It is April 10th and it feels more like March as a light early spring snow falls outside of my window in Northwest, CT. We are over a month into social isolation and everyday I count my blessings to live in such a beautiful place! This morning I bundled up and went for a brisk walk by a Beaver pond and then came back to teach my Hofstra University students online. Over lunch, my husband Paul asked me about one of one of my favorite collections of music: Tafelmusik (German for table music). The collection of compositions by the Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann, written in 1733, are an example of courtly music that was meant to be played around a table. Paul asked me the German word for computer screen and we realized that for the next bit of time we now have adjusted to “Bildschirm Musik”: computer screen music!

This week Hevreh Ensemble got some very welcome good news from our record label PARMA. Our wonderful A& R Representative Morgan Santos told us that A PATH OF LIGHT has been nominated for an Independent Music Award for best Contemporary Classical Album! We are delighted and honored!

In normal times, shopping is something one does without much thought, but now venturing into a grocery store feels like one is flirting with constant danger and I find myself avoiding stores as much as possible. On a positive note, I find that there is much less food waste in our household and I hoard vegetables to see how long I can make a bunch of kale or celery last. One day I was thinking of making a salad for dinner and discovered that our supply of lettuce was long gone. I found a forlorn chunk of cabbage at the back of the produce bin. Chopped up with a few scraggly pieces of scallion and mixed with olive oil, tamari, lemon and pepper it made a surprisingly good salad!

In the mornings when I practice oboe, I am often pleasantly distracted by the daily online NYT cooking article. The other day as I glanced over to my computer screen, a recipe for a Curried Shepard’s Pie caught my eye. It was developed in 1984 by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey. It seemed like a perfect comfort food to make, but it called for a mashed potato topping. I had a big piece of cauliflower left and decided to make a cauliflower puree with a bit of butter, milk, a pinch of nutmeg and salt and pepper. I mixed in some green peas and sprinkled grated parmesan on top- any cheese would work. I had some ground turkey in the freezer, but ground beef or even crumbled tofu would be fine. I baked it for about 35 minutes until the mixture bubbled and then browned it briefly under the broiler. I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Curried Shephed’s Pie ( Adapted from Craig Clariborne and Pierre Franey)

Ingredients:

ground turkey- 1 pound- you can use ground beef or even firm tofu crumbled)

one carrot diced

one small zucchini diced

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

¼ onion diced

½ can diced fire roasted diced tomatoes

½ tsp diced jalepeno

salt and black pepper to taste

½ cup beef broth- chicken broth or even water is fine!

Topping:

1/2 cauliflower

1 tsp butter

pinch nutmeg

salt and pepper

milk – small amount ( half & half or cream would also be good)

1/2 cup frozen peas thawed

grated parmesan (any cheese is great!)

Prepare Filling:

Saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil until onions soften slightly, about 3-4 minutes.

Add ground turkey and saute until it loses it’s pink color- break up pieces with a wooden spoon.

Add diced zucchini, carrots and jalapeno ( you can substitute any other vegetables on hand) and saute about 5-6 minutes.

Add spices and cook about 1 minute more

Add tomatoes and broth and cook aprox. 20 minutes.

Make Topping:

Cut cauliflower into small pieces and place into a medium sized pot. Cover with water and cook until very tender.

Strain cauliflower and place in the bowl of a food processor (you can also use a potato masher)

Add butter, pinch of nutmeg, and a small amount of milk ( you can always add more milk if you want a thinner texture)

Process until smooth and add salt and pepper to taste.

Add thawed green peas.

Heat oven to 350 Degrees

Place filling in a baking dish

Spread pureed cauliflower mixture on top

Sprinkle grated parmesan on top

Bake about 1/2 hour until mixture bubbles and top is lightly browned

You can also place the dish under the broiler for a minute or so for to brown the top more

Enjoy!!

SO, as a pot of Bolognese sauce simmers on the stove for a ZOOM dinner this evening with fellow Hevreh Ensemble members Laurie & Jeff, here is some promised escape from a trip that my husband Paul and I took last August to visit our dear friends Carmen Schifellite and Pramila Aggarwal in Toronto.

Our visit to Toronto started with a detour to Ithica, NY where we stayed at the beautiful historic inn, Thomas Farm B & B. Our stay in Ithica included a return visit to one of our favorite restaurants,The Hazlenut Kitchen in nearby Trumansburg, NY. This tiny cozy restaurant serves delicious and creative Farm to Table food. We had fond memories from a dinner more than ten year ago and we were not disappointed with our return visit. We enjoyed a chef’s surprise tasting of roast duck breast with a delicious succotash of summer vegetables. But it was the dessert that I remember the most: a molten vegan chocolate zucchini cake with poached apricots and basil coconut milk ice cream. When we returned home, I tried to recreate it but the results were not blog worthy! We will just have to have a return visit someday to try it again!

Our Toronto friend Carmen has been friends with Paul since High School at Cheshire Academy in Connecticut. Carmen and his wife Pramila are both retired Sociology Professors having taught for many years in Toronto. I am always excited to see them. Not only are they warm and engaging, but I always look forward to learning about different cultures combined with their unique world view. When we saw them last summer, they were planning a trip to Northern British Columbia to visit the indigenous Haida people of Gwaii. We were fascinated to hear about their plans and were immediately drawn into learning about Haida culture. Pramila shared an excellent book that she was reading in preparation for their trip: Sharp as a Knife-Classical Haida Myth Tellers and Their Culture by Robert Bringhurst.

The next few days flew by with visits to Toronto’s many ethnic neighborhoods. We had an excellent dim sum lunch at the Sky Dragon Restaurant at the Dragon City Mall in Toronto’s Chinatown. A special treat was to meet Carmen’s good friend Dan Yashinsky, well known Canadian story teller, author and community organizer. Over delicious dim sum, Dan told us about the Ashkenaz Festival, a biennial festival showcasing eclectic global Jewish Art & Culture. It seemed like the festival might be a perfect fit for Hevreh Ensemble!

One day we took a ferry to Toronto Island Park and on a sunny day with strong gusts of wind pushing up sprays of water over us from Lake Ontario, we stalwartly hiked around the island where we were treated to lovely views of the Toronto skyline. That evening Pramila who is also a talented Indian cook, suggested we eat at restaurant known for the Dosas and Uttapam: Udupi Palace on Gerard Street. Uttapam is a South Indian dish with a batter similar to the one used for Dosas, using rice and dal. It looks a bit like a large pancake and vegetables such as onion, tomatoes, peas and chilis are mixed in. Uttapam often come with a spicy broth called sambar and with coconut chutney. After this excellent feast and long day of touring around the city, we returned home and watched a popular Bollywood Indian film. It was a wonderful way to relax and wind down after an exhilarating day!

The next day Carmen and Pramila took us to a funky and eccentric section of Toronto called Kensington Market; filled with cafes, restaurants, vintage clothing stores and specialty food shops. Designated as a national historic site of Canada in 2005, Kensington Market is one the oldest and most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Toronto. We had a great time poking around the stores. An important part of our agenda was to find good places for coffee and we found just the right spot, a cozy place called the Fika Cafe. Originally used as a Swedish verb meaning “to go out for coffee” it has become a Swedish custom to invite friends to “fika” every few hours during the work day. We found a table in the lovely patio area and as we shared a decadent hazelnut praline brownie, coffee and cardamom spiced lattes, decided that fika was a very good custom!

On our last day, we visited the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in the village of Kleinburg about 30 minutes from Toronto. The museum sits on 100 acres of forested land along the Humber River which is on the original lands of the Ojibe Anishaabe People. It sits on the Carrying Place Trail which was an important connection for Aboriginal people between Ontario’s Lakeshore and the Lake Simcoe-Georgina Bay Region. When we entered the driveway to the museum, I immediately felt a profound sense of being on sacred land and for the rest of the visit, this feeling remained with me.

The museum has a large collection a Canadian art with many treasures of works by indigenous artists including First Nation and Inuit people. I was particularly impressed by the colorful and lively work of Janet Nungnik. Her exhibition: “Revelations” included embroidered and appliqued images that tell the story of her life.

Born in a small camp west of Hudson Bay in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, she is a member of both the Padlermiut and Ihalmiut people where she grew up living traditionally on the land.

The visit to the McMichael Museum was a perfect ending to a memorable trip!

This week, I will have a busy schedule of online students, a social distance hike with a friend and best of all, a ZOOM gathering with Carmen and Pramila on Wednesday evening!

And here is something sure to sweeten your day: a picture of a  s’mores cupcake (honey-cinnamon cake filled with dark chocolate pudding and topped with cinnamon-nutmeg meringue) made by my daughter Alicia DePaolo who in addition to being a professional singer and finishing her Cantorial Studies and Masters Degree in Jewish Studies is also a talented baker! Recipe upon request!!

Coming soon- “Serendipity in Flushing” from a trip in late January to Flushing, New York’s vibrant Asian community……….

Stay Safe!

By Judith Dansker April 20, 2020