The Velocity of Autumn

Last Wednesday our good friend, Casey surprised us with a pair of tickets to the pre-broadway engagement of The Velocity of Autumn, starring Academy Award winner, Estelle Parsons and two-time Tony Award winner, Stephen Spinella.  Written by Eric Coble and directed by the all-amazing Molly Smith of Arena Stage, this play of two on-stage characters takes you into the aging and glowingly lonesome life of Alexandra and her gay son, Christopher.

The entire play takes place in Alexandra’s Brooklyn brownstone living room, filled with arsenal of molotov cocktails and a woman with her husband’s Zippo lighter who’s on the edge of blowing up the entire block in a painfully desperate attempt to stay in her home.  Her estranged son, Christopher lives in New Mexico and returns to New York City, reluctantly becomes the family negotiator between his exhausted and seemingly volatile mother and his siblings.  This beautiful play is a compelling story of what seems like a long-lost mother-son relationship, whom both have more in common than they realize.  The audience are provided with the opportunity to witness the living room ping-pong match of extremely funny dialogue as well as deeply touching moments, as these mother and son characters re-discover their bond and love through unconventional ways.

The splendor of any good play, is being able to relate, sympathize, and empathize.  In the ever-increasing velocity of a me world, do we pause in our life to think about the ins and outs of our relationships with our family members, especially those who are aging?   When we seem to grow distant from family members (and long-time friends for that matter) through differences in our lives, beliefs, and understandings – do we embrace and nurture the bonds we once had to begin with, or do reconcile such distance, being that too much time has passed in placing little or any effort into trying to rebuild what once was?

I’ve often asked myself those same questions about the relationship between me and my 81 year-old grandmother.   Though we weren’t entirely close when I was younger, there was still a profound bond between the both of us.   As I grew up, we both became distant to a degree, and after father passed away – we re-connected our relationship and have continued to nurture it since then.   Perhaps we needed each other the most as she began to grieve the loss of her first-born son and I began to grieve the loss of my father.  In many ways we are alike, and in many more ways we are very different in “where we’ve been” and what we believe.  Yet though the beauty and mystery of the family bond, we depend on each other in many special ways.   I interpret that this is very similar for Alexandra and Christopher – though years of separation have passed, they have reached a point in their lives where they need and depend on each other.

The Velocity of Autumn is playing through October 20, 2013  at  Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater’s Kreeger Auditorium.  If you’re a DC local, I highly recommend that you enjoy this great theatre production!

Mason Jar Jack-O’-Lanterns

Make your jack-o’-lantern as silly or scary as you like!

I can’t believe that tomorrow begins the month of October.   The countdown to Halloween is officially here!   For me, Halloween is such a fun season to use creativity and imagination with everything from costumes to food, decorations, and more.  When most stores are overstocked with the same old, boring, commercial “Made in China” Halloween decor…using one’s creativity is essential.

Fortunately I have a fiancé who loves Halloween just as much as I do, maybe even a little more.   Last week he came up with the brilliant idea of reusing some mason jars with some of our existing arsenal of craft supplies to make these adorably cute mason jar jack-o’-lanterns!  So I wanted to share this with all of my readers so you can join in on the fun too!   It really doesn’t get more easy to make and most of the supplies you probably already have.

• Mason jar
• Elmer’s glue
• Orange tissue paper
• Black construction paper
• Green ribbon
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Rice
• Tealight candle

1. Cut strips of orange tissue paper and lightly glue them vertically to the outside of your mason jar.
2. With a pencil, draw eyes, a nose, and mouth on the black construction paper and cut them out.   Great jack-o’-lantern face patterns are available for free downloaded on the internet if you need some added inspiration.
3. Glue the face cutouts to the outside of the mason jar.
4. Wrap the green ribbon around the mouth of the mason jar and tie a bow for extra cuteness.   You could also add some crafty extras like fake vine, leaves, etc. if you like.
5. Slightly fill the bottom of the mason jar with rice and put a lit tealight down in the center.

Voila!   Now you have yourself a cute, little mason jar jack-o’-lantern!

Green Tomato Bread – #TastyThursday

A perfect and unique fall bread – great for brunch or a quick breakfast with coffee or tea. These tasty loaves make great gifts for friends and neighbors too!

This year we’ve been kissed by the tomato Gods!   We’ve probably had over 250 ripened tomatoes from our garden and we just did our last harvest this week.   Given that fall is making itself known – we had over 3 dozen green tomatoes which needed clipped as the days are already too short (lack of sun) and the nighttime temperatures have noticeably cooled to temperatures that tomato plants are not fond of.

There’s no need to fret over an abundance of green tomatoes though!   Green tomatoes (which are not fully ripened) can be just a delicious as the bright red fruit, given that you know what to do with them.  So don’t worry about paper bagging your green tomatoes or God forbid, throwing them out…as I will dedicate the next few #TastyThursday and #ScrumptiousSunday posts to some of our favorite recipes using green tomatoes.  Today I give you: Green Tomato Bread!   This delicious bread has the familiarity of zucchini or banana bread, with the unique and tasty cut from the high acidity of green tomatoes.  Oh, and it’s easy!  Bon Appétit!

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup banana, purée
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups finely chopped green tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups of chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the first 6 ingredients in large bowl.  Make a well in the center of mixture.

Combine the banana, oil, and vanilla; stir well.   Add to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.  Fold in the tomatoes and pecans.

Spoon the batter into 2 greased and floured 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on wire rack.  Enjoy!

Live Well – Eat Well – Be Well