Chocabaret coverage in the Metro New York daily paper.
Chocabaret: Where An Artisan Chocolate Tasting Meets A Cabaret Show
New York artisan chocolates matched to music — stop squinting your eyes, you read that correctly. Jackie Gordon, a singing chef and chocolate maker, will serenade you while you taste chocolates from New York’s best chocolate makers. A flavor wheel, palate cleanser and rating scale will help you use all of your five senses.
In good company, sipping glasses of fine wine while nibbling delectable varieties of cheese would make any evening perfect. Add to these activities the very enjoyable presence of hostess, humorist, songstress, culinary expert, educator and all around charming individual Jackie Gordon, aka The Singing Chef, and you have a memorable night.
In Egypt, way back when, a desert bedouin stored some milk in a leather satchel and set out on a journey in the scorching Saharan sun. When he went to refresh himself several hours later, all he found were chunky curds and whey.
Thirst-quenching? No. But the mistake was delicious, and experts think that this is how humans first stumbled upon the creation of cheese, that rich, fatty delight that has tantalized mankind ever since and helped pizza reach new heights of delectability.
These days, cheese is a lot easier to come by, and you probably don’t think twice about chucking that cellophane package of pre-wrapped slices into your shopping basket. But the self-proclaimed “singing chef” Jackie Gordon thinks you should.
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.
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.
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.
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.