Monday Night Dining

Pheasant Stuffed with Veal, Chestnuts and Porcini

On a recent trip to Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market, we happened upon a Mennonite butcher stall. The selection was impressive and the staff friendly.  We purchased a nice sized pheasant, for an upcoming meal, and ended up taking the bird to the cottage with us, but did not have a plan for it yet. When we got back home, we realized that the poor bird was left behind. Since we would not be back north for a few weeks, we resigned ourselves to having to throw out our purchase.  We finally got back to the cottage this past weekend, but where was the pheasant?     Turns out it was in the freezer all along. So after a review of Jacques Pepin’s video on deboning fowl, Shawn practiced his knife skills and deboned our bird.  We then stuffed it with ground veal, chestnuts, porcini mushrooms and herbs, then formed it back into roughly its original shape. read more

With Christmas preparations

Nativity

New Year’s madness and my birthday!!!

Reine de Saba

Then 2 weeks of recordings… Things have been very busy.  So finally we are back to regular rehearsals and our regular Monday Night Dining schedule.

This Monday marks the start of a VERY special project. CHH Parry wrote a major Oratorio in 1888. This work was quite the success at the time. It enjoyed many performances. Unfortunately this piece has fallen into obscurity. The orchestral score is not available. There is not a single recording of the piece and It has never been performed in North America. This is a major work that might never see the light of day. Pax Christi Chorale, under the guidance and fervor of Stephanie Martin, is going to resurrect this phoenix, from its ashes.  Steph has managed to get a scan of the original, hand written score, in the composer’s hand. Two York master’s students are transposing it into a composing program, to create a full digital score.  Dr. Jeremy Dibble, the worlds foremost Parry scholar will proof the results. This Monday the Pax Christi Chorale chorus begins rehearsals and on May 3rd, we will be in Koerner Hall, with full orchestra and amazing soloists, to bring this work back to life.  We hope to also create the first ever recording of the piece.  Can you tell we are excited? read more

Table ready for Cinco de Mayo

Boeuf en Croute

These pictures represent the first real blog post that we wrote, for our Cinco de Mayo meal, and the last post of the  year.  Looking back at the early posts,  I feel like going back and fixing them, but they show that we have relaxed into the idea of putting thoughts and memories out to share with people. It also shows that Shawn was right when he suggested that we needed a better camera. We also read up on food photography, on the plane on our trip to the UK and the photography steadily improved. read more

Boeuf en Croute

With Christmas just a few days away, we are all busy planning for the big day, and looking forward to seeing family and friends (and figuring out how to wrap a Ukelele…  But this Monday our trio gathered for a last Monday Night Dinner, before the big day. A friend that we met in Worcester was visiting from Chicago, to get some coaching, before singing at Westminster Abbey. Steph thought it time that James met our friend Peter. We have also been wanting to have our very first subscriber over for dinner, for some time. This gave us 6 for dinner, our trio, James, Peter and Andrea. We met our guests with sparkling wine, to start the evening off right. read more

Chocolate and Whole Orange Pudding

After a full week of rehearsals, work and performances, it’s time for a Monday night deprogramming session, to share the highs of the week. At the same time, we have the annual Children’s Messiah to look forward to on Dec 13th. Along with our trio we invited Mary, Sheila and Janet. That’s a lot of altos….

At Steph’s request, Janet gifted us with a lovely said grace in Latin, while clasping hands around the table: “Quae hodie sumpturi sumus, benedicat Deus, per Jesum Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen. (May God bless what we are about to receive this day, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. read more

Winter Nights

“We sing to Thee amidst Thy host”…  From Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Part II.  And sing we did….  But more on this later…

We have not had an update in a while.  Partly due to the flu and partly due to a whole lot of rehearsals. We missed a Monday, while we were sick, but we prepped a great meal, before giving in. We planned Braciole braised in red wine.  It was nice to have this new comfort food, with pasta, to feed us while we recovered. I am sure this dish will appear on another MondayNightDining menu. read more

Table Setting

I’m not sure if this week is an official Monday Night Dining experience, since our trio is not all in attendance, but I thought I would blog it anyway.  Shawn had to go to church, to sing the All Souls service, so I am serving on my own tonight. Never one to shy away from a challenge, we decided on some items that we had not made before.  Not being a complete fools, we also made sure that most of the meal could be prepped ahead of time.

In thinking of guests, Steph realized that our friend Jennifer had to submit a proposal by 5:00.  This would mean she would be free for dinner at 5:30, and probably in need of succour and sustenance. The guest’s timing was impeccable, as they arrived within a minute of each other.  I had a lovely bottle of Featherstone Merlot decanted, so we started with a bit of an unwind, over a glass and Jennifer told us the tale of having just submitted the proposal, then having her laptop die, never to boot up again. For a techy like me, this was scarier than Friday’s ghost stories read more