disappears again. Francesca replaces
Fiona Apple with the Sgt. Pepper’s album, the same music that was in play at Lando’s. The squash finally done, Tori chops basil, tomato, cheese, and chicken tenders along with spaghetti squash. There’s enough for the four of us. It was worth the wait.
John Stubbs and Denise Dabrowski — Champagne risotto with shrimp and prosciutto 1½ cup Arborio rice ¼ lb prosciutto ham ½ yellow onion, chopped ⅛ cup olive oil 4 tbsp butter
¾ lb medium shrimp, raw 5 cups chicken and beef stock, blended
“Denise is out getting arboreal rice,” I think
John Stubbs says. “It’s a staple in our house, and we’re out of it.” Stubbs, violinist in the San Diego Symphony, sounds mildly shocked about the rice shortage when he greets me at the door. But, arboreal rice? What is it, rice from trees? We Google. No, not arboreal — Arborio rice, so named for a place in Italy. It’s the key ingredient in what he’s preparing on this summer-ish eve: champagne r isotto with shrimp. “Only 18 minutes to make it,” he says, “from start to finish.” Stubbs maneuvers
a small plate of diced meat through the screen door to a waiting porch cat while he talks. His wife, Denise Dabrowski, (formerly with the Jof- frey Ballet Company in
New York and former prima ballerina of the California Ballet Com- pany for two decades) arrives with the rice. “I had to go to three
places before I found any,” she says, standing now as if rooted to the floor of their 1927-built South Park home. Her entire body gesticulates in coordination with her words as if to add mean- ing. A very large tabby ambles into the kitchen. “That’s Hammy,”
she says. “We named him after Mar - vin Hamlisch.” “He was our prin-
cipal Summer Pops conductor,” Stubbs says of the cat’s deceased namesake. “Did John tell you
what we’re having tonight was the first thing he ever made for me?” asks Dabrowski. “I sat right
here, in this very chair.” She points to a red wood chair at the couple’s post- modern gray rectangle of a dining table. “It’s hard not to fall in love with a man who cooks and has an adorable cat.” That was Ray, short for Raymond, long since passed away. “Ray peed in my
gym bag,” she smiles in Stubbs’s direction. He is busy working ingre- dients into a cooking pot over a gas burner. “And that didn’t chase me away.” In addition to play-
ing concert violin and creating and hosting a cabaret-level series of classical music events called Luscious Noise (now on hiatus), Stubbs also conducts, and he teaches conducting to young adults. “There’s the physi-
cality of it,” he replies HEALTH AND BEAUTY
when asked how one teaches conducting, “the musicianship, and then, the big question — why do you actually want to be a conductor? Is it about the music?” “Or,” Dabrowski
injects, “do you just want to be in charge?” Stubbs and Dab-
rowski nod their con- sent when I mention that I harbor a secret desire to one day con- duct Beethoven’s Sixth. “There’s a lot of oppor- tunity for big body lan- guage during the first movement,” I say, “that would make an audi- ence think I know what I’m doing.”
Dabrowski: “I
wouldn’t want to be a conductor. Women con- ductors get no respect.” True?
She nods quietly. Stubbs: “Conduc-
tors come from opposite ends of the spectrum.” Some want to honor a composer’s vision, he says. “And then, there’s the kind that say, ‘What can I do to this?’” “Put my own stamp on it,” Dabrowski says. “I prefer to bring
honor to the person who maybe spent years writing the piece,” he says. After we eat, Stubbs produces a full- orchestra Mahler score, the contents of which are mind-boggling. Does he own many such scores?
“Oh, yes,” he says. “Sometimes, John’ll
comes home after we’ve heard a really bad per- formance,” Dabrowski says, “and he’ll go through a score and look for ways he could have done it justice.”
— Dave Good ■
32 San Diego Reader April 21, 2016
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