We live on NW Passage – in Mariner’s Village – right on the parade route!

Next year will be the 50th anniversary – we simply MUST do a party!

It was adapted from a Paul Prudhomme recipe by Chef Julie Sokolsky. I took her eighteen month Kitchen Academy for the Home Gourmet Cook program at The Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts (in Pasadena).

I took pictures this year as I made it so I could share the recipe I so often get asked for.

Start the Crust

• 3 C All purpose flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 C butter (2 sticks)
• 6 – 8 T cold water

Combine flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Add butter and incorporate, using fingertips, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle water over flour in tablespoon increments, stirring continuously with a fork.

Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic and chill in refrigerator for one hour.

Mise en place (A place for everything and everything in its place)

One of the most important things in cooking is to make sure you’ve got everything you need – and enough of it – before you start co-mingling. Of course, you can improvise and guesstimate but it’s a good idea to know what you’ve got to work with (and ideally, have enough of everything on hand – ready to go). This is often what prep cooks do – line up all the ingredients in their proper measurements (so you don’t accidentally forget something! Like having a part left over when working on mechanical things).

For the Pumpkin Filling (far left row):

• 2 C pumpkin puree
• 1/2 C firmly packed light brown sugar
• 4 T granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten until frothy
• 2 T heavy cream
• 2 T unsalted butter, softened
• 2 T vanilla extract
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t ground cinnamon
• pinch of ground allspice
• pinch of ground nutmeg

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients, mix thoroughly and set aside.

For the Pecan Syrup (middle row):

• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 1 1/2 C dark corn syrup
• 4 Small eggs
• 3 T unsalted butter, melted
• 4 t vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• pinch ground cinnammon
• 1 1/2 C pecan pieces

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients, mix thoroughly and set aside.

I buy a big bag of pecans halves at Costco and just grind them into pieces at home:

Assemble Pie: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9″ pie pan or an 8″ springform pan. Roll dough out on lightly floured work surface to 3/16″. Transfer dough to pan by either folding it into quarters, lifting and placing in pan or by laying it over a rolling pin, lifting and placing it into the pan. Gently press in place and trim edges (kitchen scissors are great for this). If using a pie pan, leave a little overhang to form crust with. Chill for 15 minutes.

NOTE: for Thanksgiving, I like to make Fall leaves with the left over pie crust.You can cut them with cookie cutters or freehand with a knife. Ball up foil underneath them on a cookie sheet and let them curl as they cook, then paint them with yellow and orange food coloring and it looks like the wind swept fallen leaves onto your pie. Very fun and festive.

Spoon pumpkin filling into pan, spreading evenly. Gently pour pecan syrup on top.

Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours. Cool and serve with whiskey sauce.

Whiskey Sauce (far right row above):

• 8 T unsalted butter (1 stick)
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 t very hot water
• 1/2 C heavy cream
• 1/2 C Bourbon Whiskey

You should never skimp on ingredients when cooking but a lot of people try to cut corners on booze in food. Don’t. It’s a huge mistake. The flavor is everything. I usually use Maker’s Mark but this time I tried Knob Creek, 9 years aged small batch. I actually think the less expensive Maker’s Mark had a more delicate flavor but I’ll keep experimenting. Maybe a bourbon whiskey expert can give me some good suggestions?

Vanilla is another place you don’t want to skimp. Get a good one. Mexican vanillas are great.

Melt butter in double boiler set over gently simmering water. Beat sugar and egg in small bowl until blended. Temper egg mixture with a bit of melted butter then add egg mixture into butter. Add hot water and stir until the mixture coats the back of a spoon (nappe) about 7 minutes. Remove from the couble boiler and cool to room temperature. Stir in the cream and whiskey. Serve drizzled over pie.

(I often make homemade whipped cream, too, to add to this!

I’m thrilled to be joining a dozen terrific alumni coaches (see list below), all of us volunteering our time to mentor and support the 80 actors, directors, TV and film screenwriters, playwrights, producers, composers, singers, musicians, magicians, comedians, Dept Heads – you name it – who will be combining all their time, energy, effort and resources to help one another flash their careers forward by each pursuing an audacious year-long goal and playing a game to achieve it in one month!

It doesn’t matter where you’re at in the biz – whether you’re trying to break in or break through to the next level in your entertainment career – I really, truly can not recommend this program strongly enough. And no, for the suspicious and jaded out there, no, I’m not making a penny for this plug, nor for my month’s worth of mentoring a dozen aspirants hands-on, nor for recruiting friends to come on board. None of the coaches are paid. We all just believe so strongly in the sense of community that Flash Forward engenders – and in the power of creative collaboration and teamwork – that we are willing to put our sweat equity where our mouths are and walk our talk. Not to mention: it’s a ball! So many of our best friends in the biz were born out of our respective “rushes” at it through Flash Forward – and we’re all committing to our own goals, too!

Its been six years since Suzanne Lyons has done one of these big intensives and the networking with the 100 others pros in the business alone is worth the price of admission – which is why I want my friends hustling up to get in here and have fun with us!

If my sincere and genuine endorsement isn’t enough, Sept. 14th, Suzanne Lyons (our fearless and playful leader) will undoubtedly inspire any and all fence-sitters into action. Thus, if you still need more convincing, for $10, you can enjoy a “Mini Flash Forward” Crash Course with the last opportunity to book at the early bird rates.

Here are all the details:

Intensive Weekend: Saturday & Sunday, October 22 & 23 – 8:30 am to 6:00 pm (includes lunch)

Saturday:  Career Goal Strategy: Formulate a one month goal and develop a detailed, step-by-step strategy to achieve it.
Topics include: Creating a Long-Term Vision for Your Career * How to Get an Agent * Taking Responsibility for Your Results * Generating a Map of Relationships * Targeting Your “Hit List” * Developing a Time Line for Accomplishment * Measuring Your Progress * Obtaining a Mentor * Getting Through to the Right People * Making Requests * Team Support * Brainstorming Action Plans

Sunday:  Presentation Practice: Learn and practice the most successful ways of presenting yourself and your projects.
Topics include: Secrets of Selling in Hollywood * 6 Essential Stages of the Pitch * Keys to Dynamic Log Lines * Pitching on the Phone:  The 2-Minute Pitch * How to Grab Attention and Be Memorable * Phone Aerobics * How to Get a Meeting * 4 Crucial Assets to Get Out of Every Meeting * How to Make Every Pitch Win/Win * Keeping the Power in Your Hands

Plus:  Meet and Pitch the Pros! Try out what you’ve learned with our distinguished group of high-powered industry guests.  In a small group setting, practice pitching to the pros and get valuable feedback and tips.

Month-Long Program All-Group Meetings: Thursdays, November 3 & 17 – 7:00 pm to 10:15 pm

2 Thursday Nights:  Career Coaching: in-depth coaching on overcoming any obstacles and barriers that you encounter in achieving your goal.
Topics include: Turning Breakdowns Into Breakthroughs * Power Networking * Designing Your Mission Statement * Getting the Most from Your Mentors * Making Unreasonable Requests * Time Management * The Magic of Acknowledgement * Celebrating Your Results * Creating What’s Next

Team Meetings (on Alternate Weeks): Thursday, Oct. 27 & Nov. 10 (Time & Locations TBA)

Location:                       Coast Anabelle Hotel, 2011 W. Olive Avenue, Burbank

Registration:                $445 (Early Bird by 10/7)

Regular Price:              $545

Alumni Repeaters:      $245

Credit card Registrations online at: www.FlashForwardHollywood.com

$100 non-refundable processing fee.

CALL: 310-450-3584 or 818-558-5917

2011 Coaches

Head Coach: Barbara Schiffman

• Clay Storseth
• Gwen McGee
• Lisa Bevis
• Heather Hale
• Barbara (Hammond) Randall
• Sherie Reeves
• Gordon Meyer
• Lizzette Padilla
• Ed Gutentag
• Bill Lundy
• Debbie McGougan
• Calix Reneau
• Anthony Gomez
• Amy

Can’t pitch it anymore or any harder.

Hope to see you there!

If you do join – tell ‘em I sent you – and feel free to join my team!

Well, as my close friends and family know, I’ve lucked out to discover a fantastic watercolor teacher, Deborah Swan McDonald, who I adore as a friend and human being and think is a great watercolorist in her own right but I have to admit, most important to me at the moment is that’s she’s a really amazing art teacher. I took her Beginning Watercolor Class twice ’til she kicked me out (and into her Advanced class). I clung with my fingernails to the shallow end, wishing there were an Intermediate class but now I’m surrounded by all her groupie veterans – almost nothing but other art teachers! (What an amazing environment to learn in!) The Rookie junkie on my fourth class with her, some of these other students have taken this exact same class 14 times! So clearly, I’ve stumbled upon some gold here.

Anyway, rather than show off my work (which is a decade shy of that nonsense! although I did sell a piece – thank you (and bless you!) Tony! let me – instead – show off her teaching abilities – as you endure my slow and unsteady evolution and hopefully enjoy along with my mom, dad, aunt, cousins and other artist friends, some of her great exercises – and maybe try them, too? And we can share our refrigerator art on our FaceBook pages and blogs!Ink Resist:

Okay, this may not look like much (I hesitated putting it up as all I see are its flaws but…) let me share with you this unique process – as I’m trying it again (work in progress down below).

You sketch (one of my many weaknesses) your drawing and then paint all the whites you want to save (or any area, really, that isn’t straight black – so a lot of coverage) with white tempra paint (the class keeps teasing me cause I keep calling it “Tempura” but apparently its a powder available at Michael’s).

Then, once that’s completely dried, you gently sponge on India Ink over the whole painting. Maybe you can see the reflection of the sketch of the sunflower underneath the dried India ink in the all black photo? Once that’s completely dry - twenty minutes? a week? - you gently wash all the excess India ink off and anywhere it landed on tempra, the tempra “resisted” the stubborn, permanent ink and protected the whites of the page underneath, so you end up with what looks like almost a woodblock print of your drawing. I forgot to take a picture of that stage of the process but down below, you can see that stage of my second attempt at this technique on a different painting. It almost felt at this stage like I was cheating, painting a coloring book, but it was my drawing, in ink instead of pencil or charcoal, and the new paint didn’t wash it away, so, that’s was a cool new experience. You can possibly see the salt I put in the center of the sunflower – trying to be tricky – which kind of back-fired junkie on me. No worries. I have more clean paper! I can do it again!

Pour:

Probably my favorite thing to do in watercolor is to just let the paints blend and meld as they do far better on their own, being poured and dropped, dipped and spreading in wildly into new colors in unique ways. Its difficult – I’d say almost impossible – to achieve that same seamless affect with a brush. I almost hate to pick up my brush at my skill level ’cause I feel like I screw up what the paint naturally did so beautifully already! But I am trying to learn to PAINT complete pictures here – not just play (though that’s a HUGE part of why I do it!) Its a wonderful thing, when you’re watercoloring, you don’t think about bills or jerks or your weight or anything but how three eye dropped colors can dance into a rainbow before your very eyes with but the tilt of a piece of acrylic. Ahhh…

Anyway, here is an example of my coming in after a pour…the background is what’s so beautiful to me. That’s going to be a butterfly there soon and the flower was supposed to be one of those purple flowers that look like fireworks exploding (what’re they called?) but now it might end up being statice (didn’t know some had white flowers) – but I haven’t quite decided yet. And yes, I will fix those flower stems, probably continue them down so they drop out of frame – as if then popping in – and yes they will get some sort of flower head – I’ll have to figure out what color won’t compete – or will pop – with the composition as it comes together. And teach Debi suggested some sort of bluish flower in the lower right hand corner – as huge framing foreground for depth and perspective – we’ll see if I can pull that off.

The Combo!:

Being the customarily brazen, audacious painter that I am (who never does anything halfway) – and a typical Gemini (who can never make up her mind and wants it all) – I decided to try BOTH techniques in ONE painting! Eee gads! I’m such a problem student! LOL! So…dicey as it is, my typically more cautious and less wildly colorful teacher is watching with baited breath (more likely entertained humor) as I try to figure this out on my own.

So, here is what I’m starting with – this is that washing off the India ink phase of the ink resist (I forgot to snap a pic of above). Actually, Billy doesn’t want me to paint over this – he quite likes it (and he’s usually right – he always picks my best paintings – oh, for an objective eye to our own work!) It might not look like much here, but its pretty cool in person. You can see the masking fluid goop still on there protecting my highlights. But I’m going to – deep breath – try to do a pour on top of the ink resist – yes, that’s right folks! So I’ll have this amazing wild background to this very cool wood block print…and…well…we’ll see! Though there is a part of me that wants to do it all sepia tone from here…I’m torn…you can’t Xerox art to try it two different ways – and go back again – so I’m going to go for the pour! Yes, that’s my final answer! Commit! GULP!

Stay posted!

I’ll post photos of both the works in progress shown herein (unless they end up as total messes then I’ll try to sneak past by you with the next exercise I learn! Or if I ever come up with one that’s frameable again!

We started by making our own original color wheels by mixing each and every precise color out of a small palette of primary and secondary acrylics.

Here are the three assignments I thought might be of most interest to others to learn from.

Analogous Colors:

This might not look like much at first. Like, why on earth did I put that vibrant cadmium orange and cobalt blue in the center of all those browns and greys? Well,who knew you could make every skin tone known to man out of these two analogous colors (a hundred and eighty degrees apart from one another on the color wheel)? They also make great colors for earth, sky and fog.

This was my first time painting in anything other than watercolor – these are acrylics – a whole new learning curve there! (Mostly in this case, learning how to use Scotch Tape #811 and fresh sharp Exacto knives!).

Notice the black and the white squares kiddie corner to the orange and blue. Every color on here is a either one of these four solid base colors – or some combination of two, three or four of them. Cool hunh?

Complementary:

This next one takes three colors side-by-side on the color wheel and combines and contrasts them.

I look at these colors as I mix and apply them and think of how I’d use them as a Director to subliminally connect or separate characters through wardrobe choices or what I might discuss doing with lighting or production design elements with my DP or Production Designer to emphasize foreground, mid ground or background or highlight, recede or show connections between characters, props, etc.

One of my many goals in getting my certificate (in addition to just losing time blissfully) is to become a better Director and enhance my core literary expertise by empowering my visual storytelling skills.

Lastly (and actually the first and most simple), this exercise shows how the exact same color of gray can be changed by the vibrant primary or secondary (or any, really) colors its influenced by or that it reflects.

Just like the friends we choose, or the family members or work associates who most affect us, or how we populate our stories on the page – or even how our style or the tone of a particular piece can be impacted a sequence and surrounding – these dynamics affect “the big picture.”

The irony of how life imitates art hits me in every class.