March 22, 2008

• The Tenebrae service went well. My solo went well, this time without microphones. There were several comments about microphones yesterday, none of which seemed related to the entry. I think maybe they were about talking rather than singing. That’s okay, of course, but I was really surprised by the fact that the microphone stirred up more interest than the gun.

  I don’t like to sing into a microphone because I think that it distorts the voice and — most important — is unnecessary. If you have good acoustics, you can just sing naturally and people can hear you. We have some people in the congregation who are hard of hearing, though, and they like a little amplification, and I’m not going to argue with them. And of course there are places where amplification is essential, and PA systems are wonderful for talking across distances. I’m really not advocating someone’s having to stand in the hallway and bellow out announcements. Even in church, the pastors use microphones. I just don’t care for them for singing.

  So the music went well. Not so the marzipan carrots.

  Making marzipan carrots is quite simple. You color the marzipan, roll it into carrot shapes, and then you make some little carrot-ish lines on them and give them leaves.

  My carrots are way too red.

  I sat down after the service with #1 daughter, watching Bridget Jones’s Diary and making carrots.

  We were having the obligatory discussions: is Hugh Grant handsome or merely charming, is Bridget the character actually stupid or is that just more of that famed British self-deprecating humor, was the movie better than the book or vice versa.

  And I got carried away with the red coloring, and couldn’t get those carrots orange no matter what.

  This is what the carrots are for. I think you will agree that the level of cuteness is such that I can’t just give up the idea. We did consider other kinds of cake. We might, for example, make a spice cake and let the erstwhile carrots be red peppers instead.

  However, the carrot cake recipe in this book is not just any old carrot cake such as you could make (if you have a wonderful rotary grater as I do) any day of the week. It is a special flourless one with ground nuts and stiffly beaten egg whites, and I was looking forward to it.

  It would be possible to make carrot cake and top it with radishes, just as a reference to the garden. Who would object? This is a family dinner, not a contest. Or there could be redder varieties of carrots. Or I could make a Key Lime Pie instead and forget the whole thing.

  I am heading out to the grocery in a few minutes here. I may buy a new package of marzipan and use the red marzipan for some other purpose entirely.

  The plan for Easter, since I will be at church from 7:50 a.m. on, is to spend today making fancy desserts and salads, and let the hot things that have to be made tomorrow be very simple. 

  This is the other dessert I’m planning. It is supposed to be made 24 hours ahead, so the flavors can “marry.” Then you just put some fresh berries on top at the last minute. Also fresh mint leaves, of which I currently have none.

  Normally, at Easter, there are flowers blooming and fresh herbs and stuff, but Easter is so early this year that there is nothing going on in my gardens.

  We’ll hustle our guests through the front door quickly and offer them scintillating conversation instead.

  #1 daughter can tell about the Wild West atmosphere in her office. That might distract them from the red carrots, even.

   

  • 8:58 am
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