Winter long

The holidays are over, but winter is still with us. Do I continue to seek out winter recipes to post on the site, or shall I begin the transition to spring? Most of the recipes I have been publishing are solidly in the winter category: soups, stews, baked winter squash, and lot's of so-called comfort food (like rich casseroles and heavy pasta dishes). Actually, there are not many spring-influenced recipe submissions in the database yet, but I expect we will start getting recipes for strawberries, peas, and lamb quite soon. I'm not ready for winter to be over. I have not even been snowshoeing yet!

Today's headphone musical selection is the three CD set on Deutsche Grammophon of Beethoven's late string quartets, performed by the Emerson String Quartet. I am particularly fond of the Quartet in A minor, op. 132. The intense and emotional ending of the third movement nearly brings me to tears every time! I went last night to see and hear the Emerson String Quartet perform live at Meany Hall on the UW campus. They played Bach's Art of Fugue, the subject of their latest CD, in the first half of the concert, and finished off with Beethoven's String Quartet in C sharp minor, op. 131 -- thus the inspiration for today's CD selection. The Bach was delicate and beautiful. I particularly liked the Beethoven, though. It really perked things up, especially the wild interplay of the plucked notes. On CD the Quartet is very smooth and elegant. Live, the players pushed and pulled, and sounded downright scrappy. It was a great show! Check out the Emerson at: http://www.emersonquartet.com/