Sugar Plum

Sugar Plum Fairy as ballet sees her

It’s Nutcracker season but I’m sort of sugar-plumed out. I first saw the NYC ballet when my daughters were little; have taken  other kids other times and recently went to a production with a recital flavor put on by the Valentina Kozlova Dance Conservatory. That, I thought, was that for 2014.

Then I stumbled upon the “new holiday musical comedy,” The Nutcracker and I, conceived and created by Gerard Alessandrini (of Forbidden Broadway fame with an Obie, two Lucille Lortel’s, seven Drama Desk awards–you get the idea) and Peter Brash, (thirty years writing every soap you ever heard of and then some, also with an Emmy, Writer’s Guild and other awards.) Their concept uses the music in Tchaikovsky’s ballet set to words to advance a plot revolving around a high school leading lady who breaks her leg when a Christmas tree runs amok; her family who ply her with painkillers; a horny, almost-Olympian snowboarder and a guy who starts as a geek and ends as a dashing Nutcracker /prince who takes our heroine to Sugar Globe City, aka Manhattan. The cast of six, (five adults and a ten-year old), sang the numbers including Song of the Sugar Rush Fairy and the NYC Multicultural Tour Medley –the ballet’s Act ll divertissements set for the Hindu Cabbie’s Christmas and A Jewish Chinese Christmas numbers (with a shout-out to being politically incorrect.) There are a lot of clever patter songs, as though Gilbert and Sullivan had been put in a blender with Tchaikovsky and re-orchestrated. The whole thing was an utterly delightful, topical romp–oh, and it was free (and at the auditorium of the New York Library for the Performing Arts.) I’ve paid a lot more to be far less entertained for an hour and a half.

Here’s a link to the fully-staged version as performed at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, MA in 2011. (Click gallery to hear some of the songs.)

There will be no sugar plums at my holiday table but there will be this dessert  which, in the past, has garnered applause. (It’s delicious and you can make it a couple of days ahead.)

Chocolate Amaretti Torte

1 oz unsweetened chocolate
3 ozs bittersweet chocolate
6 large double amaretti (or about 1/2 cup crushed amaretti (these are the Italian cookies that used to come wrapped in crinkly paper in an orange and white tin –today they are available in a bag at fancy food stores.)
3/4 c. sliced almonds (technically blanched but I never have)
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
Confectioners’ sugar or cocoa for dusting

Preheat oven to 350
Butter an 8 inch round cake pan. Line bottom with waxed paper; butter the paper.
Dust inside of the pan with flour and tap out excess.
Melt the chocolates in a bowl in the microwave and set aside.
Place amaretti and almonds in food processor and pulse several times until mixture is evenly ground. Turn out onto waxed paper and reserve.
Put butter, sugar, eggs into processor bowl and process until mixture is satiny smooth and no longer grainy, about 2 minutes. Stop to scrape bowl occasionally.
Add amaretti, almond powder and melted chocolates. Pulse until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in oven on center rack for 25-30 minutes. (Top will look dry and maybe cracked; center will be moist)
Cool on cake rack for 30 minutes. Run blunt knife around edge of the pan and turn out the torte. Peel off waxed paper, invert and cool on a rack. Dust with confectioners’ sugar or cocoa.
Slice thinly and serve at room temp with whipped cream or ice cream.
Makes 10-14–very generous– servings.
Pass the Prosecco. Or espresso. No food fights, please.