backstage pics

 chanda and i worked backstage tonight. our friend deychen went on as sally smith (and sang beautifully . . i could hear it all from the dressing room hallway).

 in between costume changes . . 

 I love this outfit she has on with the purple hat.

morgana was feeling a little under the weather at the end of the show and we took a cab home.

pre-show breakfast

 morgana slept late this morning, trying to sleep off the slight cold she has acquired. (unfortunately, i don't think it worked). when i returned from the impromptu garden meeting, we had a delicious breakfast that she had put together. she wanted to try making eggs like our friend carol: eggs folded over in a frying pan with a little ghee. it came out very well and she said it tasted just like carol's (well, there weren't that many ingredients . . she expected it to taste differently?) we had hibiscus tea with it and homemade crackers, and fruit shakes (each a different kind . . vanilla, strawberry and raspberry).

running lines with chanda before meeting deychen and traipsing off to the theatre (they like to take the high line every day).

a cold spring morning

i was out early this morning with several neighbors to meet with our complex's landscaper. we're in discussions for a new tree at one of our "pocket" gardens. so far we'll transplant a crepe myrtle from another section and see how it does. there are several of us who would really like to get a weeping cherry for this area.

 

 the daffodils in our tree pit gardens are slowly coming up. the landscaper has been adding new soil to all the garden areas. it's been especially needed since sandy dumped so much salt water in many of them . . and also because so many were just landfill and never cared for.

opening night for "me and my girl"

 morgana went on as sally smith tonight. it was the first night they ran the whole show, so no one knew if it would come together, but it did. it was really fabulous and morgana gave a heartfelt performance. she made us all cry when she sang her solo "once you lose your heart." (to hear how the song goes, click on the arrow button next to the title on this amazon website).

 

 morgana and deychen in rehearsal for "the lambeth walk." (i found this on youtube just now when i was searching for the tune to "once you lose your heart.")

opening night preparations

 the "doo."

the dinner . .

a late spring and a baking night

this picture is actually from april 8th of last year. the daffodils were much further along in their blooming. spring is much later this year. the tips are only just poking out of the ground around the sidewalk tree gardens. i'll try and take a picture tomorrow as a comparison.

 i didn't go over to the theatre this evening. i stayed home and baked. i've been meaning to make another batch of sunflower seed herb crackers for morgana and i for the week. chanda ate her dinner in the kitchen with me while i worked. 

a blurry movie of chanda eating with the cacophony of the food processor in the background. you have to grind almonds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds for this recipe. then you add dried oregano, parsley, dill, two eggs, a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 to 2 tablespoons of tallow (which i forgot to put in!), and 1 to 2 tablespoons of water. i added three cloves of fresh garlic.

 the dough rolled out much more easily than the prior recipe i was using. they baked for twenty minutes. they smelled delicious!

 i also made "moon" cookies; a recipe from the horn of the moon cookbook that my friend marisa gave me a long time ago. we usually make them every year around valentine's day with wheat and spelt flour. today i substituted almond flour and coconut flour. the recipe calls for creaming butter and honey. there's no sugar or eggs. i debated about adding an egg or two because of the change of flours, but they worked out well without. initially when they came out of the oven they were very flaky. However, they firmed up when cooled. 

 chanda had been working on her eleanor of aquitaine report (still?!) but was distracted by researching the staatsballett berlin. a classmate from her ballet school has been in berlin auditioning for their young dancer program. i couldn't find anything on their website about such a program, but i did find this review of their nutcracker. i didn't read it all (i have to go to sleep), but i perused the photographs; the costumes and sets are gorgeous.

back to the cookies: normally, we roll the dough out and make cookie cutter moons or hearts, but it was so soft i knew it wouldn't work.

the finished products: crackers and cookies. greg and morgana came home just as i was cleaning up.

load in

 our dented car all packed up with black plastic bags of costumes.

 we were out at 9:30 this morning to help janet load in to the theatre.

 it was just us girls this year. lucien, janet's third in line, stayed home with the younger ones to make breakfast. we missed his muscle . . just a little . . j and company were up to the task. i stayed with the car.

 morgana hauled the steamer in . . 

 and then she and chanda set everything up while i drove janet to the art store for pearly paint for the pearly queen (she'll use half paint and half buttons . . )

 when we returned i hemmed a few garments while they started sewing the buttons on the pearly queen's costume. we stayed until noon, drove home for lunch (and for a parking spot), and then returned in the evening (chanda went to ballet).

 rehearsal went until 8:30. walking home via the high line we came across the astronomy club. one guy had his telescope focused on the moon. it was very large and you could view the craters and really see how the earth casts a shadow. the next telescope was aimed at jupiter and four of it's sixty seven moons. they angled off in a straight line to the left and down from the planet: io, europa, ganymede and callisto. these were the galilean moons, discovered in 1609/1610 by galileo.
 it was a beautiful night.

monday morning

 i'm finding our fascination with eating baked goods interesting. there are so many variations on cookies: gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, vegan, paleo, etc . . i always enjoy some kind of baked goodie in the morning with a cup of tea. lately, i've been having a small glass of carrot juice first.

 these are the mushrooms i picked out at the green market on saturday. we ate them for dinner that night. they're called golden oyster mushrooms and are native to eastern russia, northern china and japan. in eastern russian they're one of the most popular of the wild edible mushrooms and are called il'mak.

oh, and the buckwheat honey! we've all been enjoying it . .