Bells Rung a Little Prematurely
Bats of old Belvedere flew out and in
Of the belfry Hieronymus tended
‘Til they drove him quite crazy, so is it a sin
That he swung ere the service was ended?
Carol on, Carillon
2
Foodie Tuesday: A Touch of the Sun
Mediterranean-style foods bring with their ingredients and flavors a joyful dose of the sun that nurtured them into being. Eating Mediterranean-inflected foods almost makes me feel I’m giving my insides a solar power retrofit. I rather wish that this meant I would become the human equivalent of a ray of sunshine, but at least I hope there’s a noticeable mood enhancement in the short term when I indulge in such deliciousness.
A characteristic I’ve seen in the foods of sunny climes is that many of their indigenous cuisines have built-in traditions of hors-d’oeuvre style dining. Given warm temperatures, lighter meals of smaller portions can often be a grand way to ward off feeling overcooked as an eater. Many of these same food cultures are characterized by wonderfully intense flavors, and somehow the right combination of heightened spicy, zingy, smoky or, say, tomato-y tastes tends to make foods seem slightly more-ish to an extent that the nibbles make a perfectly fulfilling and lovely whole meal.
The treats of this occasion light up with some of that bright, vivid deliciousness and make for a nice nibble or snack, or when combined with a few more of their kind, a pleasant summery version of complete dining. No matter what the season or the weather.
A good sunshiny plate-full:
Stuffed grape leaves (homemade would undoubtedly be grand, but I’m not above choosing ready-made ones as I did here), marinated artichoke hearts, pimiento-stuffed green olives, sun-dried tomatoes rehydrated in red wine, and soft boiled egg, with a dip made of whole-milk yogurt seasoned with lemon pepper, dill and salt to taste.
Sparked-up Three Bean Salad:
Three bean salad is a longtime favorite of American picnickers and lunchers, and there is a fairly classic style of making it: green and wax beans and kidney beans combined in a lightly sweet vinaigrette, sometimes with minced onion and even, occasionally, with added chickpeas–and often, using all canned beans for convenience and the traditional texture. There’s no law, however, that this already delicious old recipe can’t have a few surprises added. My latest combination was the simple three-bean version with only two small additions, canned (not marinated) baby corn, and for a contrasting splash of sweetness, some more of that minced sun-dried and red wine rehydrated tomato. The sun is inherent in the salad, but if I’m going to tweak it anyway, I couldn’t resist garnishing it with the first tender dandelion sunbeams that came my way.
Even adding any of these individual items to a menu can heighten the flavors of the other foods in the meal and bring some of the same cheering pizzazz to the occasion. Think of serving the pickled-tasting salad alongside a deeply roasted leg of lamb, or trimming a magnificent platter of rosemary-scented pork roast with the plate-full at the top of the post, and adding a few fat-roasted potatoes; methinks there might be a whole number of diners that would feel sunlight pervading their innards and their spirits when presented with such taste treats. I know I wouldn’t mind even just repeating this part of the menu, and you never know when the rest might follow.
Tough Neighborhood
Silence may not be Golden, but Control of Noisemaking Keeps Everyone Safer
Practice as though Your Life Depended on It
Two singers strolled into a wood, and I
Followed the one less skillful; why?
Starved beasts will flock to an anguished cry,
As they did that day; in the wink of an eye,
I was on the road less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
[With sincerest apologies to Robert Frost]
The Wearin’ o’ the Green
There is, of course, one overriding, excellent reason that Ireland should celebrate the remembrance of her patron saint with a vivid display of everything-green. Ireland is the Emerald Isle. I’m not Irish, but I suppose I can pretend to a certain level of affinity on the strength of two excellent reasons of my own, the first being that my Viking ancestors (if any of my Norse forebears were actually so intrepid and aggressive) had a pretty good chance of crossing paths somewhere along the line with their counterparts in the British Isles, Norwegians having gone on various exploratory and marauding forays in that direction. My patronymic (Wold), after all, sounds suspiciously more Anglo than Nordic to me, no matter how many in Norway do share the name.
The second and far kindlier tie I feel to Ireland is because I was born in the Emerald City (Seattle’s nickname) in the Evergreen State (Washington’s), surrounded by every known flavor of green and a few yet undiscovered, and I think it was anything but coincidental that on my one visit to Ireland thus far I felt remarkably at home even in the middle of the winter, when the chill and snow still couldn’t entirely subdue the exquisite greenness of the land. It may not have hurt this sense of connection that some of the locals on that trip asked me what part of Ireland I came from, given that my accent apparently wasn’t heard by them as being wildly different from some in the UK. In any event, as green and growing things resonate so deeply in my heart and soul, I can’t help but celebrate the beauty of Green while millions are wearing, spending, planting and drinking it, and otherwise rejoicing in the character seen as protector of the great green land of Eire on this most Irish of days.
Here in this Emerald Land
Because there is no sapling in the earth
But that springs out when water wakes its seed
And sunlight calls it up in urgent need,
I think the rain and sun of equal worth–
Yet all the riches of a blooming world
No greater shine than that most humble weed
Whose leaf invites the passing deer to feed
Because its banners, sweetly green, unfurled–
No flower can surpass, exotic bloom
Outdo green’s living beauty or exceed
Its life-affirming sweetness when we heed
The subtler potency of its perfume–
And so I bow my head, ecstatic–sing
The joys of every green and living thing.
Much as I adore sunshine, I am willing, too, to be showered with the rain, for it slakes the thirsty earth and brings forth all of its green glories.
Good Conduct Medal
Every season of music has its marvels, masters and moments. In my life of following a conductor and his fellow artists around, I am privileged to be on hand for more such fine pleasures than most, and I never forget that this is a great bit of good fortune indeed.
Still, not every instant is guaranteed to be a glowing example of the highest and best of the musical arts. After all, there is all of the practice that must come first, and to be fair, no amount of practice can assure us of perfection. Mistakes happen; if we’re lucky, learning happens as a result. But the distance between first-try and performance may be a long one indeed, and sometimes the distance isn’t quite long enough.
So I am grateful all the more when I attend a performance and hear something magical and meaningful and magnificent. I know that it took the performers a lot of concerted effort to come from wherever they started the process to this peak, and I am all the happier and richer for it. I know and appreciate, too, that it takes massive amounts of effort and energy and other resources on the part of organizers, managers, fans, logistics handlers, boards, angels, financiers, educators, ushers, ticket dealers, audience members, and all of those other assorted friends of the arts needed to make this work pay off in any way beyond the artists’ own satisfaction in the process, and that’s yet another level, another realm of generosity entirely that makes my little spot in the aural universe fuller.
Most of all I give my fervent thanks to all of the singers, players and conductors who strive to make this miracle happen again and again. Without your dedicated pursuit of the musical muse, there would be no such happy task for all of the friends of music who are not musicians ourselves. And unquestionably, the world would be a far less beautiful place.
Dizzily Dark Imaginings
Cat, Mouse and Everyday Danger
That little old four-letter word Work has challenged the finest among us to test the limits of endurance, wisdom, hope and courage for as long as there’s been such a thing as a job on this planet. We agonize and weep over our work as though doing unspeakable heroics every single minute, even when we know perfectly well that every living thing has faced challenges of his, her or its own since the first moment there were, well, living things. It didn’t take employers and employees to bring this tension to full expression. If I think I’m sitting on a powder-keg just because I’ve tackled something that pushes me to my limits (or, to be more precise, because it has tackled me), it’s time to step back, take a deep breath, and remember my compatriots of every sort striving and struggling and facing greater odds than I have ever faced, accepting them as the inevitable price of existence.
Not that any of this contemplation has the remotest chance of making me stop thinking myself both the greatest martyr and the finest superhero at work on the planet. I only get the smallest momentary glimpses of sanity through the veneer of my regular distorted self-image as the silly person I am, after all. Even though I know that in my own version of ‘cat and mouse’ the tiniest mouse could best me in the flick of a whisker.
Getting Singed
Is it my imagination, or is it a little bit hot in here???
Femme Fatale
Barbara is standing by to cut my scruffy hair:
but, say–doesn’t that look a bit like an electric chair?
Look at that pair of scissors–oh, boy howdy, are they sharp!
Will my coiffure just leave me playing sad songs on the harp?
I’d say it’s mighty hot in here–a preview glimpse of Hell,
Or maybe just a purgatory-hint, that hairspray smell–
I’m not so absolutely sure that something here is wrong;
and yet, what’s so darned horrible in leaving hair this long?
Is it sheer paranoia and delusion of myself–
Hey! What’s that creepy science stuff in tubes up on the shelf?
I’m getting awfully shaggy, yes, it’s true–but not a Nut!
(I merely hope it’s nothing but my hair that will get cut!)
Oh, Barbara, I am nervous, so please, kindly, Dear, refrain
from trimming quite so near my throbbing jugular, poor vein.
And if you have to croak me (does this happen very often?),
at least make sure I’m wearing stylish hair there in my coffin.
One way or another, I’ll be a hot number when I come out of here.
Foodie Tuesday: Thai Me up in Noodles
Rice noodles + ginger = Asian-flavored happiness. Hard to go wrong with a fresh southeast-Asian tinge when starting with those two elements as inspiration, not least of all when there are a few other appropriate ingredients lounging around on all the pantry and refrigerator shelves just leering at me suggestively. So as soon as I start salivating over this stuff, I must head for the hob and get cooking up something semi-respectfully enthusiastic in its homage to the marvels of the Asian-inflected kitchen.
This expedition can lead down byways as remote and convoluted as any of my other forays into cookery, but on a recent occasion I hewed just a little closer to the genuine article, ending up with a peanut-sauced noodle dish that was definitely reminiscent of those subtly spectacular and deliciously heartwarming feasts my Thai college roommate (Hi, Beautiful!) and friends fed me years ago.
Thai-inspired Peanut Noodles
Starting with a combination of homemade broth (about 3 cups) and 1 8 oz. can of coconut milk, I added about 2 heaping tablespoons of diced ginger root (I keep a jar of it in vodka in the fridge), another tablespoon of preserved kaffir lime leaf shreds (bought jarred), yet another spoonful of minced preserved cilantro, a scant half teaspoon of ground black pepper plus about 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and a tablespoon of fish sauce (I use Squid brand because it’s the one I ‘learned’ from my roommate), and lastly, I added about 8 dried Shiitake mushrooms. All of this simmered over low heat until it reduced by about 50%, and then I strained it. The strained broth went into a broad saucier, where I cooked the handful of Pad Thai-style (though in this instance Vietnamese) rice noodles until done. I tossed a heaping two tablespoons of creamy natural (only salt added) peanut butter into the pan and let it soften while I was raiding the freezer, and by the time I got back with a 1-cup packet of frozen peas, the peanut butter was soft enough to stir in along with them.
My spousal-person was happy to keep the dish as served, not adulterating it with the garnishes a strange creature like his wife would add, but I was happy, on the other hand, to reintroduce the kaffir shreds and the ginger–this time in the form of my old favorite, sushi gari, also shredded thinly–and to top it all off, a nice sprinkling of sesame seeds. But however it gets to the table, this little concoction is a pleasant quick trip to southeast Asia that even those who can’t tolerate air travel can afford.
Art-Colored Glasses 