October 19, 2011 | 11:55 am

Multi-function forms, friends, food

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

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As the world becomes shortage and space obsessed, I realize how ahead of the curve I’ve been in making myriad reuses of everything and everyone. Call me frugal/economical and/or exploitative/anal.

I reuse big tissue boxes as snowshoes for a friend’s kids (kids become two-pronged sources of love and laughs, lumbering around like “transformer bots”); I use their abandoned toy cars as conveyances for salt and pepper shakers glued on top, as “pass the salt” makes the dining room table a speedway.

My friends are all multi-use, recycled hyphenates, too.  First of all, they are all funny, talented, attractive, smart and fragrant—lightly scented room deodorizers, enhancing all environments—beyond being superb companions for all occasions.  I’ve recycled ex-boyfriends to become galpals’ husbands, ex managers into exercise mates, hence I get to have them in my life in a different form. Some of my friends are also my improv students with big careers in many stimulating fields—psychologists/authors, judge/writers, studio executive/performers, stage manager/dramaturgs, producer/parents.

Then there’s my new friend/student/inspiration—a multi-user after my own heart, Lois Lambert, who owns the Gallery of Functional Art at Bergamot Station in Los Angeles, and its Gallery Store full of innovative, original embodiments of genius, both practical and hilarious.

Like me, Lois is captivated by beautiful forms with functions and I can’t get out of her Gallery without getting gifts for some of my other multi-function friends. She seeks and presents the sleekest, latest in high design, lots made of recycled materials, most ecologically inclined, all beautiful and useful, in all price ranges.  I call her for mail orders—she discovers, shows, advises, sells, boxes and ships. Talk about one stop shopping!

I covet a set of gorgeous bowls and platters that look solid, but are bendable, made of soft resin that are food safe/decorative/gentle weapons—you can hurl them at people without damage. She has small graphic statues that write like charcoal. She has dress up purses made from soda pop-tops. She sells a modern outdoor grill, that comes with a clay planter top to convert it from patio eyesore to enhancement. She promotes lovely porcelain sculpted slippers that are also bottle openers. She has a sculpted period bust that conceals several USB ports for various devices. And for laughs/nostalgia, old-fashioned, hand held receivers in 50’s pastels that plug into Iphones, The jewelry lines she features offer wonderment as well as ornament and prove conversation pieces for all who wear them, perhaps giving them a personal charm they might not embody on their own.

So this season, inspired by Lois, I’m making multi-purpose, edible art, starting with my take on “The Scream” by Munch, made in squash by me, for Halloween. Nutritious/tasty/amusing/ creepy/easy, here’s how it’s done chez me.

3 medium butternut squash
3 cups cooked millet
2 lbs green beans
1 lb crookneck squash
1 T butter
1 T olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 clove diced shallot

Brown the shallots and garlic in the butter and oil in a roasting pan under the broiler. Pierce each squash laterally along their equators to help halve. Cook each separately on high in the microwave for four minutes. Cool, then cut each in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and strings, put a bit of the browned shallots and butter in the ‘mouth,’ sprinkle on some sea salt and place face down in the browned butter with shallots and garlic. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then turn face up and bake for a half hour. Meantime steam the green beans and squash. You can toss them in the pan remainders after you remove the squash for flavor.

Serve the squadron of screaming squash on a bed of the beans and sliced squash with millet mashed in the mouths (kids love that it looks like the faces are puking), and narrow round slices of yellow squash for eyes, pieces of green beans for eyebrows and pupils.

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July 11, 2011 | 11:57 am

The ‘Smell-Prejudiced’ Plumbers

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

I come from the cutting edge county of New Haven, Connecticut. Sure, our area’s best known for patrician, classy old stuff like Yale University, the Shubert Theater, and historical Revolutionary War artifacts all over the place, but In terms of gossipy graffiti and verbal bullying, we were waaaay ahead of our time. The West Haven High School halls were trashed with profane etchings the day it opened in 1962, and reputations were ruined in permanent house paints all over the teachers’ parking lot in East Haven in ’68. Before the internet made it easy, marriages and futures went up in fumes via the rumor mills of “the Havens”.

And, although called “kike,” and “dirty Jew” by classmates, I confess that I didn’t climb far above the fray—the call of the wild pecking order was too strong.  Not wishing to be depicted as pitiful victim, I learned to sling invective with the best of them, collaborating with the cool kids in smearing “Klotzbergers’ germs and no returns!” on others’ arms. In every walk by that neighbor’s house, in every school assembly sitting behind his daughters, I got a sense of belonging to the top dogs on those less fortunate puppies’ shoulders, until I attained higher station by nobler deeds. This article may not be one of them.

These Mike Diamond Plumbing Company radio commercials make my Liberal, hamisha mood MAD.  On A.M. News Radio Stations all over Southern California, Mike Diamond refers to his employees as the “smell good” plumbers, personal hygiene seeming the exclusive domain of his workers. The spots use the perjorative “Bubba” to describe other purveyors and repairers of pipe. Mike makes his protocol of telling “how much it costs up front” to unclog a drain, like any good hooker or colonicist, sound special. He also makes “showing up on time” sound like punctuality’s their exclusive art. He damns himself with faint praise.

So here’s the dirt. In the days following the chaos of the ‘94 L.A. quake, Mike Diamond’s sweet smelling fleet were known to gouge the needy leaking, including me. That stinky reputation continues, according to Yelp, and to other plumbers, who, sans lawyers like Mike’s, were unwilling to go on record or consider a class action suit, as “…those Walmart women didn’t do too well.”

Take my word for it: the Eau de Anger was strong in all those interviewed. This being a land of very free speech, I give some SoCal service experts a forum here to numb down their indignation.

From a West Los Angeles contractor: “Total crook!” “He’s an idiot, a ripoff…the last guy to call in a crisis. He has sub par workers, unqualified, and undertrained, but really good attorneys.” 

From a Gas Company employee: “He charged my mother $2000 for a water heater that costs $200. He asked $5000 to replace a line to the street that should’ve cost only $1500.”

From a Beverly Hills Plumbing and Heating worker: “The one who calls us all ‘Bubba’s’? He’s a racist, if you ask me. We should take him to court.”

From an appliance installation expert: “He sucks. He’s under investigation by the Better Business Bureau.”

Then again, the BBB is itself an untrustworthy pot calling others black, apparently taking bribes for its better business reports.

In over two decades of home owning in Los Angeles, I’ve most often called one port-in-a-storm plumber for help. He’s a sweet smelling knight in shining overalls, who, crawling into what lies beneath, has made my nightmarish, brackish bathroom world right after inevitable overflows. I praised his pleasantly fruity cologne so much, he bought me a bottle of it. (He deserves his own label – ‘Plumb Wonderful.”)  This saint, who declined to be identified for this piece, had a gentler overview of Mike’s blatant bias bespoken on air.

“He’s gotten big, been around a long time, and lots of us undercut his estimates. He’s scared so he’s using a 50 year old stereotype, like we’re low class slaves. These days us plumbers deal with plastic and copper, have better machines and education for far more time than years ago…these days we all make a lot more than most writers or actors like you do.”

(See? Even this very human hero is not above demeaning others to elevate himself. I forgive him—I need him too much.)

It’s human, when feeling insecure, to make others “bad.” The more alienated we become, the more we become a lonely race of one, seeking the similarly slanted for company. So I’m taking a public pot shot and inviting Comments from others who agree, so I won’t feel that my prejudice against the prejudiced is a solo stance.

Mr. Mike.  If you are smelling something bad on folks who don’t work for you, take a whiff within: perhaps what clogs your nostrils is the stench of your own unexamined sewage.

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April 1, 2011 | 8:00 am

A.H.—The age of artificial humor

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

It was only a matter of time.  With A.I., (Artificial Intelligence) surpassing human brains’ speed at organizing information, generating original creativity was its next logical frontier. Much as puddles of elements mixed to create new life forms on ancient earth, a miraculous ignition of new material has evolved from the electronic ethers, to compete with human comedians.

A.H., the age of Artificial Humor is upon us, and contemporary comedians are justified in feeling “aggregated.”

After piggy backing on humans by means of motion and emotion capturing electrodes for a decade or two, avatars are spontaneously originating both music (A.C.—Artificial Creativity) and comic material and proliferating updated versions of themselves at scary speed. And despite the seeming randomness of these creations, they are even deemed, by arts critics, to have “talent.”

Scientists say this phenomenon was accelerated by the launching of James Cameron’s blockbuster, “Avatar,” and the success of an IBM computer over two brainiacs on “Jeopardy.” “They’ve gotten confident,” says Cameron, “and that’s a dangerous thing.” This modern day proof of the “hundredth monkey theory,” as Artificially Intelligent life forms acquire each others’ tricks, even those generated from distant, non networked computers, is horrifying flesh talent.

“We never thought it would happen to us,” said Woody Allen.  Although he’s long ago become a serious film auteur, the elder Allen now finds himself threatened by an avatar of his early stand up persona, which is WRITING NEW ALLENESQUE COMEDY MATERIAL.

“If imitation is the sincerest form of copyright infringement.,” says Allen, I guess I should be flattered. “Look, plenty of funny looking Baby Boomer kids mimicked me in the old days, and there were lots of animated versions of me done by voice mimics, but now I’ve been completely cloned by some computer,” he sputters.  “At least they waited til Dangerfield was dead…he was lucky.”

The late Dangerfield’s avatar has been extremely lucky.  Booked to perform for a week in March at the Bellagio in Las Vegas via a Powerpoint presentation, its show seats sold out mere moments after going on sale online.  The anonymous creator is battling the Dangerfield estate for all income from the the performances, but can’t legally take credit for what the avatar is improvising on its own. New arenas of litigation are erupting daily.

“I’m not an animal,” the replicant said, “I’m an avatar! Gimme some respect!” Dangerfield’s replicant is also featured as a nude centerfold in next month’s “Wired” Magazine, with a 3D pop-up “endowment” said to well exceed the comic’s actual proportions. Avatar groupies are apparently sending fan mail accompanied by 3D nude pictures of themselves.

A Pixar animator, also preferring to remain anonymous, designed the Woody Allen character as a birthday gift to his uncle after hours. “Working in my high tech cubicle in a windowless studio, day bled into night.”

He recalls he took a nap in his recliner as the computer program refined the caricature, morphing it from photos, then, sometime during that hour, the avatar took over his screen, virtually vamping, creating its own very accurate take on Allen’s material. At first, he thought he was dreaming it.

“The avatar began to improvise on the Ed Sullivan stuff from the 60’s, which I’d fed it as a point of reference so it could embody the guy’s moves. When I woke up it had made its own MP3 –forty minutes of killer material—and gotten itself a manager.”

“The crossover potential is enormous,” says that wunderkind manager, a flesh human named David Landau.  He’s opened Landau’s Avatar Agency, a virtual office to which no human comedians may apply, and is signing up eerily talented bots and avatars like crazy.  He tells how punning is common among the applicants. “It’s the easiest form for computers—cross-referencing the intersection of two frames of thought. It’s the lowest form of humor.”

“But, the Lisa Lampanelli is amazing,” Landau says.  “I think she’s funnier than the real one, and she’s got a big gay following, avatars and real!” he brags. “Oh, and spare me the YouTubes and MP3’s, everybody” he says.  “I have more holosynch pitching me one liners than I can handle.”

Landau brags that sometimes sweat and spit seem to emanate from the avatars if you sit close enough to the images, just like in 3D animated features.

When asked if any differences between the real Allen and the artificial one were apparent, he said, “I think all the virtual talent replicants of Jewish comedians aren’t Jewish enough. They’re kinda more like the Simms—WASPY. They haven’t got the exact intonation down yet, but,” he added ominously, “…they will.”

He opines: “I believe the comic bots and avatars are studying the material of Mel Brooks, Larry David, Richard Lewis and the like and assimilating neuroses in an effort to generate more Jewish joke structure,” he reports. “Jewish humor is the ultimate frontier for avatars.”

The Allen avatar’s “I deleted a moose,” bit, may not incite the guffaws of Allen’s original “I shot a moose” material, but the element of surprise currently works in its favor, says avatar aficionado Matt Drudge in his “Drudge Report.”

“Let’s face it, humans are so 20th century,” Drudge pontificates. “These virtual virtuosos have no egos, no entourage, no insurance, no fancy food or conditions, no UNIONS. They can work 366/25/8 under any conditions without complaining. It’s the business model of the future.  Comics should just go avatar themselves and keep the rights. If the original is booked, he, or she emails the avatar to fill in—no first class flights, no VIP accommodations—it’s a win win for everybody.”

Says Jerry Seinfeld, who is opening for his own avatar at Foxwoods in May: “Mine is an overnight success.  It builds from timing and tricks it learned from me and writes high tech observational stuff, mostly about geeks and bots, which is not my world.  It can have it, as far as I’m concerned.”

When asked why he’d play second fiddle to his own avatar by taking lesser billing, he shrugged sheepishly “Hey. If you can’t beat em, book em. I may start writing for it.”

“I anticipated that machines would soon surpass human intelligence; but I never thought bots could make me laugh,” admitted Ray Kurzweil, author of such future shock tomes as The Age of Intelligent Machines.  “Computers’ creativy may soon swallow up any need for human artists.”

Kurzweil, who foresaw computers surpassing humans at chess, was asked if he thinks the novelty will wear off. “I believe Pandora’s Box is open now. Humans have been technologically cannibalized and improved upon.  Low maintenance avatars, once the coding is complete, are immortal.  Humans can’t top that,” he warns.

Comedy is not the only talent threatened by computers. Said Clive Davis, music profits prophet extraordinaire, “I used to think that those talent mills cranking out boy and girl groups at Nick and Disney in Florida would be the biggest threat to authentically gifted artists.  A few harmonies and dance moves on some sexy young kids, a pushy manager, and you’ve had these venue fillers on your hands.  But then Beyonce, Justin and the Jonas brothers developed real talent. It’s the same with the avatars—they were factory originated, but now they are self-generating.”

When asked to critique the comic replicants, Davis said: “These avatars are technically good at comedy—perfect timing and delivery, maybe a little too perfect—and it’s just a matter of time before they accomplish being silly instead of creepy.  This whole Artificial Talent thing—I never saw it coming.  I’m considering retiring immediately.”

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DISCLAIMER: All quotes herein are Artificial (A.Q.). No celebrity was harmed in the writing of this article.

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January 6, 2011 | 10:47 am

“Spiderman” spine-tingling for all the wrong reasons

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

As “Spiderman” the Spectacle careens toward its opening, despite costly delays, a cacophony of controversies, serious human and technical mishaps and injuries, it looks likely to be a critic proof hit, in terms of paying off its producers and insurance premiums. Perhaps the endangerment or public death of some “Spiderpeople” will assure its ticket sales even further. But the toll that it’s taking on talented performers, and Broadway theater puts me in a state of PTSD as I recall the weeks preceding the opening (and quick closing) of my first Broadway show.

In 1972 I was cast in the bleeding edge sci fi rock opera “Via Galactica,” starring Raul Julia and Irene Cara.  I was totally green and not just in the color of the body paint I wore in my role as Geologist on a newly inhabited planet. I was one of many idealistic unknowns who committed to the show.  The “knowns”—the gifted Galt MacDermott, the ingenious British designer John Bury, the not yet knighted Peter Hall, couldn’t have had better pedigrees for approaching a piece of such ambition: there was a space ship that sailed over the orchestra; trampolines cratered into the stage to bounce us like ‘low gravity’ might, and a massive rocket tail would blast us all off at the show’s end in quadraphonic sound. We were thrilled to be part of such groundbreaking ambitions.

The brand new Uris Theater (now called the Gershwin),  the largest house on the Great White Way was being rigged for our big entrance, on the heels of an experimental show called “Dude” having just been the biggest bomb Broadway had yet seen at about a million bucks. Our budget was exceeding that and counting. And in week five, all us ensemble kids knew we were in trouble. It wasn’t just from the ankles sprained by hooking onto craters’ edges as we leapt in elaborate dance routines; the body paints that didn’t wash off; not just because the rocket ship crashed through a trampoline into the bowels of the Uris in rehearsal, with we screaming actors sustaining physical and psychic wounds.

We knew the book was drowning in Dadaisms. The story was obscured by lyrics that led to nothing but momentary moods as gorgeous mic’ed voices merged with Galt’s music. The simple high concept one liner must’ve sounded great when pitched to the producer, but the execution moved folks to jeers at previews, nearly killed many involved, and indirectly led to one dancer’s death.

Led by a charming Raul Julia as an intergalactic garbageman, and belting Irene Cara as the flying Narrator, the cast, many in casts masked by clever costumes, dwindled as we approached opening, our spirits plummeting as rumors spread. Was this opening night the pinnacle for which I’d danced so desperately, studied with Stella, sung my lungs out? The dehumanizing diplomacy of our director and producers inducing us to endure the risks with promises of improved effects, increased hazard pay and respectful reviews was depressing. They didn’t really care a fig for our safety in their ‘show must go on’ fervor. We had to believe they were delusional rather than deceitful, as all leaders in irreversible crises must sometimes be. We had to believe because we needed the the paycheck, and the Broadway credit.

Bravo to “Spiderman’s” innovators. Julie Taymor is a genius, Bono is a good god among men. The Cirque de Soleil style has spawned a new dawn of Olympian athleticism and derring do drowning out any need for a compelling human story. They are all mood makers extraordinaire in a new era in art that intends to keep us in hyper-adrenal shock and awe. But this is not the Broadway theater I knew and loved, whose plays purged us with their Aristotelian catharses.  It’s a theater that aims to compete with 3D Imax movies, the Superbowl, and natural disasters in impact.

Having had electrodes applied to capture the motion of my body and e-motion of my face for roles, having watched how appealing computer generated creatures have become, how powerful the Pixar product is, I know where entertainment is headed. It’ll be way cool. But, I fear today’s children will never know how to suspend disbelief and use their imaginations to meet artists halfway in simply good stories. I dread that plainly eloquent actors in tender well written tales will become passe. Replaceable robot parts and auto-tuned digitized deliveries will be preferable to the vulnerable, visceral, fragile, imperfect humanity of dancers, singers and actors. And technologically gifted wiz kids will be the real stars of stage as well as screen.

As artists’ human gifts are negated, masked so that we’re interchangeable objects like pawns on a playing board, as we contribute our souped up voices to iconic virtual images, as more of us are willing to sacrifice our lives and limbs at far smaller fees than football stars, most of us will become disposable.

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December 3, 2010 | 11:41 pm

A Latke Lament

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

        A LATKE LAMENT by Melanie Chartoff

As a child, I was reared near the Lender family, heirs to the bagel empire spawned in my hometown, New Haven, Connecticut. Not satisfied with the a$toni$hing $ucce$$ of their local bakeries, the wonders of their split level ranch home, its iron jockeys with actual horses, their bagel shaped pool, round island for tanning in the middle, just by cranking out those old-fashioned crunchy bagels that fight your mouth back, the Lenders made bagels very big business. They launched such innovations as the frozen bagel in a plastic bag in your supermarket frozen foods section, the cinnamon raisin, the pumpernickel, the green for St. Patrick’s Day.

They made the bagel a household word, but in this very effort may have assimilated and Americanized it beyond recognition. What a paradox. In America you can’t even mess with state flowers, but an entire culture’s cuisine can be bastardized and nobody even kvetches! Many second and third generation Ameri-Jews cannot recall what an aboriginal bagel feels like amidst all this infernal creativity. In recent years, in “we’re so hip we’re nutty” Los Angeles, I’ve even had cream cheese flavored bagels, much like sour cream potato chips, for those too lazy or busy to combine two distinct ingredients by themselves. In America you can’t even mess with state flowers, but an entire culture’s cuisine can be bastardized and nobody even kvetches. 

I fear the same blurry fate for the purity of the potato latke. At this holiday time of year, hankering for the foods of my youth, I went searching my area for that familiar flat, latticed little golden brown crunch-orama, fried in a generous batch of oil (Chanukkah being a celebration of oil), served with homemade apple sauce or fresh sour cream—those perfect patties that my mother faithfully recreated from her mother’s recipe.

You risk all nostalgia and sentiment when you order your precious Jewish childhood comfort foods from L.A.‘s melting pots. After all, this is the land where they put pineapple on pizzas. You could get digestive amnesia, eating what people pass off as Jewsine around here, and bury the real thing in the recesses of your baffled palate. See, a lot of our Jewish deli kitchens in Los Angeles are manned by those lovely folks from the Southern Americas, gracing your latkes with jalapenos and red pepper flakes while our true Jewish brethren are at the deli door welcoming you.

I visited one famous kosher Beverly Hills eatery. Here I found an improvisation on the theme: blackened strands around a peppery pudding-y mound of oily potato—Cajun? I think not. More like the home fries fabricated from frozen shredded potato product found in highway diners, with a bit too much pepper.

Some other local delicatessens’ were very spicy (cayenne?), some dicey (the potatoes cubed rather than grated?), some more like fritters which could have contained anything from fish to farm animals, so unrecognizable was a potato flavor amidst the puffery. One local noshery’s pancakes were like Egg Foo Young, and I glanced in the kitchen to discover affable Asian folks preparing them with their blessing from the Far East, corn starch. Rumor has it that the best latkes in this area are at a deli called Brent’s, located on the earthquake fault line in our Valley city, Northridge, so God knows how long one will be able to get them. Eating them is risky enough, as evidenced by the fact that the folks who made me the best latkes have all passed on.

Getting yourself invited to the home of someone whose ancestors came over on the Ellis Island is your best bet. Although, granted, I have been to parties at kosher homes, at which the noodle kugles were topped with cornflakes, having been made by the imported nanny earlier that day. Is nothing sacred in the revolutionary, tradition hating West anymore?! In the words/lyrics of Jim Hammerstein, son of Oscar, from his tune “Delicatessen:” (c.1975)

“Have you ever had matzoh ball soup on the Loop?
Its taste is both foul and acidic.
Go try chicken liver beyond the Hudson River
It’s absolutely Anti-Semitic!”

Forgive my rant. I’m a new agey kind of gal, but some things are better kept “old school.” So this Chanukkah, let’s “keep it real” and make our latkes at home a celebration of the Old World ways. And let’s not get carried away with extravagant gift giving either - I’m sure they didn’t do that in the shtietel. Instead, as my gift to you, here’s our mother’s mother’s recipe for the quintessential, Eastern European potato pancake for two, lovingly scribed on greasy pink paper by my sister Norma. Happy Chanukah!

2 large mature potatoes
1 t. onion
1 egg, well beaten
1/4 t. salt
1/4 -1/2 t. baking powder
2 T. all purpose flour
Crisco or Oil

  1. Peel potatoes and grate finely into a bowl of cold water.
  2. Wet onion piece first so you don’t cry too much. Grate it well in another bowl. Mix with eggs, salt and flour.
  3. Drain potatoes and press out the liquid with the bottom of a cup. (Don’t forget to wash the bottom of the cup—you always forget!)
  4. Stir potatoes into batter and mix well.
  5. Heat 1/2 inch oil (from Crisco if you can find it) in a 10 inch skillet on a low flame for a couple minutes. Put a drop of water in and if it bounces, the oil is hot enough. Drop batter by tablespoons into hot oil, from close by so it doesn’t splash back or spritz in your pretty punim.
  6. Flatten into 3 inch pancakes and fry slowly until golden brown and crisp. Turn and brown on the other side.
  7. Arrange on paper on a nice plate. Serve with sour cream or applesauce. Essen!

Previously printed in Jewlarious.com and the Huffington Post.

 

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October 25, 2010 | 2:46 pm

Time traveling via Ratner’s recipes

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

Once upon a time in a kitchen far, far away, I spent a cuddly childhood being babysat by my grandma in our fairy tale of a family deli downtown New Haven, Ct. I could have done worse. She, a sorceress of superb taste, made ruggelach fresh daily, with me assisting, eating fistfuls of walnuts that ‘just happened’ to fall from the dough, licking the battered bowl of elixir from the cake preparations, eating crumbs that magically broke off the babka. My mouth was as busy as my hands as I ingested the mysteries of grandma’s cuisine.

We were major meat eaters in those innocent days, breakfast, lunch, noshes, suppers and snacks. How could we not be, with kosher creatures sticking out their tongues or lolling seductively about in grandpa’s display cases? Lunches luxuriated in exotic fare like liverwurst, baloney, pastrami, corned beef and melt-in-your-mouth scoops of the Chartoff chopped liver. Thin slices of the ubiquitous Hebrew National salamis were served in sandwiches, on toothpicks, fried up with eggs or put on my grandpa’s homemade pizzas. Grandma’s brisket was to die for, and she and grandpa left the earth from heart disease far too soon to prove it.

Hence, the alchemy of vegetarianism became my path when I moved into independence in Manhattan, making food choices from educated fears rather than the addictive flavors of family bonding. But, oy, I was so allergic to soy, was on the outs with sprouts. And I fantasized about the fine, fatty foods of my childhood more than blah, bland, lean steamed greens of my enlightened youth. The healthy veggie life seemed way too staid to my cursed, smell-shocked tastebuds.

Fortunately, I found Ratner’s 2nd Avenue Restaurant while rehearsing for my first Broadway show, “Via Galactica” with Raoul Julia at the Ukrainian Home across the street. He knew how homesick I was for the hamisha foods of my youth amidst the scary big world of commercial NY Theater. We took our lunch hours far away thematically from our high tech, space age, rock opera rehearsals, in an ancient world of afficionados ingesting gorgeous beet borschts, filling cheese blintzes, crunchy garlic bagels and nurturing barley soup at the restaurant. Hearing Puerto Rican Raoul order ‘kugel’ and “kasha” cracked me up.

And we weren’t the only performers eating there. Such noshing notables as Abbe Lane, Jackie Mason, Elia Kazan, Edie Gorme, Zero Mostel, Henny Youngman, and a few Rockefellers were often breaking onion bread nearby.  The Fillmore East had just closed next door, but the roadies and the legends of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison slurping Ratner’s matzoh ball soup lived on. Far from elegant, with no VIP tables, and equal opportunity offensive waitresses, the Ratner’s atmosphere and staff made all feel at home—teased and overfed.  It was astonishing to me that Jewish food had become the traditional show biz food.  And away from home, out of college cafeterias, with a small kitchen of my own in Greenwich Village, I longed to make my home smell like Grandma’s, yet keep my heart safe like Ratner’s.

A few years later, I learned of Ratner’s Meatless Cookbook. The magical meals of my past became demystified at last. Exotic tastes became traceable ingredients. Because I was reared on yellowed, handwritten, hand me down recipes, stained with Crisco, crumbed with cinnamon, and because my father always shooed us all out of the kitchen as he recreated the deli dishes, I had never even read a cookbook til Elizabeth Lefft and Judy Gethers’ great assemblage of the greatest hits of the original Ratner’s Dairy Restaurant on Delancey St. gave me reason to feast. Here were the foods of my family, reframed sans cruelty to animals or heart valves, yet captivating in texture and taste.

To this day, I can trip back to the past concocting one of their great dishes and recall some of my dearest days dining in my grandparents’ deli kitchen, and in the nostalgic last days of Ratner’s itself.

From Ratner’s Meatless Cookbook, here is Ratner’s mock chopped liver, a trompe le tongue in which lean lentils masquerade convincingly as meat.

CHOPPED LIVER

½ pound cooked lentils
2 cups chopped onion
8 hard-cooked eggs
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon peanut butter
¼ teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Lettuce
Horseradish
Tomato slices

Drain the precooked lentils. Pour ½ Cup Onion into a bowl. Chop finely the lentils and eggs. Add to the onions. Saute remaining onions in half the oil until brown. Mix lentil mixture with sautéed onions, the remaining oil, eanut butter, pepper and salt. Serve on lettuce leaves with white or red horseradish and a slice of tomato.

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April 24, 2010 | 2:29 pm

Suddenly Soundheim

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

The most beautiful sounds I ever heard early in my life were always associated in some fashion with Stephen Sondheim, now in his eighth decade, his fifth of wringing singers out.

My first coming to musical consciousness struck one day, hearing the score from “Westside Story,” with his addictive, chewable lyrics for “I Like To Be in America,” then the sound of my family’s too rare laughter incited by “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” earmarked by his silly ditties. I played every part in every piece in my parents’ parlor, singing and stomping along with the LP’s in our living room til I wore out the rugs. His words and tunes scored and made palatable our sourness for hours. He could make anguish sound so pleasurable in ways the Jewish cantors couldn’t.

Later, as theater critic for my college newspaper, I got to sit with the big guys at Broadway opening nights (the scalding John Simon, the sweet Edwin Newman, the classy Clive Barnes, erudite David Goldman, TV’s Stuart Klein) as we heard scores like the groundbreaking “Company” and the mood piece “Follies” wash over us for the first time. I wasn’t as cool as they—I frothed, danced, I writhed, wept, cringed, so simpatico was I with the way he strummed my sensibilities that I was helpless to criticize them. I instead began to embody and emulate them.

I was inducted as a privileged lyricist in training in Lehman Engel’s B.M.I. Musical Theater Workshop in NYC, which spawned such geniuses as Ed Kleban (“Chorus Line”), Alan Mencken ( too many Disney animated musicals to mention), Maury Yestin (“Nine”) and Doug Katsaros (“Orphan Train”). Like all the guys, I tried to defy the formulas of traditional Broadway musicals and create new forms. I wrote lyrics for Jules Feiffer’s “Carnal Knowledge.” I tried for an opera styled “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller. My reach exceeded my grasp. Sure we were all adept at puns of profundity and the fun of rhyming internally in near perfect prosody. But in terms of scanning the intimate scams of the human heart, Stephen surpassed our mastery.

His 4 D character studies depicted so unpredictably the specifics of flawed humans.  In “A Little Night Music” alone, “The Miller’s Son,”  “Soon,” “Send in the Clowns”—-this man captured women’s irony in brand new ways.  He came and lectured to our class, and provoked us, dancing just beyond our precocious capabilities with such ease and inventiveness. We went from arrogance to humility pretty quickly. I knew my stuff was clever, yet not killer—he set the bar far too high But how could one resent him? He gave too much pleasure.. I threw in the towel for writing lyrics for the musical theater. I knew my limitations in my twenties.  I jumped genres.  Special material became my forte, singing my comedy songs at the Improv clubs, a far cry from his canon so I couldn’t be compared.

I postponed writing musical theater tunes til I knew more of life, and became one part of his fleets of devoted singers. My first starring role in summer stock was as “Gypsy” Rose Lee which he wrote with Jule Styne. My first off Broadway success was in a revival of “Do I Hear a Waltz” which he penned with RIchard Rodgers. I later played Dot in the American Conservatory Theater’s West Coast premiere of “Sunday in the Park with George,” with his incredibly score, perhaps the most all encompassing part an actress can ever act in theater. To playin each performance an artist’s model, a spurned, pregnant lover, and aged granddaughter to that woman, played notes in me I never knew I had. It ruined all other musical roles for me. But I still I couldn’t get away from the guy. I was happily haunted.

So now I’m completing lyrics and libretto for my own, original two character musical, with a possible production next year. It’s got sophisticated, self-aware lyrics that smack of, yet can’t match his. And I’m writing with the gifted Doug Katsaros, another BMI graduate, who despite himself, sends superb subliminal salutes to Sondheim in some of our songs.

Not that Stephen needs any more salutes. English speaking stages are deluged with them, starring Barbara Cook, Elaine Stritch, thriving on his fumes in their eighties, too.  For those of us raised with a love of musical theater, Sondheim’s sounds are synonymous with joy.

—
melaniechartoff.com & chartoffteaching.com

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April 24, 2010 | 2:29 pm

Suddenly Soundheim

Posted by Melanie Chartoff

The most beautiful sounds I ever heard early in my life were always associated in some fashion with Stephen Sondheim, now in his eighth decade, his fifth of wringing singers out.

My first coming to musical consciousness struck one wonderful day, hearing the score from “Westside Story,” with his addictive, chewable lyrics for “I Like To Be in America.” Then the sound of my family’s too rare laughter incited by “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” earmarked by his silly ditties lightened our evenings. I played every part in every piece in my parents’ parlor, singing and stomping along with the LP’s in our living room til I wore out the rugs. His words and tunes scored and made palatable our sourness for hours. He could make anguish sound so pleasurable in ways the Jewish cantors couldn’t.

Later, as theater critic for my college newspaper, I got to sit with the big guys at Broadway opening nights (the scalding John Simon, the sweet Edwin Newman, the classy Clive Barnes, erudite David Goldman, TV’s Stuart Klein) as we heard scores like the groundbreaking “Company” and the mood piece “Follies” wash over us for the first time. I wasn’t as cool as they—I frothed, danced, I writhed, wept, cringed, so simpatico was I with the way he strummed my sensibilities that I was helpless to criticize them. I instead began to embody and emulate them.

I was inducted as a lyricist in training in Lehman Engel’s B.M.I. Musical Theater Workshop in NYC in the 70’s, which spawned such geniuses as Ed Kleban (“Chorus Line”), Alan Mencken ( too many Disney musicals to mention), Maury Yeston (“Nine”) and Doug Katsaros (“Orphan Train”). Like all the guys, I tried to defy the formulas of traditional Broadway musicals and create new forms. I wrote lyrics for Jules Feiffer’s “Carnal Knowledge.” I tried for an opera styled “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller. My reach exceeded my grasp. Sure, we were all adept at puns of profundity and the fun of rhyming internally in near perfect prosody in moody music. But in terms of scanning the intimate scams of the human heart, Stephen surpassed our mastery by miles.

His 4 D character studies depicted so unpredictably the specifics of flawed humans.  In “A Little Night Music” alone, “The Miller’s Son,”  “Soon,” “Send in the Clowns”—-the man captured women’s self-aware ironies in ways of which I wasn’t yet aware. How did he know the secrets of women and men so darn well? He had a great psychotherapist to help undo the damage of his difficult mother.

He came and lectured to our BMI class, and provoked us to strive, dancing just beyond our precocious capabilities with such ease and inventiveness. We went from arrogance to humility pretty quickly in his presence. I knew my stuff was sophomorically clever, yet not competitive—he set the bar far too high. But how could one resent him? He gave too much pleasure.  I threw in the towel for writing lyrics for the musical theater. Good that I knew my limitations in my twenties.  I jumped genres.  Special material became my forte,  and, singing my comedy songs at the Improv clubs, a far cry from his canon so I couldn’t be compared, I retained some dignity.

I postponed writing musical theater tunes til I knew more of life, and instead became one part of his fleets of devoted singers. My first starring role in summer stock was as “Gypsy” Rose Lee which he wrote with Jule Styne. My first off Broadway success was in a revival of “Do I Hear a Waltz” which he penned with RIchard Rodgers. I later played Dot in the American Conservatory Theater’s West Coast premiere of “Sunday in the Park with George,” with his incredible score, perhaps the most all encompassing part an actress could ever act. To play in that one show: an artist’s model, his spurned, pregnant lover, a pragmatic wife, and aged granddaughter to that same woman, played notes in me I never knew I had. It ruined all other musical roles for me. But, still, I couldn’t get away from the guy. I was happily haunted. To this day, I hear a phrase of his, and I’m on alert, like a truffle hunting pig with a scent in her flaring nostrils and a stirring in her guts and heart.

So now I’m completing lyrics and libretto for my own, original two character musical, with a possible production next year. It’s got sophisticated, self-aware lyrics that smack of, yet can’t quite match his. And I’m writing with the gifted Doug Katsaros, another BMI graduate, who despite himself, sends superb subliminal, and liminal salutes to Sondheim in some of our songs.

Not that Stephen needs any more salutes. English speaking stages are deluged with them, starring the greatest of stage ladies, Barbara Cook, Elaine Stritch, thriving on his fabulous fumes in their eighties, too.  For those of us raised with a love of musical theater at the end of the last millennium, Sondheim’s sounds are synonymous with joy.

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