El Sistema in New Brunswick

El Sistema is expanding its reach. It is now in New Brunswick. Recently, Robert Irving of the Irvings of New Brunswick came to a concert of tyro Sistema orchestra of pre-adolexcent children, most of them form Moncton's economically challenged neighbourhoods. He loved the concert and asked the instrumentalists to play at a Wildcats game. That was a thrill for the musicians.
Capturing hearts is an El Sistema specialty. The Orchestra based musical education system founded by the musician-economist Jose Antonio Abreu in the slum of Caracas, Venezuela in 1975 has captured the hearts and minds of people like Simon Rattle who has stated that something important musically is happening in Venezuela.
This is a project that continues to spread. How wonderful.

Curried Winter Vegetable and Bean Soup

Curried Winter Vegetable and Bean Soup

Warm up a frosty winter evening with this low-fat, nutrient-loaded broth. For the beans, a canned or frozen mixture is convenient but any cooked beans can be used (red, white, pinto, Romano, black-eyed peas, chickpeas etc.)

1 tbs (15 ml) vegetable oil
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp (5 ml) minced fresh ginger
1 tbs (15 ml) curry powder
4 cups (1 L) chicken stock
1/2 cup (125 ml) drained canned tomatoes, crushed
1 each medium carrot and potato, diced
1/2 cup (125 ml) frozen or canned corn kernels
1 cup (250 ml) drained canned or frozen mixed beans
2 tbs. (30 ml) chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

(When I cooked this, I used the whole can of tomatoes, corn and beans and the taste was excellent. When you use the amounts suggested the soup is watery while with the amounts that I used, it is a hearty soup.)

In a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, heat oil. Add onion and cook until softened but not browned. Add garlic, ginger and curry powder, cook, stirring for about 2 minutes. Add chicken stock, tomatoes and carrot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook until carrot is slightly tender, about 3 minutes. Add potato, corn and beans. Return to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir in parsley. Add salt and pepper as needed. Makes 6 servings. ( A little more when using the amount of tomatoes, corn and beans that I used.)

Homemakers December 99
Made December 5, 1999. excellent, flavourful, hardy

Garden Socieites!

An newspaper article that I saved mentions Garden Societies and their many virtues. They have experts who want so share their knowledge, plant sales and tours. I am already planning to attend my garden society's sale as well as help with the Garden Tour. Visit your local garden society for advice. The Ontario Horticultural Society will be happy to direct you to local garden societies. There are many. When I helped at Canada Blooms, I was amazed at how many there. My job was to help people find a garden society near them.
I hope that none you in these cold areas were fooled by the weather and started planting too soon. We are getting snow tonight. As someone mentioned to me last week as we stood outside after a garden club executive meeting in spring jackets, it will snow. It always does before the end of March. This is cutting it close but he is right, snow is arriving tonight.
Enjoy the bulbs and hope that the Magnolia blooms do not get hurt even more.

Greg Payce at the Gardiner

If you read my posting about the stolen purse, you read briefly about the fact that I visited the Gardiner Museum yesterday. What a lovely visit. We went to see the Greg Payce exhibit. He has worked with urns of different styles and medium to create human forms using negative space. It is interesting how the urns create the form of males and females when placed side by side. Greg Payce, who resides in Alberta has made quite a study of this form. It is worth the visit to the gallery to see the exhibit. Tuesdays there are tours led by volunteers and they are definitely worth it.
Go and enjoy the Greg Payce exhibit.

Watch your purse!

Yesterday, I went to an art exhibit at the Gardiner Gallery. I will write about that later. Right now I want to warn people to watch their belongings. My friend and I went for coffee after the exhibit and we were in Second Cup right across from the Museum. My friend put her purse on the floor between her and the wall, I put my purse and bag on a chair beside me. I could see my purse at all times. Unfortunately she could not see her purse and someone came up while we were having coffee and grabbed her purse. We did not even notice it happen. The person certainly had nerve and must have been a woman since a man would have drawn attention to what he was doing carrying a purse. I think that I know who it was since there was someone behind us and she moved close while we were drinking coffee. No real need for that. Unfortunately, I could never point her out.
My main point is watch your bags and try to be careful what you put in your purse.

School in High Park

When I lived in the High Park area, we would sometimes walk through the park on the way to the playground, the zoo or the gardens, all attractions to me and my grandmother. I would see beds and benches for students. I don't remember seeing the students but the article that I read in Renaissance, the Retired Teachers of Ontario Magazine suggests that there would have been students.
The school functioned Monday to Saturday each year, May 1st to October 31st. In the time that passed, I sometimes thought that it was my imagination that there were students in the woods. How remarkable to find out that there really were students studying in the woods. I understand that tuberculous is not the problem that it once was but won't it be wonderful to be able to study under the trees in High Park. Too bad that they closed the school down.

Cornmeal Muffins

Back to baking. All our previous muffins are finished. Today, I baked cornmeal muffins since they are one of my husband's favourite. Tried a new recipe from cooking without recipes.

The pattern for Muffins:
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups flour, measured after sifting
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 to 4 tablespoons fat, melted or liquid (The more fat, the more tender the muffin.)

Combine dry and liquid ingredients and fill greased muffin pans two-thirds full. Bake in a preheated hot, 400o F, oven about 20 minutes. The muffins have finished baking when a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Makes approximately 12 muffins.
Cornmeal Muffins
Substitute 1 cup cornmeal, stirred before measuring, for 1 cup of the flour in the pattern for Muffins.

Taxes

It is that time of year. We need to get our taxes done. Thank goodness we decided to use an accountant last year. Now we are getting better at collecting all our documents. After going through everything, we have decided that the company that holds a great deal of my husband's accounts is definitely happily making money because every time they make a trade, they charge the account. It looks like they happily trade without any serious rhyme or reason, it is a way for the trader to make money. There is very little buy and hold going on. This is one of the ways that Wall street and the Toronto traders make money.
Time to rethink what is going with our money.

Garlic making comeback

Apparently, garlic is making a comeback. I never realized that it is not in vogue. Liz Primeau, Mississauga based author of In Pursuit of Garlic: An Intimate Look at the Divinely Odorous Bulb has explored the bulb in her book.
She looks at how to grow the bulb which is very easy, cook-fun and tasty and love garlic. What is not to love unless you are heading out in a crowd that has not consumed garlic. It was the fall of the Berlin Wall that brought garlic back to the forefront of culinary experiences. People could get garlic from the east. Not sure why they weren't able to get it otherwise. That must be another story.
The article about garlic and her book gives 10 fun facts about garlic and the most fun is that it has antioxidant powers. Most important.
Enjoy Primeau's book and more important garlic.

MD's health habits

I often wondered why my mother-in-law's doctors never commented on her smoking, eating habits and lack of exercise. Today, there is an article in the Post paper under Body and Health and it comments that doctors who smoke are unlikely to address their patients smoking habits despite the fact it is known to be a problem. The same is true of weight. Doctors who are over-weight are unlikely to deal with this issue. As the article suggests, it would be hard to find a doctor who does not have some bad habits. We would have difficulty finding the perfect doctor. Too bad that one of the requirements for medical school is not good health habits. Would be interesting to see what the results would be.
Unfortunately, stress can cause people to put on weight and doctors have plenty of stress to deal with.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's day and I will be celebrating by playing at a seniors home this afternoon. There will be some young people dancing but they are not able to dance for the hour so we will play before they dance and then finish out the hour.
We are going out for dinner this evening. Hope that the place is not Irish or we will have a problem. I am not going to make a point of mentioning it since it seems to be a treat and that is important.
Happy St. Paddy's day to all of you.

Watch what you post!

I am usually careful about the e-mails that I forward. It seems that I was not as careful recently. There is always a kernel of truth in most things but sometimes it is what it doesn't say that is just as important as what is said. I will be careful and not pass on items that are of a political nature. There are so many nuances that you can not get in a simple one page e-mail.
This is much like the news bits that are broadcast. The sound bite can not capture the essence of what has happened or been said.
I should have thought things through and will in the future.

Habits for success

It is interesting how some people believe that being spontaneous is the answer to how to do things. I believe that as much routine as possible is best. Now, I do believe that some spontaneity is good but not planning anything is bad. I realize that sometimes, life gets in the way and it is not possible to keep up habits. Sometimes, it is necessary to deal with the road blocks and problems that life puts in the way but as much routine as possible is good for success. I read an article about Michael Phelps and how routine was part of his habits from what he would eat to warm-ups and focus on the race in his case. The interesting part of the article points out that it was tiny moments of success that were important and that they built up a bigger picture of success.
Will be interesting to see if these routines hold up at the London Olympics this summer.
In the meantime, I will try to continue to build my routines and decide what successes I want in my life.

Joanne Fluke

I love to read and mystery novels are what I read the most. One of the reasons is that I like to support a local book store, Sleuth of Baker Street. I do not want independent bookstores to go under. Would be sad to see them disappear.
Just finished another book. My March break will be spent reading among other things. No practises at night so I will have some down time. The book that I finished was Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke. I have read all the books in the series, 15 of them. Enjoyed them all and one of these days I will be tempted to cook or bake some of the recipes included in the book. I will cook hers or the recipes included in Diane Mott Davidson's books. Must check if she has a book coming out.
Interesting, Joanne is not like Danielle Steele, she is a natural which is reflected in her characters. Looking forward to the next release.
Joanne Fluke (born around 1943 in Swanville, Minnesota) is a female author who writes the Hannah Swensen Mysteries for Kensington Mysteries. Her mystery series is widely popular, and she is a national bestselling author; so far there are fifteen books published in the series. Her series has been known for its recipes, its comedy, and endings. Her books contain romance as well.
She currently lives in southern California.
Happy reading.

Outdoors

As I progress in years, I begin to understand what is important. My last posting mentioned the birds that I had seen on my walk with a friend. At a performance that evening, I mentioned the birds to the audience of seniors. To my surprise at the end of the performance one of the audience members came up and mentioned how much she enjoyed my talk about the outdoors and birds. It seems that some of the seniors do not get out much and she made a point telling me this fact. The concierge seemed to think that they get out but not to the real outdoors and not all of them. It is something that they miss and are pleased when someone can come and tell them about it. Second hand is better than nothing. Something that I must remember in my presentations.
When visiting with someone who is not able to get out much, talk about the outdoors. Help them see the rest of the world.

Birds are coming back!

Yesterday, I went for a walk in Ajax along the lake with a friend. We do this a couple times a year and it was lovely. Cold but the walk was good and we walked for an hour which was good. If it was warmer we might have managed more but that was enough.
While on our walk, we saw hundreds of Canada Geese near the parking lot to the park. We have seen a few before but this was an amazing number and as we drove out more arrived. Who could believe the sight?
While walking, we came across a number of robins. I am used to seeing a few at a time but we counted at least 10. They seemed to be gathering. Also Juncos which are lovely little birds. Love to see them. Reminds me, maybe I should put some seed out for the birds. One lone dove, hope that the birds finds a mate soon or maybe the mate was nearby and I just did not notice.
Guess, this is a sign that spring is coming. Told the seniors where we played last night about the birds and one of the seniors commented that she enjoyed hearing about the birds. Nice to know that people listen to what I say and enjoy it.

Orange Cornmeal Cake

This is a recipe that I tried yesterday. Since I have posted it, it was a success. Enjoy.

Orange Cornmeal Cake

For an even crunchier topping, you can use sanding sugar in place of granulated sugar in Step 3 (I have no idea what sanding sugar and have never seen it.) Look for it in the baking section of your grocery store.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Yield: serves 8

Ingredients:
½ cup olive, plus more for pan
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar, plus 1/3 cup for topping
½ cup dry white wine (or orange juice) –used orange juice and it was excellent
1/ ¼ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
½ cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
Orange segments, for serving (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush bottom and sides of an 8-inch round cake pan with oil, line bottom with a round of wax or parchment paper, and brush with oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, 1 cup sugar, and wine (orange juice) until smooth. Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and orange zest, whisk gently to combine.
Pour batter into prepared pan; sprinkle top evenly with remaining 1/3 cup sugar (topping will be thick). Bake until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in center comes out clean. 35 to 40 minutes.
Cool in pan 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake; invert cake gently onto a plate, and remove parchment paper. Reinvert cake onto a rack to cool completely. Serve with orange segments, if desired.

Made: March 3, 2012- excellent
(Martha Stewart recipe)