
Pamela Osborne
I once had a friend, now cooking in heaven, who served exactly the same meal every time I went to his house. He was pretty offended if anyone remarked or complained about it, which I gathered had happened. He had all the steps down pat though, could put it together in his sleep, and had no plans to make any changes. His wife had no plans to take over, either, dish duty was her niche. I was fine with all this, since I never had that meal anywhere else, but I have to ask: Weren’t they bored?
I’ve been thinking about this as spring and various holidays approach. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that when it comes to what they expect to see on the festive table, most people sitting around it don’t exactly have open minds. How else to explain the cries of shock and horror that mark the absence of, at Thanksgiving for example, a casserole of canned sweet potatoes sloshed with orange juice and topped with a blanket of melted marshmallows? Which, okay, has earned its place and its admirers, people like it and I’m not here to say never.
I have a vintage “Joy of Cooking” that has little poems and quotes at the start of every chapter. “A definition of eternity: Two People and a Ham”, says one. Ham, lamb, turkey (again?), and so it goes. People expect them to be on their holiday table no matter what because they always have been, and they probably always will be. Eyes may glaze over, eyes may roll, nothing will change: we know what we want and we’re sticking to it. What’s on the side, I would suggest, is your only chance to ring in anything different. With that in mind I offer the following, which I first had in a Persian restaurant, Mohsen, when I was visiting a friend in London a few years ago. Mohsen is a very modest restaurant, sort of a luncheonette, but it’s full of Persians and the food is terrific. The name of this dish means “sweet rice,” but it isn’t particularly sweet. It is offered at weddings and other special celebrations, and is Really Good. It will go well with the ham or lamb or whatever other main dish is on your table. You’ll like it, I promise, and, best of all, you can do most of the work ahead of time.
Shirin Polo
Oranges Buy several, let’s say half a dozen. Organic only, you’re going to eat the peel.
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. water
1/3 c. slivered blanched almonds
1/3 c. slivered unsalted pistachios - you’ll have to sliver them yourself
1 and 1/2 c. uncooked basmati rice
Optional: saffron, an onion, raisins or sultanas
Using a vegetable peeler, cut just the (washed) orange-colored peel from the oranges. Don’t cut into the bitter white pith, just the outer layer is what you want. Flatten the pieces onto a cutting board and cut them into very fine slivers with a very sharp knife. You want a cup of slivers, lightly packed. It will take a while to do this, and it’s worth it.
Put the zest into a sauce pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook at a medium boil, uncovered, 5 to 7 minutes; drain. Do this again with fresh water; drain again.
Put the sugar and 1 c. water into the emptied saucepan, bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the zest, reduce the heat to low medium, and cook until the liquid is reduced to about three tablespoons, stirring occasionally. Using a slotted spoon, remove the zest — which should look fairly transparent at this point — to a plate. Spread it out and let it cool. This can be done the day before; keep it refrigerated until you need it. Let it come to room temperature before adding it to the dish. If you keep the syrup, you can add it to ice cream, etc.
If you want an onion in your dish, sauté it, thinly sliced or chopped, in a mixture of a few tablespoons of butter and oil, until it is lightly browned and softened. If you want saffron, dissolve a pinch in a few TB. of water, keep aside. If you use raisins or sultanas they should be fresh, not hard and dry.
Mohsen did not use any of these optional ingredients. I called them a few times when I was figuring this out, because online recipes for shirin polo use a host of other ingredients, carrots in particular. But no, they said, only the ingredients listed above. I have used some of the optional ingredients listed and they were good, but the dish stands very well on its own without them. I usually don’t fiddle.
Cook the rice, mix in the onion (and its butter/oil) and raisins, if you’re using them. Put this into a buttered serving dish and, if you’re using the dissolved saffron, drizzle it over the rice. At this point, a few hours before serving, you can cover this and keep it on the counter. Later, put a few dots of butter onto the rice — a tablespoon or so, more if you’ve doubled the recipe, but don’t go crazy — and recover. Heat at 300 to 350 degrees for about half an hour or so. It should be hot. Before serving. spread the orange peel over the surface and sprinkle with the almonds and pistachios. You will want sea salt (Maldon) and pepper at the table.
This recipe will serve five or so, depending on what else is on the menu. The photograph shows a double recipe, more than enough to feed ten. If you double it, use only one and a half times the orange peel and nuts. I think you will be surprised to see how so few ingredients can synthesize into something so very good.
Pamela Osborne lives in Salisbury.
Sam Waterston
On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.
The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.
“This came out of the blue,” Waterston said of the Triplex invitation, “but I love the town, I love this area. We raised our kids here in the Northwest Corner and it’s been good for them and good for us.”
Waterston hasn’t seen the film in decades but its impact has always remained present.
“It was a major event in my life at the time,” Waterston said of filming “The Killing Fields,” “and it had a big influence on me and my life ever after.” He remembers the shoot vividly. “My adrenaline was running high and the part of Sydney Schanberg was so complicated, so interesting.”
Waterston lobbied for the role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for years, tracing his early interest to a serendipitous connection while filming in England. Even before Joffé’s production was greenlit, he had his sights set on playing the role. “I knew I wanted the part for years even before it was a movie that was being produced.”
What followed was not just critical acclaim, but also a political awakening. “The film gave all of us an intimate acquaintance with refugees, what it is to be a refugee, how the world forgets them and what a terrible crime that is.”
In Boston, at a press stop for the film, two women asked Waterston a pointed question: now that he knew what he knew, what was he going to do about it? “I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m an actor, so I thought I’d go on acting.’ And they said, ‘No, that’s not what you need to do. You need to join Refugees International.’” And join he did, serving on the organization’s board for 25 years.
Both Schanberg and Dith Pran, whose life the film also chronicles, were “cooperative and helpful … in a million ways,” Waterston said. Upon first meeting Pran, Waterston recalled, “He came up to me, made a fist, and pounded on my chest really hard and said, ‘You must understand that Sydney is very strong here.’ He was trying to plant something in me.”
There were more tender gestures, too. Schanberg used the New York Times wire to relay that Waterston’s wife had just given birth while he was filming in Thailand, adding to the personal and emotional connection to the production.
Though “The Killing Fields” is a historical document, its truths still resonate deeply today. “Corruption is a real thing,” Waterston warned. “Journalism is an absolutely essential part of our democracy that is as under siege today as it was then. It’s different now but it’s the same thing of ‘Don’t tell the stories we don’t want heard.’ Without journalists, we are dust in the wind.” Waterston added, “Democracy is built on the consent of the governed but the other thing it’s built on is participation of the governed and without full participation, democracy really doesn’t stand much of a chance. It’s kind of a dead man walking.”
When asked what he hopes the audience will take away from the screening, Waterston didn’t hesitate. “This is the story that puts the victims of war at the center of the story and breaks your heart. I think that does people a world of good to have their hearts broken about something that’s true. So, I hope that’s what the impact will be now.”
Tickets for the benefit screening are available at www.thetriplex.org. Proceeds support Triplex Cinema, a nonprofit home for film and community programming in the Berkshires.
Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).
Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.
Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”
He added, “When I moved to New York City, I continued that exploration of cartography, and my work eventually caught the attention of the New York Times, where I went to work as a Graphics Editor, making maps and data visualizations for a number of years.”At the New York Times, his work contributed to a number of Pulitzer Prize winning efforts.
In his work, Reinhard takes complex data and turns it into intriguing visualizations the viewer can begin to comprehend immediately and will want to continue to look into and explore more deeply.
One method Reinhard uses combines historic United States Geological survey maps with “current elevation data (height above sea level for a point on earth) to create 3-D looking maps, combining old and new,” he explained.
For the show at Hunt Library Reinhard said, “I knew that I wanted to incorporate the place into the show itself. A place can be many things.The exhibition portrays the exact spot visitors are from four vantage points: the solar system, the earth, the Northwest Corner, and the library itself.” Hence the name, “Here, Here, Here, Here.”
He continued, “The largest installation, the Northwest Corner, is a mosaic of high-resolution color prints and hand-printed cyanotypes — one of the earliest forms of photography. They use elevation data to portray the landscape in a variety of ways, from highly abstract to the highly detailed.”
This sixteen-foot-wide installation covers the area of Millerton to Barkhamsted Reservoir and from North Canaan down to Cornwall for a total of about 445 square miles.
For subjects, he chooses places he’s visited and feels deeply connected to, like the Northwest Corner.“This show is a thank you to the community for the richness that it has brought to my life. I love it here,” he said.
The opening reception for the show is on June 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. On Thursday, June 12, Reinhard will give a talk about his work from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the library.“Here, Here, Here, Here” will be on display until July 3.
Scott Reinhard’s 16-foot-wide piece of the Northwest Corner is laid out on the floor prior to being hung for the show. L. Tomaino
The marquee at Goshen Players for “A Goodnight Kiss.”
"A Goodnight Kiss,” premiering June 6 at Goshen Players Playhouse, is a dramatization of real Civil War-era love letters. Written by award-winning playwright Cinzi Lavin and directed by regional theater veteran Kathleen Kelly — both Litchfield County residents — it serves to reminds us that while wars are waged by nations, it is the people who live through them, their lives forever changed.
At the center of “A Goodnight Kiss” is the relationship between Sarah Jane “Jennie” Wadhams, a college student in New Britain, and Sergeant Major Frederick Lucas, a young soldier stationed in Alexandria. Lavin discovered the story of the letters by the couple in a 2002 book by Ernest B. Barker called “Fred and Jennie: A Civil War Story.” Lavin, who holds a certificate in applied history from the University of London and has performed at the White House, read all 90 letters the couple exchanged between 1863 and 1867. “It was like falling into another time,” she recalled. “You hear the dialect, the moral concerns, the humor. Jennie once said someone ‘must think she’s some pumpkins.’ I had to keep that.”
Cinzi LavinAnna Zuckerman-Vdovenko
While staying true to the historical narrative, Lavin and Kelly took pains to adapt with sensitivity, editing outdated language, softening harsh racial terms, and trimming some of the religious fervor of the original texts for modern ears. “We didn’t want to rewrite history,” said Lavin, “but we did need to present some things so that it translated.”
The result is a story of two young people navigating distance, war, and the slowness of the mail. It’s also about community, duty, and the Connecticut town of Goshen itself where Fred and Jennie lived, wrote, and now lay interned. It’s fitting, then, that the Goshen Players opened their doors to this production.
“They’ve been wonderful,” said Kelly. “It’s a story from Goshen, and now it’s being told in Goshen. I think audiences will really appreciate that. It’ll be so interesting to see their reactions as ancestors.”
Kelly’s direction brings a collaborative, actor-driven energy to the stage. “I always say the only good playwright is a dead one,” she laughed. “But Cinzi? Thank God she’s not. She’s a dream.” Lavin, in turn, credits her theatrical background for that flexibility. “Both of our background as actors really helped us connect and then the cast came in with ideas and heart and it became something so much bigger.”
Kathleen KellyProvided
Starring David Macharelli and Olivia Wadsworth as Fred and Jennie, with a supporting cast including Robert Kwalick as Narrator, John Fabiani as Jennie’s father, Joel Osborne as Fred’s fellow solider, Harmony Tanguay and Roni Gelrmino as a gossiping villagers, the play layers historical narration with humor, heartbreak, and a surprising amount of warmth. “There’s a lot of humanity here,” Kelly said. “And a little gossip. The Goshen women definitely bring that.”
Adding texture is a curated selection of Stephen Foster songs arranged by Lavin which the U.S. Library of Congress included in its national “Song of America” archive. And for history buffs, Sunday’s 3 p.m. performance will include a talkback with historians Peter Vermilyea, Carolyn Ivanoff, Kevin Johnson, and Natalie Belanger, whose insights will ground the drama in even deeper context.
“Theater is the one place, even more than television and film, where you can really deal with difficult topics,” said Kelly. “You go into a theater, and you are changed.”
“A Goodnight Kiss” will be performed at Goshen Players Playhouse, 2 North St., Goshen, June 6 to 8. For tickets and more info, visit: goshenplayer.booktix.com
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