Fashion police brutality

Have you ever watched those makeover TV shows? I try to avoid them, but sometimes when I'm flipping through the channels when nothing else is on, I'm somehow captivated by it. It's like watching a car wreck - sort of morbid fascination.

What usually happens, if you've not seen one of these shows, is that several obnoxious, loud, fast-speaking "stylists" and "fashion consultants" swoop in on some unsuspecting, innocent person on the streets of some big city. They tell her, "Hey, you look like absolute crap! What's going on with your wardrobe? What were you thinking?" and other completely insulting and presumptious remarks.

Somehow, in the course of this attack, the woman agrees to place her makeup, entire wardrobe (eek!), and hair (triple eek!) in the hands of these idiots. They infiltrate her apartment like militia and ridicule everything in her closet and throw it into a big pile while telling her (as if they hadn't driven home the point on the street) that she is completely incapable of making her own fashion, hair, and makeup decisions. What's more, they assure her that they, these people with a camera crew, fast vocabularies and loud voices, know exactly what she does need in order to "step into the fashion world".

I have to say, I can't watch these things for very long. These predators rip things out of closets that I think are fabulous, like high quality flannel shirts, dark cardigan sweaters, and very high end Dansko clogs (which I adore). They classify them as "boring". (Apparently, anything that is both comfortable and comes in a color actually found in nature qualifies.)

Usually the woman has a very classic, natural look about her. What they do to her makes me crazy, especially what they do to her hair. She'll have a lovely dark brunette mane of hair, and they'll paint all these nasty bronze stripes into it and butcher it with these flipped-up layers that look ridiculous. And her comfy Danskos have now been replaced by PTD's - Podiatric Torture Devices - otherwise known as high heels that are not designed to be walked in for more than 30 feet. I won't even mention the clothing they have forced this poor soul into. Sometimes it's not so bad, like a little black dress or classy suit outfit, but most of the time it's something really unfortunate, like a poncho or wrap in - well, some fluorescent or otherwise obnoxious color not found in nature.

I suppose I'm trendier than some people who are still wearing 80's style hairdos with the oversized color-coordinated bows to match their parachute pants.

But anyone who tries to paint stripes in my hair is asking for it.
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Cute pictures of the kids!

Good afternoon! It's Monday, a day off, and I'm enjoying leisurely spans of unstructured time. I got back on the yoga mat today after several days off from it, and it felt luscious. Sometimes just lying on the floor on your back can feel soo good and be amazingly restorative, just by itself.

Today I did a lot of standing poses, including tree pose, Warrior 1 and 2, Mountain Pose and Triangle Pose. In a bit I'm going to get off this thing and then get on the Gazelle for some gliding - sort of the same movement of cross-country skiing. It's a great, gentle workout that lubricates the knees and hip joints fabulously. When I was researching exercise equipment, this one received the highest ratings, especially from those recovering from knee and hip surgeries.

Ours is in our rec room, conveniently positioned in front of the telly:

I also took some adorable pictures of the kitties lately. Here's Gabby, enjoying some sprawling time cleaning her face on our new hardwood laminate flooring in our living room. For those of you who haven't met Gabs, she is a very talkative 5 year old Maine Coon mix (hence the huge plumy tail and the big tufts of gold/black hair):

Strangely, one of Emma's favorite places in the world lately has been on the edge of the tub between the shower curtain and the liner. She loves to hide out there while I'm taking a shower and bats at the droplets on the liner from her little dry hideout!

For those of you who haven't met Emma yet, she's part Persian, which is why she has that bug-eyed "I just did the 100 yard dash in a 90 yard gym" squashed face look. :) I love how her little pink lip juts out from her underbite when she looks up at me like this.

That's all for now - have to go get stuff done! More later, of course...

XO Darcy

Recipes: Soup, Pico, and Pizza Dough

I have received multiple emailed requests for the recipes of the dishes I mentioned in my last post, so here goes!! Enjoy!! :)

Potato Leek Soup

This soup is hearty and has a lovely creamy texture. It is delicious served either hot (in the winter) or chilled (in the summer). Leeks are sort of a giant green onion and can be found in any produce aisle. They have a mild onion flavor with a hint of mellow garlic overtones, which makes for a scrumptious flavor in this soup. An excellent main dish, especially when served with muffins or garlic bread.

• 2 large leeks, cleaned (cut off the ends, slice each leek down the middle lengthwise, and then wash out dirt under faucet) and diced
• 4 large potatos (4"-5"), peeled and diced
• 2 cans vegetable broth
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 bunch scallions
• 1 c. sour cream*

(* vegan option: use extra soft silken tofu instead)

1. In large saucepan, combine leeks, potatoes, and broth. Simmer until potatos are soft.
2. Pour heated mixture into a blender and puree. Add sour cream.
3. Add salt & pepper to taste.
4. Add chopped scallions as garnish before serving. Yum!

Pico de Gallo

I took this picture of yesterday's batch. I expanded on a recipe I had gotten from my Aunt Bev, who lived in El Paso for many years and picked up a lot of the local cuisine by osmosis. She is a genius in the kitchen and is known for inventing recipes for dishes that are both delicious and good for you.

This pico is very mild, despite the jalapenos. I learned that jalapenos are only hot if you include their seeds; the rest of the pepper is really quite mild and only for flavor. In fact, just in case you're worrying, this pico came out a little too mild for me (even though it is certainly delicious)! Next time I'm planning to leave some of the seeds in for some zip! Yeehaw!

• 15 roma tomatoes, diced into small cubes (less than 1 cm. ea.)
• 2 medium (2"-3") onions, chopped
• 3 jalapeno peppers (found in the produce aisle), seeded and chopped (as long as you don't touch the seeds, you don't have to worry about your skin or wear gloves or anything - a grapefruit spoon or small knife is good for seeding)
• 1 small can of tomato sauce
• olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
• about 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
• 2/3 of a bunch of cilantro, chopped
• 5-6 cloves of garlic (more, if you're a garlic lover like me!), finely chopped
• Option: If you like you can also add 1 diced avocado, but David hates it so I left it out for him.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well; add more vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Chill. (It only improves as it sits in your fridge, and trust me, it's so good that it'll be long gone before it goes bad!) Serve with the chips of your choice.

Pizza Crust

I just could not believe how easy this was. Until recently, anything involving yeast sort of freaked me out and I shied away from it. Now I feel like a doofus and have vowed to never buy a pre-packaged pizza crust again! Next time, I'm going to add spices to it, and maybe even a little parmesan cheese...mmmm....

This recipe is straight out of the Betty Crocker New Edition Cookbook.

• 2.5-3 c. all purpose (not self-rising!) flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 package regular or quick active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
• 3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 1 cup very warm water (120-130 degrees F - heated in a small saucepan, feels hot but not boiling to your finger)

1. In a large bowl, mix 1 cup of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast. Add oil and warm water.
2. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 3 min., scraping bowl frequently with rubber spatula.
3. Stir in enough remaining flour until dough is soft. Place dough on lightly floured surface (like a cutting board). Knead 5-8 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy.
4. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes.

Here are Betty's suggestions for making pizzas with this crust. I think you could probably be okay even if you didn't have time to pre-bake the crusts before adding the toppings, but who knows. As you will read, although following her directions for making your own pizza are not labor intensive, they do require a good chunk of time for rising and pre-baking, so just keep that in mind. Calzones were actually much easier and required much less time, and frankly, they're even a little bit more special than pizza because they're less common. But here's the pizza stuff anyway:

For thin crusts: Heat oven to 425. Grease two cookie sheets or 12" pizza pans with oil or cooking spray. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into 12" circle on cookie sheets. Partially bake 7-8 minutes or until crust just begins to brown. Add toppings and then bake for 8-10 minutes longer, or until cheese is melted.

For thick crusts: Heat oven to 375. Grease two 8" square pans or 9" round pans with oil or cooking spray. Sprinkle with cornmeal. Divide dough in half. Pat each half in bottom of pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 30-45 minutes or until almost doubled in size. Move oven rack to lowest position. Partially bake 20-22" or until crust just begins to brown. Add toppings and then bake for about 20 minutes longer, or until cheese is melted.

As I said, I decided to make calzones, instead. There was no pre-baking and man did they look gorgeous! David said it looked like something you'd order from some fancy Italian restaurant. (Wish I had taken a picture! I will next time!)

Calzones:

1. Heat oven to 375. Grease two cookie sheets with cooking spray.
2. Divide dough into 4 equal parts. On lightly floured surface, press each part into a 8" (or so - it doesn't matter really) circle with fingertips.
3. Top half of each dough circle with any ingredients you want to within 1" of the edge of the crust. You can put anything in there! Mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, ricotta cheese, cream cheese, spinach, basil, tomatoes (either canned diced or fresh), veggies, pizza sauce, sausage, ham, etc. I would recommend some combination of cheese and pizza sauce (see below) as a base, but from there you can do whatever you want!
4. Carefully fold dough over filling. Pinch edges with fingertips or press with a fork to seal securely.
5. Place calzones on cookie sheets. Betty says to brush them with egg, but I didn't; I just used olive oil and oregano and they turned out gorgeously.

Pizza Sauce: To make a great pizza sauce for my calzones, I just combined 1 small can ea. of tomato sauce and tomato paste, and blended them well with a small whisk (you could just use a fork, too). I liberally added Italian spices (rosemary, oregano, thyme, and basil), garlic salt, and chopped garlic, and mixed them well.

Bonus Tip!! Ooh, and another great trick that I learned while watching the Food Network: sprinkle some oregano over your pizza or calzones before you bake them, then spray some olive oil (you can buy olive oil spray in the grocery store where you find cooking spray, or you can buy a pressurized spray can for cooking oils that you fill and then pump yourself) over the top. Your whole kitchen will smell like the most authentic pizzeria, and it browns crusts and cheese with extra flavor.

Bon Appetit!! :) (Now I'm hungry after typing all of this!! I suppose it is time for lunch, after all...)

Cooking and reading

So tonight's concert went well, and more importantly, Bolero is over and we don't have to play it anymore! It always takes a while before you're really rid of the earworms of any given concert if it's played more than once, and we had three concerts of it this week.

So I'm reading Memoirs of a Geisha and it is absolutely stunning. I had meant to read it a long time ago but kept forgetting to get the book, but because of all the press it's gotten since the movie came out recently, Borders had a glossy covered copy on one of its display tables, so I bought it.

It is a very heartbreaking novel, based on a true story told by a woman who was a Geisha around the time of WWII. The main character of the book and her sister are bought from their father when their mother was on her deathbed and are sold to different locations in Kyoto; the protagonist to an okira, or Geisha house, as a maid with the possibility of becoming a Geisha some day if she behaves. She is treated as a slave, but hers was a better fate that that of her less attractive sister, who because of her looks was sold to a whorehouse.

When I started reading the book, I didn't really know what Geisha were. From what I've learned from reading the book, they're sort of like upper class entertainers of men. Sex is only a factor when there are obscene amounts of money involved, such as having a danna (someone who pays to support the Geisha in exchange for her being his mistress) or men bidding on a Geisha's mizuage, which is the ceremonial taking of their virginity. The woman about whom the Memoirs are written had a record sum paid for hers as a result of a bidding war. Geishas have a tough life, even under the best of circumstances; their costumes are labor-intensive and heavy, to say nothing of the waxed ornate hairdos and elaborate make-up; they are never allowed to marry or have their own boyfriends because it will upset their dannas and thus their main sources of income.

This book is a fantastic escape, both fascinating and heartbreaking. I highly recommend it.

So when I haven't been engrossed in my reading, I've been doing a lot of cooking. I had gotten tremendously bored with our usual routine of rice/beans/soup/pasta/chicken, so I flagged a bunch of new recipes out of my favorite cookbooks. I made a great (and easy) potato leek soup, and served it with garlic bread. I also made Pico de Gallo, based on my Aunt Bev's recipe, and it turned out really well.

What else did I make? Oh, yeah! I made my first pizza dough from scratch out of my new Betty Crocker cookbook (my mother in law gave it to me for Christmas - I had asked for it!) and it was so easy and turned out so well I feel like a goober for having bought pre-made pizza crusts up until now. With the pizza dough, I made calzones, which are nothing more than pizza pods, or pizza with the toppings on the inside like a dumpling. I'm definitely making those again.

Well, it's late and my amazing book is calling. Good night!

Multiple tonguing and Bolero (music geek post)

I hope you're all enjoying a nice weekend. I'm certainly enjoying an afternoon to myself.

In case you all were wondering about the title of my blog, it's from a Far Side Cartoon. I just love it. There's no hidden meaning in the fact that my blog name comes from this cartoon. I simply find it hilarious. Here it is:

So much to tell and I haven't written in so long, I feel blocked, and for me, who always has a lot to say, that's something. Thank god I type with 100% accuracy at 95 wpm or I'd never leave the computer (some of you probably already think that, I'm sure). I'm sure once I get writing here today, I won't be able to stop and you poor blog donkeys will have to wade through paragraph after paragraph of my endless drivel. Oh well. I shall take this opportunity to remind you that you visited this link on your own volition!

This week has been a moderately fun one at work. We did a sort of hodgepodge concert of a bunch of Spanish-influenced tunes: Bolero, Alborado del Graziozo, and a concerto for guitar and violin by Assad that I did not play on.

The Alborado was fun. We had some challenging bits that gave us something to do, namely in the realm of triple tonguing. For those of you incredibly fortunate souls who don't know what triple tonguing is, it's a technique by which wind players create multiple syllables with the tongue to achieve rapid repetitive tonguing.

Single tonguing, which is just using the front (or tip) of one's tongue uses the syllable "Tuh" or "Duh". When you multiple tongue (as in double or triple tonguing), you also employ the syllable "Kuh" or "Guh" with the back of your tongue. Double tonguing is used when you have rapid groups of two: Tuh-Kuh, Tuh-Kuh, Tuh-Kuh;and triple tonguing when you have rapid groups of three notes: Tuh-Tuh-Kuh, Tuh-Tuh-Kuh, Tuh-Tuh-Kuh.

Okay, I'm sure that's much more information than you ever wanted or certainly needed to know. Anyway, so the Alborado had lots of triple tonguing and so that was exciting.

Bolero, on the other hand, was both exciting and torturously boring. The exciting part is that the piece is one huge crescendo from the beginning to end, repeating the same tune over and and over over again until the loud climax at the end. The torturously boring part is that the piece is one huge crescendo from the beginning to end, repeating the same tune over and and over over again until the loud climax at the end. Everyone in the orchestra at some point plays the ostinato (or underlying rhythm that's repeated over and over again) that goes a little something like this:

DIT, dididiDIT, dididiDIT, DIT.
DIT, dididiDIT, dididi dididi dididi.

Multiply that several hundred times, and you've got the rhythmic structure of Bolero - or as we brass players have not-so-affectionately termed it, "BLARE-O".

If you're dying to know what it sounds like, you can hear it by clicking here (make sure you turn up your speakers because the clip is of the beginning, which is really soft).

Anyway, it's no wonder that the word "ostinato" means "stubborn" in Italian (note the resemblance to the word "obstinate"). It is indeed a very stubborn rhythm and it's really very obnoxious after a while. Some audience member told me after the concert last night that he really appreciated the horns keeping up the repeated notes so well, which of course made my day. I told him so and thanked him for his keen observation and for noticing.

One thing they are doing that I hate is adding special lighting effects. Just in case you're a complete idiot who can't tell that the piece is climaxing at the end, they flash these big red bright lights on the back of the shell in time with the music. If I was in the audience, I would find that very distracting from appreciating what the orchestra was trying to do musically.

As far as the sexual implications of Bolero, I'm sorry, but I just don't see it. If sex was that boring and repetitive, no one with half a brain cell would do it and the population would die out altogether. Certainly if it was as sloppy, messy and gross as the end of Bolero sounds with its smeary trombone glisses and discordant gong crashes, I'm quite sure I would wear a raincoat and rubber boots to bed every night just as a precaution.

Having said that, I do for some reason enjoy the end of Bolero. There is something neat about the slow, repetitive build-up that really sets up the excitement for the almost grotesque ending. If you just fast forwarded to the end of it without having to sit patiently through the soft solo versions of the theme at the beginning, you wouldn't get the same thrill. Although the thought has crossed my mind that the reason I like the ending so much is really just relief that the piece is over and I don't have to play any more dididi-dididi-dididi's. {sigh} That may very well be the real reason.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is the guest violinist this weekend. She plays with more subtlety, nuance, and deep inflection than I've ever heard any violinist use, ever. Listening to her is really a treat. She can play just one note, and in that note, make you feel at least 3 different things and can transport you to another place. Her subtleties were absolutely exquisite. As I said, I didn't play on the Assad concerto she did, but I did play a whopping two notes on the top-40 classical hit Meditation from Thais by Massenet (listen here, you'll totally recognize it). This is a piece that can easily sound cloying and sappy (you'd really have to work to have it not sound that way, actually), but the way she played it added such depth and intimacy that the piece probably doesn't even deserve. I would have loved to have heard her do a solo piece as an encore. Who knows - tonight is Saturday, after all!

We also did Debussy's Claire de Lune, arranged for orchestra. This is another top-4o classical hit and I'm not quite sure what it has to do with "Latin Passion", which is what this weekend's concerts have been dubbed. I much prefer the original piano version, which my best friend Karinia played so beautifully at our wedding.