Our neighbors, Rick and Monica, had their second house concert last night. This one featured an alt country-like band from Austin with a lead singer named Lisa. Rick asked me to record the show so I set up some mics. The drummer recognized me from a long time ago. He played with a band called the Stripminers and we shared a couple of bills when I was playing with Personal Effects.
It was nice crowd and intermission was fun. The kitchen became the epicenter. Walter Ketcham was holding court and there was all sorts of interesting food to sample. Karen Miltner made some toasted almonds with Chinese Five Spice and they tasted just like the ones Peggi makes at Christmas. That’s because Karen is the food critic for the local paper and Peggi got the recipe from one of her columns.
Karen was talking about the restaurant in the old Fabrics and Findings building and someone said they served tapas there. I piped in that they were probably big portions and not like the tapas you get in Spain. I said, “Someone should just do regular sized tapas here”, and Karen said, “Small portions won’t work in this town”. So that was the end of that conversation.
Jeff and Mary Kaye are in Mexico for a few weeks so they gave us their tickets to the Pegasus Early Music Series. Today’s concert took place at the Rochester Academy of Medicine on East Avenue. It was sold out so the “Music Room” in this old mansion was full. Julianne Baird, a soprano who the New York Times calls a “national artistic treasure” was the featured artist. Our favorite piece was one called “O Golgatha (Passio Marcum)”. It was dark, mournful, Passion of Christ thing written by Richard Keiser around 1700 and it almost sounded like a Spanish saeta.
They had much more interesting names for their songs back then. We heard songs with titles like “Bid The Virtures, Come Ye Sons of Art”, “Music for a While”, and “Seek not to Know”.
2 Comments
The portions at Good Luck don’t aspire to be tapas, they are the right size to share with another person or two.
And I disagree about whether Tapas would do well- I think there is a big opportunity for a place that is more of a bar than a restaurant to do real tapas portions. I’ve been to a place near North Beach twice that does Portuguese-style tapas and I’d go back. For a barfly like me they are the perfect way to eat and socialize.
R&M have a great house for a concert.
Wish we could of been there.