Tonight's
casserole was designed to honor a gay visionary who started the
“off-off Broadway” theater movement in the 60's. This hearty –
healthy meal features the wonderful colors of Italy: White, green and
red.
Learn
about Joe Cino, his passion for theater, his work ethic, and tragic
downward spiral in a short article following the recipe.
Ingredients:
- 3 chicken breasts (boneless-skinless)
- ½ box “super greens” rotini pasta (any pasta made with greens)
- 2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
- 1½ cups milk
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1 package onion soup mix
- ½ cup whipped cream cheese
- ½
cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes.
Directions:
Preheat
oven to 350
degrees
F. Coat a 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
In
a large pot of boiling water, cook noodles for earliest amount of
time ( if 7-9 minutes use 7!), drain.
While
that cooks, brown both sides of the chicken breasts just enough to
give it color. 4-5
minutes
per side
In
a large bowl, mix the drained spinach, butter, beaten eggs, soup mix,
and the cream cheese. Blend well.
Place
mixture in baking dish and arrange chicken breasts on top. Sprinkle
the cherry tomatoes around the chicken. Top with the Parmesan and
cover dish tightly with foil.
Serve
with a hot bread, maybe some wine.
For
our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMPSgFkuQXk
So
happy to be serving my Master Indy.
socialslave
To
satisfy and restore.
To
nourish, support and maintain.
To
gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to
nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I
cook!
Please
buy slave's cookbook:
The
Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by
Dan White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM
via @amazon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe
Cino, an
Italian-American theatrical producer and café-owner, created the
“Off-Off Broadway”
theater movement.
He was born in a working-class family in Buffalo.
Joe
grew up in a generation that was taught:
You
can get anything if you just work hard enough for it: Fame, money,
love, anything. But nobody wants a fat boy!
Joe
wanted to be a dancer. Joe wanted to be successful. Joe wanted love.
This was no different from anyone growing up in the most successful
nation in the world.
No
matter how hard he worked at it, his goals seemed just beyond his
reach. Perhaps he never knew what a great legacy his life had. For
when grief proved to be too much, Joe gave up and quit! In a final
burst of pain he ended his own life. Never to know what a wonderful
gift he had given, nor to understand the hurt his loss caused to so
many.
At
sixteen, Joe Cino moved to New York City to study performing arts in
hopes of becoming a dancer. Though he made a living dancing
throughout the 1950s,
his continual struggles with weight curtailed his dance career.
In
1958,
Cino managed to rent a storefront in Greenwich Village and opened a
coffeehouse where his friends could socialize.
Cafe
Cino would become a
theatrical venue; Cino wanted to host folk music concerts, poetry
readings, and art exhibits. Then plays were added to the performance
mix.
Cino
became so excited by the audience’s and his own response to the
plays that he quickly established a weekly schedule for theatrical
performances. He would introduce the acts with the phrase, "It's
magic time!" All
of Joe's life he was reaching for magic to happen.
The
Cafe Cino, made its
meager living from selling food and drink, where no one was paid
except the police who were paid off, where reviewers seldom came and
reviews were usually published after a show had closed. He crated a
new type of theater.
Later dozens of theaters would appear, based on the Cino model, in
places which made their living other ways—cafes, bars, art
galleries, and churches. To distinguish it from Broadway (large
Equity theaters) and Off-Broadway (smaller Equity theaters), this new
outside/underground theater world came to be known as "Off-Off
Broadway."
Off-Off
Broadway does
not belong to fat cat “angels” with huge bank accounts; non-show
people who may or may not like how you are doing it.
It
is not a living it is a way
of being.
You are given the opportunity to do what you were born to do. Writers
can write. Directors can direct. Actors can act.
The
Cino was a friendly
social center for gays at a time when openly gay life was restricted
to bars and bathhouses.
A
number of early Cino productions had dealt with gay identity,
including Doric Wilson's Now
She Dances! (1961).
Director Andy Milligan staged a number of homoerotic productions,
including Jean Genet's "The
Maids" and
"Deathwatch,"
as well as a dramatization of Tennessee Williams' short story "One
Arm". It was
after The Madness of
Lady Bright, the Cino
came to be recognized as a significant venue for plays dealing with
homosexual themes.
This
was a time when it was still illegal to depict homosexuality on
stage.
Throughout
Cafe Cino’s existence, Cino was plagued by police harassment as he
continually took heat for licensing violations. (there was no
applicable license available.) Window posters were designed so that
they looked like abstract art to passersby, yet could be read by
“those in the know”. Police knew. Cino paid a great deal of money
in payoffs during the 1960s. He was working hard and acted as café
host while simultaneously serving as its maintenance man, a server,
and a barista. Through it all, he generally kept other jobs in order
to support himself and the café.
He
lived by his motto, “Do
what you have to do,”
and encouraged his writers to live by it as well. At the Cafe Cino’s
peak, plays were performed twice nightly, with three shows per night
on weekends. Even if audiences failed to turn up, Cino insisted on a
show. “Do it for the room,” he would tell the performers, and
they did.
Cafe
Cino relied heavily on electricity stolen from the city grid by Joe’s
lover, electrician Jon
Torrey. The cafe had
no stage which made for intimacy between the performers and audience.
In
1967 Jon Torrey
was electrocuted and died. His death was ruled accidental. The event
sent Cino into a depressive spiral. He started to do drugs. Cafe Cino
itself was suffering. Joe refused to charge an admission or even a
minimum.
Within
weeks, Joe Cino
savagely attacked his own arms and stomach with a kitchen knife. He
was rushed to the hospital, where doctors announced he would live.
However, on April 2, (what would have been his lovers birthday), Joe
Cino passed.
Though friends tried to keep Cafe Cino open, it closed
in 1968, finally falling victim to cabaret laws now being strictly
enforced.
Police
issued summonses so often that when a policeman appeared down the
block, actors had to be ready at a signal from the doorman to leap
offstage and sit, often in fantastic costumes, at tables with
patrons.
Perhaps
Joe never knew the gift he gave to life! It would be easy for some to
condemn him for being weak. But his struggles and work proved his
true strength. Maybe it was the world that proved too weak to support
his bright spirit and infectious smile. This gay steward deserves to
be remembered!
