Spices

Tags

Austria, Fortunoff, Germany, Holiday, Juniper, NYC, PEI, Salzburg, spices, Sterling silver

In our Household I do all the shopping, Mr Will does most of the cooking and baking. He gives me the lists of ingredients, some rare and obscure even Gourmet magazine has not thought of it.

This means that on our small island sometimes shopping for ingredients can be difficult and challenging. Since 2010 things have improved a lot and though the native diet is not sophisticated it is improving with the constant flow of Canadians arriving here to settle and introducing a more cosmopolitan gourmet cuisine.

This month I was able to persuade the manager of our grocery store (it’s a national chain) that he should import veal since I knew that out of province stores had it. Next comes spices. Today Chef Will suddenly announced that in a burst of inspiration he was thinking of a new recipe and he needed Star anise and Cardamon seeds. These are two spices common everywhere in Canada except here in PEI land of potatoes.

Cardamon is a wonderful and versatile spice, I remember in the Middle East how it finds its way into coffee making and gives the most wonderful flavour. I finally found both spices at the Bulk Barn, though when I asked the clerk about it, he had no idea what I was talking about. This happens a lot here, radicchio is confused with red cabbage, NOT the same thing, but hey I am not complaining at the check out I pay for cabbage instead of radicchio a difference of $3.00 in price.

Last week I was looking for Juniper Berries, commonly used to make gin. Given that PEI has a big gin industry and produces its own 50 Proof Island Gin you would think that Juniper berries is a common staple, NOT so, it is not.  Luckily for us a friend had some on hand but she had bought them off Island. Chef Will needed them to make Potted Pork with Juniper berries. I helpfully suggested that we use Holly berries nice bright and red instead, festive looking. I was told they are poisonous and would kill off our guests, that would be most inconvenient  I presume.

Everything is closed solid as of 24, 25 and 26 December and same for 31 Dec and 1 Jan. it will be very quiet and am happy for it.

Here are some photos of heirlooms.

From Fortunoff on 5th Ave. NYC, a gift from my little sister in 1983 when I joined the Foreign Service. It has travelled with me all around the world.

Press glass punch bowl c. 1926, a wedding gift of Will’s parents. It is heavy and festive looking. Will be used for a red wine punch tomorrow for our Christmas Eve party.

Wood Nutcracker, hand painted made in the GDR (East Germany) 1982. I got him in Ottawa at a wonderful German Deli, now closed, back in those days the shop owners would import the most beautiful traditional German Christmas ornaments and he was in the window.
He travelled quite a bit with us all around the world and always appear at Christmas time. It is difficult today to find such nice wood sculpted Nutcrackers.

Austrian Tin hand painted Christmas tree and old St-Nick on his horse. We found this in Salzburg while attending the Music Festival in May each year. We use to take the train in Rome and travel up to Austria via the Brenner pass to Innsbruck and then Salzburg. There is a shop in a covered alley with all manner of traditional Tin figurines, it is really an art form made by the Wilhelm Schweizer co. in Diessen, Germany.

Our home terrace in Rome on Via dei Villini at Christmas time in 2009. We had lots of plants and this area was in a big park with lots of Maritime pines all around.

Christmas 2008 Rome, at home on Via dei Villini. Our tree then was 8 feet tall since the ceilings were taller.

Salzburg in Winter during the Mozart week with the river Salzach and the Archbishop’s castle on the hill, in 2010. It is a very small town and an easy walk.

 

Spring is here

Tags

Brackley beach, Burger love, Café Bazar, Festival, New Glasgow, Salzburg, The Mill

Spring in Salzburg. Photo taken a few years ago in May while attending the SALZBURGER FESTSPIELE PFINGSTEN, a small city which kept all of its 18th century charm.

How we enjoyed going there, year after year. If you want to see the program for this year 2017 click here: http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/whitsun/opera

Having a drink of bubbly at the Café Bazar, my favourite spot.

Today the weather was so nice, it reminded me of Salzburg.

Well the burger love Festival ends this weekend and my favourite burger was done by Chef Emily Wells of the Mill in New Glasgow on the Clyde River, PEI.

A great spot and only 30 minutes from our house. The food is always good.

Last Sunday we went to the Concert of the PEI Symphony with guest soloist Mark Djokic, canadian violin award winning player of great talent. He played the Sibelius violin concerto which is notoriously difficult and was composed by Sibelius to be a piece which presented challenges to the violinist. Djokic made it look so easy.

Mark Djokic was born in Halifax, N.S. his violin is a rare instrument of great quality,

Marc first studied violin with his father, violinist Philippe Djokic, one of Canada’s great soloists and a pupil of the master Ivan Galamian. Marc made his first orchestra debut at 14, won the Governor General’s Millennium Award at 20, and at 23 was featured on Bravo! television series, The Classical Now. A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Marc Djokic is known for his powerful and virtuosic performances. A past winner of Quebec’s Prix Opus and Canada Council’s Instrument Bank among numerous other prizes, Marc performs frequently as soloist with Canada’s top orchestras and in chamber music festivals across North America. His concerts have also been frequently broadcast by CBC Radio and Espace Musique. From the Jeunesses Musicales tour to Debut Atlantic, Marc has toured several times throughout Canada. From 2015 to 2017 the classical music channel NONCERTO produced more than 45 music videos featuring Marc and his collaborations, filmed throughout Canada featuring its unique, historical and cultural locations.

 

Well they are finally starting on the complete re-building of the old Legislative Building in Charlottetown built in 1847 by Isaac Smith, Province House needs a facelift.

I was able to sneek a photo of the original entrance hall before the workers set-up the fendes around the building. Note the floor in flag stones. The neon lights are modern additions hopefully will be gone with the renovations.

 

Now closed for the next 5 years.

Finally the beach at Brackley Point, quiet and deserted.

Official Portrait

Tags

Anniversary, Austria, Canada., Family, Laurent, life, Salzburg, tradition, Trudeau, vacation, Will

Many years ago my parents were friends with Armenian born Yousuf Karsh, the World famous Canadian photographer who lived for many years in a suite at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa, he offered to my parents on their Wedding Anniversary to do a series of portraits of them. We kept those wonderful portraits and I use to kid my Mother that she had now something in common with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill, that of having her portrait taken by Karsh. Those portraits are family heirlooms now.

Ottawa being the Capital many Politicians have their picture taken by photographers but some shine above the rest and one is Jean-Marc Carisse who came to prominence in the late 1960’s with his portraits and action shots of our then Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau, the father of Justin. Carisse then took pictures of all manner of famous people and his work was in great demand. He became identified with the Liberal Party of Canada, the natural governing party of Canada. His skill was to take perfectly natural photos of his subjects and their humanity just shine through. Jean-Marc Carisse is an award winning Canadian photojournalist. He has photographed the political, cultural and social scenes in Ottawa and around the world for over 40 years, including stints as official photographer serving the Prime Minister’s Office (Pierre E. Trudeau, John Turner and Jean Chrétien) and as a freelancer. His photographs have appeared on many covers of magazines including Time, Paris Match and Maclean’s.

One of the more famous portrait of Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau with a dedication by Trudeau to Carisse. A Prime Minister in 1969 as a young Caesar. One of our truly great Prime Minister’s

I always wanted to have a picture of us taken by him and we went to see him at Studio Café Carisse on Elgin Street in Ottawa just a few steps away from our house. At Christmas time our puppies Nicky and Nora arranged a gift certificate, they are such clever Dachshunds.

Here is the result of Carisse’s work. This portrait is to mark my 60th and Will’s 70th Birthday.

Wearing our Traditional Austrian Trachten jackets a souvenir of the many vacations spent in Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna and of many happy memories of our long life together. This year, 2016 is an anniversary year for us and the beginning of a new adventure.

 

 

 

No Salzburg for us this year.

Tags

Austria, Festival, Festspiele, Mozart, Salzburg, Whitsun

At this time of the year we would head for Salzburg, Austria for the Music Festival at Pentecost weekend, the Whitsun Festival 22-25 May 2015. It is a Festival of music, concerts and opera first inaugurated in 1920 and held every year.

In 1917, Friedrich Gehmacher and Heinrich Damisch formed an organization known as the Salzburger Festspielhaus-Gemeinde to establish an annual festival of drama and music, emphasizing especially the works of Mozart. At the close of the war in 1918, the festival’s revival was championed by five men now regarded as the founders: the poet and dramatist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the composer Richard Strauss, the scenic designer Alfred Roller, the conductor Franz Schalk, and the director Max Reinhardt, then intendant of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, who had produced the first performance of Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann at the Berlin Zirkus Schumann arena in 1911.

The Salzburg Festival was officially inaugurated on 22 August 1920 with Reinhardt’s performance of Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann on the steps of Salzburg Cathedral, starring Alexander Moissi. The practice has become a tradition, and the play is now always performed at Cathedral Square, from 1921 accompanied by several performances of chamber music and orchestra works. The first operatic production came in 1922, with Mozart’s Don Giovanni conducted by Richard Strauss. The singers were mainly drawn from the Wiener Staatsoper, including Richard Tauber as Don Ottavio.

The first festival hall was erected in 1925 at the former Prince Archbishops’ horse stables on the northern foot of the Mönchsberg mountain according to plans by Clemens Holzmeister and opened with Gozzi’s Turandot dramatized by Karl Vollmöller. At that time the festival had already developed a large-scale program including live broadcasts by the Austrian RAVAG radio network. The following year the adjacent former episcopal Felsenreitschule riding academy, carved into the Mönchsberg rock face, was converted into a theater, inaugurated with the performance of Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni. In the 21st century, the original festival hall, suitable only for concerts, was reconstructed as a third venue for fully staged opera and concert performances and reopened in 2006 as the Haus für Mozart.

The years from 1934 to 1937 were a golden period when famed conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Bruno Walter conducted many performances. In 1936, the festival featured a performance by the Trapp Family Singers, whose story was later dramatized as the musical and film The Sound of Music (featuring a shot of the Trapps singing at the Felsenreitschule). In 1937, Boyd Neel and his orchestra premiered Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge at the Festival.

The Festival’s popularity suffered a major blow upon the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938. Toscanini resigned in protest, artists of Jewish descent like Reinhardt and Georg Solti had to emigrate, and the Jedermann, last performed by Attila Hörbiger, had to be dropped.

The post-war festival slowly regained its prominence as the premier summer opera festival, especially in works by Mozart, with conductor Herbert von Karajan becoming artistic director in 1956. In 1960 the Great Festival Hall (Großes Festspielhaus) opera house opened its doors. As this summer festival gained fame and stature as the premier venue for opera, drama, and classical concert presentation, its musical repertoire concentrated on Mozart and Strauss, but other works, such as Verdi’s Falstaff and Beethoven’s Fidelio, were also performed.

Upon Karajan’s death in 1989, the festival was drastically modernized and expanded by director Gerard Mortier, who was succeeded by Peter Ruzicka in 2001. In 2006, the festival was led by intendant Jürgen Flimm and concert director Markus Hinterhäuser. That year, Salzburg celebrated the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth by staging all 22 of his operatic works (including two unfinished operas), to great acclaim. All 22 were filmed and released on DVD in November 2006. The 2006 festival also saw the opening of the Haus für Mozart.

The festival’s current director is Sven-Eric Bechtolf who replaced Alexander Pereira who left in 2014 for LaScala Milan, he had succeeded Flimm who departed in 2011 to become director of the Berlin State Opera.

The Salzburg Whitsun Festival (Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele) is an extension of the traditional Salzburg Summer Festival established in 1973, initially performing operas along with works from the great Baroque orchestral repertoire at the Grosses Festspielhaus during Whitsun (or Pentecost) weekend. This is the Festival we have attended for the last 7 years.

For 2015 at Whitsun the 2 operas are from CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK • IPHIGÉNIE EN TAURIDE and GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL • SEMELE which is sold out.

In the Concerts this year we have at the Stiftung Mozarteum a Matinee with CHRISTOPH and JULIAN PRÉGARDIEN, at the Haus Für Mozart ARIA CONCERT PHILIPPE JAROUSSKY which we always like, he has a wonderful voice and will do a Handel Concert. Also A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM • BALLET with John Neumeier, Jürgen Rose, Soloists and ensemble of HAMBURG BALLETT, Simon Hewett, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg.

Then LA LIRA D’ORFEO with  Rolf Lislevand, Marco Ambrosini, Thor Harald Johnsen, David Mayoral, Ulrik Gaston Lersen, Dominique Girod
Works by Gaspar Sanz, Francesco Corbetta, Gian Paolo Foscarini, Alessandro Piccinini, Hieronymus Kapsberger, Trad, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Bernardo Gianoncelli, aus dem Lautenbuch der Margaret Board, Thomas Robinson, Antonio Carbonchi, Diego Ortiz, Santiago de Murcia

The Gala Evening and look at the names of the artists, worth the trip just by itself. At the Grosses Festspielhaus

Performers: Anna Netrebko, Cecilia Bartoli, Marianne Crebassa, Juan Diego Flórez, Christopher Maltman, Andreas Scholl, Salzburger Bachchor, Camerata Salzburg, Louis Langrée
Works by Henry Purcell, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Joseph Haydn, Jacques Offenbach
and other works.

Going to the Whitsun Festival means 2 to 3 concerts per day, leaving just enough time for clothes change, fresh shirt or change of suit. Reservations have to be made for dinner and lunch, it is a small town. The atmosphere is magical in Salzburg, you often get to meet the artists between concerts, there is a real intimate little town feeling. So very beautiful, maybe next year we will go to Salzburg.

banner photo

Tags

Austria, Salzburg

My new banner photo was taken last year in June 2014, a general view of the City of Salzburg, Austria seen from the Salzach River. Such a wonderful little town where you can walk everywhere.

Au revoir to 2014.

Tags

Arizona, Canada., Dresden, National Gallery of Canada, National War Museum, Otto Dix, Salzburg, Stratford Ontario

Has it been 14 years now since the old millennium and the XXth century ended, how time flies so quickly. We saw the turn of the new century in Warsaw, the famous night of Y2K, we can all laugh now at the nonsense of it all. Since then we returned to Canada bought a heritage home, renovated it and then, I went to Beijing on posting and in 2007 to Rome, our old dog Reesie died in Rome on Boxing Day 2008. We had sold the house prior to our departure for Europe. In 2009 in February we met our new puppies Nicky and Nora in Capena. In 2011 we returned with much regret to Canada and I retired at the end of 2012. Since I have been doing volunteer work in our National Museums and built a new life here. But this has not stopped us from traveling to Europe again and again and visiting our friends. We discovered Spain by visiting many wonderful cities, Valencia, Seville, Granada, after seeing Barcelona, Madrid and a stop in Gibraltar.

Among new people we have become friends first through our blogs I believe around 2010 and then in person in 2013, Dr. Spo and DAW from Arizona. We went to  Stratford Ontario for the Summer theatre Festival and again this past Summer. Both are delightful people and have become good friends.

So many things have happened in the last 14 years and 2014 was also full of events.

Will continues to work at the Foreign Ministry and I at the Museums. We travelled with our friend Madame J. to Austria and Germany, we visited Salzburg for the Pentecost Music Festival during a heat wave which made going to our concerts unpleasant since most halls are very weakly cooled. I saw two exhibits on Otto Dix in Munich and in Dresden and learned much about his paintings and his life. In Dresden I saw his masterpiece Der Krieg which had jus been cleaned. I wanted to learn more about Dix since I was working on the Exhibit of war paintings entitled Transformations at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. I am now juggling the National Gallery of Canada where I work as a docent and coordinator of Art Lectures and the CWM.

What will 2015 bring, well we will have a National Election for Parliament, the $100,000 dollar question is ”will the evil Mr. Harper win another mandate” The Country is badly divided again. There will be other things during the year, maybe a visit to Ottawa of our friends MCR and DAW, more Museums and trips and who knows what else.

DAW and MCR from AZ at a great restaurant Pazzo in Stratford.

I leave you with this piece of music Dubinuska composed by Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov composed for the first anti-Romanov Student revolt in 1905.

Dubinuska (Russia 1905), l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, Conductor.