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~ Living retired, and nourished by the arts

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Monthly Archives: January 2015

On the Colours of Vegetables and Fruit…

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in food, produce, recipe, Uncategorized

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salads, spriral slicer, vegetables

produce department

Sometimes, especially in the grey winter, I love to go to produce stores and supermarkets just to look at the colours of vegetables of various kinds. Even an interest in textures is rewarded, and the offerings can vary from season to season.  As I live in an area of orchards and vineyards, different seasons bring fruits of different colours, from the dark red of the cherries, to the peaches, pears and plums. All of them delight me, as do the light brown walnuts at the end harvest season. Then everything goes dormant, the foliage falls to the earth and we can rest too…  The landscape is a bit dreary during these months, and that is why I like to visit stores to see bright colours, and I get a bit of exercise while doing that too.

For various reasons, now retired, we have probably cut down our meat consumption by at least 60%… It helps to live in an area where produce is so abundant, thanks also to local greenhouses that keep us nourished in the winter.  While the 100 mile (or 160 km) diet is quiet impractical in Canada, I do try to source things as close to home as I can.  Just the other day, I saw at a supermarket some summer fruit or vegetable imported from New Zealand, and it was not a kiwi. I wasn’t even tempted.  To the extent that I can, I do like fruits and vegetables in season, and am prepared to wait (with a few exceptions)…  When spring is at hand, it is hard to resist those reasonably-priced imported bunches of of asparagus, but when the local asparagus finally arrives, it is so much more flavourful!

At this time of the year as we increase the number of vegetables we eat, winter vegetables take pride of place. Lots of root vegetables are in that category, such as carrots, beets, not to mention potatoes, some turnips, squash, etc.

This passion for the look of vegetables and fruit has made me explore different ways of preparing them, beyond steaming and stir-frying. Preserving that colour is important. By some chance, I happened to come across a marvelous blog called Inspiralized created by Ali Maffucci. This led me to a kitchen gadget called a spiralizer or Spriral Slicer.  I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets, but I tend to be cautious now.  Many of them have been relegated to storage. Two weeks of exploring and researching, including reading the recipes on Ms. Malffucci’s blog, and I decided to order a Paderno Spiral Slicer. It arrived yesterday, and I tried it last night for the first time, a simple recipe of spiralized zucchini noodles with garlic and parmesan. Simple and terrific!!

My research has also led me to the idea that I could convert a number of my recipes to incorporate the spiralizing method of cutting vegetables. It means they are more lightly cooked, and presumably retain more of their nutrients.  As we tend to have a vegetarian meal in the evening (stir-fry, soup or salad) and the main meal at mid-day, the spiralizer provides lots of new possibilities.  I admit that once I picked up my spiralizer from the Post Office, I went shopping and purchased just about every vegetable that can be spiralized. We are now happily eating through the contents of the vegetable crisper.

2015-01-23 18.00.58Tonight, feeling a little ambitious, I decided to convert a wonderful recipe for Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges and Gorgonzola with Truffle Honey Vinaigrette. Now I did not invent this one, but the gift some years ago of a small jar of truffle honey had me searching for recipes calling for it.  So I came upon this recipe by Robyn Webb. I have enjoyed it a couple of times, and I still have some truffle honey, so I decided to amend the recipe to take advantage of my new gadget. So I spiralized one yellow beet and one red beet! Visually, that was quite stunning!

The full recipe, as amended, is as follows:


Salad with Greens, Spiralized Beets, Walnuts  and Honey Truffle Dressing
Serves 2

2 beets, peeled and spiralized with blade C (smallest)
2 small oranges, peeled, sliced to remove all the pith
steamed green beans (a generous handful)
blue cheese
½ cup walnuts

Dressing:
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp white  wine vinegar
1 tbsp truffle honey
¼ tsp Dijon mustard
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1.  Prepare the dressing by combining all the ingredients in a small container. Stir well.
2.  Put the spiralized beets on a cooking sheet sprayed with olive oil cooking spray.
2.  Cook beets in a 400° oven for 5 minutes. Let cool.
3.  In a bowl combine the beets, greens, orange slices. Pour the dressing over the salad and top with crumbled blue cheese and walnuts on top of the salad.  Serve.


2015-01-23 18.36.13This was the result. A few comments are in order. First, I had two large oranges. One would have sufficed, but two small navel oranges would also be fine. I substituted steamed green beans, still crunchy, for the mixed greens in Robyn Webb’s original recipe. Very good.  If I made this in the summer time, I would use peaches or pears instead of the oranges. And rather than ordinary Danish blue cheese, which I had on hand, Gorgonzola would be my first choice. If using peaches or pears, I would use a milder cheese, such as goat cheese or brie, both of which are great with truffle honey.  The dressing recipe above is exactly that suggested by Robyn Webb.

The salad could also be individually plated and the ingredients kept separate, no doubt providing a better aesthetic. There is much to be said for individual flavours linked by a common vinaigrette… I think I will try that next time.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015

Agliata, (…or more on garlic sauces…)

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in food, painting, recipe, visual art

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agliata, garlic sauce, Italian food, still-life painting, Turkish food

2015-01-21 12.03.27In my last post, I mentioned a garlic sauce that was served with cucumbers in Cetrioli alle Noci. This sauce is very similar to Agliata which Giacomo Castelvetro describes in his The Fruits, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy (1614).

Dried walnuts are used in a garlic sauce called agliata, and this is how you make it: first take the best and whitest walnut kernels [the thin brown skin removed], in the quantity you need, a ladleful should be enough for eight people, and pound them in a really clean stone mortar (not a metal one) in which you have first crushed two or three cloves of garlic. When they are all well mixed, take three slices of stale white bread, well soaked in a good meat broth that is not too fatty, and pound them with the nuts. When everything is well mixed thin the sauce out with some of the same warm meat broth until you have a liquid like the pap they give to little babies, and send it to the table tepid, with a little crushed pepper. Prudent folk eat this sauce with fresh pork as an antidote to its harmful qualities, or with boiled goose, an equally unhealthy food. Serious pasta eaters even enjoy agliata with macaroni and lasagne. It is also good with boletus mushrooms…

Modern cookbooks still provide very similar instructions for this sauce to be served with pasta. This one from BigOven seems to be very close to Castelvetro’s original instructions. The BigOven author mentions eating this sauce on spinach artichoke ravioli, but I think it could also be served on a good quality tagliatelle or fettuccine as well.


Agliata Per Pasta (Garlic and Walnut Sauce For Pasta)

Ingredients

1 cup walnuts, toasted
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp stock; warmed
1/2 cup parsley; stems trimmed
6 tbsp olive oil
2 slices bread; stale, crusts removed
3 medium cloves garlic; chopped

Preparation

Soak the bread in the stock and then squeeze out any excess moisture. Combine the bread with the walnuts, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor. Process, adding the olive oil in a very slow stream until you have a thick paste. Toss with your favourite pasta & serve hot.


Another recipe substitutes a half cup of basil instead of the parsley, and adds half a cup of grated parmesan cheese, with a flourish of shaved parmesan when served. (That is pesto, isn’! it?) Elizabeth David, in her Italian Cooking (Penguin Books, 1969) has an interesting recipe for Pasta Shells with Cream Cheese and Walnuts or Chiocciole al Mascherpone e Noce, but is without garlic. while her Salsa di Noci is yet another variation on walnuts and garlic. I reproduce it here as it also gives the directions are sample of Ms. David’s wonderful prose.


Salsa di Noci (Walnut Sauce)

2 oz. of shelled walnuts
1 coffee cupful of oil
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 ½ oz. of butter
1 large bunch of parsley
salt and pepper
2 tbsp of cream or milk

Take the skins off the shelled walnuts after pouring boiling water over them. Pound them in a mortar. Add the parsley, after having picked off all the large and coarse stalks. Put a little coarse salt with the parsley in the mortar – this will make it easier to pound. While reducing the parsley and the walnuts to a paste add from time to time some of the butter, softened or just melted by the side of the fire. Stir in the breadcrumbs, and, gradually, the oil.  The result should be a thick paste, very green; it need not be absolutely smooth, but it must be well amalgamated. Stir in the cream or milk. Season with a little more salt and ground black pepper. A bizarre sauce, but excellent with tagliatelle, or with fish, or as a filling for sandwiches.


Carla Capalbo in The Ultimate Italian Cookbook (ISBN 1-85967-013-X),  uses butter instead of oil, as well as some cream, for a rich sauce, but my preference would be for the more basic Agliata recipe above.

Quite possibly, the origin of these sauces combining garlic and walnuts could be the Turkish recipe called Tarator. The one given below is in Ghillie Basan’s The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking (ISBN 978-1846811760). The sauce is apparently served in Turkey with deep fried fish and steamed vegetables.  Tarator is a name given to a number of concoctions in the Middle East (see Wikipedia article) formerly all part of the Ottoman Empire. What they all have in common is garlic, and usually nuts.  Interestingly enough, Tarator also describes a soup in Bulgaria which combines yoghurt, walnuts and cucumbers as well as garlic, which would relate it to the Cetrioli alle Noci mentioned at the beginning of this post.  In Turkey and Syria, the yoghurt would be substituted with tahini paste. It seems to be a relative of the Greek Tzatziki and Skordalia sauces. Modern cookbooks suggest using a food processor rather than a mortar and pestle.  The wonderful Turkish dish called Circassian Chicken and its sauce seem to be part of this large family.


Garlic and Walnut Sauce (Tarator)

6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
salt
50 gr walnuts, roughly chopped
2-3 slices day-0od bread, soaked in water and squeezed dry
3-4 tbsp olive oil
juice of half a lemon
ground black pepper

1. Using a mortar and pestle, pound the garlic to a paste with a little salt. Add the walnuts and pound them to a coarse paste.

2. Add the soaked bread and slowly pour in the olive oil, beating all the time to form a thick pulpy mixture. Beat in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Serves 4-6


Even more basic is the Ailade aux Noix (Garlic-Walnut Sauce) to be found in Jean-Luc Toussaint’s The Walnut Cookbook (ISBN 0-89815-948-2).  This is a terrific cookbook entirely devoted to the walnut as a culinary ingredient in French country cooking.

Aillade de Noix (Garlic-Walnut Sauce)

½ cup walnut pieces
6 garlic cloves, peeled
¼ cup walnut oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

Place the walnuts and peeled garlic in  a food processor and mix to a paste, Little by little, add the walnut oil to the mixture in the food processor, pulsing to mix until you have a smooth mayonnaise-like sauce. (Purists would not use the food processor for this last step but would whip the mixture with a fork.) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Yield: : 2/3 to 3/4 cup


And, of course, many recipes for pesto use walnuts and garlic combined with various herbs.  Here is one with walnuts, garlic and sage, courtesy of Not Without Salt.


Sage Walnut Pesto

¼ cup Italian parsley
¼ cup tablespoons mint
1 cup (2 ½ oz.) sage, packed
2 garlic cloves
½ cup (2 oz.) walnuts, toasted
½ cup (1/2 oz.) grated Parmesan
½ cup (3 ¾ oz.) extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt

Combine first six ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and blend to a rough purée. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the machine running stream in the olive oil. Add the zest, lemon juice, then taste and add salt to taste. Adjust seasonings to your preference.


Jean_Siméon_Chardin_-_Pears,_Walnuts_and_Glass_of_Wine_-_WGA04784I mentioned the wonderful still-life paintings of Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670) in a previous post. About a century later, in France, the painter Jean-Baptiste Chardin (1699-1779) created a number of still-life paintings which were highly praised in their day, and are revered today.  Here is his Pears, Walnuts and a Glass of Wine, ca. 1768 (oil on canvas, 33 x 41 cm, Musée du Louvre).  Pears, walnuts and a glass of wine are worthy of a simple meal in themselves. We are blessed to have a couple of pear trees and a walnut tree in our yard.

About Chardin’s work in his review of the 1763 Salon, Diderot would exclaim: “O Chardin! You no longer grind white, red or black pigments on your palette, but the very substance of the objects themselves, it is air and light that you capture on the tip of your brush and that you set on your canvas.” [my translation]

The humility of this simple fare, exemplified in the recipes I have copied above, are within reach of most folks I know, while the blue cheese is an option, as is a good piece of home-made bread.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015. (Excepting actual recipes)

Food, Music and Silence

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in food, painting, recipe

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Giovanna Garzoni, Italian cuisine, Renaissance cuisine

I was reading an article by Peter Hellman on Snooth this morning in which he suggests that a quiet environment, away from all distractions, especially related to connectivity, allows for a greater appreciation of wine. I believe that, and while snow covers the ground here in Summerland, one’s tendency is to cocoon a bit, and concentrate on some of life’s simple pleasures.

Many years ago, I bought a little cookbook entitled Florentines, by Lorenza de Medici. It has always been a delight, especially because of the reproductions of paintings by Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670). In her preface, Lorenza de’Medici also makes reference to a manuscript by Giacomo Castelvetro (1546-1616) titled (in translation) as The Fruits, Herbs and Vegetables of Italy (1614). Castelvetro wrote the manuscript as an exile in Great Britain and was lamenting the preponderance of meat in the British diet, and remembering nostalgically the marvelous produce of his native country.

florentines

Some of the recipes in the book may seem a bit odd to us today, but I did try one out a few days ago and the result was terrific. This was a salad of cucumbers with a walnut dressing. Here is the recipe, as appears in the book: 


Cucumber with Walnuts (Cetrioli alle Noci)

6 cucumbers
a handful of fresh white breadcrumbs
2 garlic cloves
½ cup shelled walnuts
2 tsp wine vinegar
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Peel the cucumber and slice it thinly. Place in a salad bowl.

2. Soak the breadcrumbs in water; then squeeze them  dry and place in a mortar or food processor, together with the garlic and walnuts.  Pound or blend until smooth, if necessary adding a little water to make a homogenous cream. Dilute with the vinegar and oil and add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Pour the sauce over the cucumber and serve.

Servings: 4

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 152 calories, 86 calories from fat, 10.3g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 9.8mg sodium, 698.6mg potassium, 12.1g carbohydrates, 4.2g fiber, 6.8g sugar, 5g protein.

Source
Source: Florentines – A Tuscan Feast, by Lorenza de Medici  ISBN: 0-679-41850-4


A few comments are in order. I used a single long English cucumber in this recipe with excellent results.  One could use small field cucumbers, seeds removed, or even the mini cucumbers that are now available.  The recipe would probably be quite good with an Armenian cucumber was well.

Cucumbers today may be quite different from what was available during the Renaissance.  Castelvetro says about cucumbers that

“because of their coldness, we eat them with onions and pepper, or serve them with gooseberries or verjuice. We never use the large yellow ones in salads, as the English do, but only the small completely green cucumbers.  We make another dish with the big ones, which is very good; we cut them in half lengthwise and hollow out the soft part inside. Then fill them with  a stuffing of finely chopped herbs, breadcrumbs, an egg, grated cheese and oil or butter, all mixed together, then roast them on a grid, or cook them gently in an earthenware pot or a tinned copper dish with a lid. You could add pepper or strong spices.”

Of walnuts, he writes:

“We also have walnuts , which are common everywhere. The green ones start to be good about the feast of San Lorenzo [10 August], and  are highly esteemed and eaten by the gentry, who consider the dry ones to be on the whole more coarse than genteel.”

He goes on to say that in Lombardy, the coarser walnuts are made into an oil which the poor folk use for lighting.

As for Giovanna Garzoni, here is her Bowl of Peaches with a Cucumber, a watercolour.

garzoni peaches and a cucumber

There is quiet simplicity in most of Garzoni’s little paintings. The one above celebrates summer fruits and vegetable, while the one on the cover of Florentines – a Tuscan Feast is her Bowl of Plums and Walnuts with Jasmine Flowers. I will discuss Giovanna Garzoni’s paintings in a future post, and deal more generally with the subject of still-life.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015

Fennel and Orange Salad

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in recipe

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fennel, orange, pomegranate, salad, vegan

fennel blb

One of the vegetables I have not used very often is fennel. It is a beautiful thing, both as a plant, and the bulb you can buy in any supermarket. Why has it taken me so long to appreciate it?  Maybe I did not prepare it well… Heaven knows that even at 70, I am still learning new things. One of the great things about retirement is having the time to try new things and to have a bit more time to do some research.  I love research.

The recipe I found was in a wad of photocopies I did several years ago. I have no idea what the cookbook was. But I photocopied about 20 pages of it, and then forgot about it completely.  Here is the recipe:


Fennel & Orange Salad

2 large heads fennel (about 1 ½ lbs)
¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar
2 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs grated orange peel
1 tsp anise seeds
4 large oranges
seeds from 1 pomegranate
salt

1. Trim stems from fennel, reserving the feathery green leaves. Trim and discard any bruised areas from fennel then cut each fennel head into thin slivers. Placed slivered fennel in a large bowl.

2. Finely chop enough of the fennel leaves to make 1 tbs (reserve remaining leaves); add to bowl along with vinegar, oil, orange peel, and anise seeds. Mix well.

3. Cut off and discard peel and all white membranes from oranges. Cut fruit crosswise into slices about ¼ inch thick; discard seeds.

4. Divide fennel mixture among individual plates.  Arrange oranges alongside fennel mixture; sprinkle salads equally with pomegranate seeds.  Garnish with reserved fennel leaves. Season to taste with salt.

Servings: 6

Cooking Times
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 68 calories, 3 calories from fat, <1g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 2.5mg sodium, 333.4mg potassium, 20.1g carbohydrates, 3.9g fiber, 11.5g sugar, 1.5g protein.

2015-01-14 fennel and orange salad


This is a photo of the result. I did not do individual plate arrangements as suggested. I just tossed it, and of course all the pomegranate seeds went to the bottom of the bowl. So take the time to plate it. It will look a lot better.

I am not a vegetarian by any means, but this is actually a vegan dish, and will do quite nicely as a light dinner, especially when lunch is the main meal of the day.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015

Remembering Honoré Daumier (1808-1879)

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in visual art

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art history, caricature. cartoons, Daumier, freedom of the press

daumier_press

Honoré Daumier, Ne vous y frottez pas!!, 1834, lithograph on paper, 30.7 x 43.1, Delteil 133.

The tragic events in Paris on 9 January 2015 when cartoonists were assassinated by Islamist fanatics brought to mind one of the great artists of the 19th century, Honoré Daumier. It may be assumed that freedom of the press is one of the fundamental freedoms in France but such was not the case until 1881. By then Daumier had died.

If freedom of the press was part of the original Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citzens in 1789, this was set aside in 1792 as the revolution evolved into the reign of La Terreur. The political régimes that followed, the Empire, the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, all suppressed freedom of the press to a greater or lesser extent. Only in the early days of July Monarchy was there some press freedom,  but this was short-lived. Republican feelings opposed the Monarchists who dominated French politics until the Revolution of 1848. The Bonapartist Second Empire, established in 1852 also suppressed press freedoms.  Daumier was imprisoned for 6 months in 1832-33 for his cartoons.

daumier_ruetrans

One of Daumier’s most devastating lithographs was his Rue Transnonain, 15 April, 1834. 33.9 x 46.5 cm. The event depicted is the brutal repression of insurrectionary elements that year. In response to a sniper from an apartment building on Rue Transnonain, the government’s soldiers broke into the building and massacred all the inhabitants. Daumier’s lithograph appeared and was shown in a shop window but quickly suppressed, with all available copies of the work seized. Press censorship was restored.

Daumier would go on to produce many hundreds of lithographs and his commentaries on politicians and the judiciary appeared in various illustrative journals. Most of them had to be submitted to the authorities for approval. He was able to publish several caricatures of King Louis Philippe until the Revolution of 1848.  By then, Daumier was working as a painter and his image of The Uprising, c. 1849, (below – oil on canvas, 88 x 113 cm, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.) captures the events of 1848, a year of revolutions all over Europe.

daumier_uprising

For much of the 19th century, French governments suppressed many freedoms with violence against its own citizens. The climax of these suppressions was the state sanctioned massacres during the Paris Commune in 1870-71. Since 1881, when the freedom of the press was established by law during the government of the Third Republic, the principle has more or less held in France under successive Republican governments, notwithstanding repeated attempts to control or impose some limitations. If the principle is maintained in Canada and the United States, freedom of the press is always under threat. Many will have noted that during the same week that the events in Paris brought freedom of the press to light once again, the press is muzzled or controlled in many countries all over the world. The leaders assembled for the great March in Paris on 11 January 2015, it should be noted, were not marching for the freedom of the press, but against terrorism. In Canada and the United States, the corporate owners of the media, do control what gets coverage and what does not. This too is a more or less subtle form of censorship.

During the first week of January, 2015, a young Saudi national, Raif Badawi, condemned for the contents of his blog, received the first 50 lashes in a public square in Jeddah. The sentence for his blog, apparently ‘insulting to Islam,’ is 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes, as well as a fine of one million riyals (about $266,000). His blog was critical of the powerful clerics in that country, one of the Arab world’s more repressive régimes. The punishment has been protested by many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015.

The Dark Side of Winter

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in classical music

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Four Seasons, Glazunov, Schubert, Sibelius, Vivaldi, Winter

2015-01-05 -back forty in winter

Above the back property where we live is one of the oldest Summerland cemeteries where many of our town’s pioneers are buried. In every season, it reminds us to enjoy life while we can. The view seems particularly desolate in winter with snow on the ground, and the presence of the cemetery seems even more urgent. It is not a sight we dread at all. It has always appealed to my Romantic sensibilities.

friedrich - winter landscapeThis darker side of winter contrasts with the general cheerfulness of late 19th and early 20th century Canadian painting I discussed in a previous post (5 January 2015). Winter suggests death both as an inevitable end, but also as the harbinger of rebirth and renewal that spring brings. The painting above is Caspar David Friedrich’s Monastery Graveyard in the Snow (1819; 121 x 170 cm), one of the masterpieces at Berlin’s Nationalgalerie destroyed in 1945 during World War II. I am not sure that the colour seen here is what Friedrich painted. Usually it is seen only in black and white reproductions. The painting was a revision of his earlier (1810) Abbey in the Oakwood, and perhaps the added colouration is based on that work.

There is lots of symbolism in this painting and the various interpretations can be obtained online. The central theme of winter, however, is the one I wish to focus on here. And to my mind, there is no better expression of winter in the Romantic sensibility than Schubert’s Winterreise, written in 1827 a year before his death. It is a cycle of 24 songs based on poems by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827). Schubert had used another collection of his poems in his song cycle entitled Die Schöne Müllerin (1823). What both cycles have in common are the themes of lost love, despair, sad and restless wandering (life) and a longing for release in death. This is exceptionally poignant music.  Translated texts for both cycles are available online. Performances of Winterreise are also available online, not the least of which is a very fine one with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau accompanied by pianist Gerald Moore. The piano accompaniments are quite extraordinary in themselves.

There are lighter pictorial descriptions of winter in music, of course, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons come to mind. The last concerto is Winter, and there too, a sonnet accompanied the music, intended more as a guide for the performers. Then there Haydn’s oratorio, The Seasons, where Winter occupies the final part, opens with an instrumental depiction of thick fogs at the approach of winter. Images of desolation pervade the music, and the metaphor of the traveller is again used, wandering a desolate landscape, but relieved by the warmth of a country inn and its folk working at winter activities and telling stories by the fire. All this ends with a reflection on death which the death of nature in winter conjures up. The seasons are a metaphor for life on earth, and the just, affirms Haydn, are rewarded with everlasting life. The music ends with a joyous chorus.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13, is named “Winter Daydreams.”  He was 26 years old when he wrote it, and by far the most evocative movement, as far as winter is concerned, is the second, which itself bears the title “Land of Desolation – Land of Mists.”  Alexander Glazunov’s ballet The Seasons was composed in 1899 and opens with “Winter,” a lovely piece with musical evocations of hoarfrost, ice, snow, etc.

My partner mentioned Chopin’s virtuosic Etude in A minor, Op. 25, No. 11, often called “Winter Wind,” which is most interesting. I had never heard it before. Another terrific piece is the “Winter Storms” waltz (Op. 184) by the Czech composer Julius Fučík. There is a driving energy to it which sounds a bit dangerous! It is one of my favourite waltzes, far more interesting than Waldteufel’s “Skaters” waltz!

I suppose when it comes to chilling music, Sibelius is the master. He seems to capture the bleak Finnish landscape which is so similar to the Canadian landscape, with its vast windswept forests. It seems a lot of Sibelius has that quality of sublime bleakness, but to my mind it is his tone poem Tapiola, Op. 112, composed in 1926, that is most chilling. (I have provided the link to Vänskä’s masterful performance.)

And for those who would like to acquire any of this music, you will find a very select discography at the bottom of this article. A good CD library is one of the great joys of my retirement.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015

Discography:

Glazunov: The Seasons, Op. 67; Violin Concerto. Neeme Järvi conducting The Scottish National Orchestra.  Chandos CHAN-8596.

Haydn: The Seasons, Hob. XXI:3. John ELiot Gardiner conducts The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists. Archiv 431818-2.

Schubert: Winterreise, D 911, op. 89. Ernst Haefliger, tenor; Jörg Ewald Dähler, hammerflügel. Claves 50-8008/9

Sibelius: Symphonies No. 6 & 7; Tapiola. Osmo Vänskä conducting the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. BIS CD-864.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 “Winter Daydreams.” Marriss Jansons conducting the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Chandos CHAN 8402.

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons. Nils Erik Sparf, violin; Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, BIS CD-275.

Winter Landscape

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in painting

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canadian painting, scandinavian painting, winter landscape

2015-01-05 -back forty in winter

As a winter snow storm sweeps over the Okanagan Valley, we find Summerland today quite snowbound. There is so much snow in fact that we could go nowhere. We were informed that the municipal workers had already worked beyond their allotted hours on the weekend. Snow clearing would resume on Tuesday morning. Not that we really wanted to go anywhere, but we did clear a bit of our driveway to make the job a bit lighter in the morning.

2015-01-05 - house in winterSo we hunkered down indoors and had a lovely lunch of a plump chicken stuffed with mushroom risotto, and some broccoli. With all this snow I had memories of those glass globes of my childhood containing a small landscape with trees which you could shake to make it snow.

jfjaestad - winter landscapeA winter landscape brings to mind countless paintings, by Canadian artists and many Scandinavian artists. The effects were always very picturesque.  Lawren S. Harris (1885-1970) was particularly adept at this sort of thing, as was the Swedish artist Gustaf Fjaestad (1868-1948).  His Silence – Winter, 1914, is presented here.This is the type of work that Lawren S. Harris and J.E.H. Macdonald (1873-1932)Marc-Aurèle_de_Foy_Suzor-Coté_-_Settlement_on_the_Hillside saw at an exhibition of contemporary Swedish art held in Buffalo in 1912-13, and they were inspired to do something similar with the Canadian landscape. Another Canadian painter who was inspired by Scandinavian painting was Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Côté (1869-1937).  His Settlement on the Hillside (1909) is shown here. Even the great Claude Monet owinter-on-the-mesna-river-near-lillehammer-fritz-thaulownce visited Scandinavia where he met Fritz Thaulow (1847-1906), a Norwegian artist. Thaulow later went to Paris where he painted for a few years. His Winter on the Mesna River near Lillehammer is shown here.

Finally, there is Clarence Gagnon (1887-1942) another French Canadian painter who not only painted in Canada, but also in Scandinavia, where he often vacationed. He was also a very fine etcher and his illustrations for Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdeleine are clagagnon vilage in the laurentian mountains 1927 - ngcssics of Canadian art. But his most cherished works are those that were inspired by the landscape of his native Comté Charlevoix. His Village in the Laurentian Mountains (1927) illustrated here.

In all of these works, winter is given a decorative treatment, and a very pleasing one at that. All of the painters mentioned here can be Googled and admired at leisure. Better still, they can be admired in a number of fine galleries and museums in Canada. The Scandinavian works can be found in a number of collections, but the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm has a number of them in its collection, as does Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde museum in the same city.

© Roger H. Boulet, 2015

Pollo alle Melograne

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in Uncategorized

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Tags

chicken, Italian recipe, pomegranate, pomegrante

I can’t remember when I first had pomegranates. It must have been during one of my student trips to Europe in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I remember thinking they were really good, the seeds that is, as the skin and inner membranes are inedible. But they always seemed to be bothersome to eat (like artichokes) so they were never really part of my grocery list.

Two things happened recently that made me rethink this. One was finding a recipe on the back of an old Christmas card.  The other waIllustration_Punica_granatum2s coming across an ingenious method of seeding them quickly and efficiently. I remember my late friend John Lust once preparing a Persian chicken recipe which had pomegranate seeds in it. It may have been Fesenjan, and I can’t help but think that the recipe I found, Pollo alle Melograne, has its origins in Persia (Iran).  (I must try the Fesenjan again, as we have lots of walnuts every year from a tree in our yard).

The Pollo alle Melograne recipe, I found, is also featured in Giovanni Bugialli’s Foods of Tuscany cookbook (1992) pp. 156-157, and is described as an “old Tuscan Renaissance Dish.” The one I found on the back of that old Christmas card is identical, but does not have a copyright warning, so I am providing it here.

Pollo alle Melograne

1 chicken (3 to 3 1/2 pounds), quartered
1 tbsp unsalted butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 tbsp olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
pinch (generous) ground cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg
1 to 2 cups chicken broth, preferably home-made
2 large pomegranates
large pinch of ground ginger to serve

1. Cut the chicken into quarters. Rub the quarters with the tablespoon of butter and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.

2. Heat the oil in a medium-sized casserole over medium heat and, when the oil is warm, place the chicken in a single layer in the bottom of the casserole.  Sauté for 2 minutes, then turn the chicken over and sauté for 2 minutes more. Add the wine and let it evaporate  for 10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper, then add the cinnamon and a large pinch of nutmeg.  Start adding the broth a little at a time, turning the chicken two or three times and adding more broth as needed.

3. Meanwhile, peel the pomegranates, removing all the seeds and discarding the skins.

4. When the chicken is almost cooked, about 25 minutes from the moment you started adding the broth, add the pomegranate seeds to the casserole, mix very well, cover and cook for 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally to be sure the seeds do not stick to the bottom. Taste for salt and pepper.

5. Just before serving, sprinkle the ginger all over the chicken and pomegranates, mix very well and transfer to a large serving platter. Serve hot.

Servings: 4

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 1008 calories, 659 calories from fat, 73.6g total fat, 251.5mg cholesterol, 233.1mg sodium, 879.3mg potassium, 15.9g carbohydrates, 3.1g fiber, 11.1g sugar, 58.6g protein.

This is what the recipe looks like in a serving dish, 2015-01-03 melograne01

and on the plate.

2015-01-03 melograne02

Some comments are in order. The flavour is surprisingly subtle and well-balanced. I thought one or two of these spices would overpower the chicken, but not at all! I reduced the recipe somewhat (for two people) so one large pomegranate produced plenty of seeds for the dish, and one cup of stock was adequate.  I served it with brown rice and maybe it lacks a bit of colour on the plate. Peas, or maybe a sprig of mint would liven up the appearance a bit, and provide a suitable accompaniment.

Another recipe I have uses pomegranate molasses. It is a cherry salad, but I will save that one for the summer when we have picked some cherries off our tree in early July.

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