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November 16th, 2009

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02:51 pm - Recording Angklung Tonight the gamelan angklung will be recording some pieces, especially the new piece, Banjar Baru, Pak Arnawa composed for us. It's in the newest Balinese style, with some tricky bits. Current Mood: excited Tags: bali, gamelan

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02:48 pm - Last night's performance and upcoming FREE performance Last night's performance at ODC in SF went well. There were imperfections, but the audience wouldn't know. It was my first time hearing the massive bamboo Joged instruments in person. The sound is SOOOO much more amazing in person. While they can be described to the unfamiliar as "bamboo marimbas" the sound is unique. The instruments are in a style no longer used in Bali. The huge bamboo tubes are more or less horizontal on a framework (actually at a slight angle - lower toward the musician) Each frame was painted white, and the legs were slightly carved to look like animal legs with black hooves. I asked Pak Madé what animal it was and he said Balinese cattle - these are not ordinary cows, but are actually distantly related to deer. ( More details about Joged instrument and Balinese cattle, including cattle races - with a driver on a stick... ) The musicians of the bigger instruments actually have to sit on them to play them, they're so big and so far off the ground. We, that is, the gamelan angklung, started the show - first Niti Sari, the women's temple offering dance, then Kempur Dang an instrumental piece played during temple rituals, and finally Topeng Keras, a man's masked dance with improv between the dancer and the drummer who the rest of us must follow. Then the Joged played a couple long instrumentals, and finally a newly choreographed piece - i didn't read the blurb, but i could tell it involved mythic beings and beautiful bird women calling upon the goddess Dewi Sri. Current Mood: bouncy Tags: bali, dance, gamelan

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November 11th, 2009

10:55 pm - Balinese Bronze and Bamboo - music and dance in SF . Gamelan Sekar Jaya's angklung ensemble (which i'm in) and the giant bamboo Joged ("marimba") ensemble - one of the very few outside Bali - have a show including three dances - a temple dance, a masked dance, and a new choreography. THIS SUNDAY, Nov 15 @ 7 PM ODC Dance Commons 351 Shotwell Street San Francisco Here's a code so friends can get a discount ($15): "friendsofsekarjaya" Admission: $18 General/ $15 Students & seniors / $12 kids 12 and under Buy Tickets -- Online http://www.odcdance.org/event_view.php?param=75 -- By phone: (415) 863-9834 -- At the Box Office: Wed-Fri: 5-9pm / Sat: 9:30am-1:30pm / Sun: 5-8pm For more info, on the Gamelan Sekar Jaya site: http://www.gsj.org/node/58 Be there or be rectangular! Current Mood: artistic

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October 23rd, 2009

11:12 am - Gamelan So, now that i'm playing in several different local gamelans, i've been asked, "What's a gamelan?" [Note: there are a couple links to short samples/videos of Balinese gamelan music (and dance!) at the end of this post] What follows is a rather limited description - i stress the Balinese because that's style i play most often: A gamelan is an Indonesian musical ensemble. It consists of a set (or sets) of tuned instruments. Every gamelan has its own unique tuning, although within particular parameters. In the best-known types of gamelans, most of the instruments are metallophones: there are several gongs (yes, it's an Indonesian word) of different sizes, sets of tuned "kettles" like upside down pots with "nipples" in the center (one uses a special beater to hit it on that "nipple"), and instruments with sorta flat bronze keys suspended over bamboo resonating tubes. Ensembles also include drums (which are the leaders of all the instruments), bamboo flutes called suling. A Javanese gamelan also includes many saron which are metallophones with bronze keys set over a wooden resonating "box" (the largest number of instruments), xylophones called gambang, bowed string instruments called rebab, and one or two kinds of plucked string instruments sometimes qualified as zithers, along with the metallophones and flutes. The gamelans of Sunda, West Java, and Central Javanese (Solo/Surakarta and Yogya/Jogjakarta - two court cities with somewhat different styles) tend to sound like "music boxes", a little more gentle (even though there are loud parts). On the other hand the current Balinese style is very dramatic with rapid dynamic changes in speed, volume, very complicated interlocking patterns called kotekan, and sometimes quite flashy performing style. Bali has a wider range of gamelan ensembles than Java. There are several different types composed of instruments suggested above in different tunings and with instruments of different sizes: • gamelan semar pegulingan: old-fashioned courtly style with a 7-note scale; • gamelan angklung: smaller instruments often used for temple rituals and funerals, as well as "entertainment", with 4-pitch scales; and • gamelan gong kebyar: developed in the 20th century to accompany dancers and to perform very exacting musical pieces - while it theoretically has a 7-note scale, instruments are usually built with a 5-note scale. There are also Jegog gamelans entirely made of large struck bamboo tubes (there's one in San Francisco); another is composed of genggong, which are like bamboo "Jew's harps". And there are even more kinds, but i know i've already said too much. Traditional Indonesian music is built of interlocking parts within cycles of melody and embellishment. Players sit on the floor, with their instruments arranged in sets by type. In Bali, nearly all the instruments come in pairs - a male and a female which is slightly lower in pitch. This difference in pitch creates an auditory "shimmer" to the music. The leader is usually the drummer, and often two drummers playing interlocking drum parts. The big suspended gongs and the smaller gong called kempur are very important because, although they play few notes, they mark the cycles within the piece. Most of the instruments are gangsa of several sizes. The jegogan, with their deep sound, play very slowly, once every 4 or 8 beats. The jublag, also called calung (pron. chalung), the second largest and deepest, generally also play slowly, but much faster than the jegogan, and sometimes have melodic lines. Players of these instruments often need to sit on benches or stools because the bamboo resonating tubes are too tall from the players to sit on the floor. The primary instruments of the gangsa (kantil and pemade) play rapid and complex interlocking parts called kotekan. They come in several sizes. The bronze keyed gender are played with two mallets and play the melodic line and some embellishments. Then there is the reyong, which consists of two octaves of "kettles", in a line on a long "bench" or frame. It requires four players, each usually playing 2 or 3 kettles, depending on the scale of the gamelan set (angklung or gong kebyar). The reyong plays a mix of rhythmic, textural, melodic, and kotekan parts. And there are a variety of additional time keeping and textural accent instruments which are very important to a complete ensemble: tawa-tawa, ketuk, kajar, kempli, klenang, sets of fixed cymbals played with two free symbols, the larger called ceng-ceng (pron. cheng-cheng) and the smaller called rincik (rin-chick), and gentorak (a type of bell tree). And sometimes a rebab. Because the Balinese consider something "unfinished" if it isn't decorated, the instruments are elaborately carved, gilded, painted, and sometimes even dressed in cloths. The big gong is the sacred soul of the ensemble, and the entire ensemble is considered to have its own spirit, to which offerings are made. Players remove their shoes when around the gamelan and never step over an instrument out of respect. Here's an example of dance music for the gamelan gong kebyar from Ubud, which is known for its fine gamelan performers. And here's a web page with photos and a video of Gamelan Sekar Jaya Current Mood: chipper Tags: bali, balinese, gamelan, kotekan

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October 19th, 2009

08:54 am - Breffest . The Minister of Arts and i, the Minister of Sciences, have been fund raising this year to buy a new A&S pavilion for the Principality. We had a lunch table at Spring Investiture of all period food that made about 1/4 of the cost. And camping at Fall Coronet this past weekend we served breakfasts. Saturday was pancakes, sausage, fruit and coffee or tea. I was hoping for 50 folks at a suggested request of $5, but we didn't get that many. While folks were good and generous, there just weren't quite enough of them, so Saturday's breakfasters just paid back our expenses. Sunday was cold breakfast - boiled eggs, yogurt, purchased pastry, and hot coffee or tea. I anticipated about 30 and we requested $3 donation. Fortunately we made what i had anticipated, so that was good. The Principality exchequer said the Principality will cover half the cost, so between serving food at those two events, we're now only $50 short of what we need. Now that we've got enough left-over paper cups and plates and napkins, as well as coffee, tea, and sugar, we should make what we need selling lunch-type things at Fall Investiture, assuming the site allows us to. So that's progress! Yea! Since i've been doing a fair bit of walking lately (going to and from all those gamelan classes), i am getting fitter. But my arthritis is getting worse. Last night i unloaded the City CarShare Scion xB here, leaving the stuff on the stairs inside. Then i got it back to its "pod" on time, and took the bus home (heck, over 3/4 mile walk between bus stops - more good exercise). Then i humped all the stuff up the long flight of stairs. I sat down to read e-mail and i hurt everywhere, not my muscles (nothing was all that heavy), but my joints. I felt broken and in much pain. So i took some Aleve and went to bed far earlier than usual. But since i naturally sleep about 6 hours, i've been up since around 4 AM. That's why i hate going to sleep early... waking up so very early. My body feels OK this morning. And i'm looking forward to gamelan tonight. Making music in an ensemble 3 to 5 times a week is GOOD! Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: the sounds of silence (well, and jets overhead)

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August 12th, 2009

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August 9th, 2009

09:52 pm - Birthday Tour . My daughter said she'd come from the East Coast to celebrate my birthday with me this year. When i called to get some details, she suggested we go somewhere interesting. I thought for a day and remembered the research i'd done a couple years ago. So we're going to spend almost a week in... Wisconsin! There are a lot of outsider/vernacular art sites there that the John Kohler Arts Center has been preserving. So the plan is to see some of them, and a couple more that are independent. (links below) Amazingly, one of the 40 best restaurants in the US is in Milwaukee, Sanford, so we're eating a celebratory dinner there. We're staying several nights in an inexpensive old-style motor court with knotty pine paneling, not too far from the Mustard Museum. I LOVE mustard. We'll go to a (cue balalaikas) cheese shop to get some of the new breed of artisanal Wisconsin cheeses. Then we'll spend one night in a B&B near Sheboygan and visit the Kohler Arts Center. Outsider / Vernacular Art Sites * Wally Keller's Scrap Iron Menagerie, just outside Mt. Horeb. * Tom Every's Forevertron, near Baraboo * "The Painted Forest" by Ernest Hüpeden (c. 1850-1911) in former "Modern Woodmen of America Lodge #6190", near Valton On the website of the college that now protects it On the website of the Kohler Foundation which saved it and gave it to the college * Nick Engelbert's Grandview, near Hollandale On the website of the Kohler Foundation which saved it * The Dickeyville Grotto in, well, Dickeyville * James Tellen's Woodland Sculpture Park, just south of Sheboygan * The Mary Nohl House, just north of Milwaukee Too far away, on slow-moving, narrow, winding, rural roads, unfortunately, are these wonders: * Herman Rusch's Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden, between Cochrane and Fountain City * The Wegners' Grotto, outside Cataract * Fred Smith's Concrete Park, in Phillips Current Mood: busy Current Music: ambient

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June 19th, 2009

12:52 pm - A&S, Sunday, Intro to Near & Middle Eastern Clothing . For some reason (Pirate Fest?) many people only day tripped to A&S on Saturday. I soooo do not want this to become like Collegium, a one day only event. Anyway, because i knew many would be there Saturday only, i didn't expect a lot of people at my second class, An Introduction to Near and Middle Eastern Clothing, late on Sunday morning. Again i had 4 students, one of whom was Master Moshe, visiting from the East. Another was the organizer of the Western Middle Easterners (gosh, that sounds like early SCA history - combines the first 3 kingdoms :-) who had clearly been partying the night before. Of the other two, one is definitely not ME, but is interested in getting exposure to a variety of things; the other i think is fairly new to the Kingdom, and, if i understand correctly, to the SCA in general. Now, i'm a more-is-more kinda guy, i love to be barraged with a massive amount of information. It gets me excited! But i do realize that most people want a lot less. So i really did edit my class... really. Even so, i know there was a surfeit of info for the average beginner. See, i like context. Clothing doesn't just "happen". So i like maps to show what places, cultures, and empires are under discussion. I like to see how cultural and environmental influences, technology, economics, political entities, and wars influence developments in clothing styles. I like to know where they came from, how they changed, what they influenced and what influenced them... I'm not sure how much of this the average SCAdian Middle Easterner gives a farkle about. Not to mention this topic covers a rather broad geographic area, parts of three continents. The Near and Middle East extends from the Atlantic Ocean (the Iberian Peninsula in Europe and al-Maghrib in North Africa), across the Mediterranean (Sicily, Malta, Egypt, etc.), to Eastern Europe (the Balkans, Greece, European Turkey), into Southwest Asia (the Levant and Anatolia) to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the Persian Empire (Iran) with fingerlets into India (not really within the geographical bounds, but conquered by Babar, the Timurid Persian, not the elephant) and Central Asia, home of the Turks and Mongols. Plus the relevant time span is from the Roman Empire (beginning roughly in 25 BCE) through 1600 CE, the last year of the 16th century, the end of the official SCA-period. The medieval Arabic system reflects pre-Muslim Arabic continuities, as well as garments and techniques adopted from the Roman Hellenic Middle East and the Byzantines. So knowing this adds to understanding... well, in my opinion, anyway. And medieval Persian clothing shows continuity with the pre-Muslim Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanian Persian dynasties (some of which garments have been found in Egypt, where there were Persian trading settlements). Not to forget the Mongol invasions, which were actually Turco-Mongol, bringing further Central and East Asian influences. So that's a lot of time and a lot of space! And, well, i suspect most folks just want to know how to make very basic garb, preferably something sexy in modern terms, and not much more. While i want to show what historic people *really* wore and why. Aren't we supposed to be making an attempt at period garb? Tribal Styles are late 20th century, beginning more or less in the late 1960s or early 70s. And those so-called "ghawazee coats" - cut-down-to-there in the front and cut-up-to-there on the sides - are a late 20th c. misinterpretation of the 19th c. Ottoman entari. Sigh. I just don't understand the resistance to the actual 16th c. entari. Sure, the SCA-period garment doesn't have a large upper-front "window of opportunity" or slits to the hips. But it's just as easy (or easier) to make. And i've seen SCA ME dancers in other kingdoms wearing them, and, darn, but the outfit not only is historical, but it looks quite fine. And the effect of dancers in period garb dancing in an encampment of period-style tents, well, for me it was magical. I love doing research and learning new stuff, which is why i love Collegia and A&S. I know i'm not really typical, so i need to figure out just what is the maximum amount of this interesting stuff to share in a 1-1/2 hr. class. I had the material organized - Intro, Arabic garment system, Central Asian garment system, with period pictures and garment schematics. But i forgot to take the breeze into account. So i kept having to find weights to hold down the pages as i put them down, or got them back, and then they'd get a bit mixed up, and i'd be whiffling through them trying to find a page. Not optimal. I suspect a binder wouldn't be the solution, since i was passing around the color scans and garment schematics - i gotta work on this aspect of the class! Since photocopying color for even 4 people is prohibitively expensive and so are the color inks in my printer, i decided i'd try to make CDs of class notes. I haven't quite gotten there yet... but i am editing the stuff into several Word documents, then i'll turn them into PDFs, and e-mail to the students. OK, OK, i know i'm whining. But i really do want to reach out and encourage even peri-oid garb instead of all those 20th c. "Ghawazee" coats and ATS outfits with tassel belts (shudder) for the women, and Hollywood "Sheik" and "Biblical" garb for the men. Period garb is as easy to make as the non-period stuff. And the real stuff is beautiful and exciting! Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: NPR

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11:53 am - A&S, Saturday Night, Sword & Lily Tavern . This was the first time i wasn't helping cook or serve in the tavern. So i actually got to eat the meal. Of course it was lovely. I'm an ex-vegetarian (ok, it was long long ago, but i still only eat meat once or twice a week), and i really liked the pulses. Many diners were surprised by pears cooked with leeks - as a cook, i've seen quite a few recipes that treat fruits the way we'd treat vegetable, so it didn't seem unusual to me - and they were tasty. For my main course, i had the veal, actually grass-fed pre-pubescent calf. The sauces were yummy. And i had delightful dining companions. The only problem was the bench. I'm 5'1" and they were clearly designed for people with longer legs, so it was cutting off the circulation and i periodically squirmed to change position. Next time i bring a tall footstool :-) Current Mood: busy

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10:23 am - A&S, Saturday, Intro to Middle Eastern Food . There appears to be some movement to "organize" the Middle Easterners in the West Kingdom. And word was that we want to show that being ME in the SCA is about more than just Dance and Drumming (and Zils!). As so often in the past, there was a "Middle Eastern" track at A&S. So i volunteered to teach two classes. One was a cooking class, well, a food-oriented class, since we didn't do any cooking. My point was to provide historical recipes that would bear some resemblance to popular modern dishes, to ease ME folks into historical food. At ME events food like hummus bi-tahini ("hummus" only means "chickpeas"), baba ganouj, and tabbouleh are served, yet none of them, or a number of other frequently seen dishes, is from SCA-period. So i had one hand-out with 11 recipes, of which i prepared 8 for tasting, followed with another hand-out of SCA-period recipes sources in English, both books and web sites. I used recipes that required little or no cooking, as well as some that could be assembled on-site from purchased items. And i included some recipes for Tharida, which was a very popular dish in SCA-period. (1) Hummus bi-Zinjibil (chickpea puree made with spices, salted lemon, and olive oil) (2) Sals Abyad (puree of tahini, walnuts, lemon juice, and spices) as historical replacements for the ubiquitous modern hummus bi-tahini. (3) Badhinjan Buran is a puree of eggplants cooked with sesame oil and pureed with spices and yogurt. Historically Badhinjan Buran is usually served with cooked lamb chunks, cooked lamb meatballs, or both. My feeling is that Badhinjan Buran without meat, to take the place of modern baba ganouj, is closer to "period" than baba ganouj, which is 19th c. at best. I like vegetables, so i also made two simple vegetable dishes very similar to some modern ones. (4) Jazr is carrots cut in small pieces and cooked until tender, then tossed in a sauce of roasted caraway seeds, garlic, and vinegar. (5) Isfanakh Mutajjan has fresh spinach blanched, then cooked in hot sesame oil with garlic and spices. Both of these can be served at room temperature. I had some rather similar dishes when i visited Morocco a few years back, although the analog to Isfanakh Mutajjan was made with a different leafy green, perhaps orach. Then i prepped the ingredients for three more dishes which we assembled on-site. Since some SCAdians are not experienced cooks, i decided to try making some dishes without cooking. I bought two plain roasted chickens. Then i prepped the necessary ingredients and put them into little plastic baggies, putting all the ingredients for each dish into a larger zipped plastic bag, so it would be organized and easy. Two were bawarid (cold dishes): (6) Barida of Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi: shredded chicken, chopped herbs in a sweet-and-sour almond-mustard sauce, garnished with safflower petals, diced Persian cucumber, pomegranate seeds (not in season so i substituted sliced dried cranberries), chopped almonds, and chopped olives. (7) Barida of Abu Ja'far al-Barmaki: a simpler mix of shredded chicken, spices, several fresh herbs, verjus (sour grape juice), olive oil, and chopped cucumber. I set out my bottles of lovely new extra-virgin olive oil and delightful California verjus, but cleverly forgot to bring them. I tossed it with some lemon juice, but it was dryer than it should have been. The handout also included a recipe for (8) vegetarian barida with fava beans (foul) which we didn't make. (9) Bazmaward is one of two types of medieval "sandwiches". This type involves rolling up a filling in a flat bread (like those popular "arum" sandwiches of a few years back), then cutting the roll into manageable pieces. The filling in this recipe was shredded chicken, chopped citron (i substituted lemon), herbs and crushed walnuts, rolled up on a very thin flat bread (ruqaq) which is very like Lavash. This, too, had problems as the lavash broke while it was being rolled. Still it is fun to serve medieval sandwiches. Now i want to try the other kind, which involves slicing a flat loaf horizontally... Stay tuned. And the handout had two recipes for tharida. Tharid is basically torn bread moistened with broth, oil, vinegar, or oil and vinegar. It is a typical Bedouin dish, beloved of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). But there are many recipes for Tharid which involve complex and sophisticated combinations of meats, vegetables, herbs, spices, and ground almonds, which would then be served over torn bread. So i included a couple recipes, one complex, and one a bit simpler. (10) a vegetarian tharid of fava beans (foul), which i have made for Lent: favas with spices, nuts, lemon juice, and yogurt, butter, or oil, served over torn bread. (11) A Tharid of Harun al-Rashid,of meat (i use chicken) cooked in milk with chickpeas, carrots, onion, herbs, and spices, then topped with a mix of ground almonds, beaten eggs, and vinegar, and served over torn bread. Besides the lavash i also brought two other kinds of traditional (but modern) Middle Eastern flat breads, because i'm just sick and tired of modern-style pita. One was a lovely toasty and quite large flat bread dotted with white sesame seeds and black nigella seeds. The other was a large oval, somewhat puffier. There was some left of both and they were both infinitely tastier warmed up in the oven at home. When camping one could warm them in foil on a camp stove or fire. Afterwards i realized i should have included a stuffed hard-cooked egg recipe. Oh, well, next time. I was satisfied to have 4 students - i'd made enough for for about 8, as i sometimes have that many in a cooking class. But i was disappointed that only one had a Middle Eastern persona. Fortunately as class was wrapping up, Her Excellency Kamiilah happened by and i gave her a plate of food, and my friend, J-Babe, that's Jaida to you, also came for tastes. Current Mood: chipper Current Music: News about Iran

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May 28th, 2009

04:06 pm - I'm a Winner, THREE! . Well, as i mentioned, i won two books from LibraryThing in April and dutifully read and wrote reviews. There's a random drawing every month. LibraryThing members who sign up to be Reviewers get to see a list of books and pick the ones they'd like. Naturally there are a few books and A LOT of people who want books. So, once again i went down the list and checked off books that looked interesting, then pretty much forgot about it. Well, what to my wondering eyes did appear but an e-mail from LibraryThing today saying i'd won another book! I haven't gotten it yet, but this isn't "just" a book to read. It's a cookbook called "A Tradition of Soup". And it isn't just any soup yet, these are South Chinese (Cantonese) traditional medicinal soups! We've got plenty of Chinese markets and Chinese herbalists around here, so i'll get to experiment... on myself... heh, heh, heh Current Mood: surprised

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03:39 pm - Taiko! Taiko! Taiko! . Two evenings ago, gurdymonkey picked me up and drove me into the wilds of the island of Alameda, to the old military base, to the old Officers' Club, which had clearly seen better days. And why would we do this? Well, she's been studying Taiko (Japanese drumming) and the group, Kaji Yama, was having their recital for family and friends. Of course, they're no Kodo, the absolute reigning monarchs of modern taiko, but i had a great time and i love the thunder of the drums, vibrating one's innards. gurdymonkey brought her camera and tripod and i manned it and filmed the concert. To conserve the battery i was told to turn it off between pieces. But sometimes the lead in was a bit short, so i hope i didn't miss anything or set the camera to rockin' and reelin'. There were two classes, the beginners, who did great, and the intermediate and advanced players, who got to do a cool piece that involved players switching places as some got to solo on the big Odaiko. And gurdymonkey got one of the solos! Afterwards we went looking for a cafe in Berkeley. It was just a few minutes past 9 PM and most of my favorites were closed. We happened upon a new one, Sonoma Coffee Cafe on the corner of Durant and Fulton, where gurdymonkey had a chai latte and i had a very spicy mocha, ok, it was so spicy i went and had a second. What else can i say? gurdymonkey RAWKS! Current Mood: bouncy

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03:03 pm - I'm a Winner, Again! . Wow! Imagine that! I won TWO books last month from LibraryThing, and now I've won something again! And it finally arrived yesterday. As you know, i'm a cook - Medieval, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, Southeast Asian... I am fond of the spices, herbs and chilies, the fruits, vegetables and nuts, the flower waters and everything that make food tasty. But most of how we taste food does not involve our tongues - which taste only sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and what the Japanese call umami, that is, "meaty". But most subtle taste involves the olfactory nerve - there are openings in the roof of the mouth so the scent of our food reaches it as we chew. And so i am fond of perfume. My involvement goes in bursts. I began buying quality perfumes in the 70s while attending UCLA. In the 80s i got into blending scents for myself, selling handmade soaps, bath salts, and incenses. Then i got on a perfume "kick" again for a while in the mid-90s. Well, i'm back at it. Three weeks ago we went into The City and hit Nordstrom's. Alas, they'd downsized their perfume counter: they had a lot of what is popular and not so much of what i wanted to smell. After exploring what was there, we headed to Neiman-Marcus, because they have a real Guerlain counter - complete with an eccentric Frenchwoman whose accent was quite thick. I didn't get any Guerlain, but i did get some other perfumes. L'Artisan Parfumeur's set: Les Epices de la Passion (oh-la-la, The Spices of Passion), which contains THREE different perfumes: - Safran Troublant (Troubling Saffron): a blend of saffron, rose, vanilla, and sandalwood - this is VERY saffron, which is what i wanted, but it's also light and gentle enough to wear every day; - Piment Brulant (Burning Chili): a blend including chili pepper, poppy, clove, cinnamon, dark chocolate, vanilla, tonka, amber - i really love this one, but it's not an every day scent. and - Poivre Piquant (Spicy Pepper): a blend with white peppercorns, pink pepper (aka Baie Rose), licorice, milk, and honey - which i just tried yesterday - apparently the pepper is quite noticeable, but the lingering scent of milk, honey, and licorice root - NOT anise (shudder) - is quite smooth, delicate, and comforting; Hermès Un Jardin sur le Nil (A Garden on the Nile) - grapefruit, green mango, carrot, tomato Leaf, orange, peony, hyacinth, lotus flower, iris, cinnamon, calamus rushes (a classic ancient Egyptian fragrance), labdanum (aka cistus or rock rose), sycamore wood, frankincense, musk. Hermès Un Jardin en Mediterranee (A Garden on the Mediterranean) - mandarin orange, bergamot, lemon; fig woods and leaves, orange blossom, white nerium oleander; fig fruit, toasted pistachio, cypress, red cedar, juniper, musk. And I was also given samples of the third garden in the series, Un Jardin apres la Mousson (A Garden after the Monsoon) - cardamom, coriander, peppercorns, ginger, ginger blossom, vetiver - i haven't tried it yet, but i'm looking forward to it - sounds almost good enough to eat. I've been posting perfume reviews at http://www.fragrantica.com - Fragrantica has "Free Perfume Friday" every week, during which they randomly select the name of someone who has entered their name and address and posted a review that week. Well, much to my shock and amazement i won on the 15th! And what did i win? ...a bottle of "Un Jardin sur le Nil". I like it, heck, i bought it, but i sure don't need two bottles of the stuff. Sigh. I figure i'll send my daughter one of the bottles as a surprise. Lucky her! Current Mood: cheerful

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April 16th, 2009

12:34 pm - I'm a Winner! I'm a bibliophile, so i've been enjoying LibraryThing Last year i signed up for their Early Reviewers program. I've checked off quite a few books over time. Well, this month it paid off DOUBLE! First, i quite unexpectedly received a hard-cover copy of The Black Doll by Edward Gorey (1925-2000), from Pomegranate, a NoCal publisher in Petaluma. He's one of my favorites, so this was a thrill. Yeah, he's dead, but authors and artists CAN publish posthumously. Besides the book, the package included a nice letter, a lovely color catalog of Pomegranate's wonderful books, and a delightful Edward Gorey-illustrated bookmark. The Black Doll is a screen-play - a screen-play for a black-and-white silent movie. Unlike most of his previously published works, there are only a few illustrations. But the text is pure Gorey, filled with enigmatic people and cryptic objects, such as the eponymous Black Doll (which was an actual doll made for Gorey by a friend in the 1940s, and which disappeared during his travels), fabulous 1920s clothing and enveloping fur coats, long sinister limousines, suspicious locations, a fancy dress ball filled with skullduggery, and a conclusion that does not, as with so many of Gorey's works, reveal the mystery. It's not long, so i've read it once, and i'll read it again before composing my review for LibraryThing. I will say that if you're an Edward Gorey fan, it is a pleasure. Even without many pictures, one can clearly visualize this world of Edward Gorey illustrations come to life. Second, i received a message that i would get, and did, The Book of God and Physics by Enrique Joven (HarperCollins). It concerns a young Jesuit high school science teacher who is also part of a group that has been trying for years to decipher the Voynich Manuscript. While the book is fiction, the Voynich Manuscript is real, item MS 408 in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. It is an illustrated manuscript written either in code or in some secret language (or perhaps a hoax) in the 16th (or possibly 15th) century, and appears to be on scientific topics. The author, a doctorate in physics, resides in the Canary Islands, where he is a senior engineer at the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias. As his biography notes, "he writes regularly for the various media outlets on subjects including science, new technologies, and the internet." So it looks like The Book of God and Physics will NOT be the kind of tripe that The Da Vinci Code and its sequels are. After all, i do not care for tripe. At least it is acknowledged fiction, although does include the involvement of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler. I've just started reading it, a few chapters in. So far it has revealed the main character and is setting up events to come. It was originally written in Spanish, and the translation seems a little flat to me. Anyway, it was a thrill to get both the new Edward Gorey and the science-mystery. As i read so little fiction these days, this is a nice respite. Current Mood: chipper

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12:16 pm - Nobel Peace Prize for Pete Seeger I've never been crazy about Pete Seeger's music as music, per se. But this man has devoted his life to the causes of peace, social justice, and a better world, using music as a vehicle for supporting and spreading them. He's 88 years old, and the Noble Prize is not awarded posthumously. This man is a national and an international treasure. http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/ He was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, led by the now-discredited Joseph McCarthy, who was aided by Richard Nixon, then a junior senator, in 1955. Unlike many who shut up, or gave up, Pete defended himself on the basis of the First Amendment, the right of an American citizen to free association, rather than the Fifth Amendment, protection against self incrimination, which many others used. As a result, he was blacklisted, unable to earn a living and practice his craft at the national level. Still, he continued to appear at union meetings, summer camps, jr. high schools, high schools, and colleges, his pay sometimes as little as $5. This is a man of great integrity, a sense of personal responsibility, who has shown that the power of song can arouse others to stand up, that the efforts of just one person matters, and that together many individuals can influence change for the better. He has tirelessly worked to engage other people from all walks of life, across generations, in issues such as labor solidarity, ending the Vietnam war, banning nuclear weapons, international diplomacy, the US Civil Rights Movement, environmental responsibility. He has pursued this locally, nationally, and internationally. As i said, i'm not a fan of his music. But his music is a tool to educate and unite, and he deserves greater recognition. Current Mood: optimistic

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March 8th, 2009

09:41 pm - Mom's still here but most of her is gone I post every year about my mom. I haven't yet this year. That is because I discovered my brother has been doing things in relation to her that are unethical. ( More of the details ) Why care about mom, she's old and somewhat insensible, but, sheesh, she might damage the house, now that's motivating. He's clearly only motivated to care for mom if inaction might impinge on his inheritance or his access to her money. So what he's doing is unethical but now perfectly legal. I don't have the money to take him to court (won't until mom dies - if there's anything left). And i have no legal rights in relation to my own mother. Legally her doctors aren't supposed to talk to me. I can't protect her finances. And she's starting to forget me and my daughter. She gets angry at everyone who cares for and about her, but not at my brother, who is screwing her. I'm sure he's laughing all the way through her bank accounts. Current Mood: grumpy Current Music: tense TV drama

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November 20th, 2008

08:15 pm - An Tir Culinary Symposium Fun I took the train to Tacoma on Wednesday night - cuz it's about 21 hours each way and there's only one train per day, so i had to arrive Thursday night. Thank goodness i brought my own food! fig yogurt and pomegranate yogurt and a couple kinds of marinated baked tofu for the trip up (i like yogurt and tofu). They had a real dining car on the train, but i only ate one meal there - breakfast Thursday morning on the trip up to Tacoma. It was so greasy and the ingredients were not exactly good quality, mmm-mmm-mmm American cheese food product... After the greasy breakfast i was chatting with a fellow foodie person, a former Berkeleyite now living in Seattle, in the observation car and i saw a bald eagle flying over a mountain lake. Almost worth the bad breakfast... Besides a rolling suitcase with my sheet and down comforter ('cuz we had to bring our own bedding), well, and 2 sets of garb and plenty of clean undies ('cuz you know what your mother told you) - i had a cooler with almost all the ingredients i needed for my class. The autocrat, Rafaella, was kind enough to take me shopping for chicken, the one thing i hadn't brought, 'cuz i don't want to end up with bad chicken, and put me up for Thursday night. The site was a Girl Scout camp in the piney woods, state protected woods, and it was lovely, on its own little misty lake (alas, no eagles). The cabins were all different and had views of the lake. The one i was in had had little vines painted on the wooden bunk beds - must have been for some of the youngest girls. And there were heaters, thank goodness. Saturday morning i took Mistress Anne-Marie's class on cooking mostly French food over a charcoal fire with period ceramic pots and cast iron. Other Westerners were there, too, j_i_m_r and ldyanna. We made many tasty things with melted cheese, and with bacon, and with mustard. Mmm-mmm-mmmustard... I taught two classes in the afternoon, a lecture class on 15th and 16th century Ottoman (improved since September), with about a dozen students, followed by the hands on class, with all the students plus two more. I did not have enough handouts. We made two of the 77 or 81 recipes Shirvani added to his translation of al-Baghdadi (although he altered many of al-Baghdadi's recipes while he translated them). One was an Ottoman Seferceliyye - lamb with quinces, as well as sliced dried apricots and almonds - VERY different from the al-Baghdadi recipe. The other was Dane-i Saru - pilaf of rice cooked in homemade chicken broth with saffron soaked in rosewater and almonds sautéed in butter. These two dishes were SO aromatic the room was perfumed with the amazing fragrance of quinces plus the rosewater and saffron - and the room still smelled so fragrant the next day when i was packing up. The third dish was a soup of homemade chicken broth, shredded chicken, and rice with egg-lemon sauce from the 1539 Banquet Book from the circumcision festival for two of Suleiman's sons. I'd reconstructed the soup before, but this time i had an actual recipe - and discovered my own previous reconstruction was almost identical - whew! There was a pleasant feast on Saturday night. The Baron and Baroness invited some Westerners to sit at the high table. Since ldyanna demurred, j_i_m_r invited me to sit with her. And i made some friends. One, Giovanni, a female laurel with a castrato persona who took both my classes along with her husband Tomas, picked many wild mushrooms and gifted me with some. Mmm-mmm-mmmushrooms! They may come down to the Bay Area, and it would be fun to go foodie-ing with them. Also, she has an advanced degree in Renaissance Italian vocal music, so i definitely think she and vittoriosa would hit it off. I had a really good time and it looked like most people did too, thanks to the hardworking autocrat team and teachers. I ate leftovers on the trip back - amazingly fragrant quinces sautéed in butter (because they were so big we only needed 2 for the lamb and i'd brought 3) - a serving of rice pilaf and of chicken soup - and filling from the pasties nourriz, one of the feast dishes, beef cooked with parsnips, carrots, dates, currants, and pine nuts. I got back Tuesday morning - nice to be home. Current Mood: calm Current Music: 3 minute trailer for "Lost"

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October 21st, 2008

04:31 pm - Summer Conversations with Nawal Nasrallah In June and July of this year, i exchanged some interesting e-mails with Nawal Nasrallah, who translated ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's Kitab al-Tabikh and annotated it, creating an extensive glossary, published at the end of last year as "Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens". She contacted me - i guess she was googling her book title and found my website. We exchanged e-mails for about a month and a half, discussing unusual ingredients, different interpretations of recipes, etc. Then she noticed my mention of "A la table du Grand Turc/Sultan Sofralari" on my web page, and began asking about the dishes in it. Since the original translations into French and modern Turkish are protected by copyright, even though Stephane/Stafanos Yerasimos died in 2005, i hesitate to make my translations available en masse. So i sent her simple synopses of the recipes, which are actually very detailed. She thought they were actually the recipes, so we had another round of discussions. Since the names of many are Persian, and some also derive from Arabic, she thought they had come via Arabic language cookbooks. However, i began to compare recipes added by Shirvani with recipes with the same names in al-Warraq's book and in al-Baghdadi's book, pointing out the differences - in some cases, other than the main ingredient and the name the recipes have nothing in common. As i wrote: Clearly some of the Ottoman recipes are versions of recipes also in Arabic language books, such as zirva. However the two Ottoman recipes are quite different from the Arabic versions. Shirvani, folio 112 recto-verso Zirva (paraphrasing - not the actual recipe) lamb cooked in water; add peeled almonds, peeled and seeded pink grapes, honey ("so it is sweet like syrup"). Add salt, saffron, several dried apricots, several figs. Mix a little starch in water and add to thicken the broth, stirring. Shirvani, folio 123 verso Zirva (paraphrasing - not the actual recipe) Fry meat in fat. Add broken chickpeas, some apricots, some grapes, some black plums, several chopped onions, some almonds, some figs, a little saffron, salt, and honey. Add a little starch to thicken. Serve with poppy seeds. These Ottoman recipes are seasoned only with salt and saffron. By comparison, the Zirbaj recipe in al-Baghdadi uses cinnamon, coriander, pepper, mastic, and saffron. Al-Baghdadi also calls for a pound of vinegar and a quarter of a pound of sugar, while the Ottoman recipes use a small amount of honey and no vinegar at all. And al-Baghdadi uses no fruit whatsoever, while the Ottoman recipes both use several different kinds of fruit. The resulting Baghdadi and Ottoman dishes would taste very different from one another. This causes me to wonder if the Ottomans adopted these recipes directly from the Persians, in the 15th century or perhaps a little earlier, rather than adopting recipes with Persian names from Arabic-language cookbooks. No cuisine is immutable over many centuries, and certainly Persian cuisine changed from the time of the Sassanids (when certain dishes are mentioned in literature, such as lauzinaj), through the Muslim invasions, the Seljuk conquest, the Mongol invasions, and into the Timurid dynasty. ----- I actually cooked Zirva 123 over the past weekend for a feast for 20 given by Prince Sigifrith and Princess Kamiilah of the Principality of the Mists. It has an amazing amount of fruit in it, with some added savory flavor from the saffron, salt, and onions. I also put in a little black pepper, since account books show it was the most commonly used imported spice. The sauce is thickened by the onions, the crushed chickpeas, and a small amount of wheat starch, which i finally found. I had been searching for wheat starch in the amazing Berkeley Bowl, at local health food stores, and in Chinese markets with no luck, although i found rice, corn, tapioca, and potato starch). It turned out to be available in the halal market where i buy my sheep meat. Now i can try the Sabuni recipe, a sweet made of starch cooked with butter, sugar, nuts, and rosewater - with several variations with different flavors, such as tamarind. I had bought some non-GMO organic corn starch, but i wanted to use wheat starch. This brand isn't nearly as cozmik, but at least it isn't corn. So i got myself two 1-pound bags. ----- Comparing Medieval Ottoman and Arabic recipes 15th century Ottoman and Arabic dishes are very different from one another. Ottoman dishes use far fewer spices than Arabic-language recipes - some use no spices at all, just salt. Ottoman recipes use more honey than sugar, while Arabic recipes use more sugar. Ottoman recipes use only small amounts of vinegar, while some Arabic recipes use massive amounts of vinegar. And while both cuisines use fruit, the Arabic recipes tend to use a single fruit in a dish, whereas the Ottoman recipes use several different kinds in a single dish - four in that Zirva, for example. Arabic sweets rarely use fruit - the primary featured fruit is dates, although pomegranate juice shows up now and then. There are a few Arabic recipes for syrups, many of which have a medicinal purpose. And it appears that most sweets were based on almonds, with a few featuring pistachios or walnuts. The Ottomans, on the other hand, had a wide range of fruit sweets: • palude/paluze, which eventually became called lokum and Turkish delight - fruit syrup and sugar cooked down very slowly to a jelly/gummy texture; • perverde, fruit juice, sugar, and wheat starch cooked into a thick pudding; • hoshab, stewed dried fruit with nuts; • preserves, jams, syrups. And we have long lists of possible flavors for all these from the Ottomans. Current Mood: optimistic

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July 12th, 2008

04:07 pm - Mmm-mmm, Bread... Medieval Middle Eastern Bread, that is A couple days ago i got an e-mail from somone on one of the SCA Middle Eastern e-mail lists i'm on, asking if i had any period flat bread recipes she could make at Pennsic in a cast iron skillet to go with Ottoman food. Now, i recently got two bread books - the fabulous "Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas" by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid - really great for a beginner - heck, good for an experienced baker, too - and the good but a little less helpful "Savory Baking from the Mediterranean", also a bread book, by Anissa Helou. I got them because I haven't made yeast bread for a long time (early 1970s) and i want to try my hand at the period recipes in ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's 10th c. cookbook - there are over 1/2 dozen bread recipes in there! So i need to practice before working with those infamously vague Medieval recipes (although some of those from the Middle East give complete measurement for ingredients) Her request sent me off an a brief trek through cookbooks and even some websites... There are no available SCA-period Ottoman bread recipes, unfortunately, although Marianna Yerasimos gives quite a few from the 19th and 20th centuries, in her book, "500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine". My other modern Turkish cookbook had no bread recipes (grumble, grumble) And nearly all the recipes in al-Warraq's book are baked in a tannur (like a tandoori oven), which most of us do not have in our kitchens - although Alford and Duguid have some suggestions for baking in a typical Western oven: line a rack with quarry (unglazed ceramic) tiles - which are now on my list of cooking equipment to get. So after some fun research - and some culinary distractions - i sent her seven recipes. One is from al-Warraq (well, actually two, since the one she could use - for ruqaq (which are rather close to lavash) references an earlier recipe - for barazithaj - for the dough recipe - and both which are cooked in a tannur. However i've read that sometimes ruqaq are cooked on a sajj - a convex domed metal pan, sort of like an upside down wok - so the recipe could work... I also passed along the modern Armenian lavash recipe from Alford and Duguid, and the Yufka Ekmegi, a modern Turkish bread similar to lavash, from Helou, both of which are cooked in a pan on the stove. And i found some modern Turkish recipes for pan-cooked breads on the web. One is for Bazlama, which one website described as being similar to nan, but cooked in a pan. Another was for Gozleme, another pan-cooked bread which is usually cooked with a filling. I also sent her a recipe for modern Turkish pide, a 2-syllable word cognate with pita, which is baked in an oven. Unlike the modern (mostly Syrian and Lebanese) version we're used to, the Turkish version doesn't usually have the "pocket". Pide is an SCA-period bread in the Ottoman Empire, although so far we are without a "period" recipe... It might be possible in a pan, since i found some photos of some sort of pita/pide being cooked on a sajj (or something like it) over a wood fire. And while searching, i ran into an Italian recipe for another flatbread with a cognate name, Piadina, from Emilia-Romagna region, which was for quite some time a part of the Byzantine Empire. And the names "pita" and "pide" both come from a Byzantine word for a type of flatbread, "pitta". So i sent that recipe, too. Since the piadina doesn't use yeast, i may give it a try soon. I'm still kinda shy of yeast... And besides, piadina reminds me of when i lived in LA in the mid- to late-70s and had a wonderful 1950s Wedgewood stove with a griddle-in-the-middle. When i moved in the griddle wasn't working, so i took the stove top off and cleaned it out, readjusted some of the fittings, and, voila! a fully functional griddle again. I took to making chapatis and parathas on it for breakfast before classes at UCLA. I hope i didn't overload the questioner. I tend to be a "more is more" kind of person. I always want to know more. Anyway, i'm definitely on the path to more Middle Eastern bread. And once i've got the modern technique down, i can start playing with al-Warraq's recipes. That will be very exciting! Finally, SCA-period Middle Eastern bread! I've been buying lavash (which is like the Medieval ruqaq) for feasts, along with some other modern Persian and Afghan breads, but now i can have the real thing... or as close as i can get without access to a tannur. Whoopee! Current Mood: optimistic Current Music: Contemporary Celtic with Accordions

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