Nutcracker

This summer’s obsession: Pine nuts.

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My mom’s garden has a handful of pine trees, and one of them in particular is a prolific producer of pinecones —with pine nuts, piñón (not all pinecones have pine nuts, depending on stress, gender (only female trees produce pine nuts), etc.) Also, pine trees do not make the same number of pinecones with nuts every year. The average number of pine nuts per cone is anywhere from 10 to over 100, according to the interweb.

This year, this one tree has an unstoppable quantity of pine nuts. So I started collecting them.

Possibly my favorite pasta sauce is a rich, flavorful pesto: the silky olive oil, the rich combination of cheeses, the fresh basil (with some parsley for extra color!), the tangy garlic, and to bring it all together magically… the pine nuts!!!

The goal: to make a kickass pesto.

The process: to crack hundreds (thousands?) of pine nuts.

Chatting with our neighbor, a local guru who knows all there is to know about nature and country life, showed me his machine for cracking pine nuts.

I am not a fan of Amazon, but I’m in the middle of the country, and I need a nut-cracking machine; the old stone or hammer won’t cut it with the number of pine nuts I have to crack. So I ordered a machine. Although it is advertised as cracking pine nuts, these are too small for this machine, probably designed to break almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, you know, bigger nuts than mine. I returned it to Amazon (sorry, no photo of the first machine).

Second machine: this one does fit and cracks pine nuts, but it pulverizes them. I try to go slow, but there is no way; the flesh of the nuts disintegrates with each swing of the lever.

The third one I ordered is not from Amazon; it is from a hardware store on the other side of Spain. This machine has a much smoother cracking system, so you can apply pressure progressively until the pine nut cracks. One problem: like the first machine, even at its smallest setting, it does not crack pine nuts… The solution? A tiny board “lifts” the pine nut so the cracker part of the mechanism reaches it. Finally, the pine nut problem is solved!!

I’d better get cracking. Pesto anyone?

The Chapel Hill arts scene season ’14-’15

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Concert night
Pierre Laurent Aimard
Pre concert drink
Always the aisle seat

Yes, I know I repeat myself all the time, but one of the main reasons I love Chapel Hill is the thriving cultural scene. There is always something culturally stimulating going on. Being at a concert, a play, a ballet, is a great break from the day-to-day but at the same time a very enriching experience, which I believe leaves an almost invisible sediment at the bottom of your soul, mind, heart. This sediment, like in a good wine adds to the richness and flavor of the wine. Among other events this year I went to:

  • The Pittsburgh Symphony playing Mahler 1 symphony.
  • Benjamin Britten’s Japanese Noh theatre inspired Curlew River
  • Unavoidably in December, the Carolina Ballet’s Nutcracker
  • The Maarinsky Orchestra playing Prokofiev
  • Kronos Quarter with my dear friend and composer James Brown. This concert included a very nice question and answer period post concert.
  • Brian Blade, a brilliant jazz drummer with my dear friend and cigar aficionado Jedd.
  • Britten’s War Requiem
  • Pierre Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich playing Pierre Boulez on dueling pianos!
  • Martha Graham Dance Company
  • The Monteverdi Orchestra playing the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 with Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting. One of the most amazing shows I have ever seen!
  • The North Carolina Symphony playing Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring. A great and hopeful hymn that represents the beauty that is America.
  • Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure played by a small company in the local movie theatre!
  • UNC Opera’s hilarious rendering of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus
  • UNC Baroque Ensemble’s Fall and Spring concerts with the great Professor Wissick leading.

Unfortunately my Spring was so busy that I did not manage to go to any of the Playmakers Spring productions.

And this does not include lectures, readings, exhibits, nor any of all the more alternative goings on, in which I choose not to participate, one must set limits. All in all an extremely fulfilling year that had me thinking, feeling, laughing and crying.