Another day spent in the kitchen

The latest issue of Cook's Country magazine arrived last week.  I actually managed to flip through the whole thing pretty much right away, and of course I found a couple of recipes I wanted to try right away.  The reduced-fat pastitsio just came out of the oven a few minutes ago and smells a lot like the traditional recipe I haven't made in years (because a. it takes 1.5 hours just to put it together and b. my cut-down version makes enough for 12-15 people).

Yesterday I bought fresh ginger and garam masala for the first time, for chicken tikka masala.  It must be fate - just a day or two before the magazine came in, someone had posted a chicken tikka masala recipe on Facebook.  I plan to make the Cook's Country version because it's lower in fat.  Can't wait to get to it, because the garam masala smells fabulous - looking forward to using it in LOTS of things, not just this.

Next project, however, will be applesauce from a few aging apples.  I love it - ever so easy, and it makes the house smell oh, so good!

I can tell I mostly do musicals because...

I learned the other day that I've been cast in "Death Takes a Holiday".  First read-through is tonight, and the producer sent out a preliminary rehearsal schedule yesterday.  It looked awfully short to me - 6 weeks of rehearsal before we go into Tech Week.  That's actually pretty standard for a play.  It's just that for someone like me, who's used to the 8+ weeks typical to rehearse a musical, it seems a bit compressed.

I had considered auditioning for a December show, but since this one runs until the weekend before Thanksgiving, that's too much overlap.  Even a January show might be pushing things.  February, however...