Fuel for the Fire 07/31/2012 1:34pm

Editorial
Welcome to Fringe 2012. My name is Mo, and I will be your server for the next ten days. This blog is going to focus on food--practically, literally, figuratively, and eventually (probably) not at all, once I run out of restaurant suggestions and elaborate food metaphors. So here we go. This is the phase of the Fringe experience when you've just been shown to your table and presented with a 15-page menu that includes everything from beef carpaccio to Doritos to flaxseed smoothies. You most likely have some kind of budget limitations, and you definitely have physical ones, so decisions must be made. The Washingtonian published this handy guide on how to read (and choose from) a menu. Let's see if we can apply some of the same principles to populating your Fringe schedule based on show descriptions. The guide has this to say about soup: "Soups are often little more than vehicles for filling up a bowl with heavy cream, seldom showing off the vegetable that's supposedly being featured. How to tell a promising soup from a pedestrian one? Look for mention in the description of a balancing force or competing effect--a swirl of tart yogurt, a drizzle of strong, herby oil, a dollop of sweet, briny caviar." Got that? The Fringe website has the shows broken down into categories: drama, comedy, musical, dance, and "different." But we don't want our comedy soup to consist only of cream and pratfalls. No! We want a "competing effect," whatever that may be. Candide, presented by Four Humors Theater, seems like it might fit the bill. It describes itself as: "A comedy concerning floggings, rape, [and] justifiable homicide...." I'll take a drizzle of strong, herby rape on my comedy soup, please. Boom, Candide's on the schedule. Here's what our wise menu-reading guide has to say about dishes such as, say, a pan-seared tilapia with avocado and mango salsas, with plantains and Szechuan beans: "Cross-pollination of ideas. Culturally, it makes for interesting arrangements; on the plate, it’s often a mess of mismatched ideas. Only in the hands of a trusted talent." Looking through the show descriptions, Joe Dowling's William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet on the Moon, featuring Kate Mulgrew as Lady Capulet might at first blush seem to be a similarly risky attempt at putting together a lot of disparate flavors and textures. But the guide tells us that if we're in the hands of a trusted talent, then we should freaking go for it. And did you see the cast list for that show? Not to mention some of the bold, playful, engaging work that producing company The Peanut Butter Factory has been doing outside of the Fringe Festival for the past couple of years as well... Boom, on the schedule. Blow my mind with your Szechuan plantains, Peanut Butter Factory. OK, you get the idea. I think the point here is that most of the year, your artistic diet probably consists of the theatrical equivalent of Caesar salads and sturdy, reliable chicken breast sandwiches. This is the time to go out on a limb and try ox entrails or, I dunno, mushrooms, if you've convinced yourself you hate mushrooms but haven't actually tried one since 1992. Next we'll talk about where to actually put actual food into your actual mouth between seeing actual shows. 'Til then, have a good time getting your chins nice n' juicy from salivating over that Fringe schedule. Ew. Signing off!
Headshot of Mo Perry
Mo Perry
Fuel for the Fire: A blog about consumption (not the pulmonary tuberculosis kind). What, where, and how to eat to maximize your Fringe experience.