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When Patricia Wilde was in NYC earlier this month to accept the Dance Magazine Award, I naturally buttonholed her for a little interview.

Or course she had many insightful, interesting things to say about ballet, about herself, about her colleagues.

But nothing could have been more revelatory than Wilde’s recollections of the life and times of her poodle Brandy, a true dance-world celebrity. (Martha Graham didn’t want to go on stage without a visit from him.)  When Wilde first acquired the little creature in Italy in 1953, on tour with New York City Ballet, her then dressing-room mate Tanaquil Le Clercq, helped sate the frisky one’s appetite by letting him chew on her old pointe shoes.

You heard it here first.

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I was perplexed, melancholy. I could no longer find stocked at Fairway those bottled grilled onions imported form Italy. Then Garden of Eden stopped stalking them as well.  And Fairway’s deli had long since stopped making their own.

Those onions had been an essential element of the antipastos that were my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. (Don’ t tell anyone, but some family members even confided sotto voce that my antipasto spread was their favorite part of the Thanksgiving feast!) Antipasto is perfect for me, because what I know about cooking could fill a thimble.

But when I went up to Fairway to scarf up elements for last months’ offering, I found that they were back, courtesy of a new brand, Emporio Gourme. And it’s as if they’d never been away!

And I also picked up their highly decorative as well as delicious roasted peppers.

And the antipasto triumphantly returned to optimum form.

Is Emporio Gourme a house brand? The label says imported exclusively for Fairway.

Am I a paid spokesperson? No, but I’ll gladly become one.

That’s what the weather announcers on “mainstream” TV were doing yesterday, as they do day after day, cozening up to the camera and all but nuzzling the viewership as they promise “record warmth” in the days to come, as if it were the gift of a free vacation in Palm Beach, rather than ominous cause for alarm.

There’s an abundance of talented men in New York City Ballet’s corps.

A case in point is David Prottas–He’s got outstanding coordination, jump and plumb-line pirouettes.

In The New York Times, Claudia La Rocco described Prottas as “a beautifully classical dancer,” when he first apprenticed in the company in 2006.

On the classical/neoclassical cusp he and Austin Laurent were both meticulous and expansive in the Sonnambula Pastorale quartet two months ago, (following Devin Alberda and Ralph Ippolito—as I was saying about the corps!. . . )

Then Prottas on the same program was buffoonish danseur Morrosine in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue — a toe-twirler with a very high opinion of himself. You know the type. He got to speak lines in a good comic stage Russian accent. And with Prottas’s arabesque, you were almost ready to believe the braggart’s bloviations re: global pre-eminence.

Last week I went to see Prottas given another chance to show his theatricality, as Drosselmeier in The Nutcracker.

He does it his own way–elegantly. You could imagine he’d stepped out of Strauss’s Capriccio. Is quite the scene setter, everywhere on the stage, but not jarring.  Expressive mesmerizing with the hands.

And Laurent and Ippolito were happily back as, respectively, toy soldier in act 1, and Tea China man in act 2–

Skill, taste, and imagination were at play in this Nutcracker!

Perron reads from her new collection, Through the Eyes of a Dancer [Wesleyan U Press] TODAY at 6:00 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble on Broadway at 82nd Street.

Perron writes: “For me, this building has a special history cuz it’s where School of American Ballet was back in 1960 when I took the summer course there. So I will start the talk with my memories of that summer studying in that building with the SAB teachers.”

Since when did “bi-partisan” and “compromise” became greater goods in and of themselves?  Compromise to what end? Bi-partisan at whose expense?

To his everlasting shame, my Representative Jerrold Nadler folded and voted for the budget travesty—who gives a flying fig if it’s bipartisan?

It is bi-partisan, indeed, because Dems like Nadler keep playing defensive and enabling the extreme right-wing agenda of the current GOP.

Rep. Ellison did not vote for this bi-partisan boondoggle, and Ellison’s words bear repeating:

 “The budget deal passed today is a compromise—it compromises the financial security of federal employees, the long-term unemployed and working families.  It asks federal workers to pay more out of their paycheck to fund deficit reduction.  It denies essential benefits to 1.3 million long-term unemployed Americans.  It doesn’t close a single corporate tax loophole. It won’t create good jobs in Minnesota.

“This is a case where ‘compromise’ in Washington means asking Americans to sacrifice more. . . . “

Reviewing Janzen at the School of American Ballet workshop in 2007, Alastair Macauley in The New York Times described him as “already a partner of rare accomplishment.”  Janzen’s partnering skills will certainly get a workout on the evening of December 22, when he debuts as the Cavalier in New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker.

Janzen is one of the very talented corps dancers who get to do major roles during NYCB’s one-month-plus run.

Without overworking anything, without being guilty of “working it” at all,  in the first movement corps of Episodes last fall, Janzen encapsulated the spirit of the ballet – the steep intervals between the floor and the heights.

Janzen’s also written a piece in the current Playbill about keeping Nutcracker performances fresh.

His Sugar Plum is soloist Ashley Laracey, about whom Laura Jacobs was raving on this blog a little while ago. That will be Laracey’s role debut as well.

And soloist Brittany Pollack debuts in that same performance as Dewdrop, as does corps member Harrison  Ball as Candy Cane.

More to come soon about The Nutcracker.

I LOVE MARRAKESH, THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, OURZARZATE AND THE DRAA VALLEY because they are hot, dry, beautiful and friendly.  GO MOROCCO!

I LOVE REIMS FRANCE in winter because its freezing cold and bone-chillingly damp and nighttime starts around 4:00 p.m.  You just have to work up a sweat tromping through the dormant vineyards, drink champagne at the outdoor kiosk (a great way to conserve water!) and visit the cathedral, destroyed in 1918, now looking quite smart.  Go Reims!