Vancouver Jazz Festival

We spent our 32nd anniversary treating ourselves to two days at the Vancouver Jazz Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, just a short drive north of us. We had lunch at Fuel an award winning restaurant on 4th Avenue West. Its chef Robert Belcham has been getting a lot of attention locally and internationally and so we wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. I'll review the restaurant in an upcoming blog entry.

Our real attraction to the festival was to see our favorite jazz quartet--The Mike Allen Quartet. Mike and his drummer Julian MacDonough have become good friends of ours over the past couple of years. They have played a couple of times in our home and back garden for our 30th anniversary and to celebrate our Kate and Nick's engagement party last summer.

Mike and is an amazing jazz musician/composer and just a really nice guy who lives in Vancouver, B.C. He regularly plays his sax here in Bellingham along with Julian in another quartet or trio on Friday nights at the Wild Buffalo where we can usually be found with other fans of theirs.

Mike is the host for the Late Night Jam Sessions at O'Doul's in Vancouver during the run of the jazz festival. The musicians who had played in the various venues around town during that day's performances usually find themselves in O'Doul's at the end of the day. Mike invites them up on stage to jam with other musicians starting around midnight and running until about 2 am. It is an amazing experience and one we enjoyed from a ring-side seat.

Mike and his guests blew us away as one after another they mounted the stage to add their own characteristic sound on the drums, piano, guitar, flute or horn.

We got our table at 8 pm long before the Late Night Jazz Session began and waited for the Alita Dupray Quartet who were the headliners at O'Doul's that evening. Alita is a fine young singer who seduces her audience with her sultry voice and physical presence. She makes love to the songs she sings and the audience senses her passion. We had never heard her before and it was a treat to hear her and meet her afterward.

Just before Alita's final set finished musicians began to arrive and mill around the bar talking and greeting each other. 'Round midnight Mike and his quartet arrived. Mike began bringing up musicians as they arrived and he coaxed them up to play. There were several standouts but my favorite, a pianist of course, was Kenny Werner who proceeded to steal the stage with his non-stop treatment of the keyboard. We spent an incredible 2 hours listening to wonderful musicians share their awesome talent with a very appreciative audience.

On day two we heard The Colorifics a local band that rocked their outdoor venue on Granville Island. We wandered the Granville Island markets and open air artisan booths most of the day. It was a bit crowded for my taste but the crowd was great and everyone was having a great time. It was Canada Day--Oh, Canada! Canadian maple leaf flags hung in hats and articles of clothing, even painted on faces--no different except the maple leaf icon than you'd see at celebrations in the U.S. Late afternoon we made our way into one of the indoor venues to get a seat for Mike's Quartet performance. His bassist and vocalist, Adam Thomas and pianist Miles Black, the other members of the quartet are both amazing musicians in their own right.

We were so proud of our boys when their final set brought the only standing ovation we saw in two days at the festival. These guys have fun when they play and they look like it, with knowing smiles and spoken and unspoken interchanges between them during the pieces drawing in the audience and making the experience very intimate.

We left after their final set and headed home, back across the border stopping in Ferndale at Chihuahua's the best Mexican food we have had since the glory days of living in central California.

WWU South America Tour 2009 Photos

The first part of this blog entry is to point out the new slide show of the 2009 South America tour just completed with the Western Washington University Concert Choir to Argentina and Uruguay.

Just glance over at the right margin and maybe scroll down a bit and the thumbnail size photos should be changing every few seconds. If you want to get a really good look at the show, double click on the photo space and you will be taken to Picassa where the photos will be available full page size and captions will also appear that will better explain what you are looking at.

You may also want to scroll down and read through some of my earlier entries of the trip as I am going back and adding details, fixing typos and adding lots of photos keyed to that part of the trip. Enjoy!

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Now on to a slightly different subject. During my travels over the years, I have always written a journal about my discoveries and experiences. For the first time with this trip I decided not to do that. My thinking was, why write it down in a journal only to have to copy it into my blog when I get home? Well, it didn't work out as I had hoped. First, I didn't have access to a computer everywhere I went nor did I have enough time to sit down at the hotel-provided computer terminals and really get my thoughts written just the way I wanted. With a hand written journal I am able to write anywhere, anytime and take the time to form my thoughts without the frustration of a computer being available. Then when I get home I can rewrite the journal entries into my blog in ordered excerpts using the journal as a reference point and add the appropriate photos. Blog entries really need to be complete when published, polished, photos embedded, etc. due to the fact that each entry scrolls down the page from newest to oldest. So there is little motivation for most people to read any edited version of the blog in an out of order fashion.

So on our next adventure I will be going back to my tried and true method of documenting my travels, carrying my little travel journal with me to write my daily experiences and using my camera to store them visually.

Chimichuri Sauce

I had several wonderful culinary experiences on my recent trip to Argentina and Uruguay. Two of the most emotional experiences centered around childhood memories of foods that no longer taste the way they did when I was a kid but still do in these two countries.

First was the Bife Chorizo I ordered in El Establo in Buenos Aires our first evening there. As we left the hotel to venture out for dinner one of the Western Washington University choir members came out of El Establo and absolutely gushed about the steak they had just eaten saying it was the best meat they had "ever" eaten in their entire life. I glanced up at the facade of the restaurant and made some dubious look. "No, REALLY! THEE best I have EVER eaten" was their reply. Well, it was just across the street from the hotel. It would save us walking in no particular direction to find dinner and from the look of the place it couldn't be too expensive. So we decided to give it a try.

We walked in and half the tour group was sitting in various states of euphoria, moaning, eyes rolling back in their heads. "You gotta try this, here take a bite!" One bite and I was sold. We sat down and I ordered a Bife Chorizo which is really just a cut of steak and nothing to do with the latin spicy sausage. In fact the Argentinians don't generally care for spicy hot foods at all. This charbroiled steak absolutely melted in my mouth. With that first bite a memory flooded back of the steak we ate in my home when I was a kid (a rarity). My parents bought sides of beef and rented a locker to store it in. The butcher would age the beef for a period of time and then cut it up into steaks and roast and hamburger, etc. But the taste which I hadn't had in probably 35 years or more exploded in my brain and I remembered! The strong flavor of the beef, the tenderness of the meat were something I haven't tasted in beef since that long ago time. Why? Well, back in the 1950's the food industry made a critical decision and started feeding our beef cattle with corn instead of grass. Feedlots where cattle were fattened up in 12 months instead of the 5-6 years required of grass-fed beef became the way of doing business. Of course, the method thrived when the cost of beef plummeted due to this much more cost effective process. And for most American consumers, the bottom line was far more important than the quality of the beef, the health risks involved and torturous life the cattle lived. Read the Omnivore's Dilemma if you want to know what I'm talking about.

The second food memory came flooding back when I drank a Coca-Cola. A simple thing Coke, yet in the U.S. we long ago changed the flavor of the drink when we stopped making it with cane sugar and started using high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The taste is in no way the same. It is a totally different drink and FAR better with the cane sugar believe me. I heard recently that Costco and Walmart (though I will never set foot in a Walmart) are selling a cane sugar variety of Coke made in Mexico. A recent blind taste test showed 100% of those trying both the HFCS version and the cane sugar variety vastly preferred the cane sugar option. The corporate response from Coca-Cola is that there is no perceptible difference in the taste. Of course that is the corporate line but you'd have to have had your taste buds ripped out not to taste the difference immediately.

The third food discovery was Chimichuri Sauce which was available everywhere we went and I plied liberally on just about everything I ate. It is a condiment spooned onto the plate next to your meat. With each bite a bit of chimichuri is piled up onto the meat and popped into the mouth. The freshness of the ingredients--parsley, garlic and olive oil and vinegar and citrus explodes in your mouth along and perfectly complimented the flavor of the beef.

While visiting a bed and breakfast out in the Rio de la Plata delta region of Argentina, I raved about this sauce to our hosts so much that my request for their recipe was granted after I promised never to make it anywhere near their establishment. Or rather, I should say I was given the list of ingredients. I made a batch for company yesterday and was disappointed by how it turned out initially. As the evening went along however, the sauce improved and this morning at breakfast--Wow! It would seem that it is important to give it several hours of time for the flavors to meld and then . . amazing stuff!

So here is the basic recipe:

Chimichuri Sauce

Curly leaf parsley leaves and stems, minced
Fresh garlic, minced
Red pepper flakes
Fresh or dried oregano
Red wine vinegar
Lemon juice
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper

I used a whole head of parsley, 6-8 cloves of garlic, about a 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, about 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, a splash of the vinegar, a squeeze of half a lemon, salt and pepper to taste and enough olive oil to make the whole mixture sort of float in the oil. Play with the recipe and make it your own. My host's recipe was actually made with corn oil. . .hmmmmm! Use the olive oil.

Give it all a few hours to meld the flavors. The longer the better. Pour into a bowl and set it out to put on the meat your serving, on bread or crostini, eggs, or whatever!

I stumbled onto a jar of commercially made chimichuri in the store and it is to be avoided. Make the fresh!
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Tango

Many of us went to a tango lesson this afternoon and ¨learned¨ to tango. We had a wonderful dance teacher and his partner showing us the basic moves. After an hour and a half lesson we went upstairs to a dance party called a Milongas. It was like stepping into a movie. Marble pillars, fine architecture including an elaborate filligreed ceiling and gold scroll accents here and there. A few dozen old folks dressed to the nines danced slow tangos around the room. Some of the older men invited our girls out on the floor to dance. It was quite touching. After a while students got out on the floor in couples and practiced what they had learned. It was quite a sight. After about and hour we left to go out to dinner. We went back to El Establo, the place on the corner from the hotel and had an equally excellent meal. I ordered the same thing I had the first night, a steak that just melted in the mouth

We attended the Señor Tango show which began a about 10 pm and ran until nearly 1 am. This show was a tango extravaganza for lack of a better word. All the best and worst about tango was on display. Two horses were even on stage rearing up on hind legs. Lots of special effects, a volume level so loud that in places it hurt the ears. Much of the performances were pre-recorded which became embarrassingly obvious at one point when a singer's song began but her mic was dead. Cheesy! I'd describe it as an Argentinian Lawrence Welk show. It even had a "big star" Fernando Soler who sang, kidded with audience members and introduced a special guest, a kid who had apparently won the Argentina's Got Talent competition and sang a couple of songs. Horrible!

The show had a big band and orchestra that sort of played and sort of accompanied the pre-recorded music. It was really quite amazing though way over the top. Near the end of the show the "big star" walked over to the edge of the circular stage and took a note from someone and then walked over in the direction of our tables. He announced that the WWU choir was in the house and even named Leslie as the director. He pleaded with the choir to sing one song for the crowd. Though completely embarrassed by the idea, Leslie nevertheless had the choir sing one of their show stopping spirituals. The crowd went nuts! The entire choir wasn't even there and they were in no way prepared to sing but on they went and as I said the crowd loved it.

It was a long day but lots of fun! I guess I surprised Leslie by actually participating in the Tango lesson and myself by how well I did considering my two left feet.

Back in Buenos Aires

After an emotional concert last night at a very live church downtown Montevideo, we were invited to a reception where our choir met the other choir, a local community group who were very good. Before the concert we noted that they planned to sing one of the pieces on our program. So Leslie spoke with the director and it was arranged for her to conduct both groups in a combined performance of the piece. What a tremendous experience. The Western choir took the stage following the other group and performed the best they have done so far. They were fantastic receiving three standing ovations and performing three encores. The crowd also appreciated that Leslie was able to speak all her comments about each piece in almost perfect Spanish. Gifts were exchanged by the directors which is a tradition here, then we went into another room which had been prepared for a reception. The two groups mingled and got to know each other. Some of their singers arranged to go out clubbing with some of our singers later in the evening. That meant meeting about midnight and some were out until nearly dawn before coming home (apparently not an unusual thing to do here).

This morning we left the hotel for the ferry to Buenos Aires at about 11 am and arrived back here in Buenos Aires about 3 pm. Our hotel from before, The Dazzler, was ready for us. And now we are preparing to head off for our next concert this evening at a church about 8 blocks from here. A reception is to follow and we should be back to the hotel about 11 pm. Tomorrow it promises to rain, our first bad weather the entire trip so far. We are supposed to go to a tango lesson and then to a Señor Tango performance in the evening about 9. We also visit Eva Peron´s grave and have another concert. Another full day ahead.

We are also enjoying the Uraguayan cheeses we have purchased.

Montevideo, Uruguay

Took a bus tour of Montevideo this morning. Drove through the beautiful parts of the city, along the shoreline stopping for a photo op at a beautiful memorial park above the Rio de la Plata and then walked the downtown pedestrian street shopping along the way.

Montevideo, unlike Buenos Aires, has miles of pristine beaches and wide sidewalks allow the casual stroller to walk for miles. It being winter there swimming and or playing on the beach was not in the cards. But shopping, that's another story!

We were dropped off at the pedestrian street and walked the several blocks to the Port Market where we sat and ate in the same place Anthony Bourdain did when he filmed his show on Uruguay. Fantastic meal of, what else, MEAT! Had a great steak, chorizo, papas, a wonderful bibidas called media y media which is half white wine and half champagne. It comes in a champagne bottle and we had to purchase a some to bring home and share with friends. Everything was delicious including the items we shared off other´s plates--chicken, pork, beef innards. Yes, innards! Intestines, kidneys, liver, even sweetbreads. Not bad. Being adventurous is the key down here. Try it out. What does it taste like. Well, first of all, the beef here is far more flavorful than American beef. We have lost much of the real beef flavor in our cattle due to corn feeding, raising the animals in feedlots and especially due to the speed with which we raise our cattle. Here cattle are fed on grass and are allowed to live longer lives helping to give the meat a much richer meatier flavor. The intestines and other innards tasted like liver to me only, in the case of the intestines, chewier. As I love liver having grown up in a home that regularly served it with carmelized onions, I enjoyed these unusual cuts of meat. The sweetbreads, which is actually a part of the brain, the thymus and pancreas to be precise, was a first for me. It was creamy, mild and delicious. I'd eat it again anytime. Here in the states we rarely see this on a menu due to the scare of mad cow disease--an issue unheard of there as again, they don't raise there cattle in disease ridden feedlots, but rather in pristine pastures out on the pampas.

Walked back up the street sticking our heads in the shops along the way back towards the bus. I sat on a bench for a while and Leslie went into some of the stores to do some more serious shopping. As I sat there, the world walked by and I took some of my favorite photos of locals--a little old lady bent over with age, groups of school children on a field trip.

Back to the hotel for a while and to prepare to leave for that evening's concert. This was, like most of our concerts, an exchange concert meaning our choir sang and a local choir also sang. The WWU Choir sang secondly. The audience's response was overwhelming with three standing ovations and encores. Following the concert a reception was held in the social hall of the church This gave us the opportunity to meet the locals but with music being the immediate commonality, language issues melted away as everyone found fun ways to communicate, our students trying out their basic Spanish and the locals using the gathering as an opportunity to practice their English. Leslie, who spent a lot of time practicing Spanish before the trip, made good use of it getting progressively better a the trip went along. She found herself getting better and better at being able to communicate with the choir directors and other locals. We ate, sang, laughed and got to know each other until nearly midnight.

Back to the hotel and good night's sleep before we leave in the morning at 10 am to take the Buquebus ferry back to Buenos Aires.

We´ve Arrived in Buenos Aires

Our long ordeal of a flight to Buenos Aires ended with our on-time arrival here this morning at 9:30 am local time. It was an uneventful flight aside from just being too long in too confined a space with too little ventilation. Customs was slow and stuffy but after only a couple of glitches we all found the courier, Susana, the bus and were on our way into town.

Our hotel, The Dazzler Tower Hotel on San Martin Street is a great place, strategically located. As prices are much cheaper here we were able to upgrade to 4-star hotels at no additional cost. Thanks Mosaic Tours!

We got a bus tour of the city which gave us a terrific overview with a stop in La Boca, a fun district of the city with brightly colored wooden buildings and tango dancers in front of restaurants. Street artists also lined the streets. Sadly, none of use had had anytime to get any Argentine pesos out of an ATM yet so no one had any cash to buy anything and there were a few artists whose work we loved! A fun place to walk through in a group but apparently not advisable on your own or especially after dark.

We also stopped in the Puerto Madero district and walked through this area and across the beautiful Puente de la Mujer pedestrian bridge. This area was filled with lovely restaurants and shops--very posh. In stark contrast was our experience a few blocks away. The bus suddenly got very quiet. We were driving through a street in an industrialized area near the freeway lined with shanties built of anything its occupants could find--cardboard and scraps of wood and metal fit together in jigsaw style and with open fires where families were eeking out an existence. The students sat in shocked silence as we drove past probably the worst poverty any of them had ever seen.

After checking into the hotel everyone went off in various directions. We along with small pack of students and groupies walked over to a giant outdoor market place in the Recoleta district that sold the wares of local artisans. I thought most of it was cheap and showed little real artisitic value. We did manage to find one artist who impressed us near the end of the market stroll and we bought one of his paintings before grabbing a taxi and heading back to the room for a rest.

This artisan market surrounded a beautiful church which would later be the site of a Sunday Mass and concert for the choir. There were also vendors selling various street foods. We tried our first empanadas here that cost only 4 pesos (about a dollar) and were huge and tasty!

Taxis are apparently a part of the adventure here. We were warned to pay in small bills as your change back from paying with a larger note is sometimes conterfeit. We never had any problems and the drivers were very nice.

The locals don't eat dinner traditionally until after 10 pm. Not being much of a night owl we headed out for a short walk before settling on a restaurant across the street from the hotel which many other students were raving about called El Establo. Read more about our experiences there in other blog entires. We tried it and what a meal. I had tongue as an appetizer and ordered an incredibly tasty loin steak called Bife Chorizo that just melted in my mouth and the flavors were so intense. I also sampled the sweetbreads ordered by another person in our party. This was my first taste of sweetbreads and I was a little apprehensive. I needn´t have been. They were so tasty, creamy, full of beef flavor. We drink a couple of bottles of Malbec, a famous Argentinian red wine. El Establo became a regular dinner and or lunch place with so many of the group that it was nicknamed Cheers!

Then back to the hotel to retire early before a 6 am wake up call. Tomorrow we take the ferry across the Rio de la Plata to Colonia del Sacramento on the Uraguay side of the river. We stay in Uraguay for several days before returning to our base here at this hotel for the remainder of our trip.