Sea Longing

Sara Teasdale

A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,--
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,--
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

sounds of laughter giveaway, also new blog announcement

iii am back from the dead to talk about this awesome giveaway that Nicole is doing! it's a beautiful dress, and I want it. that is all.



Actually, thats not all. my sister and i are starting a joint blog, and it will be on its feet shortly! Stay tuned for details!

Hrm!

I am awfully sorry for dropping off the face of the earth as soon as I moved back to Tennessee. There were many factors that contributed to this, one of them being that I hit the ground running and haven't really slowed up until this week.

Let me see if I can catch y'all up on whats been up since I last blogged:
So, I moved back, with the help of Dad and Littlestbrother, the 900 miles south to Tennnessee. Successful and expensive and fine. I moved into a beautiful house with two lovely ladies, and that has also been fine. It is odd to me to share space again, but I have my own sort of suite above the garage, and all I really share is the kitchen. It is a good happy medium between living alone and living with people. (I believe I went a little crazy living alone in Minnesota- but don't worry, I'm recovering nicely)

Three weeks after I moved, I up and left again (look out here she comes, she's comin', look out there she goes, she's gone.. lord, she never even stopped). A week's vacation in Maryland, then a weekend in Boston, two weeks of a bow repair workshop in New Hampshire (with the weekend in between back in Boston, and a day in Cape Cod at the Monomoy Theatre, to see Man of La Mancha - fanTAStic performance) and then back to TN.
And since just been working now.

A few nights ago I attended a string quartet party. I hope to have maannny more of those. But it will help a lot when the most awesome cellist I know moves back to Nashville next month.

Last night I attended a fabulous appetizer potluck party! I brought my cheeseball, as per tradition (It's not a Hannigan party without a cheeseball) and it sparked an idea to make a lot of them and perhaps sell them at farmer's markets. I'll keep you updated.

this is cool.

Sorry

for not writing for so long. Here is a quick, comma-filled version of the last month or so:

Sick for two weeks, end of the semester, graduated with honors, caught up on sleep, packed, first run through of the show, (went well), dad and david came out to Minnesota to help me move, crazy, loaded truck, drove to the middle of illinois, got stopped by a huuuge thunderstorm with large amounts of hail, drove the rest of the way to nashville, unpacked into a spare room, started work immediately, memorial day weekend had all my friends out of town, so i worked a lot over the weekend, friends came back into town, first week of work, planning trip to maryland and newhampshire, still havent unpacked into my real room yet (not til i get back), reading a lot, nashville is VERY hot,

but i love my job, and i love my city, and i am happy to be back. 

Coming soon, tasty tuesday will be reincarnated into something probably weekendy, but still delicious.

If that's movin up, then I'm--

Packing up. The nagging worry of departure. Lost keys, unwritten labels, tissue paper lying on the floor. I hate it all. Even now, when I have done so much of it, when I live, as the saying goes, in my boxes. Even to-day, when shutting drawers and flinging wide a hotel wardrobe, or the impersonal shelves of a furnished villa, is a methodical matter of routine, I am aware of sadness, a sense of loss. Here, I say, we have lived, we have been happy. This has been ours, however brief the time. Though two nights only have been spent beneath a roof, yet we leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material, not a hair-pin on a dressing-table, not even an empty bottle of Aspirin tablets, not a handkerchief beneath a pillow, but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood.

--Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Schoooools out. for. the summer!

schooooools. out. for. EVER.

the gang. 

the quartet!

my wonderful benchmate :)

a day in the life. 

a big steaming bowl of scott chowder.

the amazing lisbeth butler and I.

oh, but the years not done before having a bonfire in the parking lot. We burned an old violin, part of a cello, and some useless push sticks that we slaved over at the beginning of the year and then never used again. And we sang Happy Trails. (too youuu. untilll we meeeet agaaaain) (at future VSA conventions!)

Tasty Tuesday: Magic cupcakes.

stay tuned for some awesome tasty tuesday things, and also graduation pics!

fbihd

I've not written much lately, and it is for many reasons - the largest and most obnoxious reason being that I've been sick for nearly two weeks now and not getting much better, even with antibiotics.

The good news, though, is that I've discovered the most glorious thing. 

Ice cream. 

Not just any ice cream, though. 

Tiny ice cream. 

Happy Fat Babies in Hats Day. It's been a while, hasn't it?

P.S. Be excited for next week's Tasty Tuesday. Be very excited. 

my mom is the coolest

For those of you who don't know my mom, she teaches 6th grade English. I always enjoy kids opinions, because they are so honest, and its even funnier when they are describing someone I know. The following list is from her class: learning to describe a person, and practicing on her.

She is a gray headed, blue eyed, fun loving teacher.
She always wears heels and the same watch and bracelet.
She is honest and creative. One day she said that she would bring candy on Thusday and she did. She is creative because she comes up with games.
Basically she is enthusiastic every Monday and Thursday.
She is a jumpy, positive, overly independent teacher. She is a stubborn person. She has an iron will.
She is super funny with a sprinkle of bossy.
She likes to sit and stand on tables to read poems and other stuff.
She always knows what to say. She does not care what people think of her, and she has the silliest stories.
Lines on her forehead show how many times she has raised her eyebrows with some crazy idea.
She can be gracious and foolish.
She has a pointy nose and a smile (most of the time)
She lets students sit or stand on tables when they can fall or die at any moment.
She is very colorful. I know this because there are a billion different colors in the room. We do things in color all the time.
She is very opinionative I know this because she says bell ringers are annoying, some history is boring, latin is boring, and Rockbridge is boring. That is why I love her class.


Now tell me - don't you want to have a class taught by my mom?

Good Friday

"The Fool!" She cried. "The fool has come. Bind him fast."

Lucy and Susan held their breaths waiting for Aslan's roar and his spring upon his enemies. But it never came. Four hags, grinning and leering, yet also (at first) hanging back and half afraid of what they had to do, had approached him. "Bind him, I say!" repeated the White Witch. The hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they found that he made no resistance at all. Then others - evil dwarfs and apes - rushed in to help them and between them they rolled the huge Lion round on his back and tied all his four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the Lion chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all. But he made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that they cut into his flesh. They began to drag him toward the Stone Table.

"Stop!" said the Witch. "Let him first be shaved."

Another roar of mean laughter went up from her followers as an ogre with a pair of shears came forward and squatted down by Aslan's head...Then the ogre stood back and the children, watch from their hiding-place, could see the face of Aslan looking all small and different without its man. The enemies also saw the difference.

“Why, he’s only a great cat after all!” cried one.

“Is that what we were afraid of?” said another.

And they surged round Aslan jeering at him, saying things like “Puss, Puss! Poor Pussy,” and “How many mice have you caught to-day, Cat?” and “Would you like a saucer of milk, Pussumus?”

“Oh, how can they?” said Lucy, tears streaming down her cheeks. “The brutes, the brutes!” for now that the first shock was over the shorn face of Aslan looked to her braver, and more beautiful, and more patient than ever.

"Muzzle him!" said the Witch. And even now, as they worked about his face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now. Those who had been afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their courage, and for a few minutes the two girls could not even see him — so thickly was he surrounded by the whole crowd of creatures kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him.

At last the rabble had had enough of this. They began to drag the bound a muzzled Lion to the Stone Table, some pulling and some pushing. He was so huge that even when they got him there it took all their efforts to hoist him onto the surface of it. Then there was more tying and tightening of cords.
“The cowards! The cowards!” sobbed Susan. “Are they still afraid of him, even now?”

When once Aslan had been tied (and tied so tightly that he was really a mass of chords) on the flat stone, a hush fell on the crowd. Four Hags, holding four torches, stood at the corners of the Table. The Witch bared her arms as she had bared them the previous night when it had been Edmund instead of Aslan. Then she began to whet her knife. It looked to the children, when the gleam of the torchlight fell on it, as if the knife were made of stone, not of steel, and it was of a strange and evil shape.

At last she drew near. She stood by Aslan's head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. Then just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice,

"And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die."

C.S. Lewis

New Adventures!

This week the entire violin repair program is heading to South Dakota to go to the National Music Museum for two days. We will get to see and hear and take pictures of so many old instruments that have been kept in very good condition over hundreds of years! I am really excited about this. The oldest surviving quartet of instruments is there, including the king cello (made by Andrea Amati for Charles IX of France) (dated back to 1538). I won't have a computer until this weekend, but I will be sure to post pictures when we get back!

Meat-free conclusion

So. I broke the meat fast with a bbq chicken pizza, and it was wonderful. Going without meat was way easier than going without chocolate and cheese. But I'm not going to give up meat for good.

Yep.

TT: Hummus

You'll be surprised that I actually have a legitimate excuse for posting my Tasty Tuesday on wednesday this week - my internet's been down the last day and a half. It's been fun.

Anyway, this week's TT is yummy homemade hummus! (from DF)

Mix these things:

in a food processor. (two cans of garbanzo beans, half a teaspoon salt, half a lemon squeezed, a medium splash of olive oil, a medium scoop of tahini, a couple cloves of garlic)

(make sure to wash the garbanzo beans)

and use your fancy lemon squeezer to get the lemon juice:

mix it all and then taste for yumminess. And add whatever it needs (a little more salt and another tiny squeeze of lemon)

It helps to have a taste tester waiting nearby. 

(is quite yummy to toast the recent homemade french bread and dip it in the hummus)

Day 1: Meat free (also FBIHD)

Day 1 of being a vegetarian is successful. I have gotten a lot of good suggestions! I should have mentioned that I'm also going cheese-free this week, unfortunately. I went grocery shopping and my respect for vegetarians increased sevenfold. I felt that everything in the world had meat in it! Maybe I just automatically went for my usual foods, and then was dismayed to realize how many things had meat in them. In any case. Afterwards, I was talking to a dear friend who has been a vegetarian for the last eight years, who pointed out that there actually is a way bigger variety of produce, grains, dairy, etc, compared to the meat options. It allows, rather than forces, one to be creative. So. Fortunately, I have a couple people also giving up meat with me this week, so I'm not alone!

Also. My french bread turned out all right. A little flat, but still yummy, and the crust was just perfect!

aaaaand today's Fat Baby in a Hat is contributed by my wonderful brother.

meat-free week!

passed along from here.

I have named Sunday as Bread Day. Today's attempt: French Bread. (unrelated to Tasty Tuesdays) French bread is neat. But it requires fridgeration for a little bit, so instead of actually baking it int he middle of the night tonight, I'm just gonna bake it tomorrow when I get home from school. I'll let you know how it goes.

In other news, my latest endeavor is to go vegetarian for a week. It started as a dare to give up cheese for a week (something that almost pains me more than giving up meat), but then I started thinking about it and decided to give it a try. I love meat. A whole bunch. And I'm not sure how to live without it. Sooo... does anyone have any good meatless recipes? I need some help.

This Moment: Red Wing, MN from the top of Barn Bluff

{this moment} - A Friday ritual begun by Soulemama and stolen from Eliz. A single photo (or more) - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

TT - Orange Tart

This is a recipe I found when looking for things to do with marmalade. I tweaked it a bit – adjusted due to the lack of some ingredients and. Other things. Sorry it had nothing to do with biscuits or chocolate! April Fools!

Step One.
Put on some music. I have chosen the Mozart Requiem (right now it’s the Confutatis. Quite appropriate for baking!)

The Shell
1 ¼ cup unbleached all purpose flour.
1 Tb. Sugar
Pinch of salt (if your butter is unsalted – mine was salted so I left this out!)
10 Tb cold butter cut into small pieces.
1 Tsp. finely grated lemon zest (you may remember the last time I zested lemons – today I just used the boughton kind)

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the butter and mix thoroughly. Add no more than 3 tsp of water, one at a time, until the dought JUST holds together in clumps. Press the dough together into your pan, and refrigerate for half an hour. If you happen to have a fluted tart pan like the recipe calls for, good for you – use it. I used just a pie pan, and only raised the edges about halfway. Half pie. (1.57)

Set oven to 400 degrees. Use pastry weights or dry beans, or another smaller pan for about the first 15 minutes, til the edges are golden. (Yellow is gold, green is drab, red is carmine, blue is azure, and I can't remember the other one) After 15 minutes, take out the weights, reduce the heat to 375, and continue to bake until it is golden all over, another 15ish minutes.

While its cooling, Put on some tango music. I recommend Yo Yo Ma playing Piazzola. (Also, drink some green tea and spill it down your front. Cause that’s how we roll here) Also. Eat a grapefruit.

...and make the filling.

The Filling
You need:
3 Tb butter
2 cups milk
3 Tb cornstarch (I substituted 6 Tb flour - it worked just fine)
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Brown the butter in a saucepan, and then put it aside in a bowl. Nom!

In another bowl, whisk 1/4 cup of the milk with the cornstarch. Whisk in the eggs.
In a medium saucepan, bring the remaining 1 and 3/4 cups milk, the sugar, and salt to a boil over medium heat. Take the pan off the heat, whisk about 1/4 cup of the hot milk into the egg mixture, and then whisk the egg mixture into the hot milk. Return to medium heat and continue whisking until the filling boils and becomes very thick, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Off the heat, whisk in the brown butter and vanilla.

And to get the full effect of the Tasty Tuesday, you should completely skip reading these directions, mix everything together before realizing the egg-milk-heat-order of happenings, and then also realizing you only have one egg left, so you can't start over. So you run next door to borrow one from dear 90-year-old Marge, who assumed that you were the girl coming to cut her hair.
But then start over and do it right.

Spread the filling evenly in the tart shell and set aside at room temperature while you prepare the topping.

The Topping:
Put on the song “Lady Marmalade” and sing along to it.
Enough marmalade to spread over the top - about maybe a cup? I just scooped some.
Oranges. I had clementines. Way cuter. It’s not hard to make oranges look good. Just kinda start on the edge and make your way around to the middle. The most time consuming thing is just taking all the little peely white stuff off.
So, arrange the oranges starting outside and circling in.

Then, heat up the marmalade until it is liquidy. Strain the orange bits out of it, and then mix - they recommended Cointreau - all I had was honey bourbon. It sufficed.

  

Paint it over the oranges to give a glaze.
Refrigerate for an hour to let the filling set up. Yum.

Pretty!

aaaaand we're back.

Our spring break was a large success, and a whole lot of fun! Here are some pictures.

Getting started early in the morning.

There is a lovely man I know in Nashville who has a very large collection of instruments. He had us over for tea, and we got to look at many of the things he owns! It was really interesting, and I will only post a couple of the hundreds of pictures I got that day. 

a fancy tortoiseshell frog!

a viol da gamba - a predecessor to the violin. 

it has a lady head instead of a scroll!

 This is a 1848 Vuillaume cello. It is the reason we came out there. It is a beautiful thing. 

see?

oh, and it's just in wonderful condition too. 

Other Nashville adventures:

Pancake pantry, with my two favorite White girls :) 

We visited the Barbershop Harmony Society (of which Danny is a member) and learned to sing a tag!

We all thought it was the coolest that it was the sort of place where the people that worked there just all stopped what they were doing to come sing with us. 

We saw Robert Kelly play a show in a neat little chapel downtown. (also performing was the fantastic Kristen Rogers - such a good random acoustic show it was!)

No trip to Nashville is complete without a trip to the Loveless Cafe. Nom biscuits!

We got all touristy and went honkytonking downtown! 

And went to Jack's BBQ. 

And went to the walking bridge. 

We had one nice afternoon, and we used it very well. 

The walking bridge was so very lovely that day. 

Some views: 

 

 

Chicago!

I was able to get such a good picture because we got caught in traffic on our way in. 

The bean. 

I am godzilla... 

We got to hold some very old and very expensive instruments - it was a very neat trip!

Coming soon - a Tasty Tuesday biscuit endeavor! (inspired by Loveless)