Did you know “fortnight” gets its name from “fourteen nights”? This past fortnight a few things worth telling have occurred at the Hilltop. First, my record company’s design department sent me the art work for the rest of my CD cover with its twelve-page booklet. Here are the stunning outside covers and pages 2 and 3 of the booklet:

Meanwhile, our Raffaella Ballet producer sent me an MP3 of the ballet video’s music track recorded at the performances last June by the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and conducted by my esteemed colleague Robin Fountain. It sounded fantastic! I had not heard it before and immediately passed it on to my A&R rep at Parma/Navona Recordings, who attested that it is a fantastic performance, and they would love to release it as an audio CD “live” album, complete with occasional applause, as many live albums have. In my experience, A little applause can lend some excitement – think of Live at the Fillmore, Woodstock, and BBC Proms.

All that now remains is to find out the amount the national office of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM, the musicians’ union) will set as the recording fee to pay the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, and I don’t know yet if that will be affordable. The ballet film itself was shown publicly on Halloween in South Bend and will be shown in other cities in due course, and eventually on YouTube. I was not able to attend but wished them well.

I came across a video with a new (to me) way to make Shrimp Fra Diavolo with Linguini. I set up a dinner and invited my willing regular taste testers, guinea pigs, and fellow foodies Jeff and Mark. (Jeff owns CIR Music, who publishes my choral music.) I garnished each bowl with a few open clams. They raved about it! So here is the recipe:

Prepare a rub for the shrimp, consisting of 1.5 lb. of large (U-26 or larger) raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, ½ tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. red pepper flakes, 1 tsp. regular (not smoked) paprika, and 2 tbsp. olive oil. Set aside before mixing this with the raw shrimp thoroughly, only ten minutes before you fry them. The baking soda helps them to plump up and be juicy, and it really works. The paprika is mainly for a nice red color.

In a large skillet, lightly cook thin slices of garlic with 3 or 4 canned, chopped anchovy filets, stirring the anchovies till they melt and being careful not to burn the garlic. Add one tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, ½ tsp. dried oregano, and optional fresh or dry basil, to taste. Then add ½ cup dry white wine, and one large can of San Marzano whole, peeled plum tomatoes, crushed by hand (watch out, or they’ll squirt on you when you squeeze them). Allow this to simmer. Don’t worry if you don’t like anchovies, you cannot taste them at the end, but they add a depth of flavor that is delicious, trust me.

Boil the linguini pasta one minute less than even al dente. It will finish by absorbing the sauce when you add it to the skillet later. Fry the 10-minute-seasoned shrimp (see step 1) in a separate pan, till almost done (they will get fully done in the skillet with the sauce). To the sauce, add 1/3 cup brandy and a handful of chopped, fresh parsley, and one ladle full of the water from the almost done pasta to the skillet, then add the cooked shrimp. Finally, add the almost cooked pasta to the skillet, combine everything and allow to simmer two minutes on low heat.

This dish traditionally (in Italy) does not add cheese, but if you want to put a bowl of grated cheese on the table for those who insist on it, use Pecorino Romano. Serve with slices of toasted garlic bread and a glass of white wine.

Our Halloween was a real dud, as usual! Hilltop is in an area where the houses are too far apart, and the little ghouls would have had to walk a long way to get candy at too few houses, so we had zero spooks at the house, as usual. We have never had even one in fourteen Halloweens here, to my recollection, but we always buy candy, anyway, just in case, and secretly for ourselves to eat over time! Neither did the Great Pumpkin appear, but The Great Deer ate several bites out of ours. 

This year I did not partake of our candy stash, though, as I’m happy to report a new total loss of 25 pounds (and counting) on my “Unhook the Feedbag” diet!  (That name just means eat less. Hey, it works for horses!) Also on Halloween, Crystal came home from school sick as a dog and did not even want dinner. She missed a day of school and one theater rehearsal but is fine now and back in the game on both counts, though still heroically burning the candle at both ends. I shall leave you with this uplifting thought:

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring