Chicken Fat and Other Delights

I just did a favorite kitchen task and defatted my chicken soup. I use a lot of bones in my soup and then let it chill overnight so that it gels from all the natural gelatin in the bones. The next morning, I place the pot of soup on the counter, grab a paper towel, press it over the surface of the gelled soup in my stock pot, making sure the towel hugs the very edges where soup meets stainless steel. Then Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzht! I lift the paper towel. Et Voila! The top of the soup is now clear jelly and all the fat is trapped in my trusty paper towel.

Kewl. It's the small things that give me those godlike feelings. I like feeling competent and knowledgeable. It's a hell of a lot better than feeling frightened and insecure, right?

Speaking of which--my job. Yeah. My new job. I'm still feeling my way around the immensity of the task before me. I'm still in the phase of, "EEK. What have I done??? I'm not capable of doing all THAT."

But with time, the brush will be cleared away and I will see the path. I always do. I just have to keep reminding myself of this fact. Of course I feel confident in the kitchen. I've been doing that for 30 years. But this job is something never before experienced. I do think I have all the skills needed to acquit myself well enough. But as the Good Book says, "All beginnings are hard."

Meantime, on other scores, the Raise Your Spirits troupe is getting closer to the opening night of JUDGE, in which I play Hever the Kenite. I have been foresworn from sharing in public what goes on in rehearsals, but there's nothing to stop me from describing some of the funnier interactions I have with my friend Tsipora on the way home from a LONG evening of rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing until you just about DROP from fatigue.

A bunch of us piled into Tsipora's car for the ride home. The rear window of the car was all fogged up. But we were all loaded down with bags of costumes and props and couldn't find the squeegee thing in all the morass of general stuff lining the floor of the car. It was determined that the only one of us who could get out of the car was Avital, sitting in the backseat and that she must wipe the window before we could proceed. But with what would she wipe the window??

I managed to grab hold of Tsipora's handbag which was buried under an avalanche of bags sitting on my left foot (I was in the front seat on the passenger side). Tsipora dug around and pulled out a crumpled ball of tissue which she offered to Avital. Avital took the tissue with understandable reluctance, and just as she was out of reach of hearing, Tsipora proclaimed at large, "Last Use!"

ROTFLOL.