Christmas Craftiness

If you know me well then I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I am extremely coordinated and adept at turning household objects into pure gold through the art of crafts.
For example, see this post about the melted snowman cookies we made last year. Right?


















Right. I am in no way crafty by nature. But this year I read several posts on Young House Love that made me want to MAKE SOMETHING OMG! I decided to try the ornament painting that they explain this post. Glass balls + paint = discovery of my savant talent for ornament making. How hard could it be?*







Note the Tudors intro in the background.









I would give this project a B+. It went ok - I didn't get paint everywhere and they more or less turned out like I planned. Still, I used WAY more paint than I should have, and they took forever to dry (some never really did and have a little pool of paint in the bottom. I'm over it).















































The gold one turned out best by far.

























Some of the smaller ones I just put in this little glass square vase I bought for $1 at a thrift store.























All the supplies were from Michaels: two packs of glass ornaments (one smaller than the other, but with more in the pack), an four containers of the cheapest possible paint. I'd say the glitter was more frustrating to work with because it moved slower, but it ultimately looks best on the tree. You can see how large my problems are. The glitter is moving to slowly.

Before my stint in painting I also tried something simpler: putting cloves into oranges in a pleasing fashion.

















It mostly worked! I'll give this one an A-, since the one that says "Joy" didn't really come across. But it was fun and easy. I bought a bag of cloves for about $.45 at Bulk Barn and then used a big safety pin to poke holes in the orange. It smelled delightful and added some color to the table, but they eventually got moldy so I had to chuck them. Still, a cheap and easy way to make our kitchen smell nice.
What about you? Any homemade decor for the holidays, or do you avoid crafts in general?






*Famous last words.

November Foods 2011

Instead of a bunch of separate food posts, here's a round up of recipes we tried and enjoyed this fall.

First up: Vegan Broccoli Cheese Pasta Bake from Daily Garnish.

















It's amazing how blended tofu turns into a creamy sauce for this dish. You can use pretty much any shaped pasta and whatever green veggies you had on hand, though broccoli works extremely well. Our only complaint was that this didn't reheat very well the next day. The tofu on the pasta gets kind of hard, even though it was totally creamy the first time. But if you're feeding a large group, I would recommend it.

Next: Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup from Giada (Food Network).

















My friend Katie sent me the recipe for this and I knew we'd both love it. It's basically a lot of sweet potato and broth, but then you mix in marscapone and it turns into magic. I think subbing almond milk and some Earth Balance would be a good way to make this vegan, and I almost tried it (but then I wanted to buy the cheese, so...you know what happened). We will definitely make it again.


ON TO DESSERT!

Numero 3: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows from the PPK.

















These. are. amazing. I made them for a get together at Bryn and Djillian's house, and they were gone well before I left. I think next time I would make them a little smaller, since some of them were quite large. They are only slightly more involved than a regular cookie, in that you have to roll the peanut butter part into balls and then cover it with the chocolate to make one giant ball, but really, it's pretty fool proof. I'm looking for another excuse to make them because, seriously, these are the best cookies I've made all year.


Four: Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.
























This recipe isn't on the PPK site, though they do have three other cupcakes up there. I suspect that if you google it, you could find the real thing. They have corn flour and almond meal in them and it gives them a little bit of a gritty texture. The cayenne pepper also gives them a little kick - nothing strong, just a bit - because apparently that's what Mexican hot chocolate tastes like. I've made a couple other recipes from this book, but these are by far my favorite.


Cinque: (Vegan) Pumpkin Pie Brownies, also from the PPK.

















I baked these a little longer than the directions called for, and I'm not sure if it made a difference. The final direction is to chill them for an hour and a half before serving, and at that point the pumpkin layer on top was fully set and DELICIOUS. I love these brownies! One of the taste testers said that they have the consistency of a cheese cake. I kind of went on dessert overkill last week, so I froze individual servings of these brownies. I'm optimistic that they will still be good after being frozen.

Six: Mashed Potatoes with Sage and Rosemary and White Gravy from Daily Garnish.
















Not a dessert, but I did serve these and the brownies along with a few other items on American Thanksgiving. We had a couple friends over for a casual meal and these potatoes were a hit. They have mashed apples in them that add the perfect amount of sweetness. We will probably make them again at Christmas!


And finally, chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

























This recipe is from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and I first made it the day after we got El Mixo 3000 from Costco (we've been through so much since then, El Mixolito!). Unfortunately I baked them a few minutes too long and they were a little brown. Normally this wouldn't stop me from eating them or giving them away, but they were for a church fundraiser, and they're supposed to look nice so people will buy them. So I did what anyone would do - combine a little melted chocolate with a little milk, dip 'em, and cover them with Christmas cheer. Done and done. I think they sold well!

That's that for fall foods. I'm so proud that this list even includes two non-dessert recipes. It's that time of year again. I have lots more Christmas stuff to write about. In the mean time, it's after December 1st, so crank up the volume on the Christmas music!

Cherryhill at Christmastime

John and I live near this mall in London called Cherryhill.
Let me back up: London calls things malls that I would just call a strip mall with an inside, since it's cold. There are two larger malls that I think of as actual malls. Cherryhill is more like an indoor strip mall aimed at senior citizens, many of whom live in our neighborhood. It's got everything a senior person - or any person - might want (pharmacy, groceries, liquor store, travel agent, bank, post office, public library branch), and once you're there, you don't have to wear a coat or worry about slipping on the ice.
Come to think of it, Cherryhill has just about everything I want within walking distance. It was perfect last year when we needed groceries during the Big Snow of 2010. When I say it's popular amongst seniors, I'm not complaining or criticizing. It's a cheerful place, especially in the coffee shop where a lot of people seem to have long-standing meetings with their friends. We love having a library branch so close by so that we can request books and dvds to pick up there. John once overheard an amazing line from an older gentleman while waiting in line at the library.

Elderly Patron: I need a new library card.
Library staff: Can I see your old one?
[Patron hands her the card, she examines it.]
Library staff: Wow, I've never seen one this old!
Elderly Patron: I got it when I came back from West Germany.


























In a way Cherryhill seems like what a depiction of a charming "period" mall from the 80s would be like - you know, like Pioneer Village, but a mall. It's basically one long hall way with a food court at its center that features almost no chain restaurants (not even Tim Horton's). The annual Christmas decorations are easily my favorite thing about this place.


















During the holidays they set up about 4 different displays of animatronic people and animals that move and look cheery.


























They represent the way different social classes might celebrate Christmas. The poor fruit sellers, the guy warming his hands over the burning trash (or is that some other material I don't recognize? Why is he burning charcoal in that pushcart?). Note the light under the can - it looks like it's really burning.
























You've got your bourgeois/upper-class carolers.


















Last year someone put a picture in each of their carol books of a man wearing overalls but no shirt (completely not obscene). Their expressions turned from "singing joyfully" to shock when they bowed their motorized heads to look at the picture. The pictures weren't there long, but I thought it was a pretty fun, harmless prank.


I think Mary looks an awful lot like the curly-haired woman selling apples.













And of course you've got your standard manger scene.

























These kids throwing snowballs and skating are pretty cute, but I have to admit that sometimes these figurines used to creep me out.



















That little boy with the snowballs has a way of turning his little animatronic head in my direction right when I walk past, as if he's eying me as his next target.


























Less creepy than last year's sheep heads worshiping the snowy Jesus.

















In general though they don't give me the creeps as much as they signal the start of Christmas in our neighborhood, and for that reason I've started to really love the Apple Lady, the Kid Who Falls on the Ice, the Manger Camel. You can't look that friendly camel in the face and argue that it's too soon for Christmas decor.

Books for Fall 2011

Instead of a list of foods I made this week (mostly grilled cheese) or a list of random events that happened to me, I thought I could confirm my nerd status by making a list of things that have been going on in my brain parts. Here are some books I've been reading. As you'll see, they obviously relate to each other in a logical and inevitable way.*

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno (originally published 1944).
























Adorno and Horkheimer (or "Hork," as I call him in my notes) were 20th-century critical theorists. My advisor put the first chapter, "The Concept of Enlightenment," on my fall reading list, since I'm studying Rameau, the 18th-century music theorist (and the two obviously go together...*sarcasm*). In a way it was a really obvious thing for me to read in regards to Rameau, since they deal with the Enlightenment values that effected his theories - and I'd argue, as others would, that we still practice and teach music theory in a very Rameauian way. He's stuck with us like not many else have. So I've decided to take a social/cultural angle and study him, specifically the idea of Nature as something Enlightenment scholars wanted to master through rationalism. Dialectic of Enlightenment deals more with the idea that Enlightenment is a totalitarian phenomenon that commodifies our thoughts and our sense of self, and that enlightenment culture eventually led to the Holocaust. The more radical aspects of their theory aren't what interest me so much, but I am intrigued by their idea (similar to Foucault's) that when we "know" a thing, such as Nature, we dominate it. You could say Rameau did something similar, since he was obsessed with finding a natural source for tonality as we know it - the corps sonore.
The Dialectic is among the hardest things I've ever tried to read, but I would say that this translation by Edmund Jephcott is more readable than others. I'd recommend it, if this is the kind of thing that floats your boat.

Enough. I'm sure you're thinking, "Save it for the diss."

2. The Nutcraker and the Mouse King, E. T. A. Hoffman (1819-21).

























After I looked into the Nutcracker performances in Toronto, I learned that E. T. A. Hoffman wrote the original story. That kind of blew me away, since most of what I know about him I learned from IU's trippy production of Tales of Hoffman a few years ago (could you do a non-trippy version of that opera? Maybe, but it'd be boring). But then I realized that it makes total sense for him to written the Nutcracker, since it's plenty weird itself.
If you're into reading Christmassy things this time of year (as I'm wont to do), I would recommend this story. It's not very long, maybe 10 short chapters, and it was readily available to me through the UWO catalogue. The story is stranger than the ballet, though the book jacket and wiki tell me that the ballet is actually based on Alexander Dumas's "watered down" version of the story. Clara in the original story is named Marie and she's only 7 - which I know doesn't conflict with every production, since sometimes Clara is pretty young and not en pointe. But the story is really a coming of age, and little Marie definitely has some adult feelings for the Nutcracker doll when she realizes there's a prince trapped in there. I won't give everything away, but some highlights:

• there are actually multiple battles, and Marie cuts the bejeezus out of her arm in the first one, so everyone thinks her fever made her hallucinate the whole thing.
• there's a crazy story-in-the-story that explains how a princess is the one who originally gets turned into a nutcracker by the Mouse Queen; Drosselmeier and an astrologer travel all over trying to find a cure for her condition. Then they meet his cousin, whose son is involved in breaking the curse. Through a series of events, we learn that the younger Drosselmeier (son of his cousin) is the one trapped inside the little Nutcracker that Marie wants to save. Eventually, as in the ballet, they do make it to a land of sweets even more elaborate than any ballet production (obviously), including a sea of rosewater that has sparkly gold dolphins in it. Crazy.
• All the romantic weirdness between Marie and the Nutcracker/Prince does explain the way some productions portray their weird relationship, since he's her Godfather, but he's sometimes in an awkward competition with the Prince for her affection.
  

Short and sweet, and I'd definitely recommend reading it if you've only ever seen the ballet, like I had.

3. Christmas Customs and Traditions, Frank Muir (1975).















I'm one of those obnoxious people who have to restrain their Christmas spirit until it's almost seasonally appropriate. This year I decided to temper my outward enthusiasm for Christmas by by reading a book about its history, and a brief search on the UWO catalog led me to this one. I don't know much about Frank Muir, but in preparation for this post I stumbled onto a blog dedicated to Muir fandom, so check that out if you'd like to know more.
I realized recently that this book combines a lot of my favorite topics: history, early Christian rituals, the Church's appropriation/adaptation of pagan rituals, all combined to be Christmas-specific. Muir covers a lot of the figures that you may associate with Christmas, like St. Nicholas and St. Stephen (you know him from the Good King Wenceslas carol), as well as Wenceslas, traditions like wassail, the boar's head, and the Yule log. He also describes lesser-known traditions like the Lord of Misrule, whose job it was in the Middle Ages to keep the party going from Halloween to New Year's, lest winter depress everyone, or the Mummer's Play that involved Santa Claus narrating a dual between a Knight and a Turk during the Crusades. I'm only about half way through it so far, but it's great for bedtime reading.

I'll spare you the other stuff I'm reading, since it's mostly for my proposal preparation and not for fun. These three are the most memorable of the semester so far.
What about you? Anything you'd like to suggest for my reading list? Or anything that shocked you when you read it? Or was wildly different than your expectations?




*spoiler - they don't.

12 Gym Days of Christmas

For a couple months now I've been toying with the idea of registering for this half marathon in Indianapolis in May 2012. My good friend Carla will be running and has offered to run the actual race with me - an opportunity I don't want to pass up. But I have some reservations about it, and I wanted to write a pros and cons list here (because, you know, my amateur running hobby is endlessly fascinating). If, after reading this, you have some wisdom to share, I'd greatly appreciate it.



Winter running is fun, especially when the long runs are only 5 miles.





















Pros:
- Could get advice and support from Carla and other running friends while I train.
- Could run the race with her, so I wouldn't be bored.
- Running that much would mean I would get to eat more, especially dessert, and that's fun.
- Sense of accomplishment.
- General badassness.

Cons:
- Huge blister issue that I have yet to resolve. I've done all the things people suggest (non-cotton socks, changed shoes, used bandages, used body glide or similar product), but they are pretty God awful. I'm not sure if I could actually run further than 7 miles with them that way.
- Long runs take a long time, even if I stayed at only 3 runs per week. The long run would kill a major part of the day, and I feel busy as it is.
- Related to that last one, my big task for next term is to write my dissertation proposal, and I want to devote as much time to that as possible. Between the funding and immigration issues that effect my timeline for the rest of the degree (topics for another post), I don't want to add anything to my schedule that would inhibit my progress. Not that I'm going to quit running and become a (even bigger) hermit, but a half marathon would require a lot more training than I'm used to.
- Adding more mileage than I ever have in the dead of winter, lots of miles in the snow or on the treadmill (which I try to avoid for anything longer than 4 miles, for various reasons, my motion sickness being the main one).
- More running requires more of the things that running demands: stretching, foam rolling, strength training and cross training. It's not that I don't enjoy those things (although yoga and pilates are off the table because of motion sickness), but it's all more time. It's not just the run.

In general, I feel the cons outweigh the pros. My plan instead will probably be to train for a 10K in the spring, such as the Forest City Road Race, or even the Really Chilly 10K in February. I think with that much time I could try to break my current PR for the 10K and go below 60 minutes, while increasing my mileage more gradually. Then maybe I could consider the Fort For Fitness half-marathon in Fort Wayne next September. That might be an easier one to train for, since Ontario summers are running-friendly.

Having said all that, I do feel the need to sort of shake up my routine ever so slightly for the rest of the calendar year. With no more races ahead of me until 2012, it can be a little hard to want get out the door to run.

Enter: The 12 Days of Gym Christmas.

My good friend and UWO colleague, Djillian, created the 12 Days of Gym Christmas as a way to stay motivated for working out as Christmas approaches and the opportunities to indulge in fatty/sugary (re: awesome) food are more abundant than ever. The goal is to work out in some form (gym and cardio not required) 12 days between Dec.1-24; no more than one session per day can count, but it's up to each individual to define what that session will be. Djillian gives a 12 Days of Gym Christmas button to whoever completes it! Win win (win). My plan is to record my weekly progress here as part of my normal once-a-week posting routine. Twelve workouts in that span of time is fairly normal for me, but it is nice to have a little extra enthusiasm to work out at the end of the term and during the holidays, since if I'm going to skip a work out, this is the time of year I'd do it. And I'm hoping to more than just run during that period, so I may try things like the stationary bike, elliptical, or strength training that I'm normally not good about doing.

I know it's only November, but Happy Early Christmas Season! If you have any thoughts on holiday workouts or distance running, please hit me up in the comments!

How the Universe gave me a burrito and a cold.

For this week's post, I've decided to make a list of lessons I learned, and things the Universe dumped on/gifted me this week.

1. A cold.



















2. Autumn colors.


















3. The ABT Nutcracker with Mikhail Barishnakov (just picture him in tights, or click here.). John says it's too soon for Christmas-related anything, so I secretly got this version of the Nutcracker from the library and watched the first act while he wasn't home. Ultimately, though, he figured it out and looked at me in disgust. Whatever, John. What a scrooge. As Dave said, I love pizza, so why would I only eat it one month out of the year? It's past Halloween. Time for Christmas!
I've been looking at the National Ballet of Canada website to see if we could go see the Nutcracker there, but it's kind of cost prohibitive. The cheapest, worst seats would still cost about $100 and then there's the issue of getting there and parking. If only Toronto were a little closer, or I guess if only London/Western had decent enough ballet to put on their own Nutcracker. That's one thing I really miss about IU - going to see good ballet productions at the music school, especially the Nutcracker.



4. A rejection to a regional theory conference, but also, the motivation to revise my abstract on George Crumb.





















That's the Agnus Dei from the Makrokosmos, a piece I wrote about a while back. This paper is on a song cycle, but it has a fun graphic score like this one. This rejection stung a bit more since I feel like I've been struggling to catch up on work ever since SMT last week, and that's been compounded by getting sick. Meh. Can't win 'em all. I still have a bunch of other conferences to apply to, and my abstract is getting better over time, so maybe I'll get on somewhere else.

And finally (because 5 is a nice round number),
5. Delicious butternut squash black bean enchiladas.

Peeling and chopping butternut squash is such a pain, but so worth it. This recipe takes a little time to put together because you have to roast the squash, but once you've done that, it's pretty simple, and very tasty. Definitely different from the enchiladas I've had in the past, but the flavors work well together. These didn't come out very...photogenic, so no picture. But if you click on the recipe you can see the ones on the original site and they're pretty good.


Here's to next week being a little more cheerful with a little less cold medicine!

SMT 2011 - Minneapolis

This weekend was the 2011 conference of the Society for Music Theory. You can read about the previous two years' conferences here: 2009 parts one and two, 2010.

I didn't take a single picture this year, but I thought I'd share this old one from Nashville/2008, along with some non-academic highlights of the conference.





















1. Minneapolis seems pretty cool. It was sunny and about 50 degrees, and there was a farmers market right outside the hotel on our first day. You can walk forever in the skyways without having to go outside - a useful plan, given their winters. Like always, I wish I'd seen a little more of the city, but there are only so many hours.

2. Here's my favorite line from conversation that two anonymous theorists had over dinner:
Theorist A: I went to ______ a while back and it lasted forever, like 2 hours.
Theorist B: Two hours for that?! You could have watched all of Jurassic Park!*

3. I went to the Yale reception to hang out with my friend Tim, who gave a great Schubert-related paper. In some kind of ninja moment, he moved to shake hands with a person across the table and the blade of his hand virtually sliced through the stem of a wine glass, knocking a total of two wine glasses in opposite directions, and spilling wine all over both of our pants. By then I'd had enough wine not to care, and they were dark jeans, so no harm done. Just a lot of laughing.

4. I got to hang out with a lot of my favorite people, a lot of IU folks (like Jason and Victoria), and my new UWO friend Katie, a masters student in my program. Now I'm twice as excited for next year when the conference is in New Orleans, jointly with American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM. John is calling it AMSMTEM, and the rest of us are calling it the Trifecta (though the Holy Trinity would be more regionally appropriate). I'm hoping my good friend Mark will be able to attend that one, since this conference was a little lonely without him - even though Tim tried to make up for it by putting candy corn in my water glass during the keynote.

5. I got to spend a lot of time with the thoughtful and enthusiastic Committee for the Status of Women and its associates. I'm the student rep for that committee now, and I think the CSW discussions are some of the most useful parts of the conference for me. Thank God, too, because the meeting is usually from 7-9:00AM.



*Also funny because one of the theorists looks so much like Sam Niel.