Mi Contra Fa

Brewing Quick Mead

My history with brewing has been spotty.  Back in college, I thought I'd try my hand at cordials.  I'd heard that, because of the sugar and fruit flavor, you could use the cheapest vodka, so I did.  Then I decided that sour apple would be the best fruit to try for my first attempt.  These were both bad decisions, as the resulting cordial was sweet but tasteless, with the burn of bad vodka.

Next up - in grad school, I learned at an A&S nice that brewing can be easy! Just do it!  Get some fruit juice, add some honey, throw in some bread yeast and go!  The beverage that resulted was bad.  It wasn't vile, but it also did not taste good.  It could produce a buzz, but that was its only virtue.  

Third time's a charm?  Mistress Sorcha Crowe provided a recipe for quick mead for our local baronial newsletter, three years ago, and I finally got around to making it.  I upsold myself on airlocks and sanitizer, but her recipe has work-arounds so the beginner does not have to have them.  Here's my process:

Ingredients and Equipment

• 3 gal. spring water from Weis
• 2 lb orange blossom honey
• 1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast (I also had Lalvin chardonnay yeast (D47?), but at the last minute decided to just do two batches with the champagne)
• Phosphoric acid-based santizer in spritzer
• 2 rubber plugs and air locks for gallon jugs

Process

• I used a bit less than a quart of one gallon of water to mix up the sanitizer, then sprayed down the plugs and air locks.
• Poured another quart+ down the drain so the gallon was half-empty
• Filled the sink with hot tap water and put the jars of honey in it until they were runny
• Added 1 lb of honey to the half-gallon of water
  • I didn't do any heroics to get the last bit of honey out of the jar. I should have just poured some of the water in there, shook it up, and added it back to the gallon.
• Shake shake shake shake.  The honey dissolved pretty quickly, maybe about a minute of shaking?
• Attempt to divide yeast into 5 portions by eye.
• Add 1/5 of yeast to gallon.
• Top off gallon with half of 2nd gallon.
• Gently shake maybe 1-2 minutes (next time, time it!)
• Loosely cap with original gallon cap.
• Repeat for 2nd gallon
• Press in rubber stoppers; fill up airlocks and insert
• Place under dining room table on a baking sheet

After the ordeal of dividing the yeast sans scale, I decided not to try it again with the chardonnay yeast, but just used another 1/5 of the champagne yeast.

It was all quiet yesterday; hoping today or tomorrow I'll start to hear some bubbling.

Composing for alliterative poetry

Sigurth and Brynhild came out really well.  I decided to make it singable, and want to lay out the process as I'm currently exercising it.

Write the Poem

I still compose poetry on paper, not orally. 

Memorize the Poem

The next few steps go much more easily if I've got the poem in memory. Also lets me work aloud and in the car.

Recite the Poem Aloud

I tried to pay close attention to my vocal pitches, as used in recitation.  Where were the natural lifts and falls, and could I use that to guide the melody?

Visualize the Stresses

Recitation didn't unlock a perfect melody.  I turned to an older idea I had.

Alliterative verse (English and Norse) contains four stresses per line, with unstressed syllables placed according to several templates.  The meter is defined, but not regular. So my approach is to assign four pitches - one per stress - and then use linking notes to fill in the unstresses.  Pickup notes appear and disappear at will.  Generally, after I work through the poem, a general pattern emerges.

I could definitely do this on the harp, visualizing the placements of the notes by looking at/playing the strings.  Since I was using commuting time, I imagined the notes. I started with a "high, low; high, low" pattern for the first line of each quatrain.  That sounded too firetruck-siren-y, so I modified my image of the pattern to "high, low; medium, low."  Suddenly, it came out sounding much better.

Interestingly, it also suddenly took on a home-and-away character, entirely unintentionally.  I thought maybe I was doing "re, la; fa, re."  Turns out it was "la, re; mi, re."  "re" is my home/tonic in Dorian mode, so its dominant is "la" - I expect them to go together.  "Fa" is in their family too. The associated "away" is do-so, with "mi" associated.

Get the Repeated Melody Pattern

Since the Norse verse uses quatrains, I thought I'd have four lines of melody.  Well, three - I intended to have the melody for line 1 and line 3 be the same.  I came up with a pattern that seemed to work.

Start to Practice It. Work Out the Details.

Practice shakes out a bunch of things.

1. I lost my second line of melody and started using a melodic couplet, repeated, for each quatrain.  I am still not sure how I feel about this. My test audience of one did not find it too repetitive/cloying, but I am not sure.
2. I found where my literary ways sabotaged me.  Syllables that I designated as stressed in the written poem did not always come out stressed as I sang through it.  English being what it is, in all cases but one, I can shift emphasis without putting a stress on an obviously unstressed syllable.  Example: I was singing "THAN my own LIFE," when I needed an m-alliteration.  "than MY own LIFE" is what was meant.  That's a valid way to stress that sentence - it's not like my old "pork CHOP, pork CHOP" problem.  On the other hand, I should not have alliterated "aMEND" with "misTAKE".  It sneaks by on paper, but becomes very obvious when sung.
3. I found the places where I wanted to vary the melody, mostly for dramatic emphasis.  One of the nice features (? I think it's nice?) of this style is that I can vary the notes for my unstresses to keep it from being too monotonous.  (I'm sort of thinking of the runo music I've got... the structure of that is probably a different post.)  But there are a few verses where I just entirely replaced the first line of music.

Add Color, If Desired

Brynhild is angry in this song.  I sing her lines in an angry voice.  Someone using the traditional ballad performance style (very little emotion expressed) would skip this, obviously.

Add Harp, If Possible

I just got to this stage.  I first try to find my melody on the strings - that's the only way I can figure out what the accompaniment should be.  I still use very simple open fifths - "re la" underneath those parts that operate at "home," and "so do" under the "away" notes.  Mostly.  The short excursion to "away" in the first melody line doesn't seem worth trying to cram an accompaniment shift - there's a little dissonance but that's okay.  The second melody line goes "do so do re" - it's entirely "away," until the final stress brings it home.

I'm still new to singing with the harp, so this part is challenging.  I'm working on pacing the accompaniment so it lines up with the stresses in the melody.  Also, the first time through, it made it weirdly difficult to perform the "variant" melody lines I mentioned in bullet 3, above.  Hoping some practice clears that up.

Vegetarian Pennsic Dinners Part 1

I am bringing a vegetarian friend to Pennsic, so my usual plan of variations on chicken stews will not work.  I am trialing some camp-cooking friendly vegetarian meals.  To my great dismay, I can no longer eat of the allium family, so onions and garlic are omitted.  They could be added back into most of these for extra flavor.

In all cases, I'm trying to cook for 2 people, with minimal leftovers.

Kasha and Lentils with Mushrooms and Kale

As made, takes two pots.  This makes an enormous amount of food, way too much for two people, with too few shrooms and greens for the amount of carbs.  Would probably serve 4-6 as an entree.  Will cut grains in half for Pennsic.  Also, not entirely satisfying.  I'm thinking of serving cheese and fruit as a dessert with this, to give a little more satiety.

• 1 c. kasha
• 1 c. lentils
• 1 pint sliced mushrooms (any kind you like)
• about half a pound of kale
• butter or oil
• salt, pepper, seasonings (onion powder, smoked paprika)

Boil 2.5-3 c. of water for the lentils.  Add lentils, cover with tilted lid (or per lentil instructions), reduce to simmer and cook.  My lentils were supposed to take 30-45 min.  

Rinse mushrooms, wash kale. Tear kale into bite-sized pieces.

In cast iron Dutch oven (or other large heavy-duty pot), melt butter over medium heat. (Or use oil.)  Saute mushrooms, then add kale.  Season to taste - make it strong, because the starches will stretch it.

Add 2 c. of water, bring to a boil.  Add kasha, cover and cook, 10 min.  If kasha finishes before lentils, cover and remove from heat.  It should keep warm.

Lesson learned: Don't dump the lentils in with the kasha and figure you can just cook it together.  The kasha kernels will explode when overcooked, getting all mushy. Tastes fine, not the best texture.

Something Approximating Red Beans and Rice

As made, takes two pots.  I had wanted to smash some of the beans for thickener and leave some for texture, but the can needed to be entirely smashed to make sauce.  I don't want to add another can, though, because the amount this made seems right.  This had a lot of pepper/celery, but I think it gave it good flavor.  Super starchy, would benefit from a side of sauteed greens or a salad for balance.

• 1 can red kidney beans (you could make from dried if you want, more power to you)
• 1 c. white rice (brown would be more nutritious, but takes a really long time to cook and I have other things to do at Pennsic)
• 1 green bell pepper
• 3-4 stalks of celery
• Oil or butter
• Creole seasoning to taste (or your own blend of onion and garlic powder, chili powder, salt, pepper)

 

Put rice and 2 c. water in small pot. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, cover and let cook 10 min.  If it finishes early, turn off heat and let sit; it'll stay warm.

Chop  most of the bell pepper and the celery into little bitty pieces.I think I did about 1/2" dice and I'm thinking of going smaller.  Saute until tender in oil or butter in cast iron Dutch oven or other large pot.

Drain and rinse kidney beans. Add to pepper and celery.  Using a masher, muddler, or some smashing tool, smash beans in the pot.  Add water gradually until bean paste forms a sauce with a nice consistency.  There will be bean skins in it; it will not be perfectly smooth.  They've fiber and good for you!  Season with Creole seasoning; it's okay to make it a little strong since the rice will cut it.

Put rice into serving bowls; I like to add a pat of butter for flavor.  Spoon beansauce over rice.