Daifuku

I have been craving sweetened red bean paste for months.

Last night, I finally got my fix. J and K and I made mochi (the cheating way in the microwave) and filled it with deliciousness from a can of bean paste that has been sitting in our pantry just waiting for the right ceremonial moment to be opened.

So delicious and not particularly hard to make either!

And now to gobble up the leftovers . . . .

Decisions

Decisions, those pesky mental tasks we put off as long as possible, letting them accumulate dust and cat hair like the piles of unread books sitting around my room. But lo, I have made some. I am going to stay in Boston a third year. I am going to apply to the musicology program at BU so I can do the combined major that J has been doing. I'm going to spread the extra courses out over two semesters so that I can also take German. I will come up with a brilliant and interesting thesis/lecture-recital topic, write the best Fulbright application ever, and continue playing with my wonderful musical colleagues. I am relieved to be done with the pondering over this. Whether or not it turns out to have been the right decision (although I think it will), now that I've made it, I can get to work on its implementation, a concrete thing that I find much easier than the endless contemplating.

There is something so invigorating about fall weather, the crispness of the mornings, the lazy warmth of the afternoons. I've been sleeping with the windows open and a big comforter wrapped all around me. I love the juxtaposition of the warmth and the cold air on my face.

My recital is four weeks from tomorrow. I'm not ready, but hopefully I will be when the time comes. There are a lot of notes in my program and a lot of expressive things I need to figure out, get control of, learn to execute well. It's funny feeling like a cellist again after years of identifying more as a gamba player who also plays Baroque cello. I do love the cello, in a different and perhaps not equal way to the way I love the viol but still, there's a deep affection for it. Cello has all the memories of my past from before I began gamba.

There is leftover sweet potato bread and rice and curry from my cooking efforts last night, I think they will make a lovely lunch after I finish my tea.

Off to NH!

Bright and early on the morrow I depart for scenic Ringe, New Hampshire. Why, you ask? For the Viola da Gamba Society of America Summer 2008 Conclave, obviously! Seriously though, it's my first time going to this annual event where the whole American gamba world congregates to play consorts and drink booze for a week. I'm pretty excited. Not only will I get to hobnob and drink with awesome dorky people much like myself, I will also get to coach and be coached by lots of different and talented people. I haven't really heard that many different gamba players and I'm interested in seeing their approaches to technique and music. A full report will be made upon my return. In anticipation of bad cafeteria food, I have packed a half-loaf of bread I made yesterday, juice boxes of soy-milk, luna bars, apples and peaches to supplement my diet with. Gotta change a broken string on the gamba tonight and then get some sleep because I'm getting up early!

Beach Story

As promised, a story of many adventures:

K and Xt and I went to the beach yesterday. It was a beautiful morning, there were sand sculptures to behold. As we left K's apartment, we wondered if maybe it would rain later but left anyway. It turned out "later" was "while we were still on the way to the T-station." I had brought an umbrella and Xt had a raincoat and K was prancing along with his shirt rolled up in his pocket (it was exceedingly hot out and humid) and we made it to the train damp but intact. Being the hardy and obstinate people we are, we never considered not going to the beach. As we got off the train we were overwhelmed by crowds of beach-goers returning home. Our arrival was also heralded by some claps of thunder and ominous flashes of lightning. Determined not to have traveled so far in vain, we made our way to the beach, jumping through puddles and failing to stay dry (note to self: sharing umbrella with a tall person makes for a lot of rain on the short person). Everyone was huddled under the pavilions and the beach area was deserted except for the sculptures (which were only just starting to melt a little in the persistent rain). So we stashed our stuff that needed to stay dry (mostly, my extra set of clothes and phones) and set off. It was great fun. The sculptures were fabulous, there was the added pride of being "those people" that everyone was watching from their dry shelters and thinking we were crazy. We were totally soaked when we walked back to the train, forded the river that was where the street had once been (fortunately, no oxen died and no axles broke) and ate peaches and sandwiches while trying to wring out our clothes while we were wearing them. The trip home was pretty miserable, but the hot shower upon arrival made it all worth it. We watched some BBC ocean nature shows and later made summer rolls for dinner. A lovely evening. Thus went yesterday.

Unrelated but Important Note: "The Secret Life of Words" may well be the best film I have ever seen. It will not be enjoyed by those who like to have a concrete story line and dislike overly depressing things, but I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys interesting characters and human relationships. I watched it Saturday night and I plan to watch it again on Wednesday with K. It is that good.

A Good Weekend

It started off with a quiet Friday evening and me watching a good movie. "Protagonist" is a documentary of four disparate but parallel life stories told through the structured framework of formal Greek tragedy. Great stories, great puppets, I recommend it. Saturday, I cleaned the house. Not quite like a fiend, but there are no longer grapefruit-sized balls of cat fur hiding in every corner. Also, the kitchen has returned to its comfortable and user-friendly status. Went to a Baroque oboe recital that was unbelievable. My friend G is finishing up his DMA requirements and this was his last recital before he moves to Indiana. He is a real character and plays with so much elegance and elàn (out comes the crossword puzzle vocabulary!). A bunch of us went out to a bar afterwards and K came and met me there after he was done bowling in pajamas with a bunch of the Kwifflebee/Oberlin people. This morning, I fooled around on K's guitar (totally cheated by tuning the g to an f# to mimic gamba tuning), managed to sing and play La Folia, figured out some Marais and then wrote a fun progression which I scribbled down in tab for future use. Meanwhile, K had cooked us delicious scrambled eggs with vegetables and cheese, it was sooooo yummy. Then I tagged along to the foursquare game in which I eventually participated and really enjoyed. Playing with people who are fun and not very competitive is great. This was followed by lunch and much browsing in an amazing loose tea store. On my way home, it started raining and I actually had an umbrella with me, so I ambled along listening to the downpour and staying dry from the knees up. I arrived home to the bread I had made yesterday and subsequently forgotten about and even played some gamba!

MmmHmm

Two nights ago, I made a lemon cake for T's 25th birthday party (see facebook for amazing pictures of said party). Last night, I made a feast. What can I say, I was feeling inspired! T and his roommate and Stiney came over as well as K (to whom I will introduce you in a later paragraph). Here is what I made:

-Apple-carrot confetti salad with lemon juice and dried cranberries (check-plus and easy to make!)
-Spicy lentil-filled deep-friend pastries (check-plus on the filling, check-minus for all the hassle of rolling them up and frying them)
-Sweet potato bread (check-plus as always!)
-Bell peppers stuffed with rice, tomatoes, mint, dill and parsley with a creamy feta sauce over them (check-plus!)

Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves, and then ate more, and then ate cake! Then we cleaned up the kitchen and sipped tea and played Anagrabble (a game with the Scrabble tiles). It was fabulously fun and I'm still smiling to remember all the different spices and flavors and all the wonderful laughter with friends.

Okay, who is K, you ask? K is a new friend and a wonderful person who also happens to be an extremely attractive man who by some grace of god likes me too. He's not a musician (I never expected to date anyone other than musicians!) but listens with more emotional intelligence and passion than many musicians I know. He may not know the words I've learned to use to describe music, but he knows the feelings that are behind them. I'll tell you more about him in the future if I don't manage to scare him off! But for now, I'm happy.

Now it's time to get back to eating left-overs and writing blue-grass tunes!

Lazy Summer Days

So, let's recap the last week or so. Went to Florida to ostensibly visit my grandfather and his wife but really to see my dad and sister who visited at the same time. We luxuriated on the beach, got sunburned, laughed. We fought too, but not much and it was good to see them both.

I also just found out that the trip to Taiwan is canceled. Apparently, the economy there is very bad and the company that was organizing the tour went bankrupt. I'm disappointed but also a little relieved. People my age are supposed to love to travel, and I do love seeing new places but the traveling itself wears me out. I need time to recover from the trip before I can really enjoy a place and usually there isn't enough time for that. So I was nervous about being on the other side of the world, jet-lagged, with three days to fix a harpsichord and prepare for a professional concert series. I would have loved to see Taiwan, to walk through the natural gorge carved out of marble, to eat exciting food, to teach Baroque cello. But there is a lot more of my life coming up in which I will do those things. For now, I'm happy to enjoy what I have in Boston: great friends, decent weather, my lovely house, free time.

I cooked for the first time in a long time last night and it made me feel like me again. I can still bake bread without a recipe. I can still create something delicious out a pile of beautiful vegetables.

So here I am, sitting around the house, not really doing anything but enjoying the mundanity of it all and scheming up adventures and dinners.

Reflections on a year in Boston

My roommate requests that I update this now that the recital is over and so I will do it just for her!

The only news of interest is the recital so I'll start there. It went well. Actually, that's an understatement, it went really well. Better than I had hoped. Sure there were mistakes (lots of them, some more serious than others) but they didn't ruin anything and the parts I didn't mess up are really spectacular. Val told me (with tears in her eyes because she had a bad cough!) that I was in a completely different place than I had been a year ago when last she heard me play. Listening to the recording, I hear she's right. I don't know what it is but I sound like a professional who makes a bunch of mistakes instead of a student who plays very well. A strange distinction but accurate. I seem to have developed a poise and confidence in my playing that I've never had before. I don't know how, maybe it was meeting all these people who think I'm a great musician. I think I'm starting to believe them! I know I didn't work as hard as I could have this year. I didn't practice as much as I wanted to. But I played a lot. And I performed a lot. I think I finally got some of the "experience" I was so sorely lacking in Oberlin. I may not like living outside of the Oberlin bubble but it's been good for me musically.

So now the summer officially begins for me. As usual I have lots of ambitious plans I will not get around to or end up finishing but I like having them nonetheless. Proof of my greed for life, a testament to a vision of who I try to be. I have accepted that I want too much, I cannot live all the lives I desire, accomplish all the things I wish I could. So wanting them all will have to be enough and I'll do what I can.

What are your goals/hopes for the summer?

I want to learn a lot of new music. I want to cook new and interesting recipes. I want to play lots of frisbee. I want to read a lot of books. I want to figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate from BU (hopefully get a Fulbright to Europe to study with someone amazing). I want to plan interesting concert programs for next year and get some workshop/teaching gigs. And most importantly, I want to have fun with people I love!

Marais

I've been unproductive recently. This happens to me with alarming regularity, for a few days I just won't be able to do anything useful that's not scheduled. This used to be less of a problem back when everything in my life was scheduled and had due dates. Now that I'm supposed to be self-motivated and ambitious, losing days to my meandering motivation is keeping me from doing everything I want to.

So instead of letting today slip away, I went out into the world and got something done. Perhaps not the most pressing or important of things, but it was something. I sat in Espresso Royale for two hours nursing a cup of coffee (that doubled as lunch) and finishing cutting and pasting and writing out the parts for my Marais suite. Then ran back to CFA to scan my fragile constructions and then to the library to wait in line forever so that I could print them out for free. Tomorrow I will put them in envelopes and leave them for my collaborators and that task will be finished. Of course, being able to play said pieces would also be useful, but I have a couple weeks left for that!

I love this weather, if only it would stay like this and never get too hot! The smells of all the flowers opening and the variety of birdsong makes me yearn for picnics and jumping in lakes and bike rides and farmer's markets and rhubarb pies! It also makes me lonely. When did we grow up and get too busy for these things? How did we get tied down, stuck in our ways, confined to our own stereotypes of ourselves?

Best Day Ever!

Good food, good friends, good weather.

Except for getting up early for a 9:30am jury, today was perfect. Boston was warm and sunny today and I wore a dress and sandals to celebrate! Got my plane ticket for Taiwan and had lunch in Chinatown with friends. Spent the afternoon in the sun on the porch cutting and pasting and writing out music for my recital. Practiced (!!!). Cooked delicious coconut rice and Thai curry and even made Thai tea. L came over and we ate and talked about all sorts of things, it was great. Then T (Baroque violinist) came over and I got to feed her too! We all listened to the recording of us from Sunday while sipping scotch and then devoured a mango while listening to all the pieces we want to learn together. It was everything I could ever ask for. And now I get to curl up in my warm comfy bed with a cat or three and tomorrow I get to eat leftovers!

I am a very happy and content Zoe.

Another Monday

Well, here we are again, back at the beginning of another busy week. I'm playing in an opera (concert version), a recorder recital and L's harpsichord recital (don't be deceived, I'm playing some really hard solo rep on it!). I've also decided to take an audition for Boston Baroque. I have very little time to prepare and I don't really expect to make their sub-list but I haven't played many auditions in my life (I hate them!) and it will be good practice for me. To pre-reward myself for all this, I've decided to take the afternoon off and go shopping. Silly as it is, having something new to wear to one of these events will motivate me to practice more.

I made rosemary focaccia and lasagne last night for a bunch of friends and L came over too. It was fun to watch people I love who don't know each other enjoy themselves together. I also got to play with construction paper and make posters for L's upcoming recital (for which T miraculously created an origami harpsichord!).

See you at the end of the madness!

Ourselves in Parallel Universes

Yesterday, while venturing out into the world to grab food between rehearsals, my roommate J, L (a harpsichordist), T (a Baroque violinist), and I got to talking about other professions we'd like to dabble in (gardening, massage therapy) and eventually posed ourselves the question: if you had to choose a career unrelated to music, what would it be?

L admitted to a deep passion for horticulture and a dream of being a landscape architect. T considered a life as a photographer. J surprised me saying that she'd enjoy a career in advertising and marketing. At the time, I claimed I'd probably go into something science-related. But thinking harder about it, that really isn't the right answer. Science was my back-up plan in case music didn't work out, another discipline I enjoy and am good at. But this is the hypothetical world we're talking about, a place where I can choose a career based on what I like unbound by such silly things as talent or practicality.

I think I would enjoy being involved in theater or film. No, I don't dream of being a movie star (although, who doesn't occasionally?). I might direct, or make costumes or sets, reinterpret great works, write new ones. Perhaps this latent desire to write is a forgotten gift from my parents. Because one cannot want to do what one's parents do, I never considered writing a possibility, never thought my love of words and books ran deeper than a childhood immersed in them. Maybe I could be a restorer of old books, a reader of dead languages. In the hypothetical it's never too late.

Alternatively, I think I'd run a diner or a B&B, or maybe a bakery. I often joke about this, but I really love the slow pace of small town life, the people stopping in to chat and have coffee and a muffin, the familiarity of everyone in the community, the small scale, the allowance for whimsy. Maybe I'd have a vegetable garden out back I'd use as ingredients, maybe I'd use my space to host concerts and poetry readings, square dances and weddings. Or just invent new recipes that people would enjoy.

In the end, I am a people-person. I like to work with them, provide for them, teach them, learn from them. If I have people with whom to ponder silly things, debate serious things, create things both great and small, I will be happy.

If you had to pick a career unrelated to the one you're currently in or aiming for, what would you do?

Sunday Brunch

Maybe it's related to the satisfaction of being needed but there are few things I enjoy more than cooking for other people. Case in point, brunch this morning. Dancing around the kitchen to Irish music I stole from my mom (who would have been 57 today, happy birthday mom!) while alternately flipping pancakes and sipping coffee and knowing that people were going to come over and enjoy all the food I was making made me about as happy as I get. There's also something viscerally satisfying about pancakes. They sizzle when you ladle out the batter, bubble as they cook, and then you get to flip them. I have wonderful memories of cooking pancakes with my dad as a child and being allowed to flip them (I wasn't very good at it at first and often mangled them). Sometimes, we'd make pancakes in the shapes of letters so that I could arrange my pancakes on my plate to spell my name. Of course, it was difficult to decide what order to eat them in. One is tempted to go left to right across the plate as one would read and yet the first letter of your name is more meaningful than the others so one wants to leave it for the end. Today, I avoided such dilemmas by making your standard round pancakes. They were delicious, especially with the bananas sauteed in butter and rum. The silence of happy people eating food I made has filled me with joy. So if you ever want to cheer me up, bring me a vegetable and ask me to cook for you.

On Beets and Crocuses

Having returned from visiting Val who is managing to eat almost entirely organic food she cooks from scratch herself, I have vowed to put more effort and thought into what I eat. So on my way home from my lesson yesterday, I stopped at the little produce store and bought two beautiful bunches of beets. J had requested I make borscht for us a while back so I figured now was the time. Making it all the better, the beet greens (which fall on the crinkle-index somewhere between Chard and Collards) were still attached by their spindly red stalks. Walking home with them peeking out the top of the plastic bag, I felt strong, like Gary Larson's triumphant vegetarians returning from the hunt with their giant carrot. And while proudly carrying my beets I saw the first crocuses of the year (likewise triumphant in their gaudy yellows) it occurs to me that Spring is a good time for resolutions. No one can keep them in the doldrums of winter and so we conclude that we are not resolute enough and give up. So in the spirit of flowers and vegetables, I hereby muster my resolve to cook more food, to practice more music, to read more books, to take more risks, to write more letters, to be a better friend.