3. Increae heat to medium-high. Add in the ground beef and sausage (remove its casing), and cook through until all meat is browned. 
        4. Pour in the tomato juice and stir until it evaporates, about 5 minutes.
        5. Stir in freshly ground pepper, thyme, and bayleaf.
        6. Add tomato paste and tomato sauce.

       7. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for at least two hours, stirring occasionally. The sauce will reduce a lot, and it will be a thick and delicious when ready to put on pasta!

After: We were thrilled to give the kitchen a little bit more of our personality. We found gorgeous mosaic tiles for the backsplash that we absolutely loved. Murat worked his usual YouTube magic and taught himself how to tile in a day, using a tile-cutter and all. I found lovely blue mosaic drawer pulls on Etsy to replace the silver knobs. We also hired an electrician to update the switches from toggles to flat switches, and to replace all of of the electric outlets with new clean ones, then put white covers over the top. We also purchased new hanging lights. I loved these because I thought they paid a nice homage to a lighthouse, and being in Newburyport, if felt particularly perfect. The cabinets and walls were painted bright white for a fresh start, and it was fun deciding which of our items we could display on the shelves above.

Ingredients (makes 8 servings - 
​just half everything for smaller portion!) :

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• ​1 ½ or 2 chopped carrots
• ½ chopped white onion
• 8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup orzo
• Salt, pepper, bay leaf flakes
• 2 cooked shredded boneless
  chicken breasts (rotisserie works great)
• 1 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice (this gives it a really lemony
  flavor - if you’re not a lemon nut like me ¾ cup is fine)
• 4 large eggs (five if the soup did not thicken enough
• Fresh parsley for garnish

​Directions: 

1. Heat tablespoon of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the carrots and onions and briefly sauté until the onions become translucent (about 5 minutes). 
2. Add the chicken broth and seasoning and bay leaf flakes (or whole bay leaf if you are using - just be sure to take it out before serving!) and raise heat to high. Once the soup has come to a rolling boil, add the orzo, a little salt, and plenty of pepper. 
3. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
4. While the soup is simmering, prepare the egg-lemon sauce:
   1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and eggs until foamy.
   2. While whisking, add 2 ladles-full of the broth from the cooking pot to help temper the eggs. Whisk constantly so the eggs don’t curdle. 
5. Stir the cooked chicken into the soup. 
6. Add the tempered egg-lemon sauce slowly to the chicken soup and stir.
7. Garnish with fresh parsley. Enjoy!

When I served this as an appetizer for Greek Easter, I've never seen my family love something so unanimously!

The Players were and are a group that brought me the most joy and the happiest memories during my time in college. Who I became was greatly shaped by that 'club,' which was so much more than that. I distinctly remember that after a long day, knowing a rehearsal would be at the end of it energized me and made me feel like I had somewhere I really belonged. Being on stage felt comfortable, and the people I was surrounded by were kind, fun, and like minded. 

I was determined to continue my stage pursuit, both during college and after, and moved to New York to carve out a career for myself in theatre. I loved performing and felt compelled to make acting a full time career, but after a few years I began to feel the exhaustion of rejection, and the burnout of taking jobs I didn't really believe in to earn more money and another credit on my resume. Deciding to leave acting made me feel like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, and I felt fulfilled in other pursuits and creative career choices. ​

What I wasn't able to realize until now was that just because I moved away from a professional theatre career didn't mean I had to stop doing the thing that gave me the most joy. I could have let go of the hustle, but I didn't' have to walk away from the happiness I felt in channeling different emotions, playing new characters, and (let's be honest) being a general ham. This show has allowed me to let go of any need to 'prove myself' as an artist, and it has brought the fun of theatre back into my life. 

When this show is over (view it here on July 31 - please tune in!), I'm going to continue to look for other community theatre opportunities, virtually and, once we can start coming together again, in real life. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to figure out that I could leave the stress and keep the fun, but now that I see that I'm not turning back. A family friend of ours (who, incidentally, has had an excellent career in entertainment) once said, "the only bad theatre is no theatre." Time to take that advice for myself. 

​I gave myself too much leeway the last nine months. I became so wrapped up in minute by minute minutia I lost focus. Perhaps it was the rush of last year post wedding. We experienced a fairytale and returned to New York to a whirlwind of speeding time that consisted of business trips, immigration interviews, a new job, and an apartment and borough move. Time was rushing, racing, flying, and then the world came to a screeching halt on March 13 and all the balls I was juggling remained suspended in the air, and I slowly raised my head to examine them.
 
Then three months of quarantine passed, and there was no excuse not to write. But though the three months stretched, they also flew, and days turned into weeks and no thoughts made their way out of my head and onto paper. Time stood still and there was nowhere to go, but the writing muscles became atrophied and the motivation faded.
 
“Regular life” started to pick back up and before I knew it, it was July 3rd. Hamilton came out on Disney Plus and I streamed it along with millions of others. The music spoke to me through its genius, poignancy, humor, and truth. One song’s chorus chanted “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” And I was jolted awake. We are all running out of time, each minute, each day. Why have I let this strange time in history push me to sleep?
 
So I thought, what should I write about? I took the first step and recognized I have no time, I’ve got to write again - but I doubted I had anything valid to share.
 
But I do, if I continue to notice the small things.
 
Murat and I wanted to take a walk in Brooklyn yesterday, and being new to the neighborhood and the borough I Googled where to go. I found the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and thousands of users had shared their reviews touting the loveliness of the park.  One review stopped me in my tracks and stayed with me all day. They wrote, “It remind me holding my woman,s hand making me feel so important.” The purity of this statement made me cry. My heart swelled thinking about this person, and the feelings this place stirred in them.
 
Murat and I stepped out into the 90 degree heat and began walking the promenade. We found stunning views and a walk we had no idea existed so close to our new neighborhood. As we turned around and began to head back, I took Murat’s hand. He gave me an audible, ‘aww’ and a firm squeeze. I too, felt important, and I think so did he. My tears flickered again, with the human privilege of feeling important and reciprocating that feeling to someone I love. 

For me, Fiddler on the Roof is the rare piece of art that evokes nostalgia without schmaltz, and somehow incites a myriad of emotions every time you see it.  This production, even more so than others, stung my eyes with tears and caught in my throat the moment the company stepped onstage singing “Tradition” (or “Traditsye”).   The emotion, which is always there in the show, was brought to new levels of realness, feeling, and understanding in this particular revival.   
​
​My tears hardly stopped during the entirety of the production.  Whether out of laughter due to a babbling matchmaker, sentimentality as the company sang “Sunrise, Sunset,” heartache for a community grappling with religious persecution, or even just the sheer sweetness of a poor tailor finally saving enough money to get a sewing machine, my cheeks were rarely dry.

The set, while minimal, was stunning, as though parchments of the Torah hung around each corner of the stage, a constant reminder of the characters’ faith, and the solid foundation on which they built their lives.  Subtitles were extremely well done and unobtrusive, on each side panel of the stage. 
 
It naturally makes sense to tell the story of A Fiddler on the Roof right now. The history should never be forgotten, but we are sadly seeing it repeated day after day through religious persecution, uprooting of families, and fear and bigotry of “the other” all over the world, and close to home.  A Fiddler on the Roof shows us just how similar we all are, as a family that could easily be my own or my neighbor grapples with tales as old as time -  letting go of the past, embracing the future, and making sense and balance of the two.  Last week, there were points when I didn’t even feel like I was watching a show.  The performance solely in Yiddish made me feel as though I was peering into a window, observing a day in the life of a regular family bound to a tragic fate.  Rejoicing at their triumphs, laughing at their jokes, and desperately wanting to protect them from the tragedies and anti-Semitism they were forced to endure.
​
A Fidler Afn Dakh was one of the best productions I’ve seen in a very long time.  The show’s three hours moves at a remarkably brisk pace, is bursting with musical theatre greats in acting, voice, and dance, and reminds us of where we’ve come from, and the journeys that still lie ahead.