For decades, savvy shoppers have flocked to Nichols’ Supermarket at 327 First St., in Liverpool for its wide variety of quality meats.
Well, that variety grew a bit wider last week, as the Meat Department proudly unveiled three new chicken sausage products. Not pork. Not turkey. Not country ham. Chicken!
Yep, Nichols’ butchers use the delicious white and dark meat of broiler birds to create the trio of grill-ready chicken bangers.
Those with a taste for spicy foods will relish the Buffalo chicken wing sausages flavored with blue cheese buds and Frank’s Hot Sauce. Tamer appetites will appreciate Nichols’ new broccoli-cheddar chicken sausage complemented with milk. Those with a sweet tooth will satisfy it with the chipotle-honey chicken sausage rich with honey powder.
And the price is right making it easy for shoppers to mix and match! All three of the new Nicholini chicken sausages sell for just $3.29 per pound; nicholsliverpool.com; 453-MEAT.
‘Ten Little’ what?
Dame Agatha Christie, who wrote more than five dozen mystery novels and a dozen plays, considered “And Then There Were None” her best piece of stage “craftsmanship.”
While many audiences prefer her twisted “Witness for the Prosecution,” Christie favored her classic 10-character whodunit based on her 1939 novel, “Ten Little N*s.” Yes, that was this story’s initial title before stage and film versions changed the name to “Ten Little Indians” and “And Then There Were None.”
Despite its dark origins, there’s nothing hard-boiled about “And Then There Were None.” The quintessential British parlor mystery is more fanciful than frightful, a mind-game mystery wholly lacking any resemblance to reality, just as its many murders lack blood.
But it can be entertaining, and CNY Playhouse’s current production reminds us why Christie so admired the work. She craftily created 10 distinct characters complete with suspicious back stories, dropped them all on an island off the coast of Devon and had a disembodied voice accuse each and every one of murder.
Then she pits one against another as they desperately try to unravel the source and import of the recorded accusations. A game cast directed by award-winning helmsman Jon Wilson made the muddled mystery move briskly along through three acts, with two intermissions.
Femme fatale
Most notable was the bewitching brunette, Alicia Rose Bronzetti, the Liverpool High School alumna making her Playhouse debut as Vera Claythorne. Though her projection occasionally faltered, Bronzetti displayed a confident stage presence and a playful countenance.
A professional singer and vocal instructor, Bronzetti could do wonders for future CNY Playhouse musical productions.
Another Liverpool-based thespian, John LaCasse, portrays the aging General MacKenzie. John plays the scene in which the old soldier recalls his wife’s infidelity with an insightful blend of pathos and pity.
One by one, as the title suggests, people are bumped off, but through it all, the play maintains what one character calls “a peculiar sense of humor.” Maybe that’s what Christie most appreciated — her ability to laugh at her own convoluted contrivances.
“And Then There Were None” continues at CNY Playhouse, near the Macy’s entrance at DeWitt’s ShoppingTown Mall, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 26, 27 and 28. Tickets prices range from $15 to $20; 885-8960; cnyplayhouse.com.
Lizard’s live music
The barbecued ribs are hot and tangy at The Limp Lizard BBQ, 201 First St., but so is the live music.
This week, songster Michael Crissan plugs in about 9 p.m. Friday, June 27, followed by the Bradshaw Blues Trio on Saturday, June 28. Crissan returns on July 18 and Aug. 8, while Frenay & Lenin entertain on July 25 and the Bradshaw three come back Aug. 16
Admission is always free at the Lizard, and the Dixie-fried vittles are perfectly piquant; 451-9774.
ArtRageous collages
Liverpool Art Center owner Sandra Fioramonti-Sabene will lead a workshop on the art of collage-making, at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 29, at the ArtRage Gallery, 505 Hawley Ave., on Syracuse’s North Side. Participants will use their own photos, drawings and images to reflect on the moments, items and places that have affected their lives; $10; artragegallery.org; 218-5711.
Sandra’s workshop is presented in conjunction with the gallery’s current exhibit, “Proof Through the Night,” the black & white work of Mattydale activist-artist Paul Pearce.
