How to Eat Well During Tech Week

I am just now commencing on every theatre person's favourite activity: Double-Duty.
I'm ASM on a show that runs until November 8th, and tomorrow (Oct 28) I start rehearsals for my next show. That's two whole weeks of double duty. Luckily, both my SMs are great, and we've worked out a schedule where no one gets shorted, and I even get half an hour for dinner! Even luckier, the theatres are across the street from each other.

Now, I know this isn't tech week, but it's as busy as (or busier!) than tech week, and I want to eat well. The secret, my friends is: PLANNING.

I started preparation for the next two weeks WEEKS ago. I don't want to be running to Starbucks or A&W for dinner every night, nor do I want to buy 14 Lean Cuisine meals and eat those for two weeks straight (well 3 weeks, because the day my show closes is the day the other one starts tech. I love my life), I want good, home-cooked food.

We made a big batch of chili, and froze most of it. Same goes for a stew we made in the slow cooker. Slow cookers are our friends in this business. It's great if you know you'll get home for dinner, just turn it on the morning and have tasty food at dinner. Or, take the extra 20 minutes when you get home at night to throw something together, turn it on, go to bed, and wake up to a week's worth of dinners all cooked.

Something else I enjoy is having the fridge full of good things for sandwiches. Last week, I carmelized a couple onions, marinated and cooked some portobello mushrooms, and made sure to have lots of salad greens in the fridge. Then I had all the ingredients for tasty, healthy sammiches right in my fridge. No more jam sammich just because I can't think of what else to put on the bread.

Speaking of bread, last week I also made bread, from my favourite bread book, The Tassajara Bread Book. It made 4 loaves, 3 of which went directly into the freezer. Keeping the loaves company are two batches of muffins, one sweet and one savory.

There's a company potluck on Sunday (and I still haven't shared the recipes from the last one! shame!) so I'm making my cookies today. They'll get their own post, because they are the best cookies in the world. I'm serious.


So, to summarize:

1. Plan ahead.
   
2. Make big batches of food when you've got the time.
3. The freezer is your friend.
4. So is your slow cooker.
5. Stock the fridge with healthy stuff. If it is there, you'll eat it.
6. Make your own sweets. We all need them (I could live on them!), but it's better when you control what goes in to them.
   

It bugs me so much when I see people stressing out during tech, and complaining about being sick and 'why am I sick now?!' when all I want to do is go up to them and say: 'maybe it's because you've been living on FRIES for a week?' Fruits and vegetables and balanced meals help you not get sick, and keep you more alert and on the ball. I'm a big believer in the fact that eating good homemade things keeps your body happy. Radical, I know.