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On Tuesday 28 July P and I had the privilege of listening to renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis and Hungarian pianist Denes Varjon playing Schumann at the new, acoustically excellent Melbourne Recital Centre. It was part of Musica Viva’s 2009 concert series.
P and I love listening to classical music live, and try to enjoy as many performances as we can afford (usually about 3 or 4 a year). This concert is definitely my all time favourite; and P’s second favourite after an outstanding ACO performance of The Red Tree with the Gondwana children’s orchestra (I blogged about that here). My mind tends to wander at some point during most concerts, but miraculously their passionate playing held my interest throughout.
Thanks to our excellent seats, we could see the expressions on Steven Isserlis’ face, his curly hair moving and his bow strings breaking (really, I think half the bow was gone by the end of the night). Other highlights were watching Denes Varjon’s hands move across the keys of the Steinway piano, plus a very beautiful encore – I wish I knew which piece of Schumann it was because I would love to hear it again.
Their second concert in Melbourne is on this Saturday 1 Aug at 8pm, and tickets are very very limited! I recommend going if you can – it’s unmissable! If there were cheap seats, I would definitely be attending a second time, but the cheapest I found were $90. Yikes. If you can’t make it (or can’t afford it), get a CD of the performance instead. All that practice is probably why these two musicians sound so good together.
For more Steven Isserlis, get his multi award winning recording of Bach’s Cello Suites (currently on sale at Readings in Melbourne). If that’s not enough, he also writes for The Guardian, and is an author of 2 children’s books on music.
This is my first week at home, and although I’ve been valiantly trying to rest, I can’t help reverting to my usual self and keeping busy.
A magazine I have become slightly addicted to is Australian Gourmet Traveller. It’s a bit like Vogue for foodies: intelligent and sophisticated. I was a bit intimidated by the recipes, but we’ve tried a few so far and they’ve all turned out to be surprisingly easy to follow and the results are yummy.
Anyway, this past week, we made the best chocolate cookies ever. The recipe is part of the June 2009 issue’s Chocolate heaven section. I coudn’t be arsed making the chocolate ganache (maybe next time) and didn’t find any dried sour cherries so ours were plain chocolate. I think this will become our basic chocolate cookie recipe, and we are planning to experiment by adding macadamias, candied orange, candied ginger or dried cranberries. Should be fun.
My new favourite chocolate cookies
Serves 18
Prep time 25 mins, cook 15 mins (plus cooling)
INGREDIENTS
- 260 gm butter, softened
- 220 gm (1 cup) caster sugar
- 150 gm (1 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only (I used a teaspoon of vanilla essence)
- 300 gm (2 cups) plain flour
- 100 gm Dutch-process cocoa (I used supermarket cocoa)
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 140 gm dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), coarsely chopped (I used supermarket-brand dark chocolate buttons and was too lazy to chop them up).
METHOD
- Preheat oven to 180C. Beat butter and sugars in an electric mixer until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes), add eggs and vanilla and beat well to combine.
- Sift over flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and ½ tsp salt, stir to combine, then stir in chocolate.
- Roll heaped tablespoons of mixture into rough balls, flatten slightly and place on baking-paper-lined oven trays, leaving plenty of room for them to spread. As you can see from our photos, they really spread out, so be generous and leave lots of room.
- Bake until puffed and starting to set (8-9 minutes). Cool slightly on tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will puff while baking and flatten while cooling. Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
I am so lucky that I can have both professional discussions on the state of healthcare in this country, as well as heart-to-heart talks about pregnancy, parenting, breastfeeding and sex with my fantastic, intelligent, articulate and well-respected midwife. She is an amazing woman with a big heart and a sharp mind, and here are her thoughts on the illusion of choice that is presented to a new mother. Unless she is savvy and well-informed, she is probably not getting the most well-rounded advice. (Although anyone who is paying a premium for a private obstetrician is probably thinking that she is getting the best care she’s paying for). Here’s what Joy said:
Informed Choice: a privilege but NOT a right
Notes: A short and technical explanation on evidence based medicine from the Cochrane Collaboration.
and another article on birth choices from Blue Milk:
Last Sunday (12 July) I had a very happy surprise.
A baby shower: organised by a group of close friends and my darling husband, whom I thought would never be able to keep a secret like this, or even manage an event like this, without me knowing.
Well, I was wrong. And boy, was I surprised! Especially when the lovely hostess and mastermind Caroline brandished a knife in my face and said “Eeeek, you’re too early, go back outside until we’re ready!” or something similar. After getting over the shock of being chased out of my own home with my own knives (obviously, I ignored her) it finally dawned on me that there were lots of lovely people in my house and stacks of delicious food. Yay!
The best present of the day (and thanks to everyone for all your lovely gifts) was the fact that our friends in Melbourne cared sufficiently about us to pull off something as wonderful as this! I think I was on a high for a week, just celebrating privately every time I thought about this.
The only low point is my wonderful friends NOT in Melbourne (you are probably reading this) whom I would have loved to share a moment like this with. Regardless, I am very thankful for all the support, celebration and good-natured ribbing that has enriched my life from all over the world. You guys are amazing.
…but I love writing things down, and organising things onto little chunks of paper. I have 3 shopping lists going on the fridge to make sure we get stuff we need and to curb impulse buying (something I seem to be an expert at). There are also a dozen or so to do lists lying around that I haven’t quite completed. Last week, we also started a baby stuff inventory, and scarily (even though we think we’ve bought a huge heap of stuff) we need more baby stuff (!?!) according to some reliable websites and books.
Anyway, I am a big fan of lists, and some of my favourite printable lists come from David Seah. The one I use the most is the Emergent Task Planner, which is by far the nicest looking and most usable to do list I’ve come across.
It prints up beautifully and is easy to write, organise and scribble notes on. I like printing out a week’s worth (5) double sided on A4 paper and staple them together. Once the week is done, I recycle/ shred them. Being A4 though, they aren’t very portable, so I tend to use them as an add-on to my little Moleskine diary, which goes everywhere and contains everything (just about) that I need to get me through my day.
However, Mr. Seah (the genius) has come up with a weekly sheet that will probably go on top of my 5 Planner sheets and act as a holistic weekly guide (there is room to track how much you sleep, exercise, etc). I’m testing it out at the moment, we’ll see how I feel about it in a week or two.
Lifehacker has a succinct review of the Day Grid Balancer, or you can check out David’s own explanation. If you’re as anal as me, I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of it!
