Connaître ses oignons

I grew the onion Walla-Walla for the first time this year.  Reputed to be an exceptionally sweet and mild type, it has lived up to its reputation.  You can easily look up more info on the web if you like.

It's good for eating raw in salads, and is perfect for frying to eat with burgers, and good for bhajis and pakoras too.  Not so good where it's competing with strong flavours, such as in a chilli or curry, where you need more traditional strong ones.  It's quite a moist onion, so probably not good for use as a thickener in curries either.

I left one in the ground to see if it will survive the Winter and make seeds for next year.  I'm not hoping for much since I read that they don't keep very well.

And my asters were swarming with butterflies the other day, in what seems to be the last of the Summer heat.

Wildlife portfolio

My long-term reader will know how I'm slowly building up a portfolio of wildlife photos for my new career working for the BBC.   Here's a cheeky little red squirrel who visited my garden this morning.

White Admiral?

This one looks to me like a White Admiral, though I could be wrong.  Apparently a White Admiral has a span of some 6cm but this was much smaller, around 3cm I would guess.  Caught it supping on some Asters this morning.  There were three there, all told.

Rain

The garden was starting to look a bit parched after several weeks of glorious sunshine, so this change in the weather is very welcome.

Coffee allergy

I'm allergic to instant coffee.  It's nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things, and it's easily avoided since I can drink ground coffee with impunity.  But it seems that there is something in instant coffee to which I am allergic, that is not present in filter coffee, or just possibly, perhaps, there is something absent from instant coffee that inhibits my allergic reaction.

The reaction itself is quite characteristic, is associated only with instant coffee, and is one I have only come across in one other context:  If I drink instant coffee on a daily basis, after about two weeks the skin on the palms of my hands starts to become dry and flaky.  My fingerprints disappear, and my hands start to itch.  At its extreme, I can see little pinhead-sized white spots under the skin, that, when they reach the surface erupt into areas of dry skin. This is accompanied by an increase in the sweat present on my palms, and an unpleasant, almost painful itch that is only relieved by dunking my hands is the hottest water I can stand.

Elsewhere: apparently, competitive cycling can bring it, or something very similar, on in certain people.  I believe that it's also known what metabolic pathway is disturbed, but it's something I haven't really looked into.

I discovered the cause of the reaction quite by chance, after having put up with it for 20 years or so. (Antihistamine and other creams never really worked).  I got fed up with the disgusting instant coffee with milk powder from the machines at work, that I drank simply because I was addicted to the stuff.  So I weaned myself off caffeine, and miraculously shortly after, my itchy hand symptoms were greatly alleviated.  It took homeopathic sulphur a little time later, to clear the problem completely, and I really don't care if homeopathy doesn't work because it can't.  It works for me, even if it's completely down to a placebo effect. 

I used to have a standard espresso machine, but I got fed up with the way the ground coffee would spill whenever I made a cup, so I invested in a Nespresso, with which I am quite content: no allergic reaction to domestic Nespresso.   So I got a Nespresso Pro machine for the gîte as well.

Now Nespresso Pro uses different-shaped coffee capsules from the domestic machines.  Apparently, it's to stop people nicking the capsules from work to use at home.  And here's the thing.  When I drink the Nespresso Pro coffee, I start to get a mild allergic reation to the coffee after a while, just like I used to with instant.  Nestlé tell me there is no instant coffee in the Pro capsules, but I am not so sure.  Or perhaps it is a colourant, or something.  Perhaps even some chemical residue due to the packaging.

So there you have it.  Got itchy hands?  Look at your coffee consumption.  Switch to filter for a while, just to see.  Good luck.

Inspiration

Wissam Boustany held his Summer course for flute players here at Le Domaine des Hallais this year for the third time.   He came with Aleksander Szram, a highly talented pianist, who accompanied both Wissam and the students.  The course is entitled "In Search Of Inspiration" and it attracts players from all over the world.  I love hosting this course, since I meet great flute players and get to hear fabulous music.  What's not to like?

Wissam believes firmly, and teaches, that music is best played from memory, since this permits the full emotional expression inherent in the music to manifest itself.  At the end of the course, Aleks, Wissam and the students play a concert, and the aim (although not the requirement) is that students be able to play their chosen pieces by heart.

 Everyone did, in the event, play from memory.  And the thing that I will remember is that although I spotted, in places, some missed cues, some wrong notes, and some memory failures, it didn't matter at all, because the overall result was so musical. It was a fabulous concert.

And I'm inspired as a result to try it for myself.  At the end of each term, the music school where I am enrolled holds a little concert.  So I am psyching myself up, and learning a new piece (one I played with Aleks while he was here) from memory.

Let me close with a plug.  Wissam and Aleks have released a double CD of flute and piano music.  You can get it on iTunes or as a physical CD  It's called "This Invisible World", it's great, get a copy.   Aleks has also released several solo piano works, including a CD of 20th Century piano music, that, if you think you don't like 20th century piano music, might just change your mind.   Buy this too.

Musicallity

Musically, I have been a bit spoilt over this last couple of weeks.  Firstly, there was the British Flute Society (BFS) convention in Manchester over a long weekend, and then, here at Le Domaine des Hallais, Wissam Boustany has just held his flute course "In Search of Inspiration" for a week, with the extraordinary pianist Aleksander Szram.  I have heard music created by the foremost composers, and played by some of the world's best musicians.

The flute convention was at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and it's great opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones, all in the atmosphere of flute-playing excellence.

I went a day early to the convention in order to hear Michael Cox, one of my favourite musicians, play the opening concert.  (You can't get from here to Manchester before 2.00 PM the same day)  I'm glad that I did.  He's been one of my favorites ever since, about 20 years ago, I bought at random, a CD of his 20th century flute music. (One second-hand copy still available at Amazon UK, I see, if you're interested) The first piece on the CD is the Ballet Suite by Vaughan Williams, and I was delighted that he played it as part of his program this time.

He is putting together a website www.principlechairs.com to help new players understand the requirements of an orchestral post.  Here is one video where he is showing an element of interpretation of the Firebird ballet by Stravinsky

The main thing that allowed western classical music to expand and flourish, is the fact that it is written down.  This allows works of enormous complexity and length to be accurately communicated to any number of musicians anywhere in the world.  But it is a weakness too, best summarised by Stravinsky (I think) who noted that "Everything is written down, except that which is most essential".

What is written is a guide only, and although you have to play what's there, to do so is not enough.  It has to be interpreted, and this is the essence of musicianship.  In fact, it is better to get away from the written score, if you can.  As a general observation, performances increase in musicality as the musician goes from:

   1)  reading the score and playing it.
   2)  using the score as a reminder of what to play, and ultimately
   3)  playing from memory.

Which is why many professional musicians will play from memory. 

This parallels my experiences as an amateur player.  If I'm reading the music, the result is awful.  If I know the piece and am skimming the music to use it as a reminder, the result is not so bad.  Best results come when I have memorised the piece.  It's as if I have more brain power available to put into the interpretation, rather than using what's available to read the score.

(More on Wissam and Aleks later)