Virtual Biergarten

[piqaboo]

Jazz goes with gin.

"Guys and Dolls" goes well with gin or whiskey.

Polka goes with beer.

Other dance music goes with white wine spritzers.

Romance novels go with sweet liqueurs. I'm not sure of a musical equivalent for bodice rippers and Harlequins.

[piqaboo]

originally posted by Haggis:
Bread is a totally different subject. Next to German bread my favorite bread is found throughout the Middle East and Turkey. I can recall the name but it’s flat bread similar to pita bread, only flatter. They bake it inside an open oven shaped something like a beehive and made from clay (I think) The baker rolls out the dough then throws the dough onto the interior wall of the oven and uses a long hook thingy to get the baked product. Man some of that bread with fresh figs is a real meal.....

Haggis, are you thinking of naan? It comes out of the oven sort of teardrop shaped? Great stuff. Really good pita is a reasonable substitute, but not the stuff sold in most grocery stores.

[Shapley]

The board is pretty quiet today,
No one has much to say,
I think I'll pull up a chair right here,
and have the waitress bring me a beer.

[dai bread]

Well then, let me tell you about a very well-kept musical secret.

As I've mentioned before, my Private Trumpeter is finishing his music degree at Auckland University.

One of the requirements of the course is that instrumentalists play in the school's symphony orchestra.

Therefore, when the orchestra is giving a public concert, I get told about it.

Yesterday evening, they gave such a concert. The program was:

Appalachian Spring (Copland)

A Song of Islands (Lilburn)

Symphony #1 (Tchaikovsky).

The concert was held in the Town Hall, which isn't all that big, but is positively cavernous when the audience consists of 123 paying patrons plus the staff & students of the Music School, who of course, get in free.

I think the disappointment of this showed in the first piece. The playing was technically fine, at least to my ears, but it was the most lacklustre celebration of Spring I've heard for a long time.

They did better in the Lilburn, which went very well indeed. The brass, naturally, were in good form.

After an interval, Tchaikovsky. An excellent rendering, although it could have done with the weight of a bigger orchestra. There were only 60 players instead of the NZSO's 90. Maybe the sound got swallowed up in the near-empty hall. Nevertheless, the orchestra played with enthusiasm and an obvious relish for the music, and thoroughly deserved the sustained applause at the end.

That was the third concert I've been to by these people. Every one of them has been of a standard that would not have disgraced a professional orchestra. Yet publicity for them is vitually nil. If you're not in the know, you don't go. The price is about a third of the regular price, so the concerts represent very good value for money, but nobody knows about them. They're a very well-kept secret indeed.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Back to the Biergarten theme: This Just In! (And finally there's some medical news that we all want to hear!)

Ethanol!

HOORAY!

[Shapley]

Cheers! Bottoms up!

[Trumpetmaster]

<img src="http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/26/26_12_5v.gif" alt=" - " />

[Schmeelkie]

As my mom always says (and her mom, and her mom, etc) - everything in moderation. Although I drink a heck of a lot less than I used to, I'm always up for trying a new beer (or having a glass of wine). When we were in Ontario recently we had some Creemore (lager, I think) - good stuff. Husband's aunt & uncle had a case they didn't think they could drink and sent it home with us!

I'm not a big dark beer fan, but I did have my Guiness while in Ireland at the factory. And I had a chocolate beer once that was dark, but not sweet - like having dark chocolate... My husband's a huge Sam Adams fan - I prefer their Oktoberfest (tis the season!), winter lager, and cherry wheat to the regular lager.

My all-time most drinkable beer has to be Yuengling - made in PA - country's oldest continuously running brewery and only recently can you get it outside of PA (well, I found it in South Jersey, but they're close). Just in the last year it's come to Rochester. I drank tons of Yuengling lager as a grad student - my roommate my first year was into Coors light, but we tried Yuengling one night and were forever converted! Still tastes good even when you and your pal are on your fourth pitcher. It's just a tasty lager, close in taste to some of those 'red' lagers.

But I also like to go to micro-breweries whereever I am and try what they have. Always more interesting than what's on tap anywhere else.

[BigJon@Work]

Yep, Yuengling always was the best taste to value for a struggling student's budget. Now that they've started advertising more, the price has gone up some, but I don't care, 'cause I don't drink anymore.

[Shapley]

I think, if I have another beer,
the solution to everything will be clear.

Bartender! Bring me another stout,
And I'll soon have it figured out.

Drink! Drink! The solution is here
at the bottom of this, or of the next beer.

My eyes may be blurry, but my brain can
see things hidden to the sober man.

Another round! Another round! Another round!
That is where the answer will be found!

Eureka! The answer is right in front of me!
To everything! What a hero I will be.

The end to war, interstellar travel!
The universe's mysteries I can unravel!

Only one more problem, my greatest plight!
The floor won't hold still so I can write!

[piqaboo]

Well, if you're buying!

[Shapley]

Why not? I've got $20 left over after buying these shirts.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Local beverages store is having a 5¢ wine sale. I think I may stop by after work & find out the right nomenclature for the things I like/dislike in a wine. (It's a buy-one-at-full-price-second-bottle-is-5¢-sale). Shap, wanta join me with your $20? That could buy a lot of second bottles!

[Shapley]

Selma,

Depends. Are you going to buy all the first bottles? [cheapskate icon]

Actually sounds like a pretty good deal. I do need to restock my wine rack. I was looking at it the other night and noticed there wasn't a red wine in the bunch, unless you count a bottle of cherry wine (good stuff, from the Hermannhof Winery in Hermann, Missouri).



V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

Selma, whatcha buy? huh? huh? huh? <5 yr old icon>

[dai bread]

<img src="http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1058777/Cherry1a.jpg" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1058777/cherry2a.jpg" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1058777/Cherry3a.jpg" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1058777/Cherry4a.jpg" alt=" - " />


Spring is sprung, the grass is riz.
The cherry full of blossom iz.

Annettehala would feel right at home here at the moment. A Japanese would sit under this tree at night, drinking Kirin or Asahi (if I've got the names right), but I'll content myself with Hollander inside, listening to BR. It's raining today.

<small>[ 10-01-2005, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: dai bread ]</small>

[Marye]

Beautiful photos, dai....

[OperaTenor]

Hi Dai,

Beautiful photos. Yes, those are the right names. Kirin, my favorite drink with sushi, and Asahi, my second favorite.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Originally posted by piqaboo:
Selma, whatcha buy?

Have talked with sister, and now have list. She wants merlots and shiraz/syrah from Bogle, Smoking Loon, McManis, and Yellowtail.

I will probably get over to the store tomorrow, unless I just give up and order online. Spent the day practicing my vile vocabulary on the vacuum cleaner; new bag, cleaned the airway, changed out the filter and the hepa filter, changed the beater bar drive belt, cut the accumulated hair and threads off the beater bar roller, still won't pick up cat hair.

That vacuum is now in the dumpster. I have a new Dyson Animal which I will unpack and admire. Actual operation will have to wait for tomorrow.

Planned activities for the day: change bed linen, vacuum, do other laundry, change cat box, go to wine store. Accomplished activities for the day: changed bed linen, changed cat box, fought vacuum and lost, replaced vacuum.

I'm going to go get a glass of my vin very ordinaire out of the box in the fridge. And admire my new shiny purple vacuum cleaner.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

New vacuum is excellent. Well, I care. I think I vacuumed up enough cat hair to knit a complete extra cat!

Made it to the wine store. The Yellowtail Reserve 03 was on the second-bottle-for-a-nickle rack <happy dance>. All the rest of my sister's wish list was also there, am now drinking a glass of the McManis Sirah. Very nice stuff.