Brooklynite Jackie “Divalicious” Gordon strides up to the microphone on the small stage of the Laurie Beechman Theatre in Manhattan. After a rousing rendition of Tommy Wolf’s “Say Cheese,” Gordon rips off her white lab coat. Under the wrap is a Billy Holiday-style brown satin gown—adorned with yellow satin wedges of cheese.
Food has been an ongoing subject in the theater this year, and the big kahuna in that department is Chef’s Theater at the ritzy Supper Club. As we wrote in an earlier column, that show is really about the cuisine; the entertainment is essentially an afterthought. Happily, we’ve just come upon a much better mix of taste and talent in Say Cheese!, a cabaret experience at the Laurie Beechman Theater.
Growing up in Boerum Hill, Jackie Gordon whiled away her childhood “always singing and always cooking.” “It felt natural to cook and sing together—I just had to figure out how,” laughed Gordon.
Mission accomplished.
If you’ve lost your appetite for dinner theater over the years, maybe it’s time to ease back into the genre of nibbles theater.
Jackie Gordon, who bills herself as “The Singing Chef,” has just opened a one-woman, interactive cabaret show called sayCheese! at the Laurie Beechman Theater in the basement of the West Bank Cafe in New York. During the 90-minute performance/lesson, Gordon conveys her passion for wine and cheese through humorous patter, slides, original songs and cabaret classics while the audience samples and rates pairings such as California Cabernet and artisanal cheddar.
Sample lyric from her show…
Don’t tell Jackie Gordon that her new show stinks; she knows it does, and she’s damn proud.
The singing chef is bringing a new musical to the West Bank Cafe’s Laurie Beechman Theater starting Wed 28 and it’s dedicated to cheese. She’ll be singing about artisanal cheeses and explaining cheese history as viewers gorge on fromage from six countries. Expect to hear adaptations of songs like “Milk Cow Blues” and drink selections from Diageo Chateau and Estate Wines during the 90-minute show, Say Cheese.
A cabaret show on cheese will be given on April 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Laurie Beechman Theater at the West Bank Cafe, 407 West 42nd Street. Jackie Gordon of Divalicious, Inc., a company that pairs food and music, will perform. There will be tastings of cheese from the Artisanal Cheese Center and wines.
This moment in food history rewards attention to the most nondescript joint in the strip mall, if only for the possibility of discovering some unsung maestro cooking a sublime Szechuan chili chicken or fried dried fish. Ask Tyler Cowen about this and other aspects of the contemporary human forage and he’ll offer a considered opinion: “It’s a great time to be living and eating.”
COBBLE HILL—Brooklynite Jackie Gordon, as the phrase goes, is singing at two weddings. Er, I mean, cooking at two weddings. Actually, it’s both. As Brooklyn’s own singing chef, Gordon has designed her own form of performance, which she calls “eatertainment.”
Gordon is a trained cook, having worked as head chef at countless restaurants throughout her career on both sides of the globe—New York City and Melbourne, Australia. She is also a world-class singer/performer, and after years of being “Jackie of two trades,” she decided to merge her talents. “I create shows around food and music,” said Gordon.
This is a the photo from coverage of “The Fried Chicken Theory According to Jackie Gordon” in Melbourne Weekly Magazine.
If the devil is floating around at the moment looking for souls, I am a prime candidate.
After attending Jackie Gordon’s Fried Chicken Theory at the Republic Restaurant as part of the Food and Wine Festival, I am totally souled up.
With a mouth-watering array of soul food on hand. Sweet soul music on offer and a gospel choir belting out the Jesus vibes, this is one heavenly show.