![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
it was always a work in practice
Nov. 3rd, 2022 02:09 pm· I’ve been visiting the local Korean markets for oksusu suyom cha, um…cornsilk tea? Very strong flavor, very delicious, very nostalgically Korean.
· In other fall food news, it’s the time of year when applesauce is good: i.e., buy the tartest apples I can find, chop them roughly without peeling, dump in a pot with some lemon juice, simmer (stirring and bashing occasionally) until even in texture, serve hot with cream and cinnamon. Mm. Also Y came home the other day saying “Someone at work gave me some homegrown potatoes!” Excellent, I said, give it here and I’ll fry them up with some onion. The dirt came off under water to reveal purple skins: sweet potatoes. Change of plans… (They were very good, if very sinful, fried in butter with salt.)
· Relatedly, my mother quoted me something from the psychologist Virginia Valien (Valian?), along the lines of “…how she contrasted her way of cooking with her way of writing. With cooking, it was always a work in practice. Too salty this time? Next time she’d use less salt. Next time she’d try some additional or alternative ingredient. She didn’t decide each time: oh, this didn’t turn out so well, so I’m a terrible cook. This didn’t turn out so well, it must be a terrible recipe, and I’ll never make it again.” (I think my brain works the opposite way! I rarely lose my nerve/interest with regard to writing, but messing up a recipe sure is demoralizing.)
· Listening rather obsessively to the opera Peter Grimes; I’m not usually much of a Britten fan, but this one has me. What he does with motifs—“I’ll marry Ellen!” “Grimes is at his exercises,” and so on—and ensemble singing in particular is fantastic. I wish I were still a musicology student, I’d love to spend a semester in a seminar on this one opera. (I’ve listened to a handful of different versions on YouTube and lost track of which one is which; haven’t yet heard an Ellen Orford I REALLY like, her music seems to need a particularly beautiful voice.) Frances Partridge, watching the premiere, loved it and wrote “I often longed to have some interesting, thrilling passage back to listen to it again,” and pace Walter Benjamin, now we can.
· For something completely different, Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing”—a favorite of my father’s, and mine too, for its happy energy and its suspensions “when you check it ou-ou-out, when you get o-o-off your trip” and so on.
· The more Chinese I learn the more I don’t know, 越学越不懂; ( language rambling ).
· Random assortment of photos: ( Read more... )
Be safe and well.
· In other fall food news, it’s the time of year when applesauce is good: i.e., buy the tartest apples I can find, chop them roughly without peeling, dump in a pot with some lemon juice, simmer (stirring and bashing occasionally) until even in texture, serve hot with cream and cinnamon. Mm. Also Y came home the other day saying “Someone at work gave me some homegrown potatoes!” Excellent, I said, give it here and I’ll fry them up with some onion. The dirt came off under water to reveal purple skins: sweet potatoes. Change of plans… (They were very good, if very sinful, fried in butter with salt.)
· Relatedly, my mother quoted me something from the psychologist Virginia Valien (Valian?), along the lines of “…how she contrasted her way of cooking with her way of writing. With cooking, it was always a work in practice. Too salty this time? Next time she’d use less salt. Next time she’d try some additional or alternative ingredient. She didn’t decide each time: oh, this didn’t turn out so well, so I’m a terrible cook. This didn’t turn out so well, it must be a terrible recipe, and I’ll never make it again.” (I think my brain works the opposite way! I rarely lose my nerve/interest with regard to writing, but messing up a recipe sure is demoralizing.)
· Listening rather obsessively to the opera Peter Grimes; I’m not usually much of a Britten fan, but this one has me. What he does with motifs—“I’ll marry Ellen!” “Grimes is at his exercises,” and so on—and ensemble singing in particular is fantastic. I wish I were still a musicology student, I’d love to spend a semester in a seminar on this one opera. (I’ve listened to a handful of different versions on YouTube and lost track of which one is which; haven’t yet heard an Ellen Orford I REALLY like, her music seems to need a particularly beautiful voice.) Frances Partridge, watching the premiere, loved it and wrote “I often longed to have some interesting, thrilling passage back to listen to it again,” and pace Walter Benjamin, now we can.
· For something completely different, Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing”—a favorite of my father’s, and mine too, for its happy energy and its suspensions “when you check it ou-ou-out, when you get o-o-off your trip” and so on.
· The more Chinese I learn the more I don’t know, 越学越不懂; ( language rambling ).
· Random assortment of photos: ( Read more... )
Be safe and well.
