Lux Brevis Ensemble

Last Friday Troy and collaborator/friend/professor Ted gathered a group of friends to help them perform/record/document their performance piece, Lux Brevis.

I stole this description of the piece from them:

"A collaborative performance piece for a platoon of light-activated sound-emitting tops, Lux Brevis calls on an actively participating ‘audience’ to spin the tops and light ‘em up. The tops are outfitted with photoresistors, microchip synthesizers, amplifiers and speakers. When light — from a flashlight, for instance — falls on a top, it makes a very special ‘beep’. When that top is spinning, it makes a series of beeps in rapid succession, throwing them into space. When that top is in the company of a quorum of its brethren ..."

It was pretty neat to watch many of the tops spinning at once. I got a few photos of the spectacle.


By the way, there is exciting news to report on the music robot front! Troy, Steve, Scott and their robots PAM and MADI were accepted into the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech. Pretty cool. See their website for more info on the robots.

Not for Vegetarians

On special occasions my grandpa Perpich cooks a leg of lamb. He roasts it with plenty of garlic and rosemary and serves it with mint/apple jelly. Once in a while, when we had family reunions at the lake back in the day, he would roast a lamb on a spit. Mmmmm...

Even though I have a special fondness for lamb in terms of both its flavor and the memories it invokes, I have never attempted to cook a leg roast before. Last week I decided to give it a try with the help of my new Pampered Chef roasting pan (a x-mas gift from mom and Tim).

I used garlic and rosemary that we grew and mint jelly that I canned last year from our mint. I also roasted some potatoes and butternut squash. It was a hearty, comforting meal. And we had lamb leftovers all week, the last of which I turned into a curry. Delicious!

It was beautiful too. We couldn't resist taking some pictures. Apologies to the vegetarians, this is Troy's plate and he likes meat more rare than me.

Obamalation

Well we didn't make it to DC but we played hooky for a few hours during the day to go to the arena for live inauguration coverage. There were quite a few enthusiastic folks there. It was interesting, I don't ever remember caring about the inauguration before. It was great to be able to take a break to witness history in the making!

It was hard to get good pictures in this dark setting but just so you can get an idea...

There were lots of smiles all around.

Girl Time and Baked Goods

This weekend I visited Courtney again. Kevin took us out on the town, so to speak. They live in a very rural area but there's a great bar/restaurant--the Griffin Tavern not too far from their house. The atmosphere was nice and they had some live music--a band with a slide guitar playing Johnny Cash and Hank Williams tunes. It was fun to hang out somewhere different. And the food was good. I had the fish and chips, which were particularly delicious.

Kevin went to bed pretty early but Courts and I stayed up really late talking, having cocktails and then later singing Tori Amos songs (that's always what happens after we've had a few--to the annoyance of probably everyone around us. Either Tori Amos or the Indigo Girls). It was really great to have a girls' night with an old friend though.

We were mostly lazy on Sunday but Courtney had gotten an interesting cookie recipe that she wanted to try out so we did a little baking.


These cookies are made with rosemary and pine nuts. Sort of savory but sweet too. I found the recipe online. It's a bit putzy but if you have some time you'll be surprised at how good they are.

In other news on the home front, Troy has decided he wants to make a pie a week. I'm not sure I appreciate this diet plan but so far he has made a few really wonderful ones. This raspberry chiffon pie was really hard to photograph. The pictures don't do it justice. It's really beautiful, with three distinct layers--raspberry, chiffon and whipped cream. Troy has made it twice in the past two weeks now, once with a regular and then with a graham cracker crust. We decided that the regular pastry crust is the way to go, but both were amazing. Just don't use a bought crust. Or at least don't tell Troy if you do. He feels very strongly about pie and thinks using frozen pie crusts is sacrilegious!

Happy (Belated) New Year!

This may be my longest blog post to date but hopefully at least the pics will interest you.

We had an eventful New Year's celebration this year! We returned to VA with a lot of food from our respective families. Lots of cookies and sweets from the Rogers and some walleye too (very exciting for me but Troy is unfortunately allergic) and a huge chunk of ham from my mom.

We couldn't possibly eat all this food, so we invited a few friends on the evening of the 30th to share the walleye and ham and also to taste some of the bourbon that Troy brought back from Kentucky.


Despite their bored expressions, there were some very willing participants on the bourbon front.


We don't normally eat a lot of pork, and we definitely don't each much ham but Troy really has missed it. So I served up a very special New Year's Eve breakfast. I couldn't resist.


Later on the 31st, our friend Steve, Troy and I drove out to the Blue Mtn Brewery (one of our favorite places to stop after a hike in the Blue Ridge) to try out their seasonal offerings. We started with a chocolate cherry bourbon barrel stout and finished with the Vintage Bottle Release--Mandolin Redux: Brettanomyces-reconditioned Belgian Tripel. It was a great way to spend a Wednesday afternoon!

Happy Boys!

We finished off the evening with a fun party at Dave's. We had more good food (baked ziti and lasagna), a bonfire, and music courtesy of Nick's radio show and also Joe and his friend Lee (and some random characters from Durty Nelly's too).

Dave stoking up the fire

Jeff and Liz


Troy and me


Lee and some guy from Durty Nelly's


Some guy from Durty Nelly's, Lee and Joe

On New Year's day we ventured to rural VA--Flint Hill to visit Courtney and Kevin. It was just what we needed. We lazed around in their cozy log home, Troy and Kevin tasting a series of strong beers and me starting out with a bloody Mary (based on my sister's wonderful recipe). Kevin made us an entire turkey dinner and Courtney made dessert--Finnish rice pudding from her grandma's recipe. Everything was delicious!

Kevin and Troy (beer #?)

Troy, Kevin, and Courtney digging into the feast.

Later we sat by the fire and played board games until the wee hours. It was a really fun and relaxing time. The next day we were lazy again but Troy and I managed to get out for a little hike. It's a really pretty area--it backs right up against Shenandoah National Park.

Bourbon & Snow

Okay, this is my last Christmas traveling post, I promise. The thing is, our life isn't that exciting regularly so I can get a lot of interesting blog blurbs out of our recent travels.

There was tons of snow when we went home, which was pretty exciting for both me and Troy. We really miss it. It's somewhat of a novelty when you only see it for a few days a year, if that.

Though we were really busy with wonderful Christmas celebrations with my family, we managed to get out to the woods to go snowshoeing one day with Troy's brothers and our dear friends Sarah and Brad.

It was really wonderful to spend time with all of them and to be out in the snow. I really love how the snow looks with the birch trees.

At the top of Lookout "Mountain" - The Laurentian Divide

As he's prone to do, Troy tried to get us to take a trail that would have kept us trudging through the snow until well after dark. While most people try to AVOID getting lost, Troy actively tries to GET lost sometimes. Luckily, Sarah knows him well enough to have had the foresight to pick up a map herself. At one point, he got it away from her and she and Casey had to wrestle it back from him.


Troy brought a flask of bourbon, which always helps to make people feel warm and fuzzy. We all enjoyed a snack of MN beer, bourbon and Wisconsin smoked string cheese after this little fiasco.

Bourbon became the theme for our ride home. We didn't take as time much time to drive on the way back but we treated ourselves to a night at the historic Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. It was a 13-hr day of driving to get there but we were able to relax and enjoy a nice meal at the bar and Troy was able to get a flight (4 little tasters) of relatively rare bourbons. He was in heaven.

The next day we made a brief detour to visit the Buffalo Trace distillery. We got to sample bourbon and also Rain vodka which is made there. A pretty cool way to break up the drive!

Home for Christmas

I'll be making a series of posts about our trip home as there is much to tell. Sorry for the delay but I've been busy trying to recuperate from all the excitement.

When we got to Wisconsin and Minnesota we were assaulted by extremely low temperatures (-25 degrees and colder with the wind) and lots of snow which didn't make driving that fun. But in Duluth when we arrived we had a warm welcome. My sister and Ethan are both wonderful cooks and they prepared a huge, delicious spread for us, most notably including some amazing appetizers--a choice cut of venison (backstrap--which is compared to filet mignon) wrapped in bacon. Yum!

They also made delicious hot wings. Ethan and Troy grilled the wings outside. It was so cold that the last of the marinade in the bowl and Troy's beer froze before they finished!


The next day when we got to Virginia (our hometown) my mom had prepared a wonderful meal of stuffed shells. We also got to visit with my step-sister Shelly and her 9-month old daughter, Amelia.

Amelia is just beginning to walk and she enthralled all of us (especially Troy) with lots of enthusiastic and creative sounds. She kind of sounded like a little engine revving up, lots of adorable gurgling and tongue rolling noises.

Here are my mom and stepdad with Shelly and Amelia.

The next day my mom and I attempted to make "hot air" candy a wonderful, sweet treat that we sold at Canelake's, the homemade candy store where I got my first job at age 16. Our first attempt was disastrous, resulting in the candy burning and puffing up and seeping over the pan like hot, molten lava. The second attempt, which Troy got some pics of, went much better.

After the candy is cooked you crack it up and dip it in chocolate. Mmmmm.... Not quite as good as Canelake's but people seemed to really enjoy it.

We had a wonderful time visiting with the Rogers family and with my mom's family and the Maki's too. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Christmas itself. I think I felt like I was on vacation so taking pictures seemed a bit like a chore. It's too bad because a lot of other fun was had, but it's so much more fun to talk about it when there are pictures to illustrate it too.

A big thanks to our families for making our time home extra special!