What I Had for Lunch Today: Harvest Meal

The Mattunes October concert was today. It was lovely, as usual. Scott Sanchez played classical guitar, everything from Piazzolla to Debussy to Paul Desmond's Take Five, which, when Scott plays it, sounds like it was written for acoustic guitar. One guitar gets lost in even the teeniest concert hall unless it's amplified, which of course it always must be. So it's a treat to hear a world-class musician playing in somebody's living room.

For this occasion, Maggie and Greg offered a scrumptious pumpkin soup, a mixed salad of chestnuts, apples, kidney beans, celery, and coriander, and a selection of good breads with pumpkin butter. Dessert was an apple something with gingersnaps and coffee. It's not very often that I eat something and have no idea what's in it or how it's made. All I can report is that this dessert was yummy.

Next month, the Russians are coming. All I know so far is that there won't be any borscht.

What I Had for Lunch Today: Tian

Today was a Mattunes concert at Maggie's. Lunch was cooked by the supremely talented Greg, who can make anything and everything in the kitchen, including the kitchen sink, literally. (There's remodeling and there's remodeling. Who makes the sink from scratch??)

We had tian, corn salad, pickles (yes, homemade), and a terrific yeasty bread drizzled with olive oil. Dessert was biscotti and coffee. Sandwiched in between was a primo concert by the Pioneer Consort, a trio who play a variety of stringed instuments, mainly violin, cello and banjo or banjar. If you want to know what a banjar sounds like, buy one of their albums. Money well spent. I did, and I ran right home and played it a couple of times. Makes me want to have a secret tryst, just so I can hire them to play gypsy music at a candlelit tête-à-tête.

Music for a Victorian Home

House concert for the lucky Mattunes ticketholders today; beaglesitting for me. Since last spring, neighbors Greg and Maggie Tucker have been hosting a series of concerts in their Victorian row house on Mattoon Street. Sometimes I attend, and sometimes I just keep Mr. Lucky and Miss Rose out of the vicinity of the music. They're not purebreds, but they have enough beagle in them to bay incessantly even if they're sequestered up on the third floor. With forty strangers in the house, music, and the smells of a gourmet luncheon wafting up the stairs, believe me, they'd bay.

This concert was a bit of a change from the norm: it was a Valentine's Day tea, held at two homes. Music was of the type which might have been heard in these homes when they were new--before TV and computers, when people in neighborhoods like ours frequently gathered together around a piano for entertainment. Goodies were served in both homes, and paintings from three area artists were on view.

Concertgoers began at Larry Picard's place just up the street from the Tuckers. Larry's got the lower two floors of a gracious row house. Paintings of Cynthia Picard, lovely and arresting botanicals, plus a few by Doug Fortin in a more surrealist style, could be viewed while enjoying tea and savories. Larry, who's the organist for South Congregational Church in Springfield, played the piano for this segment. Then the crowd moved to Maggie's for more tea and sweets and more music, this time Larry and Maggie playing two pianos/four hands. Maggie was showcasing paintings of Gina Beavers.

Gina Beavers is a local favorite; she used to live on Mattoon Street before defecting to what she calls "mini-Mattoon" in Holyoke. Most of her work is commissioned, and it's a rare house in this neighborhood which doesn't have one of her paintings in it somewhere. This one is Greg and Maggie's portrait, which usually hangs in their bedroom (can you say "romantic"?), but was rehung in the front parlor for this occasion. That's Gina herself seated to the right.

Next month's house concert is classical guitar and tapas. For that one, Taz can be in charge of babysitting the beagles. I don't want to miss it.

Rabbie Burns Day

Rabbie Burns Day is January 25, but in our neighborhood it was celebrated today. Maggie and Greg Tucker hosted their third Mattunes house concert in honor of Scotland's favorite son. They departed a bit from the usual vegetarian, non-alcoholic repasts to make the occasion as authentic as possible.

It rained in the afternoon, which did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the guests. Glenn Pryor, the musical talent for the event, piped everyone in. He's a formidable talent and the official bagpiper of Yale, piping in graduates at commencement. Today he was piping in the haggis--real haggis, plus a non-revolting veggie version.

Rabbie Burns Day, which is the birthday of the poet born in 1759, involves a speech about Burns (the "Immortal Memory"), recitations of his poetry (like "Address to a Haggis" and "Tam O'Shanter"), singing of his songs (like Auld Lang Syne), a supper of traditional foods (cock-a-leekie soup, tatties and neeps, haggis, and tipsy laird), and numerous toasts drunk with Scotch whiskey.

I'm not sure how much poetry got recited, as I was back at the Emory House, babysitting Maggie's beagles, rather than at the concert. The traditional food was all there, including the horrible haggis, and of course there was magnificent Scottish music played by Glenn Pryor. There was even a "wee dram" of Drambuie despite the ordinarily "dry" nature of the concerts. And hey, if the weather had been nice, it wouldn't have felt like a Scottish affair at all.