Text 29274, 99 rader
Skriven 2009-10-01 05:59:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Rhode Island 218
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A concert by Musica Dolce, southern Rhode Island's premier
musical group, or at least it likes to think that.

It was singularly mediocre. I could have taken either of
the violinists' instrument and played the music better, even
the piece that I'd never seen before, a most mediocre fake
Brahms piece written by the group's pianist. Of course, any
of you could have taken either of the violinists' instrument
and bashed it over her head and the music would have been
served better. Worst, we had dinner planned for 6:30, and
owing to the idiot pianist wanting to give an interminable
mediocre condescending lecture beforehand, the concert didn't
get over until around 6:15 - the contract was for a concert
from 4 to 5. At intermission the president of the organization
sponsoring the concert hissed her disapproval at me - why me,
perhaps because I was the handiest musician around, or perhaps
because before the show I'd caught the embarrassing typo of
"violincello" on the front page of the program book.

After the concert, I ducked out the back door, snagging a
glass of wine on the way out and saying hi to the cellist,
with whom I'd played a concert a week before, but who was too
embarrassed or shellshocked to acknowledge me. Ran home and
got there just before the appointed time.

Dinner for a favored crew of old friends including the former
poet laureate of American Samoa and his multitalented though
anorexo-alcoholic artist wife, the aforementioned octogenarians
(who could pass for my age or less), a tugboat operator from
New York Harbor, and a couple others whose descriptions would
be less interesting but who in person are equally so.

Singularly absent - Rosemary's good friend and laundry woman
(because she gets off on doing laundry and Rosemary hates it)
who is the local school psychologist and doubles as the
president and/or chairperson of Musica Dolce, and who had
insisted that the "artists" come as her guests - so, duh, we
disinvited her.

I of course didn't have time to do appetizers, so we relied
on the bounty of the grocery store.

Garden of Eatin blue corn chips and "red hot blues" - blue
corn isn't any superior to other corn, and even its blueness
is actually a sort of dark gray muddy color. The red hots
tasted better than the very ordinary others, though they
were hardly red and hardly hot - I suspect a sprinkling of
salt, torula yeast, and paprika were the main flavorings.

Tribe brand hummus was the accompaniment. It's pretty good.

Cheese board: Shaw's extra sharp Cheddar, which is about as
good as anyone's three-to-six-month cheese, and gorgonzola
that I didn't try.

Earlier in the day I'd roasted a paprika-thyme rubbed pork
loin and slow-poached several chicken breasts. These were
cut up hastily and served with

- onion sauce, essentially caramelized onions with a sprig
or two of thyme and a glugg of balsamic;

- lemon sauce, essentially the poaching liquid (i.e. chicken
broth by now), thickened and lemoned - I thought of enriching
it with a couple yolks, making it egg-lemon sauce, but there
wasn't time to fuss;

- satay sauce - peanut butter, coconut milk, Madras curry
powder, lemon grass, ginger, a touch of something hot.

Rice pilaf made with more of that poaching liquid.

Sauteed broccoli, the usual thing.

There was also a perfectly ordinary salad of romaine, artichoke
hearts, and various red and orange vegetal matter. I put the
ingredients out and gestured vaguely at a few of the guests and
told them to produce a salad.

The meal was good; not so good as the praise I got, but good enough.

Sue Maden and her houseguest Tink were charged with providing
dessert: this came as a perfectly respectable apple pie sided
with the perfectly disrespectable Turkey Hill vanilla bean frozen
yogurt, which made perfectly decent yogurt into a terrible imitation
of ice cream and perfectly decent vanilla into a terrible imitation
of artificial vanilla.

As I had been in charge of getting cheap booze, we drank mostly some
off-brand Pinot Grigio, Mezza Corona I think, and the fairly
pleasant Long Trail IPA.

There was a bottle of good rouge in the house: Ch Le Calvaire (Bx
Superieur) 05 - very mellow, some tannin, lowish acid, good with
chicken if you didn't use satay sauce.

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