Joy in Jesus,
Irene

Hi Connie and all – – –

A Brief Concert Report: Listening for the “Nervous Viola” and “Happy Peasant” sections. Several Wednesday’s ago, we attended a Rob Kapilow “What Makes It Great” presentation, focused on the Dvorak Opus 81 Piano Quintet. Although we had heard of him, and have his recent book, we had not seen him live. His standard format is to focus on a single chamber piece. With the musicians on stage (and him w/ an extra grand piano), he spent about 1 ½ hours going through the piece, movement by movement. After intermission, the piece is played through. At the close of the concert, he takes some questions. We know this piece, but, in fact, we learned a lot more about it. Kapilow is very knowledgeable, and very good with the audience. He is funny, open, and had all 1,400 of us humming short sections within five minutes of the start of his lecture/demo. We’ll head back to the Cerritos Center for a May gig on Beethoven’s Archduke Trio.

A Food Report: (1) I would certainly like to sample those Brownies!! (Susan, however, is like Commenter Irene, as chocolate gives Susan migraine headaches. The only “plus” is that Susan’s chocolate aversion means I enjoy (relatively) free reign to chase down the darkest chocolate I can find. (2) I, too, have noted the Formidable Cook on your masthead. I am the cook in our household, and we wander down ethnic, meat, and non-meat paths nightly, taking full advantage of Susan’s Southern CA garden. An interesting non-meat dish that we recently enjoyed is “Neatloaf” a brown rice, tofu, ricotta casserole mentioned in an article about a San Francisco restaurant, Ananda Fuara, which is run by the Sri Chinmoy religious order. The full recipe is online several places; one useful one is http://www.recipelink.com/msgid/061508. It includes a very simple sauce that has become a staple for us: Mix together: 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/8 cup Dijon mustard, 1/4 cup molasses (or maybe up to ½ cup for a a stronger dark sweet taste), 1/8 cup to 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (to taste – 1/8 works), and pinch cayenne ground pepper (to taste- or some Asian sweet chile sauce). A great useful table sauce!!!

A CD Report: At my level of amateur classical music enjoyment, Bruckner and motets are familiar words, but not ones that I associate together. In fact, Naxos has a CD featuring Bruckner’s Motets. It is an hour of very peaceful music that seems to span many years (some sound a little Gregorian-like, others could be Bach). Bruckner did have strong Catholic church support, and the 15 pieces on the CD were written at different times, for different purposes. The collection on this CD works very well.

So, food, music, prayers and hopes – those are central things for us, and you certainly are a strong positive model for us in all these realms. We are pleased that you can enjoy some times of good energy and spirit, and that your writings continue to include your natural environment observations.

Our warmest regards to all of you (including A-dog)

dick and susan gale

Kira would let you know that we saw the same geese that JP pictured in the blog yesterday. They were heading south again saying retreat! due to the cold.

I would say, only you would create an incredible brownie recipe off the top of your head – it does make it a little moot when one thinks about passing down the family recipes – your gift for creative creation is unparalleled and humbling –

Stay warm and know you are the forefront of my thoughts and prayers –

Peace, oh most beautiful mother whom I adore

Heidi