Corcoran seeks Canadian help

The financially precarious Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has retained an outside consultant group to determine how the institution can continue to survive, and whether its operation should remain linked to that of the Corcoran College of Art + Design. The gallery and college also plan to lease their adjacent parking lot to a local developer, who will erect an eight-story office building on the site, which was once slated for a Frank Gehry-designed expansion to the Corcoran. In a recent telephone interview, the Corcoran's director and CEO, Fred Bollerer, said that the deal will reap around $1 million per year in rent, but will not provide more space for the institution.

While Bollerer declined to identify the developer until a deal is signed, he said that the Corcoran has hired Toronto-based consultants Lord Cultural Resources to develop ideas for the institution's future. The college has been growing, but the museum operation is "unsustainable," he says, adding that while there is no plan to divest the collection it is not clear what form the museum will take in the future.

Read the whole piece by Jason Edward Kaufman in artinfo.com here.

I have a few ideas of my own; easy ideas; homegrown ideas that I suspect will not be on "Toronto-based consultants Lord Cultural Resources"'s radar.

They know my email address.

Cuban Pollo Anaranjado

Just sort of made this up the other night when I had to use half a bottle of Naranja Agria (sour orange) juice, which is one of the key not so secret ingredients of Cuban cooking. I had a couple of bottles that I picked up in Miami last December. You'll need 3-5 boneless chicken breasts or any other boneless chicken (I wonder what they do with the bones?).

Start by making a mojo of 2 cups of sour orange juice (Naranja Agria). If you can't find it in the DMV area (I haven't been able to find it anywhere, as it seems that none of the Central American/Mexican focused supermarkets and bodegas around here don't carry it, as it must not be used in their cooking), then just mix 2/3 orange juice with 1/3 lime juice.

Anyway, two cups naranja agria, four tablespoons brimming with chopped garlic, and 2 tablespoons dried oregano. Put that in a big ziplock baggie with the chicken and marinate overnight.

The next day, start by making a sofrito. The basic sofrito recipe has green and/or red peppers in it, but I don't like either, so I skip them, but you don't have to. Here's a basic sofrito recipe.

I just heat up a few bottle dashes of olive oil in a large pan, some salt and pepper to taste, add one large chopped onion (chopped very small) and lots of chopped garlic and cook them until onions are translucent, then add some tomato sauce and chopped cilantro and that's a basic sofrito without peppers.

Then take the chicken out of the mojo bag and add and brown the chicken in the sofrito.

Once it is browned, add the naranja agria mojo to the pan; it should cover the chicken.

Add a couple of laurel leaves and bring to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes or so, then add olives (the manzanilla kind stuffed with pimentos work the best) and also add about half a cup of raisins.

If you want to eat this as a main course, then add a few chopped potatoes at this point and cook in low heat until the chicken is tender and the potatoes are done.

Otherwise make some rice (and a salad) and put the chicken and the naranja agria sauce on top of the rice.

Enjoy!