The CIA Goes Green

Vegetables cooked right
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Chef David Kamen from the Culinary Institute of America remembers how vegetables were prepared in his childhood home.

"My mom used to take Jolly Green Giant canned asparagus, boil them in a pan for 10 minutes and serve them to us," he said.

After that, he was very much a meat man -- until he rediscovered vegetables as an essential part of every meal in his formal culinary training. He's now one of the contributing chefs to "Vegetables: Recipes and Techniques From the World's Premier Culinary College," a new cookbook from the CIA that was released Friday.

One of the goals of the collection is to "inspire you to eat more vegetables."

"My theory of why Americans don't eat vegetables is that they were never prepared right for us," he said. "A lot of people just don't know how to cook vegetables."

But after a 27-page "Vegetables 101" lesson in the introduction, we know both how and why. Methods of selection, storage and preparation are detailed and easy to digest.
The repertoire of cooking methods is very similar to that for meat, Kamens added. "In the meat world, we know that certain cuts of meat make a good steak," he said. "Certain other cuts of meat need to be braised or stewed to be tender. Similarly, certain vegetables like to be cooked certain ways."

As always, cook fresh: Kamens recommends seasonal offerings like baby beets, fingerling potatoes, baby spinach, fresh herbs, and tender stalk vegetables like asparagus -- yes, asparagus.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
* * *

Mu shu vegetables

* 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
* 2 teaspoons sesame oil
* Salt and pepper, as needed
* 1 teaspoon peanut oil
* ½ ounce dried wood ears (a type of fungus)
* ½ ounce golden lily buds
* 3 tablespoons rice wine or dry sherry wine
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic
* 1 tablespoon minced ginger root
* 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
* ½ cup julienned celery
* 1 medium carrot, julienned
* ½ cup julienned fennel
* 1 cup shredded napa cabbage
* 1½ cups julienned red peppers
* ½ cup minced scallions
* 1 cup bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
* 12 Mandarin pancakes (see note)
* Hoisin sauce, as needed
* Plum sauce, as needed
* 4 scallion fans, optional for serving
The dish, courtesy of Flickr user gwarcita.

Combine beaten eggs with 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil and a pinch of salt and pepper in a small bowl. Heat a frying pan or wok over moderate heat and add 1 teaspoon of the peanut oil. Pour in the egg mixture and spread it quickly over the surface of the pan until it forms a thin crepe-like pancake. There is no need to turn it over. Remove from the heat, and shred when cool. Set aside.

Soak the dried wood ears and lily buds in warm water for about 20 minutes until soft. Squeeze the excess liquid. Finely shred the wood ears, discarding the steam, and snap off the hard ends of the lily buds.

Heat a wok or large frying pan over high heat, and add the remaining peanut oil. When almost smoking, add the wood ears, lily buds, and rice wine and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the garlic, gingerroot, and dark soy sauce and stir-fry for another minute. Add the celery, carrot and fennel and stir-fry until very hot, about 2 minutes. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until hot, another 2 minutes. Then put in the shredded egg, red peppers, scallions and bean sprouts and continue to stir-fry for 3 minutes until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Stir in the remaining sesame oil, and turn onto a large platter. Serve with Mandarin pancakes, hoisin sauce and plum sauce, using scallion fans to spread the sauce.
Mandarin pancakes, courtesy of Flickr user gwarcita

Note: To make Mandarin pancakes, sift 2 cups of all-purpose flour into a large bowl and add ¾ cup boiling water. Begin stirring immediately, and knead the dough until smooth. Wrap and allow to sit for 30 minutes. Turn the rested dough onto a floured surface and cut in half. Use a floured rolling pin to roll each half out until it is ¼-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out 3-inch circles. Brush ½ teaspoon of sesame oil over the tops of the circles, and combine them in sandwiches of two slices each, sesame side in. Roll them out into 6-inch circles. On a low-heat skillet, cook the pancakes for about 2 minutes each side. Remove the paired pancakes and pull them apart.

Servings: 4.

From: "Vegetables" by the Culinary Institute of America (Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2007).

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Prickly Pear Cacti are No Pals

Nopales (prickly pear cactus leaves)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:

"Rosa's New Mexican Table," by Roberto Santibanez(Artisan, 2007)
Image courtesy of bn.com

No need to go to New York to eat at Rosa Mexicano when you have this new book in hand. The restaurant's chef and culinary director presents recipes of signature dishes, from the food inspired by Mexican street fare to less orthodox concoctions. Stuffed with meat and fish, the collection will be rough terrain for vegetarians, but the descriptions of chilies and other more exotic materials are eye-openers. Salsas and bean dishes are winners, too.

-- Evelyn Shih

* * *

Nopales (prickly pear cactus leaves)

* 6 large cactus leaves (about 1½ pounds)
* 2 cups water
* ½ small white onion (about 2 ounces), thinly sliced
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
* 1 chili de Ტol (with seeds), wiped clean, well-toasted and chopped (see note)
* 1½ teaspoons salt
Image courtesy of ranchogordo.com

To remove the spines from the cactus leaves: Put on a pair of heavy rubber or canvas gloves and hold a leaf firmly in place with one hand. With the other hand, run a knife along the leaf to scrape off the spines. Be sure to remove all spines.

Cut the leaves crosswise into thin strips, making the strips a little thinner on the wide end of the leaves. Put the strips in a large saucepan, add water, onion, olive oil, oregano, chili de Ტol and salt. Bring to a boil, then drop heat to a simmer. Cook until the water is boiled off and the cactus is frying in the remaining oil, about 10 minutes. The cactus should remain a little crunchy. Serve as is, hot or at room temperature.

Servings: 4.

Note: To toast the chili de Ტol, wipe the chili clean with a damp towel to remove dust. Pull the stem off and cut a slit down the length of the chili. Leave the seeds inside. Heat a dry skillet or comal over low heat. Lay the chili on the skillet and, using tongs, press it lightly. Turn it every 30 seconds until it blisters, colors on the outside and turns a tobacco color inside.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Bronzerania!

Get summer's glow with makeup
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Photo courtesy of northjersey.com. Photographer: Carmine Galasso.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Whether or not you broke out the grill for Memorial Day, summer has unofficially begun. And, for some, that means thoughts have turned to tanning. But you don’t have to bake in the sun to get that golden glow.

It’s an open secret: Bronze is beautiful in summer makeup.

“Metallic bronze is a summer trend because it’s a perfect complement to summer skin,” said L’Oreal Paris consultant and celebrity makeup artist Collier Strong. “It’s an earth tone that naturally adds a healthy glow without the damage from being in the sun.”

The faux glow — often accompanied by SPF protection mixed in foundations and powders — has been a perennial favorite with celebrities and regular women alike.

“We’ve seen lots of bronze on the celebrities on the red carpet in the past few years,” said Strong. “From Jennifer Lopez to Jennifer Aniston, it’s a look that works well on most people.”
Jennifer Aniston looking bronzed out, courtesy of sfgate.com.

This year, several major cosmetics lines are stepping up the bronze factor, basing their entire summer collections on the color. Series like L’Oreal’s Bronze Rocks, Lancôme’s Bronze Tropiques and Giorgio Armani’s Bronze Mania have expanded from the basic bronzer to eye shadow, lip shades and even glimmering body powder.

L’Oreal, for example, offers pressed bronzer compacts ($12.99), loose bronze highlighting powder ($11.99), and bronze highlighter gel ($10.95) for face and body — and follows with three shimmery eye shadow compacts ($8.95) and two cream eye duos ($7.95).

The bronze look is a warm, even complexion without bright eye or lip colors breaking the continuous metallic tone. Stila cosmetics’ summer eye shadow trio ($32), designed like an Aztec sundial, features a bronze circle at the core and builds out to two other bronze-inflected colors.

The trick is to look — and feel — like you aren’t wearing makeup.

“In the summer, less is more,” said Tim Quinn, celebrity makeup consultant at Giorgio Armani Cosmetics. “It’s like having the right handbag; you can’t have a chunky bag with a light dress.”

The Armani summer Bronze Mania products are available at Saks at the Shops at Riverside, including the golden Mediterranean palette ($80), sheer bronzer ($42), summer foundation and three bronze shades of the trademark fluid sheer foundation ($55).

But while images of a light, shimmering visage flit through their heads, many women find that bronzers applied incorrectly can look orange on fair skin.
Stila bronzer compact, courtesy of InStyle website

“Try to use a peachy blush, or lightly mix a dusting of bronzer with your powder,” said Sarah Lucero, celebrity makeup consultant at Stila. “Always stick to a softer-hair brush to allow the bronzer to build slowly.”

Stila’s summer 2007 collection, available at Sephora at Garden State Plaza and Willowbrook Mall, was inspired by the Mexican Riviera and features an SPF-15 bronzer compact ($28) as well as a cheek color duo ($20).

Bronzers work best when layered with foundation and blush and can often be used like a type of blush, as well as a highlighter for the T-zone. Some bronzers may look surprisingly pink or peach but will retain golden or bronze undertones.

Quinn advises women to add bronzer in the shape of two mirror-image 3s down the side of the face: curving from the temples to the cheekbones, then curving down to the jaw.

Putting products to the test

Staff writers Evelyn Shih and Erica Dietsche tried out three bronze-themed summer lines.

SHIH
Complexion: pale with ochre undertones. Hair: dark brown. Eyes: dark brown.

• Giorgio Armani Cosmetics' Bronze Mania

Yes, please: The Golden Mediterranean palette added angles to my face without dulling my skin.

Could do without: The summer foundation darkened my face a full shade. Got the faux -- where's the glow?

• Stila Cosmetics' Summer Collection 2007

Yes, please: The Acapulco eye shadow trio is a startling lime in the compact but blends surprisingly well.

Could do without: I can't really figure out what the sun shimmer dry oil is good for besides possibly replacing eau de toilette.

• L'Oreal's Bronze Rocks

Yes, please: The sheer Copper Glow lipstick does the job of a lip gloss without being too sticky.

Could do without: What's with the hard-to-open twist top on the Glam Bronze loose bronzing powder? Thumbs down for bad design.



DIETSCHE
Complexion: pale. Hair: blond. Eyes: blue.

• Giorgio Armani Cosmetics' Bronze Mania
Yes, please: The compact with a light and dark cream blush allows you to apply exactly the shade desired.

Could do without: Fluid Sheer proved to be anything but. Like other liquid bronzers, it required a full-face application that left my face a different color than my body.

• Stila Cosmetics' Summer Collection 2007
Yes, please: The pressed bronzing powder is perfect in its simplicity -- and has SPF-15.

Could do without: Lip glazes, flavored like piña colada, spiked rum and daiquiri, resemble syringes and twist out goopy, thick gloss.


• L'Oreal's Bronze Rocks

Yes, please: If you can figure out how to open and apply the product, the loose bronzing powder leaves a warm, subtle glow with a soft sparkle.

Could do without: The eye shadow is incredibly thick, requiring excessive force to get even a little bit on my brush. Once on, it was unremarkable.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

BOOK REVIEW: The Pesthouse

REVIEW
-------------------------------------------------

THE PESTHOUSE, by Jim Crace; Nan A. Talese; 255 pages, $24.95.

'Pesthouse' rewrites history of Oregon Trail
Sunday, May 27, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Portrait photo of author Jim Crace, courtesy of identitytheory.com.

Anyone who's ever heard of the American pioneers of the Oregon Trail -- or played one on a computer -- may do a double take during the first 20 pages of English novelist Jim Crace's "The Pesthouse." The rules of the game have been reversed.

In this vision of a future America, gutsy travelers leave their homesteads in the lawless, deserted West in hopes of sailing for greener pastures in Europe from harbors on the East Coast.

Crace disorients the reader with an almost perfect negative image, down to the faintly archaic voice and the details about caulking wagons and outlaw hordes on horses. He might as well be writing a pioneer story, but for the casually dropped references to antiques "old enough to have been machined" and small metal discs printed with the curious phrase "In God We Trust."
Image courtesy of oregon.gov

This is America several generations after it collapsed on itself. Crace admits readily that he was inspired by an impulse to tear down the world's biggest superpower and reverse its fortunes. Yet by the end of the book, "America" is not such a dirty word. The characters of "The Pesthouse" come full circle to realize the American dream; in Crace's version, that is a dream whose manifest destiny is entwined with the expansive landscape.

Curiously, Crace's method of approaching such grand themes is to focus on an awkward love story, adolescent in essence if not in the ages of the characters. "He was too young and inexperienced; she was too old and inexperienced," he writes of his protagonists, Franklin and Margaret.

As it turns out, capturing a wild, directionless America as a coming-of-age tale was a strangely appropriate authorial choice. If, in the beginning, Franklin and Margaret are trapped in perpetual childhood, they find the strength in the course of the book to form a real family and to realize their own dreams -- not those of their parents or peers, but their own.

The two happenstance lovers don't reinvent the wheel, but they do invent a rugged individualism not unfamiliar to aficionados of America's pioneer era.
American Gothic, by Grant Wood.

Crace's prose is clear-eyed and seamless, inhabiting the alternative world as a matter of course. He may be too good: Once you accept his vision of the world, the mechanics seem to spin out effortlessly. There is less a sense of grandeur than one might expect from this sort of sweeping narrative.

But even as you begin to feel that Crace's story has been "machined," the conflicted, layered performances of his leading lady and leading man -- inexperienced though they may be -- win the day.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com


Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Classic Harlem

Director in Harlem takes stage classics to new places
Friday, May 25, 2007

Photo courtesy of alfredpreisser.com.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Imagine growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York where "forms of art were regarded as alien and weird."

Now imagine falling in love -- with the plays of one William Shakespeare.

Alfred Preisser found himself in this situation when he went to the Circle in the Square Theatre School in Manhattan. For eight years, he has been the head of the department of theater at the Harlem School for the Arts -- and, more important for theatergoers, he is the artistic director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem, where he often stages new and challenging interpretations of his beloved Shakespeare.

He took some time to chat with us about his new production, Sophocles' "Electra" -- and about moving to greener pastures.

Q. Tell us about your take on "Electra."

As with all of our work, we tried to find the present tense, the reason to do this play now. It's not just the fact that this "Electra" is set in the United States, that looks very much like it does now.

It's also the fact that she will not let go of the past, that she is forced into a situation where she must repeat the past. I think what's very "now" about it is the problem with the men in her life just not being there. They're very absent.

The other interesting thing is that her brother Orestes has become some kind of hero in some kind of war. And like all other wars, it has been advertised as something that will benefit our civilization. But the civilization he's off protecting is not doing so well, because all the men are absent.

A production photo from "Medea," also directed by Alfred Preisser. Courtesy of alfredpreisser.com.

Q. Is there a direct tie to current politics?

Instead of being very obvious about it, and talking about oil wars, [the production] invokes the questions about war. This [royal] family is destroying itself: It's stuck in its past, obsessed with things that happened 20 years ago.

I think the United States is stuck in the past. The version of the country that we get from our leaders is based on cowboy movies in the 1950s. The Eisenhower era casts a very long shadow. I don't want to underline it, but those elements are just there, and a modern audience will pick up on that.

Q. What is the draw, for you, of Greek plays?

People send me tapes, saying, "This is how it was performed in 500 B.C." -- and it's not interesting. I don't care.

What's interesting is that [these plays] are the essential human experience. How mankind acts in the family and reaches for power and glory; ages and loses control of the power and glory. They are expressions of nature and human nature.

Q. How did you come to teach Shakespeare and run a theater company out of Harlem?

Sir William. Courtesy of crrs.ca/images.

When I came here, there was no Shakespeare class. I started teaching a Shakespeare class here in the 1996-97 school year. We did scenes from all the big plays, the pivotal scenes like the Ann and Richard scene [from "Richard III"], the scene where Cleopatra commits suicide [from "Antony and Cleopatra"], or the balcony scene [from "Romeo and Juliet"].

I was teaching these teens, and it was like I was experiencing them for the first time and remembering what I loved about them in the first place, which I kind of forgot just slamming around NYC for years just trying to get work as an actor and director. When we did some of the scenes, everything just seemed so fresh and apt. ...

It was teaching here, and teaching Shakespeare here that made me think [a classical theater company] would be a good idea.

Q. Will you be staying at the Harlem School of Arts, after successfully bringing the downtown audience uptown?

Next year we'll be working on 42nd Street at The Box; the Gatehouse in Harlem; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. But the Harlem School of Arts will no longer be our home base.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

You Go, Mom!

Upper Saddle River mom chose novelist as career No. 4
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Book cover image courtesy of bn.com.

Every morning for two years, Debra Borden considered the possibility that she was, in fact, delusional.

" 'Are you out of your mind?' " the clinical social worker asked herself. "'You're fortysomething years old, and you just woke up and decided you wanted to write a novel?' "

Luckily, the Upper Saddle River resident remained convinced of her own sanity.

After 36 bruising rejections -- including one that came back with "No" scrawled on her manuscript -- Borden landed a two-book deal with Random House. She published her second book, "A Little Bit Married," in April.

Bitsy Lerner, the book's protagonist, is a housewife who must reevaluate her life -- as Borden herself has done -- when her neat suburban life falls apart.

"I thought about how many women were locked into not a terrible life, but not a terribly satisfying life, either," said Borden. "If no great trauma or event happened that would precipitate a change for them, they could just go on and on and on.

"These were people I knew," she added. "Nobody was being beaten. But it's a low-level unhappiness. ... To just get up every morning and ask, 'Is this all there is? But I'm not going to upset it, because the fear of what upsetting it could mean is way too difficult to imagine.'

"I have had moments like that," said Borden.

Being a full-time novelist is Borden's fourth career, behind advertising, stay-at-home mothering and social work in the Bergenfield school system. But all of her pursuits have led her to writing.

"When I was volunteering at the schools, for instance, other mothers were homeroom mothers; I was chairing literary circles," she said. "That's a little bit of a red flag."

Photo courtesy of debraborden.com.

She decided to reenter the workforce after eight years at home. "It wasn't the best modeling for my daughter to be a stay-at-home mom," she explained. "I was feeling a little guilty about that. Also, I was unfulfilled."

Borden went back to school for a master's in social work, eventually finding a place for herself writing "the narrative piece" of reports on special needs children. "What I found was that, writing up these socials, I was training for my new career," she said. "They were like little family sagas and dramas."

As she learned to make students and the "fabric of their families" three-dimensional in her writing, she also practiced creating characters with layered personal histories. And the family unit that she held together as a full-time mom became her subject matter.

"In the first book ['Lucky Me,'] because the construct of the family looks like mine," she said, "I got so many questions. ... I always have to remind people that this is fiction!"

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Book signing and Q-and-A with Debra Borden, author of "A Little Bit Married."

WHERE: Barnes & Noble in Paramus (765 Route 17 south); for more information, call the store at 201-445-4589.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

HOW MUCH: Free.

Meatless Mains!

Kung Pao Tofu
Monday, May 21, 2007

Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:

Book cover image courtesy of bn.com.

"300 Best Stir-Fry Recipes," by Nancie McDermott (Robert Rose, 2007)

North Carolinian Nancie McDermott tried the stir-fry technique for the first time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and shares her discoveries years later in this new book. A methodical but concise teacher for first-time wok-wielders, she includes useful glossaries and cooking tips in the introduction. Vegetarians can flip right to the "Meatless Mains" and "Vegetable Sides" sections.

-- Evelyn Shih
***

Kung Pao Tofu

* 2 tablespoons soy sauce, divided
* 2 tablespoons dry sherry, divided
* 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch, divided
* 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, divided
* 16 ounces firm tofu, drained and chopped
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt to taste
* 5 to 10 small dried hot red chilies
* 1 teaspoon finely ground Sichuan peppercorns (optional)
* 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
* 1 tablespoon chopped ginger root
* ¼ cup chopped green onions
* ¾ cup roasted, salted peanuts
* 1 teaspoon sesame oil

In a bowl, combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sherry, 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil. Stir into a smooth sauce. Add tofu, tossing to coat evenly. Set aside for 30 minutes.

In a bowl, combine remaining soy sauce, sherry and cornstarch with vinegar, sugar and salt. Stir into a smooth sauce.

Heat a wok or large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add remaining vegetable oil and swirl to coat pan. Add chilies and peppercorns and toss well. Add garlic, ginger and green onions, tossing well. Add tofu mixture and cook, tossing gently, about one minute. Stir the second sauce mixture and add to pan, pouring in around the sides. Cook, tossing often, for one more minute.

Add peanuts and sesame oil and toss once. Transfer to serving plate.

Servings: 4.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

MOMIX

Dancers drop screen in Momix
Friday, May 18, 2007

Photo courtesy of maj.org.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

The shadow acrobatics of the performance group Pilobolus at this year's Oscars had a lot of viewers scratching their heads. Where did these people come from, and what were they doing at the Oscars?

This Tuesday, the screen will come down when Pilobolus co-founder Moses Pendleton brings his offshoot group, Momix, to the Joyce Theater in Manhattan. The show, a retrospective, takes excerpts from major Momix pieces of the past 26 years -- but takes away the trademark screen to reveal the dancers.

"It's Momix unplugged," said Pendleton.

Unveiling the actual performers -- and by doing so, taking away some of the magic -- was a difficult decision for Pendleton. "David Copperfield, for example, doesn't show you how he does his tricks," he said.

Image courtesy cod.edu.

Not seeing the wildly contorted human bodies behind the fantastic silhouettes also takes away from the performance. Momix, and Pilobolus before it, imitates shapes and forms that are beyond the normal confines of a human body by borrowing techniques from dance and gymnastics -- and inventing a few on the way.

In one evening-length show that will be excerpted for the Joyce, "Lunar Sea," dancers combine their bodies into two giant spiders and stage a leviathan battle, ending with the triumphant arachnid devouring the offspring of its enemy. "It's one of the most difficult pieces we do," Pendleton said.

But viewers have complained that it looked too easy.

"The illusion was so strong they didn't think it was live, they thought it was a video game," he explained. For the Joyce show, Pendleton will be using black light on the spider battle but removing the screen.

Image courtesy of voiceofdance.com.

It's only the latest evolution in a free-spirited performance group that has been evolving since its inception.

Part of that process is the creation of a unique vocabulary of movement that evades definition. Often compared to Cirque du Soleil, Momix and Pilobolus have also been claimed by the dance community. But as Pendleton points out, Pilobolus was originally dubbed "Energy Circus" at its founding, a "cirque" before "soleil," and none of the members of that original performance group had training in dance.

"We had these potential lawyers, doctors and businessmen, and no one wanted to go into business," said Pendleton of his Pilobolus co-founders, all students at Dartmouth at the time. "They wanted to go into the woods and play drums."

In 1971, two months after Pendleton took his first dance class to speed his recovery from an athletic injury, the group launched a work titled "Pilobolus." The process, from the beginning, was to "make a connection to the plant and the animal and the mineral -- things other than the human -- and mentally [create] form from nature, then [train] your body to fill out that choreographic vision," Pendleton explained.

Courtesy of Titiwam on Photobucket.

The group realized what it had created after opening a show for Frank Zappa at Smith College.

"[Zappa] wanted us to go on tour with him, and we told him we had math tests, but the seed was planted," Pendleton said. "He encouraged us. ... If we hadn't had that encouragement, we would've gone back to school."

After all, who can go to veterinary school when Frank Zappa has called your work the "theater of the very far out"?

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Est-qu'il y a des Vegetariens en France?

Couscous salad with spinach, parsley and spring onions
Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:

Book cover courtesy of bn.com.

"Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate," by Patricia Wells (William Morrow, 2007)

A cornucopia of vegetables may not be the first image that comes to mind when you think of French cuisine. But French food expert Patricia Wells, who spends part of the year in Provence, found new inspiration in fresh vegetables for her new cookbook. Tripling the amount of vegetables in each meal, she starts with seasonal produce and works her way back to the inevitable meat entree. Vegetarians will find a good sprinkling of French culinary ideas -- but watch out for the chicken stock. -- Evelyn Shih

* * *

Couscous salad with spinach, parsley and spring onions
* 1 cup medium-grain instant couscous
* 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
* 11/3 cups hottest possible tap water
* 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
* 1 bunch fresh parsley, leaves only (2 cups loosely packed)
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 3 spring onions or 6 scallions, trimmed and cut into very thin rings
* 5 ounces (4 cups loosely packed) fresh spinach, rinsed, dried, stems removed and cut into chiffonade (long, thin strips)
* 3 tablespoons creamy lemon-chive dressing (See note)

Photo courtesy of farm1.static.flickr.com.

In a large, shallow bowl, combine the couscous and the salt. Toss with a fork to blend. Add the water and fluff until the grains are evenly separated. Set aside and occasionally fluff and toss the grains until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 3 minutes.

In a food processor or a blender, combine the lemon juice, parsley leaves, and olive oil and process until the parsley is finely chopped. Toss the parsley mixture and the spring onions with the couscous.

To serve, toss the spinach chiffonade with just enough dressing to evenly coat the greens. Add the dressed spinach to the couscous mixture and toss gently to blend evenly.

Servings: 12.

Note: For the dressing, shake 2 tablespoons of lemon juice with ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt in a jar until the salt dissolves. Add 1 cup of light cream and 1/3 cup of finely minced chives, and taste for seasoning before serving.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

All Hail the Dish Master

Can he kick an addiction to suds?
Sunday, May 13, 2007

Image courtesy of bn.com.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

DISHWASHER, by Pete Jordan; HarperPerennial, 384 pages, $13.95.
If you're tired of running the rat race, Pete Jordan's glorification of supreme underachievement may be just what you need.

For 12 years, Jordan washed dishes, one of the lowliest minimum wage jobs in America. But the lifestyle was highly addictive: endless food from the "bus tub buffet," access to booze, and the freedom to walk away from any job with no consequences.

Jordan captured the imagination of a national audience during his reign as Dish Master with a zine appropriately called Dishwasher. His mission to wash dishes in all 50 states had former "suds busters" enthralled.

But even as Jordan writes about historical dishwashers like George Orwell and Gerald Ford, he can't answer one question: "What woman would choose to live with a dishwasher?"

That woman ends up being his wife, Amy Joy; but as Jordan discovers, husband and Dish Master are mutually exclusive.

In the end, the story reads like a drug addict's memoir: Jordan can't quit dishwashing until it's his time, and he can't quit until he finds something worth quitting for.

"In the city where most Americans go to indulge in their vices like pot-smoking and legalized prostitution," writes Jordan, happily married but unemployed in Amsterdam, "I found myself cut off from my own vice, cold turkey."

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com


Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Breaking Their Cover

Bergen bar band's original thinking lands a record deal
Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Benjamins. Photo courtesy of thebenjamins.net.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Park City in East Rutherford, longtime patron of bands throughout North Jersey and the tri-state area, threw in the towel in March.

It was another ominous cloud over an already gloomy music scene. "When I first came in, the market was still fresh, still full of tons of talented bands," said Park City owner Lou Grasso, who opened the club 11 years ago. "If you were booking a nightclub and you needed 15 bands, you could choose from 20 to 30. Now you need 10, and you have five."

Not the words that aspiring bands -- or music lovers -- want to hear.

The Benjamins are one of the select few acts that packed the club. Like most of the bands that played there, they are a cover band, performing the hot tunes of the day. Unlike most bands, cover or original, this North Jersey band can earn between $2,500 to $6,000 for a performance -- a king's ransom in an industry where some bands hope to make $400 a night.

Last month, the Benjamins did something that seems utterly quixotic in the midst of a depressed music scene, launching an original music career with an album, "Chronicles of the Garden State." Apparently, staying true to their Jersey roots paid off. The album, distributed by Koch International, has made it to Virgin Music, Best Buy, iTunes and Amazon.com.

The strategy was calculated: The band has been sneaking original songs into its covers set lists. "[Cover shows are] our radio, our vehicle to push our music," said Benjamins guitarist Anthony Picone of East Rutherford.

"Maybe 50 percent [of the crowd] won't listen [to our originals]," said vocalist Joe DeGenarro of Garfield. "But if you have 300 people, and 25 percent of them listen to what you're doing, you're gaining ground."

There's no shame in playing covers, said Grasso, who has seen many bands come and go. "My best advice to original bands is to be a cover/original band," he said. "You can build a crowd and make money, and that will keep [the] band together for a longer time. ... It's an easier way to get exposure, and in the long run you take that money you make into making a CD or promoting your original music."

The Benjamins: holding their pants up since 1999. Courtesy of thebenjamins.net.

Playing covers also is a way to hone skills. "Nothing gets a band tighter than playing live," said Benjamins drummer Jeremy Luke of Clifton. "You could practice until you're blue in the face, but live is where it's happening."

Even so, it can be a prickly business introducing your originals to a cover-hungry crowd. "It's kind of sobering when you first start playing originals and 80 percent of the people just stare," said Ben DeGenarro, bassist and brother of Joe DeGenarro. "Then half of them turn away and get a beer."

At that point, you have to trust "what you feel," said Joe DeGenarro. "The more you stick to your guns, the more you show people that you're not going to detour from your plan. They either buy into it or they don't."

But if the Benjamins never doubted themselves, they can't help doubting the live music scene. There has been a downswing, agreed Benjamins agent Steve Tarkanish, president of the agency Stars Productions and active in the North Jersey music scene since the 1960s. Back then, Tarkanish was a drummer in a local band.

"I was able to play at over 60 venues, all within a half-hour distance of each other in Bergen County," said Tarkanish. Now there are only a few, like Tommy Fox's in Bergenfield and the Junkyard in Rochelle Park. Until recently, Park City was a mainstay for cover-band music. North Jersey bands trying to make a living wage now have to either take day jobs or travel across the country, sometimes traveling 600 miles between gigs.

"If I had faced the current situation, I would probably not have gone into the business," Tarkanish said.
The Nerds, veteran cover band that packed Carnegie Hall once. Courtesy of the-nerds.com.

North Jersey seems to have passed the torch of hot live music to Long Island, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

"Connecticut now is probably what Jersey was 15 years ago," said Jim Garcia of the Nerds, a New Jersey cover band still playing after 22 years in business. "There's a real scene. ... There're a lot of clubs in New Jersey now that are trying to be New York. Why try to be New York? New Jersey is a great state of mind, too."

New Jersey's live-music heyday was in the '70s, when the drinking age was lowered to 18. "New Jersey just exploded with cover bands," said Tarkanish. The scene shrank noticeably in the '80s, when the drinking age went back to 21, but had another minor growth spurt in the '90s, when garage bands became popular.

The Benjamins caught the tail end of the '90s cover scene.

"We were probably the last band to be able to just do this for a living," said Luke.

Even so, these Jersey boys may have to leave home to make their fortune. "People out of state are more receptive," said Joe DeGenarro, alluding to a jaded listening public in the vicinity of New York. So, while their album release party was at Soundgarden in Lodi, the Benjamins have had more luck selling their CD outside of New Jersey.

But that doesn't mean they've given up. "We know there's definitely been a change in the scene since we as a band have been doing different things," said Picone. "A few other cover bands are starting to follow suit. We've even had some out-of-state original bands open for us at our cover shows, bringing original music back. Hopefully it will pick the scene up."

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com


Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Do you go to Podcast U?

Top tier-colleges offer courses to the masses
Saturday, May 12, 2007

Image courtesy of northjersey.com. Photographer: Pete Monsees. Headphones belong to Evelyn Shih.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Ever want to attend a world-class university like Stanford or Harvard but don't have the time, opportunity or grades? Now, thanks to the magic of podcasts, all you need is a portable audio player and an Internet connection to enjoy the growing body of online lecture courses provided for free by top colleges.

As the podcast snowball continues rolling – podcast users accounted for 12 percent of the Net's population in 2006 – universities are beginning to jump on the bandwagon. Now, everyday folks around the world can listen to lectures like "Geography of World Cultures," "The Historical Jesus" or "European Civilization From the Renaissance to the Present" during a jog or a long commute.

Photo courtesy of bn.com.

Top-tier schools, including Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, offer many of their undergraduate courses online, while some Ivy League institutions, such as Columbia, Yale and Princeton, allow you to sample speeches, workshops and seminars by the likes of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and author Steven Levitt ("Freakonomics").

You may not be able to earn a degree, but you will be able to explore a new area of interest, freshen up your high school French or just impress someone at your next dinner party.

Berkeley's eventual goal, said Adam Hochman, project manager of the university's Webcast site, is to make nearly all lecture classes with more than 50 students into free podcasts. But providing such a wealth of information to the public requires a certain vision and generosity on the part of the university and individual faculty.

Thousands of hours

Berkeley has 2,200 hours of course lecture content available on its yearling iTunes U Web site.

Image courtesy of itunes.berkeley.edu.

To create this content, 82 professors agreed to pin on microphones during lectures for an entire semester. Hochman's team, including Berkeley students, screened each audio or video file for quality issues and copyright infringements, blurring whatever Berkeley did not have rights to release.

But some institutions are more wary of sharing too much. At Rutgers University, for example, a handful of professors do use podcasts and other multimedia content to teach, but they limit the use of these materials to registered students.

"The problem with courses is that [the university] can't always make [the contents] public," said Charles Hedrick, director of Internet Research and Technology at Rutgers, noting that lectures are the intellectual property of the professors who give them. "They don't have the rights to do it."

Becoming acclimated

Image courtesy of chat.andover.edu.

Rutgers is not alone in its trepidation. Yale and Princeton have released only lectures that were open to the public, shying away from posting full-length courses.

Still, the caliber of speakers at these institutions has drawn a broad and avid audience of listeners.

After Princeton launched its podcast site in January (uc.princeton.edu/main), the school's podcast ranked 25th among all of iTunes' selections and fourth in its education category – a warm reception for relatively wonky and unsexy material.

Most universities are still working out how they want to use podcasting as a teaching tool and whom they want to ultimately include in their virtual classrooms.

Image courtesy of www.home.unix-ag.org.

A certain amount of momentum-building is necessary, according to Hochman. Faculty need to become more comfortable with the multimedia teaching platform and with the idea that they may be broadcasting across the globe.

"A lot of faculty [understand] that publishing their content on the Internet is a great service for the public," he said.

He should know: Over the past year, Hochman has received letters of thanks from around the world, including one from a Mormon carpenter, another from a physics department of a Russian university and a missive from a U.S. Navy sailor deployed in Iraq.

"Your lectures have been a lifeline for me," the seaman wrote.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Betty: Still Goin' Strong

Lentil-corn pilaf
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:
"Cookbook for Women: The Complete Guide to Women's Health and Wellness at Every Stage of Life" by the Betty Crocker editors and Dr. Rita F. Redberg (Wiley, 2007).

Consider Betty Crocker's new "Cookbook for Women" a primer to women's nutritional health, threaded together by trademark recipes. Color-coded nutrients dance across the top of each recipe, accompanying the full nutrition facts in fine print at the bottom -- a useful feature for vegetarians who are counting their vitamins. Although it isn't vegetarian, the book reminds all cooks to "include more meatless meals, at least once a week, as part of your wellness plan."

-- Evelyn Shih
* * *

Lentil-corn pilaf

* 2 cups water
* 1 cup dried lentils, sorted, rinsed
* ½ cup chopped red bell pepper
* 1 cup frozen (thawed) or canned (drained) kernel corn
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
* ½ teaspoon chili powder
* ½ teaspoon salt

In a 2-quart saucepan, heat water to boiling. Stir in lentils and bell pepper; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 15 to 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Drain if necessary.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Cook over low heat 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until corn is tender and hot.

Servings: 4.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

An-cay Ou-yay Ead-ray?

Aayy! Fonzie is an author
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Henry Winkler co-writes a children's series on dyslexia.
Who was cool, had a special way with the ladies (and jukeboxes) and wore a leather jacket that wound up in the Smithsonian?

Correctamundo: "The Fonz."

This Friday, Henry Winkler, the man who made Arthur Fonzarelli famous, will come to the Book, Bytes and Beyond bookstore in Glen Rock to let fans look at the most recent chapter in his entertainment career: children's-book author.

While Winkler has had many successes since "Happy Days," including turns as producer and director, he has also managed to co-write a children's-book series called "Hank Zipzer: The World's Greatest Underachiever." Hank, a bright boy who happens to have dyslexia, is Winkler's fourth-grade alter ego. The actor has become an advocate for broader understanding of learning disabilities after finding out that he was an undiagnosed dyslexic at age 31.

The newest book is "The Curtain Went Up, My Pants Fell Down," where Hank tries out for a school play despite the challenge of memorizing lines. We spoke with Winkler about his book and what it's like to be an actor who has trouble with the written word.

Q. The newest Hank Zipzer book is about a school play. Hank compensates for his dyslexia by working extra hard on memorizing the lines and improvising when necessary. Is that how you work as an actor?

I always had to work a little harder on the scripts because reading is so difficult for me. When I would audition, I would memorize as much as I could, as quickly as I could, and improvise the rest ... and then hope for the best.

Q. You were admitted to Yale School of Drama on the basis of an audition. Was there improvisation involved in that audition, and in the many that followed?

When I auditioned for Yale, I had to do a monologue from Shakespeare. During the middle of it, my brain went south, and Shakespeare got lost. I had the audacity to improvise Shakespeare.

Q. Did you have any children's books that inspired you, either as a child or as an author?

As a child, I read very little. Even now as an adult, reading is difficult. However, I love thrillers -- somehow I'm able to concentrate and read thrillers. Daniel Silva, Lee Child, Lisa Gardner are some of my favorites. Oh! I forgot Stephen Hunter.

Q. What is a moment from the new book that you find especially funny?

Hank's first meeting with the very tall Heather Payne in the hallway. And Hank's reaction to feeling a breeze blow across his knees as he realizes that his pants have just fallen down in front of the audience.

Q. Do you have any upcoming projects besides continuing with the Hank Zipzer series that you'd like to tell us about?

At the moment, all my projects are pending, so what does that mean? My life is on hold as Hank marches forward. Right after I finish answering these questions, I'm going to Lin Oliver's office, where we are writing the 13th novel in the series.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Reluctant and Fundamental

9/11 alters immigrant's dream
Sunday, May 6, 2007

Image courtesy of bn.com.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Mohsin Hamid's sophomore effort is both an immigrant's success story and the story of September 11. But at the beginning of the book, the immigrant narrative has already ended: The protagonist has returned to his home country, a lapsed emigre, and is relating his tale to a dodgy American tourist in Lahore, Pakistan.

Yet his story within this frame is one of the American dream. Changez rises from relative rags -- his family fortune has fallen from past glory -- to be at the top of the world. He is a Princeton graduate and the most talented fledgling analyst in a selective Manhattan valuation firm, Underwood Samson.

It's his job to tell companies how to "cut the fat." One of Changez's tasks is to evaluate a firm in New Jersey and file a report, possibly firing many employees his father's age. When he expresses discomfort with the idea of judging and showing disrespect to elders, acts counter to his moral education, his friend advises him to "focus on the fundamentals."

Businessmen focusing. Image courtesy of dancepro.co.jp

That phrase, Underwood Samson's ruthless mantra, becomes problematic in the wake of that fateful day when the Manhattan skyline was changed forever -- as was Changez's personal life.

Returning from a business trip to the Philippines after the terrorist attacks, Changez finds that he is no longer "the middle of the color spectrum" in the subway. Instead, he's an instantly feared foreigner. His new secondary citizen status makes him wonder: Are his fundamentals the laws of business that he has learned to wield par excellence; or are they the tenets of Islam and Pakistani culture that he was taught from childhood to revere?

As both his conviction in the American capitalist dream and his passionate love affair unravel, Changez confronts his inner impulse to side with the Third World and reject U.S. imperialism.

Memoirs and novels from the Muslim perspective are hot commodities, and Hamid's novel is the cream of this crop: compelling and meticulously well-written, if not entirely subtle about its message.

Changez is a unique character for standing at the window of opportunity on both sides of the glass, a have-not living among the haves. But what is his ultimate destiny? His decisions, and the ultimate decision of his American guest, are a human drama that will affect the reader no matter which side he or she is on.


Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Oh, Mother~Oh, Father~ Don't Abandon Me

Making Tenafly students more aware
Sunday, May 6, 2007

Photo courtesy of Northjersey.com.

*Click here for web version and link to VIDEO*

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER


The morning assembly was wearing on in the Tenafly High School auditorium. Feet fidgeted in the back rows and notebook doodles were fast becoming elaborate as the boredom stretched on.

But when Tracie Luck walked onstage, the feet and pencils stilled. And when she opened her mouth, you could have heard a pin drop -- but you wouldn't have, because everyone in the room could hear only the aria spilling from her lips.

Thomas Satterwhite Noble’s 1867 painting, "Margaret Garner." Image courtesy of playbillarts.com.

Luck plays the lead character in "Margaret Garner," a new opera based on the historical story of an escaped slave who kills her children to save them from a life of slavery, a tale that also inspired Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's "Beloved."

Luck's performance is part of the New York City Opera's 2007 "Year of Margaret Garner" tour, which is bringing opera and historical experts to educational institutions and other public venues across the region. It is also a sign of a growing trend: artists taking on the roles of cultural ambassadors on thorny issues such as race, ethnicity and religion.

"I think [the students] may have read about [slavery]," said Susan Tall, the Tenafly music teacher who coordinated the event. "But music and art can bring it to them in an emotional and dramatic way that will be much stronger."

Moving hearts, minds

From the classically trained to the self-taught, a small clutch of artists locally and internationally are starting to use their various media to try to move the hearts as well as minds of children and adults.

Aberdeen resident Dennis Daniels, or "Mr. D" as he's better known, is one of them. His mission is simple: Bring the message of diversity to the school and region in which he teaches. It's his theatrical approach that's different.

Mr. D. Courtesy of mrdandfriends.com.

As school dean, Daniels leads morning assemblies at Hope Academy Charter School in Asbury Park along with his troupe of puppets.

On any given morning, his alter ego could be Zach, a young black man; Old MacDonald, an old white man; Carmen, a Latina diva; or Dan, a "parrot-dodo" who is not very smart and can't fly. It could even be several puppets at once.

It's an act he's honed at schools, libraries and nursing homes, using his crew of puppets to tackle issues such as racial tension, ageism, sexism and prejudice against the mentally handicapped. He often finds himself performing for homogenous groups who have had little contact with diversity.

"We go in, a little United Nations within us," said Daniels, himself African-American. "What I discovered was that children who were not minority would simply begin to see minorities in a different light. ... Kids get the message better from the puppets than when I tell them directly."

The assembly audience at Tenafly High School was not lacking in diversity, but it came from a community with an African-American presence of a mere 1.2 percent, according to the latest census. The chances of most students having a direct ancestor who was affected by the slave trade are slim.

But about half of the high school was in attendance, including the entire junior class and all music students. Many of them had learned about the slave trade in history, and "the very fact that they are coming down to an assembly on it means that it is getting more attention than it would normally," said Tall.

Ryan Arams, a junior who attended the assembly, agreed.

A boring lecture. Note: not actually taken at Tenafly High School. Courtesy of brainbasedbusiness.com

"Some of my friends weren't so happy because [Underground Railroad expert Delores Walters] was going on about the story of Margaret Garner -- and they were falling asleep," Arams said. But the moment Luck began her ear-ringing aria, her friends "were awake," she said.

"Even though the books went into depths about [slavery], I had no physical sense of what was going on," added Arams, who said she is "excited" to see the opera when it comes to New York this fall. "[The presentation] helped it come to life somewhat."

Peace and acceptance

"Shukrillah," by Mohammed Ali aka Aerosol Arabic. Image courtesy of bbc.co.uk.

There are some who have never met a Muslim, and there are internationally conscious graphic artists who have no idea what Islamic art is. British Muslim artist Mohammed Ali brings both those concepts alive for a non-Muslim audience. Like Mr. D and Tracie Luck, Ali boldly goes where no one like him as ever gone before.

As Ali explained at seminars in New York and Chicago recently, Muslim art prohibits the painting of figures, especially ones with eyes. His answer to that precept, after rediscovering his Muslim heritage seven years ago, was to throw himself into what he calls "street calligraphy," his own brand of graffiti-inspired mural and canvas art.

Ali has also become known, within Britain and now in America, for working with local youths on eye-catching Islamic murals that spread the message of peace and acceptance. "Watching someone paint a watercolor just isn't the same, is it?" he said.

Man who claims Sly blew his rafters. Photo courtesy of dworkineliason.com.

"Margaret Garner" composer Richard Danielpour, who was unable to speak to the Tenafly students because of illness, sees the "Year of Margaret Garner" events as a way of paying forward his own transformative experience with music.

"Even though I am not African-American, this is the music I grew up with," said Danielpour. "One of my best musical experiences was when I heard Sly and the Family Stone in 1970s. It blew the roof of my brain off."

And he hopes the music of "Margaret Garner" can do the same for a teenager.

"I believe our young generation ... is our greatest resource in America," he said. "Their awareness -- culturally, aesthetically and spiritually -- will have everything to do with the country we have 20 years from now. For me, this is an investment in our country's future."

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

iPlay iMusic

Kronos keeps pushing the bounds
Friday, May 4, 2007

Photo courtesy of csuchico.edu

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

On Saturday, Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington will be playing an iPod violin.

What, you may ask, is an iPod violin?

Good question. In fact, Harrington himself doesn't know.

" 'Playing' may not be the right word," Harrington said. "Maybe 'operating' it or 'manipulating' it would be more appropriate."

The Kronos Quartet is combining forces with the artist Trimpin -- who invents new instruments and musical objects for his sculptural exhibits -- for their performance, "4cast: Unpredictable," at Montclair State University. Among other experiments, the quartet will be playing Trimpin's altered instruments, or "toys," and interacting with machines that feed off their sound.

"This is going to be unlike any concert we've done," said Harrington, one of the quartet's founders. "It's the idea that musicians can be inspired by toys, objects or even sounds from the environment."

Trimpin's gallery exhibit of "Phffft." Courtesy of henryart.org

This collaboration will cover unknown territory for the string quartet and the artist. The Kronos Quartet is a champion of new music, having commissioned more than 600 pieces over its 34-year history, but it rarely steps beyond music written for string instruments.

Trimpin, on the other hand, is well-known for manipulating objects and creating sound structures, such as a six-story xylophone or a gamelan of bells suspended by electronic magnets. What he's not known for is working with others.

"A lot of the time, he works by himself with a technician," said Harrington. "All of a sudden, we're his objects."

Members of the quartet, which also includes John Sherba, Hank Dutt and Jeffrey Ziegler, spent time at Trimpin's California studio to try out the "variations on our instruments," as Harrington calls them.

"We ended up asking questions like 'What is a group?' and 'What is music?' " he said. "What are the borders of the musical experience?"

Diagram of new music. Image courtesy of cityofsound.typepad.com.

In some ways, "4cast" is very much like any other Kronos concert: It pushes the envelope and goes bravely where no musical group has gone before. Since its founding in 1973, the quartet has broken the classical music dress code, created new sounds with their instruments, promoted and played previously unheard world music and become a patron of young composers.

"We were struggling to play something that had never been played before," Harrington said.

Recently, Harrington worked with a group of up-and-coming quartets as part of a Carnegie Hall mentorship program, teaching them pieces from the enormous Kronos repertoire. He realized that their struggle was different: They were learning how to play music that had been played before -- but they had never been taught how.

"A lot of times young players have no idea how we do what we do," Harrington said. "There is a body of information that we can help them with, and we've begun to realize that."

Perhaps next year, he'll teach them a tune on the iPod violin.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Tales of a Jersey Girl O-Yome-San

Kabocha korokke (pumpkin croquettes)
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Vegetarian recipes from recently released cookbooks:
"Let's Cook Japanese Food!" by Amy Kaneko (Chronicle Books, 2007)

Westfield native Amy Kaneko married a Japanese man -- and married into a cuisine she had never tasted, let alone cooked. After living in Japan and learning the ropes from her in-laws, she presents a book of Japanese home cooking that goes far beyond sushi and tempura. Many recipes that could be vegetarian are presented with meat ingredients, but a handful of veggie selections are available.

-- Evelyn Shih

* Kabocha korokke (pumpkin croquettes)

* ½ kabocha pumpkin, seeds removed and cut into 1- to-2-inch chunks
* 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
* ½ yellow onion, minced
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
* Salt, to taste
* ¼ teaspoon ground pepper
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 large egg, beat until well blended
* 1 to 2 cups panko bread crumbs for frying
* Canola or other neutral-flavored oil for deep-frying
* Tonkatsu sauce for serving (available in specialty stores)

Photo courtesy of att-japan.net.

#In a saucepan, cover the kabocha with water. Place over medium heat, bring to a simmer and cover. Cook until the flesh and skin are soft, 15 to 20 minutes.

While the pumpkin is cooking, in a small frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat. When the butter is foaming, add the onion and cook, stirring often, until translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

When the pumpkin is ready, drain well. Remove any brown spots on the green skin. Transfer the pumpkin to a large bowl and, using a potato masher or the back of a fork, mash until fairly smooth. Add the onion, soy sauce, mayonnaise, salt and pepper; mix well. Let the mixture cool.

Place the flour, egg and 1 cup of the panko in three separate bowls. Dampen your hands with water and form the pumpkin mixture into about 20 golf-sized balls. One at a time, gently dust the croquettes with flour, shaking off the excess; coat with egg; then coat with panko, lightly pressing the panko into place before setting croquettes on a plate.

Pour the oil to a depth of 3 inches into a deep, wide saucepan and heat to 350 degrees. Working in batches, drop the croquettes into the oil one at a time and fry until medium brown, about 4 minutes. Using tongs or chopsticks, remove the croquettes from the oil and drain on paper towels. Serve hot with tonkatsu sauce.

Servings: 4 to 6 as an appetizer; 2 as main course.

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.