I watch the Tony Awards every single year without fail.  Even when critics pan them, I love them! Just click on Neil Patrick Harris' face to see the opening number. :-)

 

 Being that I am a true nerd not only do I watch the Tony Awards but I go to the red carpet and throw a Tony Awards viewing party whenever possible.  To date, my favorite year was 2011 when I sat with my theater kids and watched the Tony Awards while we noshed on pizza, ice cream and movie candy that were props for a show we were doing.  We only needed the boxes so we had to eat ALL of the candy, right?

This year, I decided to step up my culinary stylings a bit from frozen pizza and movie candy.

When you are having a party with a group of people, a good host takes each persons palette into consideration.  This is not to say that you can't get one out of their comfort zone every once in a while but, you need to be considerate, this is a mistake I have made before.

Luckily, my guests and roommates are not picky eaters.  In fact, my roommates have broad palettes and love spices, as do I.  We also like heat but two of my guests did not like heat and one is not one for a lot of spices.  Though saying that, I still decided to make a thai inspired chicken. The difference here is that the flavors were all flavors I new she could handle and nothing was over-powering.

Because I knew that my roommate was making bruschetta and purchasing dips from a local Israeli store; I decided against making a salad to go with the meal because people would be very full.  So, in the end I made Cilantro Lime Rice from Nikki in the Kitchen's Blog which is based off of Chipotle's Cilantro Lime Rice.

This particular picture is from Nikki's blog where you can go for the recipe: http://nikkisfixins.blogspot.com/2012/01/cilantro-lime-rice.html

When I made her rice, I took her suggestion of making it a bit healthier and I used Brown Jasmine Rice instead.  I cannot tell you how WONDERFUL the smell is once you mix all of the beautiful flavors of the lime, fresh cilantro, and garlic together into the rice.

During this process I was teaching my second roommate, who is new to cooking, how to make it and she said, "So, we have to wait until tonight to eat this?" Since we were going to the red carpet at Radio City Music Hall it gave the rice time to sit in these wonderful flavors and it tasted even better once we returned.  When you first mix them all together and taste it, you can literally taste every single flavor.  It really was remarkable to me.

But the "piece de resistance" came from Alexa over at the "Artsy-Foodie" Blog.  Alexa was kind enough to allow me to talk about her chicken recipe here on my new blog.  Here is a link to the original recipe: http://www.artsy-foodie.com/2008/09/wonderful-tasting-chicken-breast-recipe.html

Instead of using chicken breasts I decided to use a whole roasting chicken.  Why?  I knew it would last much longer and it gave folks the opportunity to control their portions a bit better.  Not one bite was wasted!  I must confess, this was my first experience roasting a whole chicken so I am grateful that it came out beautifully! 

For the whole roasting chicken I used dried Cilantro and increased the recipe measurements exponentially:

Cilantro Thai Chicken

5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup dried cilantro 

 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

2 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

I marinated the chicken overnight and then baked the 4lb chicken at 350F for 3 hours on Sunday.  After it was cooked I turned off the oven and let it sit inside of the oven and rest.

Alexa uses fresh cilantro which I will probably do next time also but, I have to say the taste was delicious in spite of using dried herbs.  I basted the chicken pretty frequently for the last hour and a half and it was juicy, fall of the bone tender and flavorful.  Thank you Alexa for your genius recipe!

My friends loved it and I had a lot less of the chicken for leftovers than I anticipated.  Not too shabby, huh?

Now on to the Tony Awards 2013 red carpet and viewing party!!

I am lucky enough to live in New York City.  I LOVE this place!  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to a majority of the shows nominated this year but, I do my homework.  So, as we stood among the masses, gawking at the famous and Broadway famous I commented on who was who, what play or musical they were involved with, etc.  I'm so loud that I had a little bit of a following and one guy said, "You have to say the names in German so we know what you mean too!"  It was too much fun!  There are really wonderful people here in New York!

But these...these pictures are my favorite moments from that night, apart from sitting with friends.

         This is Cicely Tyson.  If you don't know her, IMDB her and go see any one of her movies.  You won't be disappointed.  My Mother did not raise a fool so, I've grown up watching her films.  All night I kept saying to anyone and everyone who would listen, "I just want to see Cicely!  If I can just see Cicely we can go home!  I just want to see Cicely, she's the only famous person I care about!"  So, as the line dies down and we contemplate leaving, a limo pulls up.  No one comes out for a while.  Then the young black man in the picture standing next to her comes out street side.  You see a ton of people standing on the opposite side of the limo and everyone is deadly quiet except me who yells, "I bet it's Cicely!!  I know it is!! It's her!"  Well finally the person steps out but they are so tiny that you can't see them, not even the top of their head.  Finally the limo pulls away and I yelled, "Cicely!!!!  Cicely!!!!" as loud as humanly possible.  She turned, smiled, waived and my life was made.

  Now I just have to get over to the Stephen Sondheim Theater to see her in "The Trip to Bountiful" for which she won a Tony Award that night!  Of course, everyone has said that her performance is one that should not be missed.  So, head on over to the site: http://thetriptobountifulbroadway.com/#sthash.AXwkTUGg.dpbs  buy a ticket and support my girl in her play.  It'll change your life, I promise.