Small Business Saturday

This past Saturday was Small Business Saturday, a promotion run by American Express to encourage cardmembers to spend money at local establishments. They do this by crediting you $10 for transactions of at least $10 at registered local merchants up to three times. So naturally, I went out to take advantage of this.

My first stop was Fran's Chocolates, which is a local Seattle-based chocolate boutique (aka really fancy). The promotion was the main reason I was there to shop, as the normal $2 per piece was considerably out of my price range. I sampled their single malt whiskey truffle and was immediately captivated by the richness of the truffle and the prominence of the whiskey. I used two of my three credits there on two separate transactions, both on truffle samplers. I did spend more than $10 for each transaction, but I will hopefully savor the truffles for some time.

My second stop was Trophy Cupcakes, another desert shop. I had been to Trophy Cupcakes a couple of times before, usually when I have had dinner in U-Village and was ambling around with dessert in mind. As this was towards the end of the day, there weren't too many cupcakes or flavors available. I selected a strawberry lemonade, vanilla vanilla, and carrot walnut cupcake. I brought them back to the office to split with some other students, and needless to say people enjoy free cupcakes (or almost free in my case).

Magic Morsels!

A while ago as part of Flyertalk's Secret Santa, I received a box of  sweets as part of a larger box of gifts. Now I tend to stay away from sweets, but not because I don't enjoy them. I can say no to others giving them to me and I tend not to keep any near me, thereby eliminating any temptation to consume (or over-consume) sweets. Of course, I indulge occasionally, and this Secret Santa gift was quite the opportunity.

The sweets in question was a 24-box sampler of Magic Morsels, which are bite-sized brownies from Phoenix, AZ-based Fairytale Brownies. When I first opened the box, I had no idea what Magic Morsels were, until I saw the brownie label on the treats. There were six flavors inside the box: original, caramel, chocolate chip, creme cheese, raspberry swirl, and walnut.

Box of Magic Morsels (Click to Enlarge)

I quickly opened one up an original-flavored and it was absolutely delicious-very smooth and not too sweet. I managed to pace myself through the box over about a week and was a hit with the few other grad students I shared them with (mostly because I was eating them...). All of the flavors were delicious, but I would have to say my favorites were creme cheese and raspberry swirl.

An original Magic Morsel (Click to Enlarge)

Chamber Music!

This past Tuesday evening I attended my first real chamber music concert since attending performances by the Pacifica Quartet and Avalon Quartet during my time at Interlochen (in 2006!). (This also doesn't count the celebrity Itzhak Perlman/Yo-Yo Ma/ Emanuel Ax piano trio, and chamber music concerts were not all that common growing up.)

Miró Quartet
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
7:30 PM

Daniel Ching, Violin
William Fedkenheuer, Violin
John Largess, Viola
Joshua Gindele, Cello

String Quartet in D minor, Op. 76, No. 2 "Fifths" - Franz Joseph Haydn
Allegro
Andante o più tosto allegretto
Menuetto: Allegro ma non troppo
Finale: Vivace assai

String Quartet No. 5 - Gunther Schuller

-Intermission-

String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 "Razumovsky 3" - Ludwig van Beethoven
Introduzione: Andante con moto-Allegro vivace
Andante con moto quasi allegretto
Menuetto grazioso
Allegro molto

This performance was held at UW's Meany Hall, which was a smaller auditorium providing a much more intimate atmosphere.

View from the back row of the balcony (Click to Enlarge)

The quartet was quite amazing-they were able to blend their sounds into one group instead of playing as a group of talented individuals. The balance was never really skewed towards or away any particular musician. Most of the passages were very crisp and clean, except for the violist, who seemed to occasionally struggle with running 16th notes, particularly in some of the faster passages in the Haydn and Beethoven. The Haydn felt a little heavy at times, but was otherwise excellent. The Schuller quartet is a new quartet currently enjoying its premiere season, which, coupled with my distaste of modern music, did not satisfy my tastes. I felt that some composition rules were too overbearing, and that there wasn't really that much of a progression throughout the piece-just more "white noise". I was particularly excited to hear the Beethoven, as I had previously played Razumovsky 2 and another quartet had played from Razumovsky 3 during my time at Interlochen. This piece was the highlight of the performance and was executed very well (except for some of those running 16th notes in the viola).

One thing I did notice (which can be seen from the photo), was that the stands were very low; in some cases the tops of the stands were barely above knee-level. While stands can't be eye level as you need to see other members of the quartet, knee-level is too low. The violist in particular was slouching quite a bit, and as he was sitting on the outside, his viola's body faced the cellist.

Ski Dazzle!

This past weekend I attended Ski Dazzle, a nice ski and snowboard show here in Seattle. The event brings together representatives from many ski areas in the northwest region in addition to retail shops. There are lots of contests for free skiing packages and some decent discounts on both lift tickets and gear. Being relatively new to skiing in the pacific northwest, I was excited to see everything that was offered.

There is so much quality skiing in the cascades and rockies in the northwest that it was very hard to keep track of all the areas that were present. Of course visiting all the booths resulted in lots of stickers and trail maps, and I entered every contest in hopes that just maybe I'll be able to ski somewhere pretty awesome for free. I was also on the lookout for new gear, as the skis I have are at least six years old and showing some age. I was particularly looking for skis that worked on powder but still had some grip on groomed runs (so basically an all-mountain ski), as my skis were only useful on hard packed surfaces, making it difficult to ski in powder (like last season). In the end I walked away with a new pair of 170cm Rossignol Smash 7s with bindings, ski poles, goggles, gloves, and a jacket, all of which I wanted to replace gear that I had had since early high school or earlier.

New skis and poles (left) with the old gear (right) (Click to Enlarge)

With the new gear, particularly the wider skis, this skiing season in the northwest should be much better than last season.

Skipping Intros

I attended a performance with the Seattle Symphony last night, but it originally was not a part of my concert-attending plans. I was invitedd to the concert by the symphony as a new subscriber in concert with their new donor and subscriber pre-concert reception. I think it was somewhat obvious why that concert was chosen given the program.

Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony

Saturday, November 8, 2014

8:00 PM

Second Essay for Orchestra, Op. 17 - Samuel Barber

Violin Concerto - Esa-Pekka Salonen

Mirage-

Pulse I

Pulse II

Adieu

Jennifer Koh, Violin

-Intermission-

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 - Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky

Andante sostenuto

Andantino in modo de canzona

Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato

Finale: Allegro con fuoco

I personally am not a huge fan of contemporary music, though while the Barber is an acceptable piece, the violin concerto is a complete mess. Needless to say it would not have been very difficult to offer every new subscriber and donor two tickets to this concert. Incidentally, dinner before the concert ran a little long-I would highly recommend the Hibachi Supreme only if you have something similar to passport corporate (2 for $40), as the $45 price tag is very rich for one, even for the very nice chateaubriand and lobster tail.  We ended up arriving halfway through the violin concerto, which exemplified how I feel about modern music: obsessed with rules at the expense of actual music (and the soloist played with music!). Thank goodness the intermission quickly followed. Our seats were in the back of the third (and highest) balcony, and while the brass and percussion had no difficulty reaching the upper echelons of the hall, the strings sometimes struggled to fill the entire hall. The performance of the Tchaikovsky was pretty good, and there was no nervous feeling that the orchestra would fall apart, especially at the very fast sections involving a lot of back and forth eighth notes. I felt that parts of the symphony highlighted the symphony's ability to be loud and that other parts showed that the symphony isn't quite able to fill the entire venue on some of the more delicate and expressive sections.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Ludovic Morlot, the conductor, did his best Gustavo Dudamel and tried to conduct the Tchaikovsky without a score. Of course, he's not Dudamel and ended up exiting the stage between the first two movements (through for unknown reasons).