Zest!

 I got up on Friday around noon, sorry to say. I had everything on hand to make "Crepes Suzette A'la Etrog" so I didn't have to go out for milk, etc. 

I re-watched "Chef Jeanne-Pierre's" video on making crepes Suzette, and washes the two etrogs well and cut them open - wow the rabbi was right, there's almost no pulp in there. The zesting tool works great though and in no time I had a nice bowl of long pieces of zest. 

I mixed up the batter and made a lot of crepes, folding them in quarters and putting then in the cake pan, in a nice scalloping pattern. I messed up the first one so I ate that, made enough to fill the pan, then the last one ended up too thick because I wasn't stirring the batter as I should have. I put that one out for the birds. 

Then I made the sauce using the zest, lemon juice, sugar, and plenty of the Ciroc lemonata and pour it over the crepes. In the little snippets of time I had, I cleaned up and changed into clean clothes and all that, then all I had to do was put the cake pan with cover on into a larger box onto the bike trailer and ride over to the temple. No need to bother with ice as these were right off the stove. The vibration made sure the sauce penetrated well. I tried a bit of the sauce - wow! 

When I got to the temple I signed in and put the crepes, a bottle of spray whipped cream, and the bottle of Ciroc into the fridge. 

We did our service and sang our cowboy songs and afterward was the potluck and discussion. The crepes were a hit. I brought the Ciroc because I still had lots of it and I'm sure not going to drink it - it's too intense. I ended up using - on the rabbi's advice - the little cups used for kiddush to pour shots of it for anyone who wanted one. 

What amazed me is, people ate the zest. I figured it would be there, but people would push it aside like the little sprig of parsley hardly anyone actually eats. I had a couple of crepes myself because I'd only eaten the one I'd messed up, and without sauce. It was tasty and I ate the zest too. 

The discussion was about the latest political developments which was another reason  I wanted to bring booze. They're all for Shapiro and I'm for Kelly, and mostly it was gushing about how well things have suddenly turned out. At one point the subject of zest came out and the rabbi went on about how great zest from all different types of citrus vegetables is. So the guy's got a real zest for zest. 

After I made sure everyone who wanted some Ciroc got some, I packed up the three crepes left in the pan, the whipped cream which I'm not sure anyone used, and the Ciroc and left. I gave the remaining crepes to my pal the cop, and the whipped cream. A lady leaving in her car stopped by to gush about how great the crepes are. Officer P- and I  talked about stuff for a good while then I rode home. 

I still have enough Ciroc to do another batch like this, sugar, flour, etc. Crepes are really cheap and simple to make. What's key is using enough butter. There were the usual salads, some cookies and things, and one lady brought in a baked chicken from Costco, went into the kitchen to pull it apart and put the meat on a serving plate, and that was her contribution. Everyone liked it too, although it's not keeping Kosher to mix meat and milk so no chicken for me. 

I came back here and did some cleanup and after an hour or three of just relaxing, I had my Shabbat dinner of roast beef and salmon with horseradish/mustard/Kewpie sauce, and cucumber slices and of course wine. 

Yesterday I watched a lot of Adam Curtis videos, because those are easy to relax and immerse yourself in. The guys next door started up with their pressure washer at 9 on the dot, and I needed something to drown that out. 

Ken had called me on Friday to tell me he has covid so I may not see him this week. He says there are free tests at CVS. I said it's funny because I'd been really sniffly for the past week and it's only just started to clear up. 

Because of this - not getting a check this week, probably - and because our Ebay sales are in the toilet, I don't think I'm going to spend the almost $50 to see Fiddler On The Roof. And I've just spent the money on that cornet. And mouthpiece which I've not even taken out of its little bag yet. And I have to see if I have a cornet or a CSO or "Cornet Shaped Object". 

A while back I talked about a comment made about Bix Beiderbecke in Berton's book gave me the idea for an exercise. Well, I've been doing the exercise since then, and all it was, was scrunching my mouth up to build up the muscles that are essentially in the lips. If Bix was in the habit of doing this, over time, it would result in the strangely small mouth mentioned by Berton. 

Since the feeling of that exercise feels exactly like what you have to do to play a clarinet or sax, I looked around for references to Bix playing one of those and there's nothing. (For instance, by searching one can find out that clarinet master Artie Shaw put in a good few years on the road playing a sax before moving to the "licorice stick".) 

But he might have done mouth exercises or ... oh yes, free buzzing! That's just buzzing your lips alone, no mouthpiece and needless to say no horn. Bix might have done that a lot, especially when he was an up and coming player and not playing with others that much yet, and it would not be considered odd or something to be remarked on. Berton describes Bix's athleticism and disregard for personal hygiene, but he's a cornetist, of course he'll free buzz from time to time, and may have not needed to by the time Berton met him, as he was playing for hours a day. But he may have used free buzzing a lot to rise so meteorically.

Free buzzing ticks off a lot of boxes. It strengthens the lips, uses a fair amount of air, and doing higher "notes" this way requires good air support. I had tried, years ago, buzzing on the mouthpiece alone while watching long movies, for serious amounts of time. It's almost the worst because you have the crutch of the mouthpiece, without the resonant structure of the horn, and without the muscle tension and support needed to free buzz. In short, it's poo. 

In the past I watched hornist Julie Landsman videos and she was huge on free buzzing. All her students could free buzz well.

It comes down to tone. Bix had a really good tone and this is said about all great musicians. 

I was up today early enough to get that "lunch crowd" at Whole Foods but I do feel kinda lousy and the responsible thing to do would be to go to a CVS as Ken advised me and get some free covid test kits. If  I have it, I think there's a medicine now, Paxlovid? 

I actually felt like shit and had to force myself to cook a couple eggs with peppers, get dressed, oil the damn bike chain, and get out of here in time to catch the pharmacy at the nearest CVS before they'd close at 5. I followed the Google Maps directions, get onto 10th then to Hedding and follow it until, well, you see the CVS. 

It's an interesting ride because I'd never gone that way on Heddings. There are interesting things like these huge oil tanks and a big Chevron facility. Before I knew it I'd gotten to what I'll call the Sprawl Mall and went into CVS. The pharmacist told me the free Covid tests need a doctor's prescription or some rot, and besides it didn't matter because they were completely out of Covid tests. 

I looked around and it's something like $20 for a little bottle of vitamin C - always traditionally about the cheapest vitamin you could get. At least CVS alcohol prices aren't bad and I got a box of wine. 

I rode back then turned onto Old Oakland figuring I'll go to H Mart where I've always seen some form of vitamin C. I went there and there was none. I got some eggs and greens and decided I'll ride over to Nijiya where I'd always seen some vitamin C preparation. I picked up some purple onions behind the gym and rode to Tom's because I figured he might have some C around and I could get some from him. 

Tom didn't, he appreciated the purple onions. OK then next stop Nijiya. I stopped here to drop my groceries off then rode over to Nijiya and got some sugar-free Lipovitan, but they didn't have any vitamin C. 

I then rode over to Smile Market because they have everything. It went in and they had loud Vietnamese TV on and were talking, in, well, Vietnamese. I asked about vitamin C and one of the ladies took me to a set of bins and opened one - there were packets of Emergen-C in various flavors. I picked out 7 orange ones which cost me $3.50 - probably no more expensive than buying the stuff by the box. 

I felt so good about that that I went by the little free library in Japantown and picked up some books including a full volume of Poe's writings and poetry (first edition 1938) and went back into Nijiya and got a big bottle of beer and one of their roast beef bentos which I've never known them to stock in past years and looked interesting. 

I rode back here and it was beer and bento time.