Good-Bye to Sandra Dee; Hello Unemployment!

Well, we managed to finish up the "Grease" tour while still in one piece. It was a great year and a half, but we are glad to finally be done.

Now, it's time to enjoy our summer off, before we start working on the "West Side Story" tour in the fall!

Escaping the Roch....

Checking in from the Auditorium Theatre, here in Rochester NY. Stop number.... 40something of the Grease Tour. We recently eclipsed the 450show mark, and sometime in Hershey, Pa we will hit the big 500. Next up we have Buffalo, then a layoff.

But allow me to flash back a bit. After our last layoff, we hopped over to Pittsburgh for a 1 week stay at the massive Benedum Theatre. A great spot to play on tour. Great crew, great theatre, and well, it's pittsburgh, so what ever. After the show Wed night, we hopped in a zip car, and headed out to Warren, OH to visit Uncle Jimmy. We arrived a little after 11, and enjoyed some delicious steak and potatoes and asparagus, a bottle of prosecco and a bottle of red. Next thing we knew, it was 2:30am, so we decided to hit the hay. A light breakfast in the morning, a lesson in making salted caramels, and we were off, back to Pittsburgh. We made a pit-stop in Franklin Park, to visit the early residence of Beth, and then continued on home.

Here are some shots from the old neighborhood stalking we did...

The Cochran's Old House

The Polosky's next door...

And I wasn't 100% sure, but i THINK this was Carlston's - it had the electric box out front that we always used to hide behind.

We drove by the Airey's too, but the ladies walking around the neighborhood were giving us funny looks for driving around slowly and taking pictures, so I couldn't get a shot. Also drove by the Broer's and Shulz's (where I lived the summer I interned at the Pittsburgh CLO).

We made a return trip on Friday, to Lidia's, the place i proposed to beth, 2 years and a week before. The hostess and the manager remembered us, so we had our same table and some wonderful prosecco on the house. The food was delicious but we ate much too fast. I also got full really quickly.... Could have something to do with the fact that we went to Primanti's on the Strip with Taylor and Co. that afternoon. Bit of a heavy meal. See photos...

Before...

During...

After...

Saturday was Pittsburgh's St Patrick's day.. So we celebrated for a second time... and made GREEN pancakes for Pancake Saturday!

And this plaque we came across in Pittsburgh was just amusing...

In case you can't read it, it says "On this site, in 1897, nothing happened".

Sunday was the usual 2 show day with a load out. The perk being, the crew hopped on a sleeper bus, and 4 hours later we were in Rochester. Beth hung out in Pittsburgh for Monday and took a bus with the cast up to Rochester Tuesday morning.

Rochester is quite the odd little Western NY city. It's fairly spread out, but there seem to be lots of little pockets of neat stuff. They have an amazing grocery store chain here called Wegmans, which puts any other store to shame, even whole foods and trader joes. They also have a Great Harvest, which is amazing bread. I had it when i was younger on a trip to Lexington KY, to visit the Chaloux family. I found it about 10 months ago, when passing thru Portland OR. We picked up a loaf of cinnamon swirl, and honey wheat. Good lord. Lightly toasted, little butter. It's like heaven in a bag.

The city definitely has some charm. Beautiful old houses, lots of shops, and neighborhoods. The real kicker is about 25 minutes from downtown.... LeRoy NY.

Whats so special about LeRoy? If you dont know, you're missing out. LeRoy is the birthplace of Jell-O. Yes, you read correctly. Jell-O.

Beth, Wes and I spent the day at the Jell-O Museum...

On our way home, we stopped for a bite to eat at the ever-popular Dinosaur BBQ!

To be honest, it was good, but not worth all the attention it gets. A couple of days later we stumbled upon Sticky Lips BBQ which was AWESOME!! I would definitely recommend Sticky Lips over Dinosaur. (Who knew upstate NY had so many BBQ joints??)

Sunday night, we head to Buffalo for a week!

A Friday in Hoboken

Greetings all.

Today I offer up a recap of our friday, saturday and sunday in Hoboken. We headed out earlish - 1030am (It's early for a week off!). We stopped by our good friend Will's place to pick up tickets to Saturday nights invited dress of Addams Family. We went to the gym for a bit, and then Beth took a yoga class, while i took advantage of their spa's massage deal. 75$ for an hour massage, not bad! Afterwards, we crossed the street to our new favorite quick lunch spot. Brooklynbread. They have huge salads, that are delicious and some pretty tasty soups. We headed back home then, to start prep for dinner. Tommy Defrancesco was coming and we wanted to attempt our own pasta. Tom showed up around 6, champagne in hand, and we made fresh fettucini, had some homemade sauce and some sauteed veggies. A good night of food and drinking and chatting, and catching up.

Saturday morning.... we slept in, and were slowly awakened to the sounds of, well.... a city wide keg party. Hoboken celebrates St. Patty's Day, the first Saturday of March. And oh boy do they. The bars open at 9am, and the green beer is a flowing. Public drunkness is strictly enforced and many measures are put in place to ensure a smooth day. Our downstairs neighbors, Alex and Lisa, had a big party with friends and family. They took the cars out of the garage, and set up a beerpong table, and had a few kegs. Things were relatively calm here, compared to the insanity of downtown Hoboken.

After the huge success of the fettucini friday night, Beth and I decided to attempt rigatoni. We waded thru the drunk fools and headed into the city to Williams-Sonoma to pick up the kitchenaid-pasta press. We also did some furniture perusing next door at Pottery Barn, and think we have picked out our coffee table. We then popped down to Chelsea Market for some lunch and browsing. After a bite we headed back to Hoboken, for a nap and to relax. Nap time, turned into - drinking down at the neighbors, and visiting with Maureen Casey, who came into town for the festivities, with a friend. At 6:00, we made our way to into the city for the gypsy run of Addams Family. We met up with Drew Levy, and Kathleen and Brant. It was a great chance to see a production at it's roots. A theatre filled with supportive friends and family, there to cheer on the production in its first, semi public performance. The show did some great things with lighting, scenery and puppets. It was a little rough around the edges, but its on its way. Monday night, it begins previews, and then a month later it will open. There were some great comedy bits in the show, and some great character performances.

After the show, we went for some delicious grub at the Chelsea Grille, and then Beth and I visited Bridget's Birthday party. After a quick visit, we headed home to relax, and sleep in.

Sunday was a very beautiful day, here in the NYC area. We celebrated, by making 4 1/2lb's of fresh pasta, and freezing it all. We made Fettucini, Rigatoni and Fusili. It should be delicious... when we are home again. On that note, we head back on the road Monday. Off to pittsburgh. Check out the pictures below of our adventure today!

Fettucini!

More Fettucini!!!!

Making the Rigatoni!

All the Rigatoni drying

Fusili in the making!

Beth Bakes Bread (Attempt #1) - Continued

IT LOOKS LIKE BREAD!

And tastes pretty darn good too!

Fortunately, there weren't any more exciting mishaps during the end of the bread baking process. Everything timed out, I got my massage, and the bread came out of the oven just in time to head into the city and meet up with my friend John for dinner and drinks!

Today, when Brian got home we actually tasted it, and it's DELICIOUS! Just basic white sandwich bread, but tastes sooooo much better than wonder bread!

Today we also hung curtains in our bedroom, so no more eye-poking rays of sunshine bright and early in the morning! Woohoo!

Checking in

Not going to lie... I'm a little scared to head back to Hoboken tomorrow, and see what kind of situation is there. Could be a dough explosion from what I've gathered! But the picture of the loafs looked great! Im sure she will post them soon, with her side of the story!

Had a great visit home, albeit quick. Enjoyed dinner with mom and dad and kent and trudy on Tuesday night. And then spent today shopping and relaxing with mom and dad. Treated them to lunch, and taught mom how to make Salted Caramels. After dinner and a video chat session with Pop, I went out with some friends from around the area. Met up with them at this new Patriot Place area. Honestly, I haven't been up there since it all opened, so it was neat to see it. Even better to hang out with some great friends. Now its time to pack up the suitcase and head back in the morning. Check in again soon.

Brian

Beth Bakes Bread (Attempt #1)

Hi out there - for any of you still hanging on to this pathetic little blog of ours!

First, I know everyone is just sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if we finished the puzzle in St. Louis. Well, we did! 3 days ahead of schedule in fact. And so Taylor owes us all lunch. (Tentatively scheduled for next week in Pittsburgh.)

Second, Brian and I have both officially been hired for the 1st National Tour of "West Side Story", which starts prep in August, and opens mid September. As soon as I am allowed to post the schedule, it will be up, but we will definitely be seeing many of our friends and family and favorite cities once again!

And last, but certainly not least, we are currently home in Hoboken on a layoff. So instead of blogging about touring, today I am blogging about my ridiculous attempt to bake my own bread.

I have been wanting to do this for quite some time, but seeing as we live out of hotel rooms, I haven't quite had the chance. Well last time we had a layoff, I bought a book called "The Bread Bible" and started reading. Yesterday, Brian headed to Attleboro for a few days, and I decided that it was time to attempt bread baking.

Bread of Choice: Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf

Yesterday afternoon I made the Dough Starter, which is basically flour, water, honey and yeast. That was super easy, and then I let it sit for an hour at room temperature, and put it in the fridge for the remaining 8 - 24 hours.

Then, about 7 hours later, I decided I should probably re-read the rest of the recipe before I got up early to finish the recipe. And it's a good thing I did! Apparently, I had missed about 3 of the steps, all of which telling you to do something to the dough before letting it sit for ANOTHER 1 - 2 hours each. (That's about 6 hours worth of steps that I somehow missed!)

I started doing the math, and figured out that if I got up at 4:00am for step 2, I could go back to sleep for a couple of hours before step 3 at 7:00am, and hopefully have it out of the oven before my Noon yoga class and 2:15 massage.

Well, have any of you seen Julia & Julia? You know the part where she sets the middle of the night alarm to get up and turn off the Boeuf Bourguignon, and then she ignores it and it BURNS!?! That's sort of what it felt like, only slightly less tragic. I actually got up at 5:30am, tossed the 3 ingredients in with the starter, covered it up, and put it in what we like to call "The Rising Room" (aka our laundry closet).

So I went back to sleep, meaning to get up at 7:00am and continue, but apparently my subconscious decided that I definitely needed more sleep, and so I finally woke up at 9:30, thanks to the awesome room darkening shades in our bedroom (in case you didn't catch the sarcasm there - they are the farthest thing from room darkening shades, but hey! We only paid $12 for them!) and a text from my husband asking how the bread baking was going (HA!).

I pulled myself out of bed, grabbed the dough, and began step 3 - mixing the dough. This step went quite well - added the butter, mixed it in the KitchenAid, let it rest for 20 minutes, add the salt, then knead for 7 - 10 minutes. SUCCESS!

That is, until I went to remove the bowl from the KitchenAid to scrape the dough into bowl #2. Apparently, when I put the bowl back onto the base, it didn't go in quite right, so I could not, for the life of me, get it OFF of the stand! But I had to get it into the bowl to start rising, so I ended up having to unplug the machine, turn bowl #2 on it's side, and turn the entire KitchenAid machine on it's side to scrape the dough from bowl to bowl. Good times.

So, as of right now, the dough is in the Rising Room, bowl #1 came off the base (finally!) and is clean, and I have just read through the recipe again, to discover that I missed a 4th step, requiring 1 - 2 hours of rising!

So, there will be no yoga class today, however I think I have it timed out, so that Step #5 will happen just before I leave for my massage, I will go to my massage, and be home in time for it to be done rising for the 5th time and put it in the oven!

::fingers crossed::

TO BE CONTINUED...

The St. Louis Puzzle Challenge!

Hello from glorious St. Louis! Home of one of my favorite foods - FRIED RAVIOLI! (And the best part is, in St. Louis, they use MEAT ravioli so even Brian can eat them!)

We are performing at the Fabulous Fox Theatre, another wonderfully historic theatre that any person in theatre should visit. The backstage is covered in show logos and signatures of casts from years and years of touring companies coming through (including the smash hit, The Drowsy Chaperone!).

Company and Stage Management have continued the puzzle tradition that we started in Seattle and do we have a doozy here in St. Louis! It is a 1,000 piece Jackson Pollock puzzle. Yes, that's right, the artist who is famous for his paint-splatter paintings.

We started it Tuesday night and so far have gotten this much done...

Tonight, as we stood around during intermission, Taylor set forth a challenge: If we can finish the puzzle by the end of the show next Saturday night (our 2nd to last performance in St. Louis) he will give us a $50 gift certificate to somewhere.

Can we do it?? Only time will tell...