I’ve been busy this entire break shooting the majority of my piece. I’m still missing some key elements, but I’ve got a ton of footage and at least a much better idea of what it’s going to look like in the end. This weekend, I’m off to the main event: FDF 2010 (aka the competition itself). Four days of virtually nonstop shooting, which means that by the end of this I’m going to A) want to sleep eternally and B) have some of the most toned arms in Manhattan.

On a semi-related note, I stumbled across this video of The Beatles’ “Baby You’re A Rich Man.” Apparently they tried to buy a Greek island once. Towards the end, the Fab Four try their hand at some Greek dancing, to hilarious results. But still, in the midst of this dreary winter, I’d kill to be on that boat soaking up the sun.

-My mother (yes, she is very Greek; yes, her name is Effie) is coming into town this weekend, bringing with her lots of old Greek dancing photographs of myself and the like so I can start piecing together the beginning of my doc.

-I’ve been getting lots of practice with the camera and am finally starting to feel more confident about shooting. Except for getting the darn camera fixed onto the tripod, which I’m pretty convinced is tantamount to climbing Mount Everest.

-Stay tuned to this space, because sometime within the next week I’m going to have the two major characters of my piece “introduce” themselves on this blog, so you can get a sense of who my documentary is going to be dealing with.

That’s all for this week, sadly. As a gift, I’ll leave you with a clip by one of the most popular artists in modern Greece today. Ah yes, see how my lovely homeland has left behind the wailing bouzouki and classic steps of the kalamatiano for the sounds of Eurotrashpop and grinding in the disco: 

Last week, after turning in my DURF application that proceeded to eat up my life, I was feeling run down. I was tired, I was cranky, and I hadn’t eaten a real home-cooked meal in at least a week. So what did I turn to?

food for a hazy shade of winter

Yes, fasolakia. I spent the greater portion of a good Thursday night ignoring the pile of Shakespeare I was supposed to read at least a month ago and instead slaved away over the stove to create something that I knew would make my customary Thursday evening tempranillo and Mad Men parties with myself all the better.

The recipe I use is an amalgamation of sorts. Virtually every traditional Greek recipe is designed to create enough food to feed a small nation. There are just two of us in my apartment: myself and my roommate who is pretty much allergic to everything. Thus, I usually just cut every recipe in half. The other great part about Greek cooking is that it’s so simple you can pretty much just eyeball everything and toss in whatever is your fancy.  And this tastes great a day or two after as well, so it’s  a good cook and eat for four days sort of meal.

Fasolakia for The Poor College Student Who Is Cooking In A Pitiful Manhattan Apartment Kitchen

You’ll need:
-A pound or so of green beans (fresh are better  but I use frozen often, pick up a bag of green beans from Trader Joe’s for best value, IMO)
-2 Medium sized onions (I like yellow ones and Spanish ones), sliced
-1 Carrot, sliced
-1/4 cup olive oil
-Like 3/4 of a bunch of parsley, chopped
-2 normal sized potatoes, sliced rather thickly
-2 cups of either tomato sauce or diced tomatoes (I use a mix of both, it tastes better that way)
-A clove or two of garlic
-Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat up your olive oil in a good, big, thick bottomed pot. Toss in the garlic when it’s nice and hot.
2. Add in your onions and sautee until soft for about ten minutes.
3. Add in half of the parsley and some salt and pepper, saute for another five minutes or so.
4. Now add your tomatoes/tomato sauce. Bring to a boil.
5. After brought to a boil, add in the potatoes and carrot. Saute until they start to get a little soft but not too soft. Usually ten minutes or so.
6. Add the green beans, a little more salt, and pepper. DO NOT stir in the green beans, let them stay on top. Make sure the tomato sauce liquid hits at least up to the middle of the green bean layer. If not, add some water. Also, add the rest of the parsley.
7. Cover and let simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, or until everything in the pot has become a gloppy, gloopy, delicious mess of wilted  braised green beans of wonder.

Serve with crusty bread and some feta and feel the happiness course through your veins.

I present: Greek People You Didn’t Know Were Greek (Part 1).

1. Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Yusuf Islam)

Cat Stevens was born Steven Demetre Georgiou on July 21, 1948 to a Greek-Cypriot father and a Swedish mother. He later changed his name to Cat Stevens because he “couldn’t imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for ‘that Steven Demetre Georgiou album’,” anticipating all of the troubles that we with ethnic names suffer on a daily basis. He went on to achieve fame as a folk singer-songwriter whose song “The Wind” pops up in an introspective scene in a film at least once every year. After a radical conversion to Islam, he changed his name yet again to Yusuf Islam, and eventually got himself listed on the American No Fly List. As a teenager, my mother had the world’s biggest crush on Cat Stevens, mostly because he had the perfect dreamy 1970′s shaggy hair, but also because he was Greek, and as a good Greek girl, she was only supposed to like Greek boys.

2. Jennifer Aniston

The Haircut That Sustained The 90s

Jennifer Aniston is the daughter of that great Greek star who has sustained “Days of Our Lives” for years, John Aniston. She once said of her pre-Friends chunkier self that “I wasn’t fat, I was just Greek and Greeks are round, with big asses and big boobs.” And it was that quote that got me through my curvier teenage days. It was also that quote that I used to justify eating an order of french fries every single day in high school. I wasn’t fat man, I was just Greek!

3. Tina Fey

Yes, Liz Lemon’s mom is Greek! Tina Fey! Greek! See, Greeks are cool. Need I say more?

4. Billy Zane

Are you looking at this, muttering to yourself, “Zane? Billy Zane? Who is Billy Zane? And why should I care?” I’ve got two words for you: Cal Hockley. Still doesn’t ring a bell? He’s the smarmy rich guy who Kate Winslet is supposed to marry in Titanic until she falls for little old Leonardo DiCaprio. See? I knew that you knew who he was! And I’m sure you never forgave him for suvriving the Titanic disaster while Jack had to die a cold, shivering death. But yes, both of Billy Zane’s parents are of Greek descent.  More importantly, he provided me with one of my favorite catchphrases of my adolescence, in which I would yell “Is Billy Zane on the plane?” very loudly at random times. Try it, it does have a certain aural quality to it.

5. Yanni

Just kidding. You already knew this one was Greek from his long flowing black locks, luscious moustache that inspires envy from even the most jaded hipster, and the fact that his name is, in fact, the Greek variant of “John.”  Fun fact: I was the only six year old with a crush on Yanni. This explains why I am the proud owner of  “Yanni Live At The Acropolis” tee shirt.

And thus, with all the blind youthful determination of a fresh-faced eighteen year old Tischie getting ready to crew his first set, I aimed to complete one simple task this past weekend: secure a camera and start playing around with it.

But, as fate, or more appropriately the NYU Journalism Department equipment rental polices, would have it, this wasn’t so simple to do.

First off, I learned that in order to even think about borrowing a camera, you had to write the department a lovely $150 check that they could keep on file in case you break something. Being a child of the plastic era, I haven’t had a checkbook in years (I know, I KNOW). The other option is to buy an equally priced insurance policy online, which can be done via credit card, of which I do possess. However, in order to use said credit card (which I was given on the familiar “only for emergencies” condition), I had to consult with my mother on the matter, and get her to consent to me forking over the dough. This required many back and forth phone calls between New York and California, and lots of twisting of arms of my Greek mother. Luckily, she gave me the OK to spend. Phew. Step one down.

Step two was to go to the department and get the camera in question. Because I have a day job on Fridays, there was no way I could make it to 20 Cooper Square to pick up the darn thing. The department isn’t open on the weekends, so that wasn’t an option. Also, I lacked the pretty piece of paper signed by a professor allowing you to check out an item overnight.

So that brings us to Monday, when I finally made it over to the department with the hopes of getting a camera for a week so that I could shoot a mini “practice documentary” about the tech rehearsals and behind-the-scenes of the play I’ve been producing for the past month, which conveniently goes up this weekend. That’s when I learned this very salient piece of info: rentals are same-day transactions, unless you’ve got the aforementioned permission slip. Strike three, you’re out.

Tired, frustrated, and figuring I’d just shoot the darn thing over the weekend once I’d gotten all my papers signed, I shlumped home.I had shot nothing.

So, what did I learn? A lot, actually. Plan ahead. Get your papers signed. Try and do same-day shoots as much as possible. But mostly, just plan ahead.

So “Eleni’s Film School For Dummies” has been postponed to this coming weekend. I’ll be shooting footage of the NYU College of Arts and Science Theater’s production of “Forbidden NYU”, which has a lot of similar shooting situations to the Greek dance competition my doc is about (shooting movement on a stage, shooting backstage interviews, etc). There will be lots of singing, dancing, crazy theater kids, and maybe a cameo appearance from John Sexton himself.*

*And by “John Sexton himself” I mean his singing, dancing, “all I care about is hugs” counterpart from the show, which is almost better than the real thing.

Shameless self-promotion disclaimer: If you love NYU, or love to mock NYU, come check out CAST’s “Forbidden NYU,” our yearly musical review in which we re-write showtunes and popular songs to lovingly and hilariously poke fun at our dear old school. We’ve got three showings: Thursday @ 9:30pm in Silver 703, Friday @ 8pm in Silver 703, and Satruday @ 8pm in Kimmel E&L Auditorium. I produced the show (and I might make an appearance or two onstage). For more info, email cast.club@nyu.edu

(That was a vintage clip of the Dora Stratou Dance Theatre, which is based in Athens and bills itself as the “living museum of Greek dance,” performing “Zourna Tik,” a dance from the Pontics, a group of ethnic Greeks who reside around the Black Sea in what is now modern-day Turkey)