St. Louis Eats and Drinks

The Taco and Ice Cream Joint

The Taco and Ice Cream Joint is way too much fun. On Cherokee Street a few blocks west of Jefferson, it’s a great combination of old and new in a setting definitely falls into the New category, brick walls, barn siding and more kinds of Mexican ice cream than you can shake a churn at. (Plus paletas, those Popsicle-type treats!)

It’s not mandatory to walk along the long cases full of frozen desserts, but it’s pretty irresistible, the various pastels catching the eye, and trying to figure out what they are. There are tabs in most of them with the name, but most are in Spanish. Nevertheless, mango, for instance, is still mango, and the coconut has a shower of shredded coconut over its top. But press on, unless you’re just there for ice cream. The counter in front of the kitchen is for ordering main courses and paying both both them and any ice cream.

The house tacos are street-taco style, a couple of soft corn tortillas bearing the filling. The first remarkable thing is that every one seems absolutely stuffed, filled very generously. There’s beef and pork options, no chicken, but shrimp and tilapia. Nothing for vegetarians except perhaps for the immense order of Cherokee Street Nachos, which could be ordered without meat. Cochinita pibil, pork that’s roasted in banana leaves, has been described as much like pulled pork. Hardly any pulled pork I’ve had carried as much piggy flavor as this, and fabulously juicy, the ruddy juices dripping out the far end when I picked it up. Well-seasoned, yes, but not at all incendiary. That’s it on top with some pickled red onion. Those who are hesitant about tongue would do well to give this, lengua on the board, a try. It’s wonderfully lean beef that’s extremely tender, and perfectly trimmed, no gristle or connective tissue. The third taco on that tray was a special, pork belly cooked up as chiccharone, crisping it and taking out some of the fat, served with pico de gallo, the fresh tomato-onion salsa, pineapple and a crema sauce of serrano and chipotle. Again, very moist, with a pleasant but not eye-watering heat. Both the fish taco, which was lightly grilled tilapia, and the shrimp, with the shrimp in chunks, which made it easier to eat, did have accompanying garnish, more pico de gallo, plus some mango, red cabbage and cilantro. Tasty, but no hot-spiciness.

The spiciness, though, is available at a station on the wall opposite the ice cream, where there’s lots of options. Yes, a pile of hot sauces, but more. In a refrigerated open-top table are more pico, a red and a green salsa, lots of cut-up limes, chopped white onion, chopped cilantro, and several kinds of pickled peppers and other vegetables. I was particularly taken with julienned carrots in a cumin-pepper brine, very nice, still some crunch. Top the tacos just how you’d like, and don’t forget to look atop the case’s sneeze guard for squeeze bottles of other sauces like a bacon-jalapeno, tamarind, serrano-lime and a spicy mango one.

The last taco was tripe, fried until crisp. It, too, was extremely tender, and the earthy taste that turns some folks off tripe – I admit I love it – was almost gone. So, too, was the chewy texture that can also cause folks to pull back. This was extremely mild, but still quite rich, and a great combination with some of that pickled carrot plus a little chopped onion.

There are burritos, quesadillas and bowls on offer, as well as tortas, or sandwiches, and a few random items. (Toasted ravioli would, I admit, be interesting with salsa.) The order for an ahogado was met with the young employee raising one eyebrow and starting to say, “Now, that’s ---” Yes, said the customer, the bun is dipped in sauce and the whole thing is a knife-and-fork show. Wetter than a French dip, it’s more like an old diner dish, the open-faced roast beef sandwich. The burritos are monster-sized, but the ahogado is immense. It comes with tortilla chips and what look like taquitos, rolled up deepfried tortillas, but they had no filling in them, just crunch. Inside are carnitas, again very moist and very pork-y, atop a smear of black beans, the roll dipped but not falling apart. The sauce used is spicy but easy enough that it’s not at all difficult to taste the other flavors of the peppers used – I always think of enchilada sauce when I taste this. The leftovers were equally charming the next day for a cold lunch.

Return to the ice cream case to agonize over choices. The pale green avocado (aguacate) ice cream did taste like avocado, lightly sweet. It was lighter than the mango ice cream, which was dense and big-flavor, clearly made with the real thing, since there were still a few fibers left in it. The paleta of choice was arroz con leche, in effect rice pudding, with pieces of rice still in it. This is common in paletas; coconut ones are slow to eat because there are nice-sized pieces of coconut meat in there, and in the photo, you can see pieces of Oreos in the Oreo paletas. My favorite gelato in Italy is riso, or rice, which I’ve only found in the US once, so this was a nice treat.

The employees were all quite young but very happy to explain things – although some of the ice cream varieties proved to be near-impossible to explain. They also offer a wide variety of toppings, including crunchy-spicy things like roasted and seasoned pumpkin seeds, well beyond the gummi bears and fruit you’d expect, and which they also have.

A delightful place to explore, and they’re too polite to fuss at customers who don’t self-police their tables when they leave.

 

The Taco and Ice Cream Joint

2738 Cherokee

314-224 5799

Facebook

Lunch and Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Tacos: $2-$3

 

Dim Sum Tips: How to Eat

Regular readers know that, on the whole, I don't post links except to my own work. But I just came across this video from Tasting Table. It's from the third generation of the family that owns the Nom Wah Tea Parlor in New York. Nom Wah has been operating just shy of a hundred years; they opened in 1920. Wilson Tang has been upgrading their media and remodeled the kitchen when he took over. The front of the house remains pretty much unchanged. It's a traditional menu, with things like shrimp dumplings and char siu bao, my favorite. They're those fluffy steamed buns filled with barbecue pork. But here he is talking about how to eat dim sum. Very interesting, things like chopsticks or fingers, soy sauce or not, and how to pronounce things. 

 

Maybe for this weekend?

 

Flashback: The Branding Iron

Full of courthouse regulars in the daytime and families at night, The Branding Iron was a Clayton standard. I wrote about it for St. Louis Magazine.

Disney's The Little Mermaid

It’s all swimming, all dancing this week at the Muny.

When it comes to musical theatre, selling the sizzle is just as important as selling the steak. Or, in this case, perhaps the salmon. The Muny is giving us Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and that’s the sort of fishy joke that abounds in the production.

What has the Muny done with this Alan Menken-Howard Ashman/Glenn Slater show? If you’ll forgive another maritime joke, it’s very splashy, indeed. The costumes, in particular, are stunning, and the innovation all around is a delight. The mermaid who’s curious about life on land is just an excuse to show off how much fun theatre can be, and there’s nothing wrong at all with that.

It’s not just Ariel’s mer-costume that gets adjusted to being landlocked. That’s the least of the delights from Highland, Il, native Robin L. McGee. Starting off with swaying seaweed on part of the chorus, she and crew proceed to give us all kinds of spectacular piscine looks.

Ariel is Emma Degerstedt, the youngest of the seven daughters, referred to as the mersisters, of King Triton, Jerry Dixon. Kind soul that she is, she rescues a shipwrecked sailor, Jason Gotay, and takes him to shore. Amazingly, he turns out to be a price in need of a wife. Hijinks ensue, of course. Degerstedt and Gotay seem to be having a truly great time, but Degerstedt has the bulk of the work, simply because she has to act without words for much of the second act, incredibly difficult in this immense venue. It works.

One of the high points of those hijinks, and the whole approach the Muny has taken to this show, is how Ursula (played by Emily Skinner in her return to the Muny) the banished sister of Triton, is presented. Ursula appears, almost floating, atop an octopus that’s four dancers wearing tentacles. It’s almost enough to detract from her great voice. Her sidekicks – villains always have sidekicks – are a couple of eels whose heads are puppets.

More puppetry, a la Lion King, in several situations, and it’s fun rather than feeling copied. And a final tip of the snorkel to Josh Walden, the choreographer, whose great work is an important factor in the evening.

As is often the case in family entertainment, the secondary characters are great fun. Gotay’s character Prince Eric is watched over by his guardian Grimsby, Richard B. Watson, who’s a delight, and Ariel’s pal Flounder they’ve cast as the young Spencer Jones, who’s already done a lot of work at the Muny. He’s pretty much perfect in the role, with deadpan humor. Sebastian, the crab charged by Triton with keeping an eye on Ariel, is the work of James T. Lane, very funny in his frantic if unsuccessful efforts. Scuttle, the seagull, manifests as a puppet and then as Jeffrey Schecter, and is a fine introduction to malapropisms for the young.

There’s a great deal of fairly clever dialogue in the show, in fact, courtesy of Doug Wright’s book. That helps keep the show fun for adults. There were plenty of apprentice mermaids, many showing Team Ariel colors, in the audience, but adults deserve entertainment, too. They, after all, are underwriting these visits.

Marcia Milgrom Dodge has given us a delightful evening under her direction. One wishes the score were better, but everything else worked so well, it’s difficult to complain about that.

 

Disney’s The Little Mermaid

through June 29

The Muny

Forest Park

www.muny.org

Vicia

Vicia is the hot restaurant of the moment. It’s the brainchild of Michael and Tara Gallina, he a St. Louisan and both alumni of the prestigious Blue Hill Farm in New York. In the French tradition, he’s a chef and she runs the front of the house. This is not French food, it’s modern American, and the word the Gallinas use to describe it is vegetable-forward. That’s quite accurate. There’s an extremely heavy emphasis on using locally sourced ingredients.

Before arriving for lunch or dinner, be aware that the street address on Forest Park Boulevard is not quite where Vicia is located. It’s in the Cortex complex, with an entrance on Boyle just north of where it intersects with Duncan Avenue – so, south of Forest Park Boulevard. There’s parking east of the restaurant – a lot directly across the street is permit-only.

It is indeed a handsome restaurant, black and white all over, with a little metal intruding here and there, an open kitchen. The covered terrace on the south side, where the wood-fueled cooking fireplace is operating, allows for dinner seating; the bar area on the north side is snacks and drinks only. The terrace is very pleasant, but I’m hoping they install some fans overhead to allow for more comfort as the summer heats up.

The menu shows both snacks and starters. From the snack side, my pal and I went for the naked vegetables. That’s not a judgment, that’s what the menu calls them. It’s a dish that evokes mixed responses. It was certainly a lovely presentation, turnip, several kinds of radishes, two inch-long pieces of carrot and a baby squash with its blossom.

Four spreads ride shotgun, on this particular visit, hummus, vegetable top pesto, a yogurt-goat cheese dip and lard. The menu suggests turkey wheat bread alongside at a $5 surcharge beyond the $12 for the plate. What’s turkey wheat bread? Turkey wheat is a particular kind of wheat, we found out. It was good, crusty bread, four half-slices. Not enough to slather everything we wanted to on it, though. The vegetables were beautiful and fresh. But aside from the carrots and the understandably bland squash, everything was cruciferous, that family from which arise things like cauliflower and broccoli. Consequently, with varying degrees of texture and sharpness, it all tasted very similar. The dips, on the other hand, were excellent. A gossamer, lemony hummus shone. The vegetable top pesto is striking and rather mysterious. We suspect it varies by what’s arriving in the kitchen, but this one had notes of freshly cut wood and some mint. Then there was the lard. This dish desperately, wildly needs another name. “Lard” doesn’t do it justice. Think about wiping one’s plate after finishing a particularly succulent piece of juicy roast pork – that’s what this tastes like. It has nothing to do with the green and white Armour packages I remember as a kid. Divine, I tell you, divine.

The starter menu offers a goose egg, soft scrambled. The egg arrives in a (cleaned) shell, sitting in dried moss in a wire basket, a striking presentation.

A small spoon allows for exploration of the contents, which begin with focaccia crumbs and an egg white foam. Further down, there’s a slightly tart mushroom liquid, the egg, which is custard-y soft, and asparagus, both cross-cut slices and a puree. The dish is beautiful, the taste is intriguing, but this is food one should expect to think about. I liked it mostly, but the focaccia crumbs were so hard they were the texture of granola, a little too much of the texture contrast they were obviously meant to provide.

“Family style mains” are in two columns, one “from the grill”, the other “vegetables & grains”. They’re meant to be shared, said our server, and they suggest ordering one or two per person. That meant our two-top would have had up to four platters on it, we said, rather puzzled. I think most people, at least in this part of the world, think of family style as large platters from which an entire table takes their portions. It turns out these are for very small families, and it’s mostly plates, not platters. Oyster mushrooms with an oyster vinaigrette were beautiful, large hunks tasting of wood smoke. But there was no sign of a vinaigrette, either visually or on the palate, and they had been so casually trimmed that eating them whole was impossible, even after cutting the large pieces into smaller servings. The joint base from which they grow is very fibrous and that remained, unremoved.

Another visit’s foray into Berkshire pork was more successful. Three slices, two from a shoulder and one from a belly, added up to probably half a pound. Yes, still pink in a couple of places, sprinkled with just a little coarse salt, they, too, showed evidence of a long visit to the wood-fueled fireplace, coming out still tender and juicy. Alongside was a thick, very tart smoked cherry jam. If someone in the kitchen hasn’t tried that on a peanut butter sandwich, I would be shocked. A step up from the mushrooms, all told.

From the vegetable column, new potatoes were steamed and crushed just a little, then dribbled with a charred onion aioli, a winning combination. A couple of potatoes were those Peruvian purples, and giddily handsome they were. Some pickled ramps were hanging out in the dish, but the garlic scapes (or stems) that had been grilled were less successful, having the texture of twine.

Green salad, with mixed leaves, was pretty much classic, lightly dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, none of it puddling in the bottom, a shower of grated sarvecchio cheese crowning it. Very successful with the pork, a nice contrast in textures and tastes.

Desserts, too, were off and on. One called Strawberries and cream had no strawberries at all. There was a scoop of goats’ milk vanilla ice cream, an oval of very good strawberry sorbet, a shower of pink strawberry-flavored dots flash-frozen with nitrogen, smaller and more flavorful than Dippin Dots but using that same technique. Two inch-square thins of meringue finished it off. Nice, but not quite as expected.

On the other hand, the mulberry tart exceeded expectations by a fair amount. A fine shortbread crust, its filling a soft custard with a very faint flavor of almond and unidentifiable other things, topped with a paper-thin crisp oat cookie and a scoop of mulberry sorbet, along with a couple of mulberries. It was an excellent combination of flavors and temperatures and textures.

Service is pretty much impeccable without being stuffy, a point that St. Louis should love. The price range on those family-style mains is from $10 to $14, so this is a restaurant that announces its intention to produce serious food. Much of it is food that the diner needs to think about rather than eat casually – the pork and salad came closest to that, although the cherry jam was not to be ignored, certainly. That’s fine, but the diner needs to be prepared.

 

Vicia

4260 Forest Park Blvd

314-553-9239

viciarestaurant.com/about/

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

“Family style mains”: $10-$14

 

The Sweet Smell of Success

The musical version of The Sweet Smell of Success opened big on Broadway. The story of the powerful New York gossip columnist syndicated all over the country had music from Marvin Hamlisch and a book by John Guare. It starred John Lithgow as the columnist JJ Hunsecker, with Lithgow winning a Tony for his work. Scott Miller, the founder of New Line Theatre, saw it, loved it – and realized it didn’t belong in a big Broadway house.

He was right. Much of it takes place in smoky nightclubs of the 1950’s and in the equally smoky offices of press agents. Intimacy is good for the music, it’s good for the actors and it’s good for its effect. The only thing New Line’s current production lacks in reproducing that intimacy is actual cigarette smoke.

Hunsecker (Zachary Alan Farmer), who’s based on Walter Winchell, the mega-columnist who was good buddies with J. Edgar Hoover during the McCarthy Red-baiting years, runs into a young, hustling, but unsuccessful press agent named Sidney Falco (Matt Pentecost). Falco is repping a club where Dallas Cochran (Sean Michael) plays the piano. Cochran is in love with a young woman named Susan Hunsecker (Ann Hier). J.J. comes in searching for her and is extremely upset that she’s hanging out there with such guys. Is she J.J.’s wife? No, she’s his kid sister. Falco steps up to (mis)identify himself as a classmate of Susan’s in an attempt to impress her, and things proceed from there.

Hunsecker, powerful in a way that’s hard to understand these days (but Winchell was, with both politicians and show biz folks) is very protective of his sister. The insinuation is that he’s maybe too protective, in fact. She’s bananas for the piano player but terrified of her brother who wants her to date somebody like that young Senator Kennedy he sets her up with. Falco becomes Hunsecker’s protege and figurative bag man, and he’s thrilled that he’s in the big time. But Hunsecker’s moral compass is totally absent except slightly, when it comes to Susan. Betrayal on betrayal follows. This is a little different than the movie, appreciated now more than when it came out, which had a script by Clifford Odets – and in which the piano player was Martin Milner, who went on to “Route 66” fame. But the impact is the same.

Farmer does superb work as Hunsecker. He charms and glares and shouts and sings with a singular purpose, to get his own way, utterly convincing. Ann Hier plays Susan as very young and innocent, just right in this time frame, and sounds great. Her chemistry with Sean Michael as Dallas is palpable. As Sidney, Matt Pentecost works hard, but retains an air of innocence far too long into the story, and has to work a little with some of the songs.

The visual theme is the blue lights of nightclubs, and both scenic and lighting designer Rob Lippert and costume designer Sarah Porter (who plays Sidney’s hat-check girlfriend with elan) go for it. The costumes in particular hit it – take a look at the shoes, for example. Sidney even has a pair of blue suedes. Jeffrey Richard Carter and the New Line band take good care of the score and the sound from Elli Castonguary is nearly perfectly balanced. Taylor Pietz’ choreography – and this is a dance-heavy version of the show – is fun, especially with the chorus, which has some folks who would have been right at home in “Guys and Dolls”. They’re a delight.

Much credit to Miller and co-director Mike Dowdy-Windsor for this show, which manages to be a romp despite its very serious story.

 

The Sweet Smell of Success

through June 24

New Line Theatre

Marcelle Theatre

3310 Samuel Shepherd Drive

www.newlinetheatre

Monsters

St. Louis has far more theatre than many people realize, and we – happily – have the audiences to support it, for the most part. (Financial support, I realize, is a whole different question.) Regular theatre-goers can get to the point of counting how many times they’ve seen a certain play, whether it’s their favorite or just something that pops up every year from a different company. Here’s a chance for something unseen.

Stray Dog Theatre brings us a brand new comedy thriller from local playwright Stephen Peirick. Monsters is the story of a St. Louis couple, Sarajane Alverson and Jeremy Goldmeier, playing Andi and Davis. She’s a cosmetologist and he just started to run his family diner after his father’s death. That’s not going so well; dear old Dad left a mountain of unpaid bills. But why are we in their unfinished basement? Therein lies the story.

Kevin O’Brien, as Jeremy, Davis’ kid brother, bursts in pushing a guy, played by Michael A. Wells, tied to an office chair, gagged and with a bloody knot on his head. Andi comes downstairs, totally unprepared for what she sees. Jeremy is equally shocked that she’s home, and uncharacteristically ill-kempt, not that Jeremy would know that word. O’Brien’s Jeremy is rather a doofus, wonderfully played with squirming body language and a wide knowledge of perfectly obvious movie references. Andi, nobody’s fool, can browbeat him into an explanation, or at least a subtotal one, of what she’s seeing, but it doesn’t come easily.

The characters are very realistic – Alverson’s Andi could have been any of several co-workers of mine years ago, for instance, and Goldmeier, as Davis, seems very comfortable as a struggling business owner and concerned husband. Eileen Engel is Piper, Andi’s sexy sister who arrives complaining about her probation officer. Just for practice, she works her wiles on Jeremy. The poor guy in the chair – what is his name, anyway? - doesn’t have much to say but contributes a lot in physical comedy.

Lots of laughs here, with some killer lines. (That, however, may be a bad choice of words on my part.) I’m not sure that these folks would actually speak in such grammatical sentences, but that’s a fairly minor quibble. Good work from actors and Peirick, and kudos to Gary F. Bell, director, and Stray Dog’s artistic director, for putting it all together.

 

Monsters

through June 24

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee

314-865-1005

www.straydogtheatre.org

Title and Deed

As I write this, it’s Bloomsday, the tribute to James Joyce and his novel Ulysses. In that lineage, but closer to the style of his younger friend Samuel Beckett is the work of contemporary playwright Will Eno. Eno’s work Title and Deed is on the boards currently, brought to us by The Midnight Company.

Eno’s work seems close to stream-of-consciousness, and here, as in several of his works, it’s a one-person show. Joe Hanrahan, the company’s artistic director and co-founder, has done other Eno work like his THOM PAIN (based on nothing). He has a sure hand with the playwright’s work and it’s certainly shown off with this.

The unnamed person in the show is an immigrant – maybe Irish, to judge from the accent – who’s been Here, the unnamed Here, a while. He tells tales of arrival, of what has happened to him since he got here, and of his life before, where he grew up and his parents. But it’s not a straight line narrative, rather bouncing back and forth, sometime stuttering to a halt. Hanrahan totally inhabits the character, who manages to be puzzling, charming at time, but mostly very interesting. He does an excellent job.

The Midnight Company is once again using Avatar Studios, which is in an office park just off South Ewing west of Jefferson. There really is no set, just lighting and sound, all this from Bess Moynihan’s design. But being in a commercial studio is an interesting experience in itself, and the sparseness accentuates the acting and dialogue. Sarah Whitney directed.

Title and Deed is not among Eno’s best works. Hanrahan gives it all he’s got, though, and that’s enough.

 

Title and Deed

The Midnight Company

through June 24

Avatar Studios

2675 Scott Ave.

314-487-5305

midnightcompany.com

 

Brunch: The Tavern Kitchen & Bar

How great to have a menu that isn't the Same Old Thing. That's what faces the bruncher at The Tavern Kitchen & Bar, although there are a few choices for the very conservative eater. But how much fun is that? I wrote about it here on the St. Louis Magazine blog Dining.

Titus

Hooray. Titus, also known as La Clemenza di Tito, is show about a ruler who is wise, kind and concerned about the people for whom he is responsible. How refreshing is that?

Oh, sure, conflict is at the heart of all theatre. And Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ fourth and final production of the year has plenty of it. It’s just that Emperor Titus is the good guy instead of some hotheaded revenge-seeking bully who is entitled to what he wants. Mozart created this opera to mark the coronation of Leopold II of Bohemia, although Leopold (who was the brother of Marie Antoinette, she of guillotine fame) did not quite live up to the standard Mozart set, using an old libretto from Pietro Metastasio. Antonio Salieri, whom you may remember from the film Amadeus, had earlier turned the gig down.

Forget Leopold. It’s Titus you want. He’s looking for an empress, you see, and things aren’t working out so well. Titus is sung by Rene Barbera, and he’s extremely satisfying in both voice and characterization of the emperor agonizing over a particularly painful betrayal. The female lead is Laura Wilde, who wants Titus in the worst way – literally, I assure you. She’s a delight, plotting and scheming and lusting after the crown if not the guy who holds it. Both of the women singing the trouser roles, that operatic quirk that has some males’ roles actually sung by women, Cecelia Hall, playing Sesto, Titus’ long-time best friend, and Emily D’Angelo as Annio, who’s in love with Sesto’s sister, are excellent, rocking their breeches with elan and great vocal work.

Titus is the swan song of Stephen Lord, OTSL’s distinguished music director, whose appearance in the pit on opening night was met with a standing ovation. He pulls together musicians both onstage and in the pit in a beautifully synchronized way. A remarkable set from Leslie Travers features the eagle of Imperial Rome, the rest of the set deceptively simple, but it’s the eagle that pulls things together. Travers is also responsible for the deliciously imperial costumes. And the score? It’s Mozart and it’s just marvelous.

It seems like the supertitles are less abundant than they once were, but I’m assured that this isn’t the case and I’m just a fuddy-duddy. Judge for yourself.

 

Titus

through June 24

Opera Theatre of St. Louis

Loretto-Hilton Center

130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves

314-961-0644

opera-stl.org

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

This documentary on the fine chef Jeremiah Tower may not be for everyone. Tower is a brilliant, but ultimately unknowable, man, but he's put out some fabulous food in his career. 

 

I had a chance to see the film, and here's what I thought about it.

It's currently playing at Plaza Frontenac.

The Trial

The Trial gives us an interesting combination. Franz Kafka, a writer whose work was so singular that his name has been turned into an adjective meaning deeply bizarre, and Phillip Glass, the contemporary composer, whose name, for many people, brings to mind discordant “modern” music, are the two factors. The result is happily far from off-putting, even for the opera-hesitant.

It seems a reach to call this a comic opera, as the program styles it, but there is indeed some levity in it – we are told that when Kafka read this to his friends, they all laughed heartily. Stage director Michael McCarthy gives us elements of commedia dell’ arte, which fits perfectly into the unworldliness of what happens. Josef K. (Theo Hoffman) is awakened with the news that he’s being arrested. For what is a mystery that is never revealed. It’s like a nightmare’s unsolvable puzzle.

The staging of the play keeps that theme. Simon Banham’s set seems simple, a wall with one high window, several mostly-invisible doors, all appearing to be whitewashed wood. The remarkable lighting from Christopher Akerlind uses that wall to great effect, often with sharply outlined silhouettes, not just of the actors but also pieces of the set – at one point a silhouette of the metal frames of chairs and a table piled on a bed resemble a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design. Banham also did the black and white or cream costumes, and the commedia dell’ arte angle is emphasized by makeup from Tom Watson hinting at that style.

The blending of the story and the music is remarkably good, a product of the show being created with particularly close work between Glass and librettist Christopher Hampton. Indeed, one can become so swept away with the performance and the story line that the music’s seamless fit becomes another critical organ in the body of work, like the libretto, rather than the primary focus. That’s not to disparage Glass, but rather talk about how well the partnering worked. And for those who are hesitant about modern music, this isn’t difficult to listen to, I hasten to add.

Theo Hoffman’s Josef is well-acted and handsomely sung. The remaining cast each cover multiple roles. Those are more broadly played, again acknowledging the dell’ arte tradition, and that’s a great deal of the humor, although there are some verbal jests as well. The voices are satisfying. The St. Louis Symphony is conducted by Carolyn Kuan, making her OTSL debut, and she seems right at home with things, the result being a great pleasure.

It’s an astonishingly mesmerizing evening, all in all.

 

The Trial

through June 23

Opera Theatre of St. Louis

Loretto-Hilton Center

130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves

314-961-0644

opera-stl.org

Courtesy Diner: Breakfast

I think I'll start an argument. I think the slinger at Courtesy is the best in town. 

I wrote about that, and more, here at the Dining blog of St. Louis Magazine.

 

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale has it all, drama, tragedy, comedy. This year's presentation of Shakespeare Festival ST. Louis puts this lesser-known work out for all to see - and enjoy.

As with much of his work, there's a certain amount of suspended disbelief necessary, but give it that, and you're good to go.

Leontes, King of Sicilia, has it all - a beautiful wife pregnant with their second child, a cutie-pie son, a best friend from childhood who grew up to be the king of Bohemia. Friend, Polixines, is visiting the couple and planning his departure, but Leontes demurs. Stay a while longer, he says, but Polixines resists his entreaties. Leontes turns to his queen Hermione and says that perhaps Polixines will listen if she asks him. She's successful, but Leontes her charming him and laughing with him and suddenly is struck by a massive paranoid delusion: They're having an affair.

There is no reasoning with him. He begins to question his son's parentage, but is reassured by the boy's resemblance to him. Nevertheless, despite the attempts by his counselors to calm him, he's absolutely convince, and orders his chief lord, Camillo, to kill his friend. While Camillo prepares to do that, Leontes summons the queen, accuses her and throws her in jail to await trial, this in front of their little boy, who is dragged off, screaming.

Queen Hermione, don't forget is pregnant. When she delivers a daughter, the king, believing it to be Polixenes', orders the baby to be abandoned in some desolate place. This being Shakespeare, we know the wolves won't get her. Indeed, she's found by a shepherd. Hermione is sentenced to death for her treason.

The desolate place for the baby just happens to be in Bohemia, the home of King Polixenes, her father's now-former friend, but not her father, if you follow me. There's more, of course, wherein things reach resolution.

This exciting production pleases on many levels. It isn't perfect, but it comes extremely close. Charles Pasternak's Leontes is thrilling. His paranoia is so well drawn I was thinking, "Hmmm...schizophrenia?", his grief carefully depicted as the other side of the coin. His queen, Cherie Corinne Rice, is a charmer, warm and totally shocked by the turn of events. Chauncy Thomas' return to St. Louis as POlixines of Bohemia pulls heavy duty in the second act as things get thornier and wears the added age, when everyone is 16 years older, with a careful, honest performance.

The Sicilian chief lord and would-be murderer, Anderson Matthews, charms with his conscience struggling in the service off Leontes and then Polixines. His counterpart in speaking out, Paulina, one of Queen Hermione's ladies, is Rachel Christopher, who delivers speeches ripping Leontes up one side and down the other in heroic fashion. She's splendid. Her husband Antigonus, MIchael James Reed, tasked with delivering the newborn girl unto her fate, is the subject of the world's most famous stage direction, "Exit, pursued by a bear." (Watch for how the production handles the bear.) And it's impossible not to warm to Whit Reichert's shepherd. Even beyond these, it's a fine cast.

 The lovely set, majestic and versatile, is the work of Scott Neale. John Wylie's lights give added impact, as does Rusty Wandall's flawless sound.

There are a few inexplicable quirks. When the action switches from Sicilia to Bohemia, accents ranging from Southern to Scottish to Irish appear. The costumes of the country folks there look, to my eye, more like Sicily than eastern Europe. On the other hand, the contemporary that opens both acts is just part of the scene and the freeform onstage dancing a real lark. It's a shame we don't have the bear dancing to "Uptown Funk".

Director Bruce Longworth has done Shakespeare Festival St. Louis proud with this one. Just because The Winter's Tale isn't a well-known play is no reason to skip it. In fact, its freshness is part of its considerable charm.

 

The Winter's Tale

through June 25

Shakespeare Festival St. Louis

Shakespeare Glen on Art Hill, Forest Park

sfstl.com

314-531-9800

 

Gado Gado Salad

The visiting vegetarians always are a challenge to cook for. I like it, certainly, especially I cook far less than I used to, so when I come across something that seems like it would work, I bookmark it for later.

I found this via Leite’s Culinaria http://leitesculinaria.com/, where it was titled “Healthy Gado Gado Salad”. I’m sorry to say that adjective healthy just doesn’t do much for me, overall, but the gado gado certainly caught my attention. Gado gado is Indonesian and literally translates as “mixed”, but it’s understood to refer to a peanut sauce. I vaguely recall first meeting it at the old Bobby’s Creole’s second iteration, the one in Maplewood, on some chicken.

 

This is almost vegan – one could skip the eggs and sub agave syrup for the honey – or do as I did, and put out some cold chicken for the meat eaters at the table. I can see pork or shrimp in that role, too.

The original author, Sarah Waldman, asks for medium- or short-grain brown rice in this. All I had was long-grain, but it worked fine. The texture of the brown rice is quite satisfying. I cooked it the day before, cooled it and then refrigerated it, ditto the vegetables, eggs and dressing, so I could assemble it when the crew arrived at my house. The quantities of the vegetables, eggs and mango are up to you. Or you can wing it.

1 ½ cups uncooked brown rice

about 8 cups cold water

1 Tbs. Unsalted butter or fat of your choice

1 tsp. kosher salt (use less if all you have is regular salt)

4-8 large hard-cooked eggs

4 carrots, cut into matchsticks or shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler.

¼ red cabbage, thinly sliced

2 mangoes, peeled, pitted and thinly sliced

1 c. cilantro leaves

1 c. dry-roasted peanuts, chopped

 

for the sauce:

2 cloves garlic

¼ c. creamy peanut butter

¼ c. sesame seeds (I suspect you could sub a couple of tablespoons of tahini)

5 Tbs. soy sauce

2 Tbs. rice vinegar

1 Tbs. honey

1 Tbs. grated or minced fresh gingerroot

5 Tbs. (about) warm water

 

I have never cooked brown rice like pasta before, but the author suggested it, starting it in cold water and cooking for about 30 minutes until tender. Drain it, return it to the pan, add the chosen fat and the salt and stir well. Cover until you’re ready to serve the salad, or chill it for later use. Fluff before using.

For the sauce, use a blender. Toss the garlic in while the blades are running. When they’re chopped some, add the rest of the ingredients except for the water and whizz until smooth or smoothish. Dilute with the water – it seemed a bit thin with the full amount but after refrigeration, it was about right. If you refrigerate it, give it several stirs with a fork before using, because it does separate.

Slice the eggs the way you’d like – I did quarters – and consider how to assemble the salad. I did a platter, starting with the rice, then the cabbage and the carrots in layers. I laid out the sliced mango around the pile, put the eggs around the edge, dribbled on some dressing, and showered it with the peanuts and the cilantro. Extra dressing was available as needed. And there was cold chicken, as I said.

This serves 4-6, I suspect. One might consider a little sriracha in the dressing or using coconut milk for added creaminess in it, for instance, but it’s awfully good, and it’ll keep for several days in the refrigerator.