I cooked this morning, yay me.

Lately, whenever I ponder what to make for supper, scrambled eggs and salad are the only things that pop into mind, so, clearly, something needed to change.

*I brought some teeth-jarringly sweet (my fault, oops) applesauce up from the freezer to thaw before mixing with a jar of bland (the apples’ fault, not mine) sauce.
*I baked a cake (it sunk a little—I’m worried I left out half of the oil) and made the icing to top it with.
*I had my daughter make granola.
*I fried up meat, garlic, and onions for sloppy joes.
*I boiled and peeled a bunch of potatoes for baked hash browns.
*I made a baked oatmeal for tomorrow’s breakfast.

It felt good, all that simmering and stirring. And it feels even gooder (don’t judge) to know that I have a bunch of dishes (that don’t star eggs and lettuce) at my fingertips.

I don’t like it that I haven’t been writing much about food. I do try new recipes (though much less extensively these past few weeks), but then I often sit on them for awhile, waiting to see if I might decide to use them for the newspaper column. (Speaking of which, a new column—old recipe—came out this week.)

What I want to tell you about now, though, is a chocolate ice cream. I made it awhile back, for The Family Reunion of 2012, and people thought the ice cream
was rich and dark, which it is, but it tastes richer and darker than it actually is. It’s a subversive ice cream.

I know there are already two chocolate ice creams on this blog. There’s Chocolate Ice Cream, and then there’s The Best Chocolate Ice Cream Ever. (I didn’t give myself much space to grow, did I? Silly me.)

I’m not going to try to one-up myself and say this new ice cream is the BEST best ice cream ever, but it is very, very good. In fact, for now (look at me being all cautious), it’s my new favorite chocolate ice cream.

It’s a Jeni recipe, of course. Now that I’ve discovered her methods, I’m kind of in love. She’s on to something with these eggless ice creams of hers.

PS. Excuse the abundance of parenthesis. I must be feeling rather parenthetical these days. (Or something.)

 Jeni’s Chocolate Ice Cream
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s blog

1 cup milk, divided
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup cream
1 cup evaporated milk
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla

In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch. Set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the remaining milk, cream, evaporated milk, sugar, and corn syrup. Bring to a gentle boil and whisk in the cocoa. Boil gently for four minutes. Whisk in the cornstarch slurry and boil for one more minute.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the chopped chocolate, salt, and vanilla. If the mixture is at all gritty (for me, one time it was and another time it wasn’t), pour the hot mixture through a fine-mesh strainer.

Chill the mixture and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions.

This same time, years previous: mint tea concentrate, nothing is lost on the breath of God (Wayne’s death)

I’m finally acclimating to the play. It took a solid four weeks but I’m there. Which is a HUGE relief. I thought I’d never get there. I thought I’d never have my lines down, never get the hang of hair and make-up and corset, never actually be able to pull it (the play, not the corset) off. In fact, up until the last minute, I harbored a secret fear that I’d be replaced. Nobody did a thing to make me feel that way—it was just my wicked imagination raking me over the coals.

I get horribly nervous when I have to do something up front in church and I was super stressed that I’d feel sick with nerves when I was on stage. But it isn’t like that, not at all. I get a little tense before walking out on stage (a snug corset does wonders for trapping the butterflies), but it’s peanuts compared to real Dread Nervousness. And it’s oodles of fun once I’m out there. I never knew acting could be such fun. I haven’t played this hard in a long time (no pun intended, sorry).

One thing I always wondered: how do actors transition between being themselves and being someone else on stage? It’s funny, but in between our scenes, we’re all back in the green room talking about everyday stuff. Some people are on facebook, others are doing homework, some are reading. And then when our scenes come up—bam—we run out on stage to have a nightmare or shoot somebody. It’s weird, in an interesting sort of way.

Sir Ian McKellen sums up the acting dichotomy quite tidily (thanks, Ingrid).  

I promised you blood and burn pix.

Here’s the blood.

It’s a mixture of corn syrup, laundry detergent, food coloring, and something else (chocolate syrup?) that I can’t remember. When I come out for my last scene, I never know how much blood I’m going to find. Sometimes there’s almost nothing, and other times there are great pools of it on the floor. And then when I have to say, “The pain’s made him weak, but it’s a clean wound,” and I pick up his head and there’s blood everywhere, I have to suppress the urge to laugh.

And the burns…

Since her arms are completely covered during the show, they put on the burns beforehand.

They paint her arms with liquid latex (or something), dry it, and then pull at it to make blisters.

They stipple on blood.

Then they paint the insides of the blisters.

Gruesome, yes? (And that’s just the beginning. There are a lot more blisters/blood by the time they’re all done.)

During the play, I have to apply salve to the burns—the first time, I could hardly stand to touch them. (It didn’t help that she was wincing so convincingly.)

Regarding clothing: I feel like I should have some great revelations concerning fashion to share with you now that I’ve gotten to experience 19th century dress firsthand. But I don’t.

I’ve gotten kind of used to sporting a true waist and the sloping-shoulder look, managing a hoopskirt, wearing sleeves as a separate garment, and grappling with corset strings, aprons, bonnets, and boat-sized bloomers. That women actually wore all those layers—and worked in them—still blows me away.

One of the women in the cast had a panic/claustrophobic attack when getting dressed and had to switch to a softer, less restrictive corset. I got her old one. Only once did I come close to panicking, and that was because I was super hot. It was a mental battle to not think about how pinched my skin was and how many layers—five—were piled on top of the corset, preventing me from relieving the pressure.

Oh yeah, and at a couple rehearsals (before the air conditioning was working properly), my vision got all blurry around the edges. I thought I was getting a migraine. Only later did I realize that it was probably because I was overheated. 

Now I understand why women back in the day were given to fainting spells. Duh.

A couple things I learned:

1. To facilitate going to the bathroom, bloomers were crotchless.
2. Women were very excited when hoop skirts were invented since they allowed for more air circulation under all those clothes.
3. Sleeves and collars were separate—that way they could wear out and be replaced without having to make a whole new dress.

One of my friends was watching me get dressed the other night. “Wow,” she said. “I didn’t realize you had all that stuff on under your dress!”

When I mentioned to another friend that I think we should do a costume strip after the show so that people can fully appreciate the lengths to which the (skilled and gifted) costume designer went, he said, “Yeah, they can just put a pole up there on the stage…”

(Those Mennonites!)

My husband came to see the play on Friday. I wanted him to see it by himself first so that he could pay better attention to the kids when he brings them this weekend. I was worried it might be a little scary for them.

“Scary?” he said, surprised, when I asked him afterwards. “No, it wasn’t scary. It was … emotional.”

And then, a little sheepishly, “I teared up a couple times.”

Sunday night we took off for upstate New York to visit my husband’s family. His brother’s family was visiting from Hong Kong this week. Later this summer we’ll go up again when his sister’s family comes in from the West Coast. When family travels to the East Coast, we go. Period.

It rained the whole time we were there. I didn’t notice I was missing the sun (we were too busy talking, eating, and visiting the Corning Museum of Glass), but Tuesday evening when the sun finally made an appearance, I had to get out in it.

I threw on my sneakers, and some of the kids and I struck out through the field behind Grandpa and Grandma’s house. The kids climbed all over a tractor that was parked in the field, and then they set about picking wild flowers.

Half the sky was dark with clouds, and the other half was bright blue with fluffy white clouds.

The sunlight was beautiful.

The kids meandered from clump to clump, and I took pictures till my vision blurred.

This morning I was awakened by the sun beaming in through the window. I took another walk (this time, a long one, all by myself this time) before breakfast—strong coffee, fried ham, and a delicious baked French toast with maple syrup. It seemed a shame to spend this gloriously sunny day stuck in a car, but oh well. We’re home now.

This same time, years previous: small pasta with spinach and bacon, three reds fruit crumble, sour cream ice cream, radishes for breakfast, hypothesizing (my theories on learning to read), the best chocolate ice cream ever, strawberry daiquiri base