bar on hand just for the sake of it.   

Then I went to ‘Wichcraft to get sandwiches to bring home for dinner.  Roast pork with tuna- and anchovy-spiked mayonnaise sounds a bit unusual but it was seriously good, and their goat cheese, avocado, celery, cress and parsley with walnuts was an inventive take on the vegetable and cheese sandwich that was all the rage in the Bay Area in the 1970s.  

The recipe for the latter sandwich is in the book ‘Wichcraft, which I own, and recommend if I have yet to do so here.  It bears mentioning,  this is not one of those sandwich books in which recipes amount to a list of ingredients that you shove between bread, grill,  and eat five minutes later.

Aside from the bread itself, most of the components in the sandwiches are recipes themselves.  If the sandwich uses mayonnaise, pickled onion slices,  salsa verde, roasted tomatoes, etc., you will be making those yourself.  That’s why the sandwiches start at $8.50 in the restaurant.  (The idiots on Yelp who say the place is overpriced and suggest they could make a sandwich just as good might take that into account.)

So that was Wednesday.  Yesterday I didn’t do anything worth writing about.

Today I cooked.  I have a party of three tomorrow.  Everyone cancelled on me.

One group decided to take a cruise to Mexico instead (I hope it’s one of those cheesy cruises where the staff makes origami animals out of your towels),  Mom decided to go to Utah and see my nephew who just got back from playing baseball in Cooperstown (which is pretty cool), and someone else gave a rather vague excuse (which means I will spit in their food next time they show up here).

No, I won’t. 

Dinner will just be me, Dad, and my sister, but when my neighbors (who do The Fourth and Halloween very, very big) set off fireworks, I’ll walk down to their unit and bring along chocolate chip cookies and ice cream (I made plum ice cream, but I think that’s too specific so I’m going to do a batch of vanilla as well).

I wish you a happy day tomorrow.  Be sure to go out of your way to do something that celebrates your independence. 

PS. I’m sure someone wants to know . . . Pimiento cheese with raw veges and crackers to start, Kasper’s hot dogs with my very own kraut, pickles and relish, (I did not make the buns and never will) potato salad, carrot salad (not that potluck kind with Miracle Whip, the French kind with oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard), and something else that I cannot seem to remember. 

Iced tea, some beer called Shock Top Belgian White, and if there are lemons on my parents’ tree,  maybe lemonaid with a splash of ginger syrup. And possibly gin.  And the previously mentioned cookies and ice cream.