"We seem to go extremely slow, / it is so hard to wait!"

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States, and I hope it's a fine one for anyone reading. Here's what we'll be offering guests at the door—a bright, fruity counterbalance to a ton of stuffing.

Fall In

BASE:

• 2 parts rosemary-infused rye (just rye and rosemary stalks left for a day or two to get to know each other, like there at the right—plain rye is just as good)
• 2 parts pineapple juice
• 1 part cranberry juice
• 1 part lemon juice
• plum bitters to taste

Shake the base ingredients with ice and strain, then combine equal parts base and chilled sparkling wine. Garnish with a cranberry, maybe? Or an orange twist, your call.

Thanksgiving being the calendar's main food-based holiday, I normally take the opportunity to throw a few bucks at my local food bank, and encourage everyone I know to do the same. Given that things aren't exactly normal right now, here's a few more worthy causes that probably would appreciate a financial vote of confidence:

• GLSEN
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• The Young Center
• National Women's Law Center
• Standing Rock Medic + Healer Council

Happy holidays! Traveling mercies if you're traveling. And remember the words of Ian MacLaren: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Better get ready for a brand new day

I'm totally behind on links, so let's catch up:

Score: William Merritt Chase—an American Impressionist and his instruments.
Boston Globe, October 21, 2016.

Score: Rosemary Brown and her famous (dead) collaborators.
Boston Globe, October 29, 2016.

Score: Ray Conniff and Billy May at 100.
Boston Globe, November 4, 2016.

In defense of my tardiness, I can claim a) a crush of work, b) a three-year-old who demanded a custom-tailored Cinderella dress for Halloween (which meant a week's battle with the sewing machine), and c) um, well, this:

My more-often-than-not forlorn fandom has been commemorated in this space at assorted past moments of temporary buoyancy, so it is not a surprise that my productivity has been utterly subverted for some weeks now. (I played "Go Cubs Go" as an organ postlude this past Sunday and I don't think there was a soul in the congregation who had a clue what it was, which somehow made it even more fun.)

Still: slacking. So, to make it up to you, I made you a drink:

Clock Watcher

½ oz Bénédictine
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz lime juice
2-3 oz Canadian Club (or any rye-heavy whiskey; amount based on just how much time we're trying to skip over here)
a healthy 4-5 dashes of Peychaud's bitters

Shake everything up with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with an orange twist.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is election day here in the U.S. Go vote! And remember the words of that most optimistic of radicals, Jean Jaurès:

All of us forget that before everything else, we are... ephemeral beings lost in the immense universe, so full of terrors. We are inclined to neglect the search for the real meaning of life, to ignore the real goals—serenity of the spirit and sublimity of the heart ... To reach them—that is the revolution.

Back issues

I haven't updated this space for several months now, for a lot of reasons. I've been writing elsewhere. I've been trying to compose. I've been out of town. I've been....

Eh, who am I kidding? This is why I haven't been updating:

Which is not to say I haven't been working, though. So, in a bout of real-work avoidance, I've at least gone back and filled in a bunch of links from the interregnum—Boston Globe reviews, NewMusicBox articles, other appearances here and there. I've also compiled a master list of all the "Score" columns I've written for the Globe over the past couple years. (Links to that list and my NewMusicBox articles are now in the sidebar, too.) Critic-at-Large Moe (pictured above, on left) would like you to know that he, too, has not been idle.

Anyway, a drink. This one is named in honor of Henri Poincaré, since I was reading a biography of him, and full of grapefruit, because I love grapefruit.

3-Sphere

First, make some grapefruit-infused gin: add the peel (no pith) and juice of one grapefruit to 500ml of gin, let it steep for a week, then strain it through a coffee filter.

Then, combine:

2 oz. grapefruit-infused gin
1 oz. grapefruit juice
½ oz. Cocchi Americano
a couple dashes of grapefruit bitters

Stir with cracked ice and strain into the closest thing you have to a non-Euclidean glass.

On the Page

Catching up on some recent reviews, since, now that I finally took down my festive holiday tree, I have to take it down from the blog, too.

Reviewing Corey Cerovsek and Paavali Jumppanen.
Boston Globe, January 15, 2013.

Reviewing Randall Hodgkinson—and the premiere of Gunther Schuller's Piano Trio no. 3.
Boston Globe, January 16, 2013.

Sounds Heard: Ehnahre—Old Earth.
NewMusicBox, January 22, 2013.

Reviewing the Boston Chamber Music Society.
Boston Globe, January 22, 2013.

Reviewing Dinosaur Annex.
Boston Globe, January 29, 2013.

New Enlgand's Prospect: Object Oriented. Reviewing the Callithumpian Consort.
NewMusicBox, January 31, 2013.

Oh, and this happened, too.

I think that calls for a drink!

I never did make that Oxford Swig from the last post, but here's a new one. Warning: it is a seriously musty drink. Having spent far too much of my life in various librarial iterations of the name, I'm guessing that funk is now permanently in my blood, because I like that sort of flavor. Anyway—

Basement Stack

2 oz. Ransom Old Tom gin
1 oz. rainwater Madeira
½ oz. lime juice
¼ oz. maple syrup
A few drops of vanilla extract
a couple healthy dashes of Fee Bros. plum bitters

Stir it up with ice and then strain into something that won't tip over onto your book.

Ever wonder why old books smell the way they do? Wonder no more.

Come September, they can't remember why

Because it has been a summer of STUFF and TASKS I have gotten dangerously lax about keeping up with even my own output. Some items you might have missed:

Sick Puppy 2012: opening concert (Boston Globe, June 18, 2012); closing marathon (NewMusicBox, June 28, 2012).

Reviewing Bruce Brubaker.
Boston Globe, July 3, 2012.

Reviewing Gerhard Oppitz.
Boston Globe, July 21, 2012.

Reviewing the Boston Landmarks Orchestra.
Boston Globe, July 27, 2012.

New England's Prospect: Output and Gain. Reviewing the Bang on a Can 2012 Summer Institute marathon concert.
NewMusicBox, August 2, 2012.

Reviewing the Boston Chamber Music Society.
Boston Globe, August 6, 2012.

Having It All.
NewMusicBox, August 10, 2012.

2012 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music: part one (Boston Globe, August 13, 2012); part two (NewMusicBox, August 16, 2012).

Also there are book-related things afoot; see the post below.

In the meantime, if your summer has been anything like the summer here at Soho the Dog HQ—i.e., cheerfully chaotic, mysteriously overscheduled, and leaving one grasping at free time with both dirty, bitten-off fingernails and a bewildered unfamiliarity with the concept—you probably could use some refreshment.

Staycation

Fill a tall glass with ice cubes. Add 2 oz. gin; ¼ oz. Bénedictine; and the juice of one lime. Fill the rest of the way with diet orange soda. Give it a stir.

Does it have to be diet soda? Yes. Yes, it does. And really, the more day-glo artificial-color orange the soda, the better. If you can't bring yourself to buy better-living-through-chemistry orange soda, you might try the Staycation's cousin: the Orbital Sunrise, which is just a mimosa made with Tang instead of orange juice. It is, if I do say so myself, delicious. Ad astra per aspera!

Und ihre Rosen in purpurner Glut, Bächlein, erquicke mit kühlender Flut

Raise a glass! You made it to 2012!

Lucy's Purple Aura

juice of 1 lime
juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon grape jelly
1 teaspoon grenadine
1½ oz. gin
a decent handful of mint leaves

Shake it all with big chunks of ice until the jelly is liquefied and the mint is in confetti-like bits. Strain (keeping the mint, leaving the ice).

According to the same psychic who filled in the corners of my CV, my wife's aura is, in fact, purple. For those not inclined towards gin (like, say, my wife), this makes for a good mocktail; just replace the gin with still or (better) sparkling water.

My busy mind is burning to use what learning I've got

In honor of a minor milestone, a riff on the martini that I've come to rely on:

Manuscript Submission

2 oz. dry gin
¾ oz. apricot eau-de-vie (I like Blume Marillen)
½ oz. rosé vermouth (like Martini Rosato)
A couple good dashes of grapefruit bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice until really quite cold (I swirl it in a metal shaker until my fingers stick) and strain into something appropriately graceful.

The atomic number of zirconium

Today is my birthday. This year's honored co-celebrant is Serge Koussevitzky, who would have turned 137 today, if only he had actually put his arms into the sleeves of his overcoat more often. Get past the credits of this late-1940s bit of USIS propaganda, and you can see the man in action, conducting Beethoven's Egmont Overture:



There's a story behind this film: it was a single-camera shoot, so Koussevitzky and the BSO pre-recorded the overture, then played along with the recording for several takes; Koussevitzky apparently grew increasingly angry that he couldn't deviate from his own interpretation.

My lovely wife threw a party last weekend to mark my implacable aging. You are sad that you weren't there! You can, however, simulate the occasion via drink. Here's what I concocted for unsuspecting guests:

Second Score

1 oz (30 ml) rye whiskey
⅔ oz (20 ml) pineapple juice
⅔ oz (20 ml) lime juice
⅓ oz (10 ml) apricot brandy
⅓ oz (10 ml) rosé vermouth

Shake well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass; top with

2 oz (60 ml) cold champagne

Cutting down on alcohol? Good heavens, why? Have you seen what this world is coming to? Nevertheless, here's one for kids of all ages; name courtesy of Jack Miller, who also baked the birthday cake pictured above, a cake that will be spoken of for years to come in hushed, awestruck tones.

Four For Tea

1 oz (30 ml) double-strength green tea
1 oz (30 ml) pineapple juice
⅔ oz (20 ml) lime juice
2 tsp (10 ml) pomegranate molasses

Shake with ice, strain into a glass, and top with

2 oz (60 ml) sparkling apple juice or seltzer

Pomegranate molasses can be found in the Middle Eastern aisle of your local supermarket, or at least where all the couscous and falafel mix gets shelved, I would think. I also used it as part of the brine for twelve pounds of pulled pork, and it worked really rather well. Shahia tayba!

Das erinnert an vergangene Zeiten

Hey, tomorrow is Alban Berg's birthday! So here's an honorary cocktail for the party: rather lush, a little exotically perfumed, a little hell-fire in the background.

Lulu's Fix

3 parts gin
3 parts lemon juice
2 parts peppercorn syrup*
1 part strawberry purée
A decent bunch of mint leaves

Throw it all in a shaker with ice, and shake well—until the mint breaks up. Strain into a glass (with a coarse enough strainer that bits of mint are floating in the thing) and garnish with an expressionistically long peel of lemon rind.

*Peppercorn syrup: put ½ cup sugar, ½ cup water, and a handful of crushed peppercorns (black, green, whatever you've got) in a small pot and simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the peppercorns have imparted a nice burn.

Here's a little bit of Anja Silja (Lulu), Richard Holm (Alwa), and Carlos Alexander (dead on the floor), ca. 1968, in a typically awkward tryst:

Fellow cats, mesh your gears / Won't you lend your politic ears?

A couple of pies waiting at home for my lovely wife, spending the day doing last-minute get-out-the-vote canvassing in New Hampshire. The one on the left is supposed to have the Obama logo in the center, but it's somewhat obscured due to my filling it with way too many blueberries, which overflowed the vents. (Insert your own joke about liberal profligacy here.) On the right: a sour cream pumpkin pie. I may be an elitist, but not too much of one for The Joy of Cooking: those pie recipes never let me down.

Wash down the past two years' electioneering follies with this purplish and thus bi-partisan concoction. The scotch gives it a vague sort of toasty, pancake-y vibe; hence the name.

Morning in America

1½ oz. blueberry juice
½ oz. Cointreau
½ oz. scotch whisky
Champagne, chilled

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a champagne flute. Top off with champagne. (I like a relatively sweet, vanilla-overtoned scotch; if your single-malts are on the peaty side, maybe try some Johnnie Walker Black instead. If you're working with blueberry juice cocktail, perhaps add a touch of lemon juice if it's too sweet.)

And, whatever your persuasion, get out and vote! Even if you cynically doubt its actual efficacy, you'll at least be a player in one of the largest regularly scheduled productions of street theater ever conceived.

One more thing: let's not forget... the farmer:

Heavenly Peach Banquet

Midsummer happy hour! This one comes from fooling around with Dixie Peach juice cocktail from Trader Joe's, though any similar peach concoction would probably work. Less is more, as it turns out. (Name courtesy of my wife, who makes puns in many languages and is lovely to boot.)

Pêche d'Or

3 parts gin
3 parts peach juice cocktail
1 part Triple Sec
1 part Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice

Shake with ice until very cold (it's a bit on the sweet side—you could also cut down on the Triple Sec, although I didn't like that as much) and strain into the aquarium of your choice.

Imbibe to the strains of the first stonefruit-themed piece of music I thought of off the top of my head, Frank Zappa's "Peaches en Regalia." Here's the great sage, equal of heaven himself, in Vienna in 1988.



And, just to hit both sides of the pun, the eponymous variations from the famous Perlman-Zuckerman-DuPre-Mehta-Barenboim performance of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet.

Ni les peintres ni Maupassant ne se promènent

I'm guessing this is the week when it hit everybody that summer is almost over. Here's a little creation to soothe your melancholy. I realized that I had never named a drink in honor of Francis Poulenc, so I'll borrow the title of one of my favorite of his songs, a bittersweet Apollinaire recollection of the perfect summer hang-out, now closed, never again to be graced by frivolity, abandon, or pretty girls dumb as cabbages.

La Grenouillère

Equal parts:
Dry gin
Apple eau de vie
Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice

Shake with cracked ice and strain into a martini glass.

While you imbibe: here's Poulenc himself, along with Jacques Février, performing the second movement of his 1932 Concerto for two pianos.

E nulla! Arida landa… non un filo d'acqua

Phil at Dial "M" requests drink recipes. Even critic-at-large Moe starts licking his chops at that kind of prospect. So here's a nice summer companion to the Dark Lady. Name, as always, courtesy of my thoroughly operatic wife.

Manon

2 oz. gin
2 oz. dry rosé wine
1/2 oz. rose water
1/2 oz. grenadine
1/2 oz. triple sec or Grand Marnier

Shake thoroughly with cracked ice and strain into the stemmed glass of your choice.

A squirt of lemon juice is a salutary addition as well. You'll want to shake it until it's quite cold, due to the grenadine and the triple sec; if it's still too sweet for you, better to cut down on the former than the latter.

While you're at it, mix up a couple for these two. They look like they could use it.


That's Kiri Te Kanawa and Placido Domingo in Puccini's take, Manon Lescaut. The late, great Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts.

L'audace impresa a compiere / Io ti darò valore (liquido)

Lest you think composers only expend their creative energies on boring old music, here's a concoction for the weekend (name courtesy of my Shakespeare-loving wife).

Dark Lady

2 oz. gin
2 oz. tart cherry juice
1/2 oz. kirschwasser
1/2 oz. cassis

Shake with cracked ice and strain into a large martini glass.

While you drink, treat youself to the thermonuclear Shirley Verrett as Shakespeare's darkest lady of all (via Verdi).