Eating Bacon-Wrapped Dates and Having My Heart Ripped in Two By Sierra Boggess

Before the Boggessing and tapas, I headed to the Met Breuer this morning to catch an exhibit I’d been wanting to see for a while: Mrinalini Mukherjee’s “Phenomenal Nature.”

The Met Breuer is a small museum — you can see the whole thing in under an hour — and one of the three Manhattan Mets, along with the ginormous Fifth Avenue museum and the Met Cloisters for medieval art up near Harlem. Fortunately, it’s another museum I get into for free with my New York Times ID!

One of the neat pieces I saw was Cornelia Parker’s “Endless Sugar,” which is thirty flattened antique British sugar bowls.

The silver plating suggests pretension, which contrasts with the violence of the work’s creation and the delicacy of the suspended bowls (unlike some contemporary art, I can totally see this interpretation in the piece). It’s meant to provoke thought about the colonial sugar trade that brutalized enslaved people while also supporting the British upper classes.

The Mukherjee exhibit upstairs was especially impressive because I can’t even knit a rag doll, much less an Evil Emperor Zurg-like figure or a god. Some of the creations are suspended from the ceiling and some are freestanding, but all look like they’d be great fun to touch.

After my Met visit, I headed over to Bryant Park for this afternoon’s “Broadway in Bryant Park” concert, where I caught performances from the casts of “”The Cher Show” and “The Prom.” To be honest, not being a Cher groupie, I was really just there to hear “Dance With You,” my favorite song from “The Prom,” again, and it didn’t disappoint.

After the concert, I met my boss at Bouqeria on 40th Street for farewell tapas. No, you haven’t deleted a week — I’m not flying home until next Saturday, but he’s on vacation Friday and next week, so today was the last time I’ll see him before I’m back in Indiana.

Despite being a Spanish major in undergrad, this was somehow the first time I’d had tapas. My absolute favorite was the dátiles con beicon, a.k.a. dates stuffed with almonds and Valdeón blue cheese, then wrapped in bacon. It was like a cheesy, smoky mouth massage.

Also good, but nowhere near in the same league: the gambas al ajillo, a.k.a. shrimp with garlic, brandy, and Guindilla pepper in olive oil, and the albóndigas, which are lamb meatballs coated in tomato sauce, sheep’s milk cheese, and basil.

It was a gut check to realize I’ll be leaving this city in just over a week — gah, slow down, clock!

*Has minor existential crisis*

*Recovers*

Discovering the flat-rate boxes I’d requested from USPS had arrived when I got back to my apartment didn’t exactly help matters (see above crisis). Also, I, umm, ordered two boxes, and USPS shipped 10. *Sighs*

This evening, I headed to my much-anticipated Sierra Boggess cabaret show at Feinstein’s/54 Below. (Yes, I really did think to myself before leaving, "I should probably check what street 54 Below is on" before, umm, remembering the obvious).

I would see Sierra Boggess in anything. She is so, so good live, as well as a hilarious storyteller.

The highlights from tonight’s show:

-“Think of Me” three ways — 1) Britney Spears-esque (!), 2) in French (remember that unfortunate, ill-fated Paris production she was cast in that was halted after a fire broke out in the theater?), and 3) in English.

-“Come To My Garden” from “The Secret Garden” (one of my favorite musical scores).

-Her reading her grandma’s 1940s love letters to her grandpa, who was stationed overseas (One of my favorite lines read something to the effect of: “Don’t you wish you could see me now? It’s so hot here I haven’t got a lick of clothing on! Oh, I hope no one else but you reads this.”)

-Her rendition of "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again,” which she dedicated to Hal Prince, and which nearly broke my heart (and hers, it looked like).

Feinstein’s / 54 Below is a slice of musical paradise below the streets of Manhattan — you’d never know you have honking horns and screeching tires feet above your head, which you can sometimes hear in Broadway theaters. My night was absolutely magical.

Also of note: Feinstein’s has a $25 food/beverage minimum, which meant it was $26 pasta time. This Pappardelle Bolognese with shredded parmigiano and basil oil was in no way worth $26, but at least I got a basket of complimentary garlic bread (for $26, I better have).

It was tasty; but it was no triple garlic mazemen from the Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop inside Gotham Market. ;)

Finally, in the latest instance of my fellow theater-loving boss at The New York Times doing me a solid today:

Boss: "I moved your Thursday night start time back an hour to 5 p.m. so you can see the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ matinee."

Me: 👍👍👍👍👍

Him: "So Sierra Boggess, [show name redacted] with Jesse Green, Phantom — what else are you seeing before you leave?"

Me: "I think that’s it."

Him: "But what about Friday — your flight doesn’t leave until Saturday afternoon, right? So you could see something Friday night?"

Me: "Don’t encourage me." 😆

(If you were wondering, the Friday show is probably going to be the free Shakespeare in the Park production of "Coriolanus," assuming I can win a lottery ticket or line up early enough for standby).